Apr. 3: Stuff on Stuff Jen Says

A few weeks ago I published the re-design of my blog and have tweaked it here and there in several ways since. I’ll probably continue to tweak as I find new or fun or pornographic or interesting elements. Bear with me.

You should read this

There’s one thing I hope you’re watching: the “you should read this” section in the sidebar. These are what I consider must-read links to other blogs/sites. When good posts show up in my Google Reader I click “share,” which makes them show up in that list. My six most recently recommended links are always shown, and if you click “read more” you can see my recommendations from the past. Just because they’re old doesn’t mean they’re any less awesome.

RSS feeds tutorial (kinda)

A little further down are two buttons to subscribe to my RSS feed—one for my blog and one for the comments you guys make. I know some of you use feed readers but if you don’t, here are the basics of why you should.

• If you visit several different sites throughout the day to check for updates, a feed reader will save you tons of time. By subscribing to a feed, you’ll be alerted to all those sites’ updates in one place. This is especially handy and time-saving for subscribing to a blog’s comments feed (IMO). Once you’ve set up all your favorite sites in your reader, you only have to go there—one place!—to see those sites’ updates.
• I didn’t do a lot of research before settling on Google Reader as my feed reader of choice. Anyone out there who can recommend another, please do! I’m perfectly happy with Google Reader; it’s not fancy but does what it’s supposed to do. Most web browsers also offer some type of feed subscription; I didn’t think IE’s was that great but haven’t tried Firefox or any of the others.
• I use My Yahoo! as my browser home page, and it allows me to add RSS feeds to my page. While experimenting in the very beginning, I felt these feeds didn’t always update on My Yahoo! as often as I’d like. Other customizable pages like that may do a better job.
• So, how does a person subscribe to a feed? There are several different ways. The easiest is to click a site’s RSS feed icon; it usually looks like this and will take you to a page that has all the same content of the site, but without a lot of the fancy design elements. This is the feed page. The URL of that page is the feed address, and it can easily be copied and pasted into your feed reader subscription box.
• If a site you want to subscribe to doesn’t have an RSS feed icon, it’s possible that it has no RSS feed. My blog software created a feed for my blog since the beginning, but to get the icons on my blog I added them as a widget in Blogger layout. If you use Word Press or Live Journal or one of the others, I don’t know how it’s done but I assume it’s pretty much the same.
• The RSS feeds will contain links to the sites so you can easily click to view the content in its original context. 

Reading list

Near the bottom of my sidebar is my Library Thing list. I think Library Thing is a great site because it lets me read (and write) book reviews, rate books, get recommendations from other users with similar libraries and interests, and even request advance copies of new books. Of course, being able to put that little widget on my blog is the whole reason I started using it but I’ve gotten a bit hooked. I’m always looking for book recommendations (hint hint).

judge me, I dare you

I added a ratings box at the bottom of each post and it’s for exactly what you think it is: you can now give each of my posts a rating from 1-5 stars. One star is for “I hated this so much I want to punch someone (but not Jen)” and five stars are for “Jen’s my daughter so everything she writes is gold.” This is just for silly fun, but remember that if you give me a bunch of low ratings, your IP address will be listed in my suicide note under “People Who Have Wronged Me.” I will also cry and if you think you can live with that, well, you obviously haven’t been married to me. Or maybe you’re my grandma. (She hates my guts.)

Share with others

This button makes it easy for you to share individual posts with other people via email or on Facebook, Digg, or a number of other online communities. C’mon, you know you want to.

Bloggy friends

I’ll be adding my blog roll back in eventually. I’m looking for a better way to display it, and when I find that way, you’ll see them on here again. You have them all bookmarked anyway, don’t you?

I think that’s everything I’ve been meaning to tell y’all. Have a fun, safe, pastrami-filled weekend! Did I mention pastrami’s my new favorite flesh preparation besides bacon? It is.