Keeping up with all those blogs using RSS feeds

RSS feed - why would I want that?

We have talked about blogging for quite a while. Now - how are you going to keep up with all of the exiting new blogs you and your friends are creating?

Here's what I do:
Many blogs and websites have an option that allows you to be notified when new content is added. Blogger has a nice built in feature labeled "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)". Scroll to the bottom of this page and you will see it. This is an RSS feed - which means... "Really Simple Syndication" which means..."Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts" (quoted from Wikipedia) which means (in simple terms)... you can be notified when something is added to your favorite blogs such as a brand new Granny Tech lesson!

The easiest way to keep up with your blogs:
Have 'feeds' sent to your iGoogle homepage (see my earlier post on setting up iGoogle). You can set up a new dedicated iGoogle page labeled 'blogs', or add the feeds to your main page.

1. Start out by opening up the page you want to use in iGoogle.
2. Next, open the blog you want to track in a different tab or window. If it is a 'Blogger' blog you can click on "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)" at the bottom of the page. You will be given a choice: 'add to Google homepage' or 'add to Google reader'.
3. Choose the homepage option. A new gadget listing the latest blog posts will appear.
4. Other types of blogs or websites often have RSS feed options at the bottom of the page that can be added in a similar manner.

An example:
I really like Time magazine. I used to read it cover to cover every week before moving to Trinidad. Now I subscribe to the RSS feed instead. Here is how to do that:

• Open up the Time website
• Scroll to the bottom of the page
• You will see this:

(click on image to enlarge)

• Just click on either of the RSS link options: 'get Time RSS feeds' or 'RSS feeds (at the very bottom).
• You will be given a number of topic options. Select and click on the one you want (I like 'Top Stories') and then click 'add to Google'.

Voila - you are up to date with the latest news!

iGoogle

Google has so many fun toys!

My latest favorite is iGoogle. It allows you to set up a personalized homepage that will open each time you connect to the internet. You can put all kinds of fun (important, amazing, essential) things on your page. In fact, if there are many many fun (important, amazing, essential) things you must see every day - you can set up multiple pages using tabs. I have expanded from one to eight pages in the past few months.

Setting up iGoogle is very easy to do - all you need is a Gmail account. If you don't have one yet, look at my earlier post on using Gmail.

Here is how to get started:

• Go to the iGoogle website and sign in using your Gmail account info.
  
• Your new homepage will appear but it's not personalized yet. Google will suggest items for your page consisting of little windows of internet content Google calls 'Gadgets'. You can go with the default suggestions or add popular gadgets by clicking boxes at the top of the page.
• When you have a few basics in place, click "Save" in the upper left.
• Now the creativity begins: Click on the "Add stuff" button at the top right. All kinds of gadgets appear. You can browse through groups of gadgets by clicking on categories at the left or you can search for specific content by using the search window. Just for fun I put in the words 'eye strain' (I have been working on this blog for a while) and an eye tester game appeared as well as 'famous optical illusions'. Cool, eh?
  
• When you find something you like just click 'add it now'. Keep adding until you are absolutely happy. Then click 'back to the iGoogle homepage' at the upper left.
• Now you see your new, personalized, iGoogle page. But - you are not done yet. You can rearrange your new found gadgets by dragging them around the page. Just grab the colored bar at the top of the gadget, drag and drop.
• If your page is too full (you probably won't want to scroll way down to see everything) just create a new page by clicking on 'add a tab' just below the big search window. You will be prompted to give the tab a name and then a new page will appear asking if you want to accept some iGoogle content or, if not, a blank page will appear all ready to 'add stuff'.
  
• But wait a minute. We don't want to add stuff - we already had too much stuff! Here is what you do - click on your first (too full) page's tab and just drag and drop the gadgets you want to move right on to the new tab. The gadgets will magically migrate to the new page living you two marvelous, minimalist, perfectly organized iGoogle pages.
  

Here are the names of my eight tabs - just to give you a few ideas:

1. Home
2. News
3. Blogs
4. Productivity
5. Health
6. Fun
7. LDS
8. Mac

Here are some of my favorite gadgets:

• Gmail inbox
• Weather (at my home and my kids')
• News feeds
• Stock Market
• Quotes of the day
• National Hurricane Center (I live in the Caribbean)
• Feeds from favorite blogs (if you don't know how to get feeds - that will be the topic of my next post)
• Customized Google News - this allows you to receive news feeds on search terms you supply. To get it try clicking here or search 'customized google news' in the gadget search window.

You are not quite done yet:

If you want to add a personal touch, you can click on 'select theme' (right next to 'add stuff') and play around with the look of your page.

One last very important thing to do!

