The BetsyG-Spot

I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence, but I know from my own experience that unless you are into the blog thing, subscribing is baffling. I tried to make it a little easier by using Feedburner; I think it helps, but it’s still not crystal clear to everyone.

A feed is essentially a subscription service that sends you or notifies you of new content. You may hear the term “RSS feed,” which means the site uses a particular method for its feed, RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication. The orange “chicklet” such as the one next to Subscribe at the top of this page is the RSS feed symbol.

Subscribing is free.

Subscribe by e-mail
If you’re not using a feedreader, or if you don’t know what a feedreader is, you probably want to subscribe by e-mail. To do so:

1. Click the word Subscribe in my site’s header.
   You leave The BetsyG-Spot and see a page that talks about subscribing. It’s powered by Feedburner.
2. Click Get The BetsyG-Spot delivered by mail.
   A popup window appears.
3. Type your e-mail address and the security code in the text boxes.
4. Click Complete Subscription Request.
   Feedburner sends a confirmation to the e-mail address you entered. 
5. Follow the instructions in the e-mail to activate the subscription.

You’ll receive an e-mail each day I publish a new post. The e-mail will include the new posts.

Subscribe by feedreader or aggregator
If you already use a feedreader, you probably don’t need these instructions. A feedreader keeps track of all the feeds you’ve subscribed to and notifies you when there is new content. Some programs will make a little noise and show a popup when there’s new content. The mechanism that comes with Explorer turns the feed names bold when there’s new content. (Just click on that star in the toolbar to see the feeds.) Some feedreaders are web-based and you log in each day to see what’s new.

Feedburner provides an easy interface to adding a subscription to many popular feedreaders.

1. Click the word Subscribe in my site’s header.
   You leave The BetsyG-Spot and see the Feedburner page that talks about subscribing.
2. If you already use one of the feedreaders listed, click on your feedreader’s name and follow the instructions. (Usually you just log in. In the case of the Google reader, it remembers your login info.)
3. If you don’t already use one of the feedreaders, click on the one you want to use.
   You are prompted to create an account.
4. Follow any onscreen instructions.

The tricky thing is to know which service you used and how to get to it again. You have to open your web-based feedreader to see any new feeds.

I hope that helps. It probably is easiest to subscribe by e-mail, but if you think you might subscribe to a bunch of feeds, check out some of the web-based services. Contact me if you’re having any problems and I’ll help you sort it out.