Blogging Slows Down Considerably

Now that Katie is feeling better and getting back into a far more normal routine we feel the need to blog about her status far less than we used to feel it. There just aren't as many life and death struggles or even simple ups and downs to report. Therefore, we will post to the blog only when something really interesting, important, or disastrous happens. We hope to never have to post to the blog for any reason in that latter category again.

For those of you who have become accustomed to following along, please don't stop. However, may I suggest an easier way of doing it. You don't need to visit the blog every day checking to see if there is an update. If you subscribe to the blog's RSS feed, that feed will get updated automatically anytime we post something to the blog. If your feed reader is a part of some program or website you visit every day you will know whenever we put up a new post without having to stop by just to check. So, how can you subscribe to the RSS feed and what is an RSS feed? Keep reading if you don't already know. Otherwise, click here to subscribe.


RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and you can read a very technical definition about it here if you are so inclined. Basically it means that whenever we publish something here, the headline and a summary are automatically pushed out to all subscribers, sort of like email. However, instead of checking your email, you would check your feed reader or feed aggregator. That sounds like one more thing to do, but actually feed readers can be a part of your computer's desktop or part of some web page that you visit regularly anyway; making checking your feeds something you can do without having to take any extra steps.

Two of my favorite feed readers both use Google. One can be part of the Google Desktop and the other can be part of IGoogle. Both Google tools allow you to add widgets that are capable of doing all sorts of things. Some of the available widgets are RSS readers. Windows Vista also has a Google Desktop like feature called the windows sidebar. It works the same way.

IGoogle is my favorite online place for viewing feeds. IGoogle is a customizable Google page that can include your calendar, gmail, RSS feeds, news, weather, and more. I use IGoogle all the time and I have an RSS widget on my IGoogle page that shows the latest comments on Katie's blog so that I don't have to check my email or come to the blog to read the comments. You could set your IGoogle page up to display the latest blog entry for the Katiegracekelley blog. My favorite rss gadget for IGoogle is "Custom RSS". It is very customizable and easy to use.

If using Google Desktop, which also has great search features, you can turn on the sidebar and have a list of your favorite feeds always available right there on the side of your screen. Of course, this blog should be one of the feeds. My favorite desktop gadget is Google "Web Clips". It can be found by adding gadgets from the Google Desktop program and searching within that program for "web clips". There are lots of options out there other than what I just wrote about, so if you already use something else, or just don't like these options, feel free to google the term "rss reader" and see what's available.

That is all there is to it. So subscribe to our feed and keep getting updates whenever we post something new without having to check just to see if there are new updates.