Dan's Diner: Subscribe to Me!

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If you see the letters "RSS" and immediately panic or think that it's too hard for you, take a deep breath! RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication), is a way to get new content from many different blogs delivered to you all in one place. That one place is called an "RSS Reader", and the end result is like subscribing to a bunch of magazines from all over the country that show up on one driveway every month. There are at least four ways to do it with Dan's Diner, so let's get started!

But Wait, Why Am I Doing This?

Oh yeah, that. Before we get into how to use RSS feeds, you may have a practical question: why is it better to read Dan's Diner content from a reader instead of directly from the Dan's Diner Web site? The answer is because you can also add other blog feeds that will show up in your reader whenever you open it. It's kind of like using an e-mail program. Isn't it nice to get e-mail from many people all in one inbox? Wouldn't it take a lot longer if you had to go to a Web site to see everything those people wanted to tell you? An RSS reader has the same effect with Web sites.

OK, Let's Get Started.

Here are a few ways to subscribe to Dan's Diner RSS feeds, starting with the easiest.

1. Subscribe to Dan's Diner With Bloglines

If you're new to RSS feeds, Bloglines is a good, simple news reader that requires no download or fancy configuration. You simply set up a web site and add feeds from blogs you like. Bloglines has a pretty good directory of blogs, too, and you can sign up for any them by clicking on a "subscribe" link when reading them from the directory.

To subscribe to Dan's Diner through Bloglines, do this:

Click this button:
On the next screen, click "Register" and follow the instructions.
Go to your e-mail to find a new message from Bloglines, and click on the link in the e-mail to confirm your identity.
After this, you should get a message that Dan's Diner has been added to Bloglines.

After you have added the feed, you can find Dan's Diner content by going to www.bloglines.com, signing in (I suggest saving your password), and clicking on the My Feeds tab at the top left of Bloglines.

2. Add Dan's Diner links to "My Yahoo"

If you have a My Yahoo page, you can get links to new Dan's Diner content right on your page. Make sure you already have a Yahoo user name and password before going forward. Then do the following:

Click this button: .
Sign in to My Yahoo.
On the confirmation screen, click the OK button.

Dan's Diner will now show up as a new content block -- but at the bottom of the page :-( This is pretty lame and I hope they fix it. However, if you want to move it higher, just click the Edit link in the content block and then click the up arrows until it's where you want it.

3. Add Dan's Diner Feed to a Downloadable RSS Reader

If you're really, really into RSS feeds, you can download a number of news readers that are always running on your computer and checking for updated blog content.

I really like the built-in news reader in Mozilla's Thunderbird E-mail client. Why? It creates a new inbox of RSS content that appears right next to your e-mail inbox. It just makes sense to me to have my e-mail and subscriptions all in one place. Plus, since I'm using e-mail all the time, it's really easy to just click over into one of the RSS folders to see if anyone has posted anything.

If you have Thunderbird, do the following:

First, click this button and copy and paste the URL: .
Open Thunderbird and go to the Tools > Account Settings menu
Click "Add Account"
Choose "RSS News and Blogs".
A new folder called "News and Blogs" will show up in your folder list. Click News and Blogs, then in the righthand pane click "Manage Subscriptions".
Finally, click "Add" and paste the feed URL into the box.

Thunderbird will check each feed several times a day. Keep the folder open to see new stuff.

4. Get my Podcast

If you have iPodder or another Podcast reader, you can automatically download every audio post into your iPod. I don't suggest doing this unless you already have an iPod and iTunes on your computer. After that:

Click this button: , then copy the URL.
Open iPodder and paste the URL into the box at the top. Click Add. That's it!

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