A few months ago, Jonathan put me on the spot and asked me to explain Google [RSS] Reader. I finally decided that I should return from my long hiatus from Colaspot to fulfill his request. Jonathan explained how RSS is a great way to keep up with your favorite sites without wearing out the Refresh button on your browser. Let Google help you with that.

Google Reader is one of Google’s many remarkable services that uses the general purpose “Google account” (gmail, adsense, personalized search, personalized home are some of the others). If you don’t have one of these accounts, find someone who does and ask nicely. They can invite you.

Once your account is set up, point your browser at Google Reader. You’ll see an empty RSS viewer. Let’s add the Colaspot feed. Type “colaspot” into the familiar Google search box up top and then click “Search for new content.” More than likely, the top result is going to serve you well. Click the subscribe button and you’ve just subscribed to your first feed.

Once you return to the reader, a recent post or two should appear for you to browse. Another content search, this time for “Columbia, SC,” should include a weather feed from Wunderground.com. Subscribe to that so we can navigate through a few feeds. Returning home should give you items from two different sources: Colaspot and Wunderground.com. Item titles are on the left and can be navigated by clicking with the mouse or using the ‘j’ and ‘k’ keys. When either of these sites is updated, new items will appear. I prefer for these items to disappear after I’ve read them, so I click “Show read items: hidden” at the bottom. Notice that you can also choose to sort the articles by date or relevance. Sorting by relevance uses some mystical google math, but when you’re reading dozens of feeds, it might be easier to sort through the things you need.

Happy feeding, and feel free to direct your feed questions to Colaspot.