Heck Of A Guy

Feeds Are Good For You

As those who subscribe to email notifications of new posts already know, the software that provided that automatic service has gone over to the dark side¹ and has been eliminated.

Sharp-eyed obsessives may also have noticed the large orange “Subscribe” button that graced the left sidebar has disappeared, the “Categories” box on the same sidebar has transformed into two sections, “Categories With Feeds” and “All Categories,” and a new tab “Subscribe To A Category” sits atop the layout. Fear not; it’s all part of the master plan.

Because of the architecture of this blog, its limited funding, and my extraordinarily limited expertise of the geek variety, I can find no practical means by which readers can be automatically notified by email of new posts.

I’m recommending (suggesting, cajoling, begging, … ) those who were subscribers to the email notifications to become subscribers to the RSS feed.

Those clever folks who have already subscribed to the feeds need do nothing.

Learning To Love The Feed

If (1) you’re following more than one blog or news collection site and (2)  you don’t know what “RSS feed” means, it means – well, it means you’re doing it wrong. Here’s the more efficient RSS feed way:

1. This is the most difficult step: Choose a feed aggregator, also known as a feed reader, news reader or aggregator. It’s difficult because you have no idea how to judge which to use. Don’t sweat it. Choose a major brand, try it out, and once you know what you’re doing, you can change. If you just can’t take on the responsibly yourself, get a recommendation from the computer guy² in your office or your neighborhood. If you’re totally bereft of help, I suggest Google Reader, which I chose because it is simple to operate and I figure Google isn’t going belly-up in the next two or three weeks.

2. Figure out how to add feeds to the reader. Learn the other stuff later. If you’re using Google Reader, go to Google Reader Help and click on Video tutorials (lower right corner of that page). If you need more help after that, go back to Google Reader Help and click on Getting started guide (middle of right side of that page).

3. Add a few feeds.  http://1heckofaguy.com/feed/, for example, would be a dandy start.  While it’s not difficult to add feeds directly to your reader, it’s even easier (and doesn’t require going to your reader page) to  click on “Subscribe” or “RSS” at the top right of the Heck Of A Guy layout, which takes you to a page like this:

Go to the “Subscribe Now!”³ box.

Click on your feed reader. You’ll be taken to that reader and the feed will be added.

4, Now, the fun step. When you’re in the mood to see what’s up with your favorite blogs, go to your reader, which will have captured the current feeds from the 34,210 blogs you follow on a page like this one from my very own Google Reader:

Google Reader Screenshot - Click to enlarge

There you’ll see the most recent posts from those blogs. In some cases, the full posts will appear; otherwise, you will see, as is the case with Heck Of A Guy, the title and an excerpt. If, in this example, a reader interested in “Blueberry Hill” Is On Leonard Cohen’s Jukebox clicks on that title-link to be taken to that post on the blog.

It’s the blog-reading equivalent of one-stop shopping.

What The Heck Is A FeedBurner?

All Heck Of A Guy feeds are managed through an intermediary service called FeedBurner.

Clicking on “Subscribe” or “RSS” at the top right of the Heck Of A Guy layout, as noted, takes one to a FeedBurner page.  From this page, one selects a news reader to receive the Heck Of A Guy feed. Once that is accomplished (and for those who have already subscribed to the feed), FeedBurner disappears from view and serves as an anonymous pipeline.

FeedBurner offers blogs like Heck Of A Guy  two advantages:

1. FeedBurner converts the feed code to fit the chosen newsreader, simplifying the processes that previously ran on this site, sucking resources and complicating matters in general.  That is why the orange subscribe button on the left sidebar is no longer needed.
2. FeedBurner counts the feeds that go through that pipeline so I know if anyone is reading this stuff.

The Categories and The Feeds

I’ve set up RSS feeds for those categories readers have selected in the past. Those who wish to follow the feed for only those posts appearing in a given category should click on the orange RSS icon next to that category in the section labeled “Categories With Feeds” or click on the tab, “Subscribe To A Category,” which contains the same links somewhat rearranged.

One More Verse Of The Invitation Hymn

Whether you read Heck Of A Guy regularly or this is your first and, you vow defiantly, last visit, do try the feeds. As Detective Monk is wont to say, “You’ll thank me later.”

1. More prosaically – and more accurately, the email notifications plug-in that worked at Heck Of A Guy for two years and continues to work on other blogs is causing significant problems in the here and now. I suspect that the problems now are the result of a combination of issues, including changes in WordPress (the operating system for this blog), the concomitant use of other software to perform other nifty tasks at Heck Of A Guy, and restrictions set by the host of this blog.↩
2. You don’t want the computer tech guy or the computer support guy; you want the computer guy, the one you call when you can’t get the soft-core porn videos on YouTube to work.↩
3. I apologize for the exclamation mark which I apparently can’t delete. I don’t understand how anyone – even someone working in a company promoting feeds or feed readers – could believe that subscribing to a feed deserves an exclamation mark.↩