Given the amount of electronic information people consume on a daily basis, it’s no wonder RSS feeds (“Really Simple Syndication”) have become a daily necessity for many of us. An RSS Feed’s most common task is subscribing to updates on a blog or news site. Which is no doubt unbelievably helpful, but there are lots of other ways to take advantage of RSS.
Before diving in, if you haven’t already, you should take a look at Google Reader (free) or another RSS aggregator service. My instructions will assume you’re using it.
Create a new alert and select “Feed” under the Deliver To option.
Click the RSS link, or the link that says View in Google Reader.
3. Get updates from Twitter
Say you’re interested in scanning for certain topics, but you want to see what people who may not have time to write a blog about it are saying. Maybe it’s your business, your product, your favorite sports team… Twitter offers a lot of value.
Right click the RSS feed button and copy the link location.
Go to Google Reader, click Add Subscription, and paste.
And you’re done. Now new results will populate in your Google Reader.
4. Keep track of job search queries
I really like using idealist.org. One of the nice features of using it is when you perform a search, there’s a “Get an RSS feed for this search” link. Save this feed and you can quickly find new job postings that satisfy your search filters.
5. Let others do the work for you with Delicious
I use Delicious to organize my bookmarks online, but it’s also a great way to let others do your research and tracking work for you. For instance, I like checking out new links about free online tools. So I search by tags (first “free) then filter further (with “tools). From here, there’s a link at the bottom of the page for “RSS feed for these bookmarks.” Add that into reader and whenever a new link is tagged with those specifications, it’ll show up in your Reader.
6. Follow changes to any website
Google’s now added a feature that lets you subscribe to a page, whether it’s activated for RSS or not, and track any changes to that page. Read more about this feature here, on the Official Google Reader Blog.
I’m writing this post because I think Idealist is awesome and is definitely worth supporting.
You know how sometimes in life you go through a bad moment, and when your friends hear about it later, they say, “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you ask?”
That’s where Idealist is now, and that’s why we are asking for your help.
Very briefly, here’s what happened. Over the past ten years, most of our funding has come from the small fees we charge organizations for posting their jobs on Idealist. By September 2008, after years of steady growth, these little drops were covering 70% of our budget.
Then, in October of that year, the financial crisis exploded, many organizations understandably froze their hiring, and from one week to the next our earned income was cut almost in half, leaving us with a hole of more than $100,000 each month.
That was 16 months ago, and since then we’ve survived on faith and fumes, by cutting expenses, and by getting a few large gifts from new and old friends. But now we are about to hit a wall, and that’s why we decided to ask.
If over the past 15 years Idealist has helped you or a friend find a job, an internship or a volunteer opportunity; connect with a person, an idea or a resource; or just feel inspired for a moment, now we need your help. Thank you!
Ami Dar
Executive Director
You can donate here. I’m planning to give $10 bucks later on today. Looks to be a lot of support on Twitter already. Here’s Executive Director, Ami Dar, on Twitter, too.
Shortly after New Year’s, my supervisor at work had a baby boy. This week, a bunch of people in the office are putting together a care package with baby stuff. People have been pretty excited all week to have the opportunity to shop for a new baby. It’s been really cute.
This was on the front of one of the outfits Steph and I contributed. How could anyone see this and NOT buy it?
I’m not nerdy enough to have been eagerly anticipating the release of this for months, but I will say all the fanfare today got me interested enough to check it out when Steve Jobs announced it today, 10:00 PST. Below is the most official looking demo I could find on YouTube for the new Apple iPad.
A few thoughts.
First, I’ve not used the thing, so who knows. Maybe something magical happens when you actually do have it in your lap, as the marketing team wants you to think. But without that experience, my basic takeaway is: So, it’s just a really big iPod Touch?
Second, one of my major problems with the Touch is feeling creeped out by relying on random wireless networks. I know people use them everyday and it’s pretty much fine, but it still weirds me out. Looks like the iPad has put something in place for this:
Besides its different capacities, the iPad will also be available in models with a 3G wireless modem built-in. iPad users who want to make use of the 3G service, which is being offered by AT&T, can pick up one of two plans for that: $15 a month for 250MB of data, or unlimited for $29.99 a month.
The iPad with just Wi-Fi will be shipping in the next 60 days, with the 3G version in the next 90 days.
So, good to know you can get it with AT&T’s more secure 3G.
And lastly, Steve Jobs is not as good a speaker as I imagined he would be. I thought the demo he provided was kinda boring.
Surprisingly, you can get the iPad for as low as $499 (the 16 gig model). Smart move to not start it off at $999 like they’ve done with other products.
After hearing all the raving reviews and hype about it being in 3-D, Steph and I went to see Avatar last night.
28 bucks later and we had our tickets and 3-D glasses (which I’ve gotta say are way nicer than the last pair of 3-D glasses I used — those flimsy paper ones with one blue lens and one red lens).
Here’s my take: the graphics were definitely unbelievably awesome. Throw in the fact that it was 3-D and just watching the images was an experience in itself. Thing about movies though is that there’s more to them besides the moving pictures. Things like characters and plot, which, despite the 3-D glasses, were ridiculously two-dimensional. If the movie had ended an hour earlier than it did, I would’ve said whatever to the lack of answered questions, taken it for what it was, and walked out a happy customer. With a running time of 2 hours and 40 minutes, however, the lack of depth in the plot and the predictable, formulaic ending left me disappointed — and stiff. A lot of movies are long but don’t feel long. This one felt long. Avatar started off strong with such an interesting set up, but just ran out of steam.
the parks department officially declared today a ’snow day’, with new york city parks open for sledding. some parks are even handing out free sleds and free hot chocolate. yup, new york city is a mean and nasty place, huh.
oh, for the record, in manhattan the best sledding is in central park just west of 5th avenue at 79th street, and also in riverside park around 88th street. well, for the subjective sledding record. you’d think that manhattan wouldn’t have good sledding, but you’d be mistaken. those 2 places have great sledding, and if you ever want to feel good about humanity just stand at the base of a sledding hill in nyc and watch jews and muslims and punk rockers and trannies and christians and other sledding with their kids and/or dogs. the cure for misanthropy and/or terrorism: sledding. it’s hard to hate people and/or want to blow them up when they’re out sledding with their kids.
