How to Keep Up To Date with the Parents' Blog

As promised, this week I'm explaining how to use a rss reader to keep up with the Parents' blog. I don't really know what rss stands for or all the nerdspeak for how it works. What I do know is that its an easy way to find out when many of your favorite websites add new content. It's great for keeping up with blogs, news sites, and you can even use it to keep up with favorite TV shows from sites like hulu.com.

My two favorite rss readers are Google's Reader and Mozilla Firefox's Sage add-on. They're both absolutely free.

The advantage of Google is that you don't have to install anything - you just have to have a Google account. It will be helpful to have a Google account anyway if you want to leave comments on this blog. Another thing I really like about Google Reader is that you can use it from any computer.

The advantage of the Sage is that once you have it installed, it's extremely easy to use. The downside is that you have to install and use Firefox. Actually, this may be an advantage in disguise. I love Firefox. If you don't know what Firefox is, it is a free internet browser. It's like Internet Explorer, but it doesn't allow websites to install Active-X controls, which can sometimes slow down your computer. There are also thousands of "add ons" that make web-browsing easier or more fun. One of my favorites is one called "Ad Blocker Plus" that blocks many of the ads that show up on your screen. This not only makes pages load faster, but it also keeps some of the ads with borderline inappropriate pictures (like on Myspace or Yahoo! Mail) from showing up. If you are interested in giving it a try, I'll have some instructions at the bottom for how to install it.

Instructions For Google Reader:
If you just want to use the Google Reader, then simply go to www.google.com. At the top left there should be several options, click on the last one that says "more". It should bring a pull down list, select "reader". At this point, it will ask you to sign into your Google account. If you don't have an account, click the button that says "Create an account". It takes like 2 seconds and is completely free. Once you've either created an account or logged in, you'll be on the Reader page.

Near the top left of the screen there is a button that says "Add a subscription". Click on this and type (or copy and paste) http://scocyouth.blogspot.com into the box that pops up, then click the "Add a subscription" link again.

Now, on the left side of the screen about halfway down you should see a box that says "subscriptions" in bold. Under that it should say "News and Notes for Parents" in bold with a number in parentheses. That number represents the number of stories from that feed you haven't read yet.

When you click on "News & Notes for Parents" it will bring up the stories in the main box. Once you click on a story, (How to Keep Up To Date with the Parents' Blog for instance) the number should decrease in the parentheses, indicating that you've now read, or at least seen that story.

Once you've read all the stories, the title under "subscriptions" should no longer be bold. Now whenever you come back to this page, if something new has been added, the title will be bold again.

At this point you may be asking, "why is this easier than just going to the website itself?" If this is the only site you use this for, it isn't. But.... the great thing about it is that you can check lots of websites at once for new things. For instance, if you wanted to check in on what's going on with Kim and me and the kids - you can can type 'greg kim kirby' into the "add a subscription" field and it will bring up our family's blog that Kim updates regularly. You can then subscribe to that one as well. You can also use it for just about any news source online. So you can also subscribe to sites like www.cnn.com, www.foxnews.com, or www.news.yahoo.com to find out what's going on around the world. You can browse these sites for interesting stories without having to go to each one individually.

Instructions for adding the Sage Feed Reader:
Now, for the more ambitious. If you want to try firefox, go to www.mozilla.com and click on the button that says "Download Firefox - free".

Now just follow the instructions on screen to install firefox on your computer. Choose the "Standard" installation.

Once it's installed, click on the shortcut that should now be on your desktop.

It will ask you if you would like to import your information from Internet Explorer. You can do this if you have Explorer set to remember your passwords and such.

Once Firefox is open, it should look alot like Internet Explorer.

To add the Sage Feed, go to the top and click on the "Tools" menu. Then select "Add-ons".

This will bring up a pop-up window. Click on the "Get Add-ons" button. Type "sage-too" in the search bar. This should bring up the "Sage Too" as the first search result. Click the "Add to Firefox" button. It will advise you to only install this if you trust the authors, you can trust them, so click "install".

In the pop-up window it will tell you that you need to restart Firefox to complete the changes. Click the button to restart.

Once you restart, you can close the Add-ons window. You should now see a little leaf just to the left of the address bar near the top. If you click on this it opens a sidebar on the left. Now go to the parents' blog by typing http://scocyouth.blogspot.com/ in the address bar.

Once you are on the parents blog, click the button that looks like a magnifying glass on the sidebar (near the top of the left-hand sidebar). This should make a window pop-up, click to highlight either of the two choices, then hit "add feed" and then "close".

You should see "News and Notes for Parents" under the feeds that were installed automatically. (If you don't want the automatic feeds, you can just right click on them and hit delete) Now click the button that says "options" that is just to the right of the magnifying glass and select "Show Feed Item List".

If you click on the "News and Notes for Parents" you will see a list of recent posts in the main box and in the bottom left. Once you click on a post, it will no longer be bold, showing that you have read, or at least looked at that post. You'll also notice that the title is no longer bold on the top left. The next time you want to check the feed, click the button that looks like two arrows circling a sheet of paper. If there are new items posted, it will turn bold again, letting you know you have something new to look at. You can make the Sage sidebar disappear by clicking back on the leaf at the top of the page.

Whenever you come across a webpage that you like that adds new content fairly regularly, you can click the magnifying glass to see whether or not it has an rss feed available or not. Remember to also try out the adblocker plus add-on if you start using Firefox.

Whew.... I think I'm done with the instructions. If you're still reading at this point, I'll take it as a good sign. Hopefully this will help you keep up with what's going on. As always, if you have any problems or questions, feel free to leave them as comments and I'll respond as quickly as I can.

Good luck and God bless!