A little tip for when you can't find a feed

In reading quite a few of the other 23 Thinger's blogs this week I've noticed some people bemoaning websites that don't have RSS feeds and therefore cannot be subscribed to.   Well, the good news is, with Google Reader, they can anyway!   Google Reader will create custom feeds for sites that will let you know when there has been an update - all you need to do is type the website address or URL into the 'add a subscription' box, and Google Reader will give you the option to create a custom feed.   Sweet, huh?

The Wire is hungry

I am a big fan of RSS feeds and have no idea how I used to manage without them!   I remember the feeling of utter revelation when they were demonstrated to me, and have enjoyed seeing the exact same expressions of wonder and delight on the faces of other people at various training sessions when the joys of RSS have been revealed to them too.   I love knowing that I'm not going to miss things, and it saves a huge amount of time.  However there are drawbacks too - if you're not careful you can go a bit too nuts with subscribing to everything going, and end up with a severe case of information overload.   Returning to your Google Reader after being away on holiday is every bit as bad as getting back to your email inbox - you feel like you'll never get back on top.  And also like my email inbox, I have long given up the notion that I will ever get to zero.   However, unlike email, you don't actually have to read everything - these are things of interest, rather than something you might need to know or respond to.   The 'mark all as read' button can be your friend, as well as the 'unsubscribe' button.   If you find you are skimming over a feed and never seeing anything you actually want to read, or often marking them all as unread, then perhaps you should just get rid of it completely.   I've learnt that it's vital to be selective in your subscriptions, and I've used some of the time for this week's Things to have a good prune of my feeds.  I've also added the feed for the 23 Things blog, as well as a lot of the participant blogs, so that I can easily keep up with the progress of the programme.  

One of the things I like most about Google Reader is its search function.   I'm very bad at organising things into folders and categories in general (I know, I know, and yet I am a librarian), and tend to prefer to make use of search to find things.   You can search read items as well as unread, and what this means in practice is that you can search the entire archive of a site's feed.   Many has been the time that I knew I read an article on a site, but didn't save it and couldn't find it any more, only to search in Google Reader for it and up it comes, straight away.   Really very useful.