Do you use RSS?

Of all the things that I find efficient with computing and the internet, RSS is absolutely up there as a simple implementation that greatly increases efficient data gathering.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  What does that mean?  It means that rather than surfing to a thousand news and blog sites everyday to find out what's going on, you subscribe to a URL from that site that let's you know when new information is available. 

The best explanation is a video available from Common Craft.  Take a moment to watch it, it's really good.

Over the past five or six years I've used several different RSS feed aggregators: News Gator, Google Reader, MS Outlook 2007's built in reader, and a reader I built in MS Access.  The one that I like the most, though, is the RSS feed reader built into IE 7. 

It doesn't matter so much which reader you prefer, just as long as you RSS a try. 

For example, here's what my blog looks like through a RSS feed reader (IE 7):

 

On the left you see all the categories that I have set up (as folders).  The each feed I subscribe to is displayed.  If it's bold that means that I have unread feeds.  Most news feeds only display a summary under the title, so you can skim through the articles.  When you find something you want to read, you click on the title and it opens in the browser so you can read the entire article. 

My blog is set up to give the read the entire entry, so there's no need to go to my site to read the articles. 

My new favorite blog is Lifehacker.

Enjoy the RSS video.