{"id":127,"date":"2008-06-11T05:35:28","date_gmt":"2008-06-11T05:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blueraja.com\/blog2\/?p=127"},"modified":"2013-07-08T15:48:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T20:48:30","slug":"really-simple-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blueraja.com\/blog\/127\/really-simple-stupid","title":{"rendered":"Really Simple, Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello, my name is Raja, and I have a problem.
\nHi Raja.<\/em>
\nThank you. For the past year, I have been struggling with an addiction – a disease<\/i> – which has been ruining my life at every turn. I lost my job, my wife, and my prized gumball collection because I kept telling myself I didn’t have a problem. Also my dog died. I used to insist that I could quit anytime I wanted, and would sometimes give it up for brief periods; however, my hiatus would inevitably be cut short, and I would always end up being drawn back to it, unable to free myself from its wicked, tyrannical grasp. And now Sparky is dead.
\nMy name is Raja. And I am addicted to RSS Feeds.
\n*Applause, hugging, and crying*<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though I’m sure most of you are already aware, for those of you who aren’t, an RSS feed is a thing that enables you to check for updates from all your favorite sites (that support it) in one place. RSS feeds are viewed through an RSS reader – I like Google Reader:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWhat Google Reader looks like after neglecting my feeds for a day (click to englarge)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0There are lots of different RSS readers out there, some of which even download your feeds and allow you to read them offline – even Internet Explorer 7 has its own (crappy) RSS reader! You can find tons of them by simply googling RSS reader<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once you have a reader picked out, adding a feed to it is easy. For instance, to subscribe to a feed using Google Reader, simply hit Add Subscription<\/em> and paste the link to the feed. Links to feeds can usually be recognized by one of the following images on a webpage:<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition, some pages also hide a link to the RSS feed in the source-code. For some reason, Internet Explorer does not support these types of links; however, in Firefox, the link is given directly in the address bar:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once you have feeds from all your favorite sites, they are updated automatically in the reader – all you need to do is come back to check on them every once in a while.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAn example of what a feed looks like<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That’s all there is to it – now you too can share the the joys of this terrible, debilitating affliction. Here are some feeds to start you out:<\/p>\n