If you want your iGoogle page to come up every time you connect to the internet, you must tell that to your browser. I use Firefox and Safari. I'm afraid I don't know much about Explorer. Here is what I do:

Open your iGoogle homepage. Now you will set your opening page preference in your browser. Click the 'preferences' link that drops down when you click on the browser name at the far upper left ('Firefox' or 'Safari'). Go to 'main' (Safari) or 'general' (Firefox), Then 'set to (or use) current page'. This will make the page that is currently open your future opening page.

Let me know how it all works out!

So - what kind of video can I put on my blog?

You are limited by file size. To use the methods described below, the limit is (I believe) 100 MB. You should be able to post any of those little compressed video clips that your digital still camera takes with no problem. If you have regular video footage from a digital camcorder or a bunch of photos made into a slideshow, you may have to compress.

The only method I am familiar with to compress video is Apple's imovie program. That is what I use to make photo slideshows and to edit videos (there is a PC program called Moviemaker that, I expect, does the same thing). The end result is a very large file but it can be compressed. Here is what you do:

Create your movie

Select 'Share', 'Quicktime

















Then select 'Web Streaming'

















Click 'Save'. Your video should be compressed to a usable size that can be uploaded to your blog.

Uploading video to Blogger - 2 choices

The first choice is by far the easiest but I have had error problems with it occasionally. I will share that method first and then a slightly more complex but more stable method. Extremely large videos will not upload. I believe that Google Video uploads must be less than 100 MB. If you want to know how to created smaller video files - I will handle that in the next post.

Blogger

I used this to post the Grace Christmas song video below.

If you have not blogged before, review my earlier postings on blogging. To upload video just click on the little film icon at the top of your new post window (second from right - next to the eraser). It will take you through the stops of browsing your hard drive to find the video and then uploading. You can add text you post and - you are done! Very easy.

Google Video

I used this to post the Tessa Christmas song video below.
Go to the Google video website by clicking here

You will see a page that looks like this:














Click on 'upload videos' on the upper right under 'my videos'. This will open up a screen that walks you through the steps to find and label your video. Youe video will appear on the web for all to see. If you don't want this, select 'unlisted'.

When the upload is completed (may take a while) go to 'See all your uploaded videos' and view your video on Google Video. You will see a screen like this:














Now you need to get the html code to add to your blog. I know - this sounds complicated - but, trust me, it's not. Click on the blue 'Email-Embed' button at the top right of the screen. Then click on 'Embed Html'. This brings up the Html code into the small window below. This will tell Blogger where to find your video. You need to copy this code (highlight it and then control C) and then go to the new post in blogger where you want to put your video. Click the tab at the top that says 'Edit Html'. You will see any text you have entered thus far. Just put the cursor in the spot where you want the video to go and paste the code (control V). Go back to compose view by clicking on the 'compose' tab and you will see your video and can continue adding text and images.

One note - this pasting of Html code showed me a trick that overcomes one of my biggest problems with Blogger. It has been so hard for me to get pictures where I want them. I resize and drag but the window is so small and the pictures seem to jump all over the place. What I discovered is that you can switch to Html view, find the code for your picture (based on location in relation to text - it is the long string of unintelligible text), cut (highlight and control X) it, and then paste it where you want it - so nice!

Using Bloggers upload tool

I successfully added the previous Tessa video using Google Video and pasting the HTML into my post. This was not at all hard but involves a number of steps. I will now try using Blogger's built in video uploader. I have tried it in the past with no success.

Grace's Christmas song:



It worked! So there are two ways to add video. You can decide.

Adding video to your blog

Jenny is working on her family Christmas video. She is quite good at editing, creating, and burning her creations but she says getting it on to the web for me to see (I live 1000s of miles away) is tricky. So - I thought I would share some ideas here. I have only posted video a few times so this may not be the most streamlined method. Please add comments or email me about better ideas.

Here is a test - just to see if what I tried works.

Tessa's Christmas song:

Excel - why use it?

A few family members are trying to be more organized with their finances. This has motivated me to share a few tips on using Excel. I think Excel is one of my very favorite computer programs. I didn't know much about it until taking a statistics class when I was doing my PhD work at BYU. The instructor used Excel as a pedagogical tool - we learned statistics by doing things in Excel. He strongly suggested we all learn the program so I buckled down and spent some time playing around in the program with frequent consultations to the help menu. I think I also bought a book on Excel. Since then I have used it for many many things:

• finance (0f course)
• contact information for groups of people
• my calendar (really!)
• to do list
• data I keep for the mission
• creating nifty charts and graphs
  
• and so on and so on

I will post some how to info on Excel very soon.

Here are a few samples of spreadsheets I use:

1. Mission Schedule
2. Getting Things Done to do list
3. Personal Finance Template