Readers

How to read this blog:

A while ago I discovered a few different ways to read blogs hosted on google's blogspot, like this one.

If you are one of those readers who checks the blog every day looking for new postings, that's excellent! This blog will have quiet spells where nothing is posted for quite some time. It can be frustrating to keep checking the blog only to see nothing new, then try again the next day - again nothing new, etc. It gets frustrating.

There are two alternative ways to read the blog. The first is to provide your email address in the "Follow by Email" box on the right of the blog. This is a mechanism that is hosted by Google. Once you've provided your email, you will receive an email in the evening on days where I have added a new post to the blog. The email is formatted to contain the entire post, along with a link at the bottom of the message which lets you know how to unsubscribe to the service. I normally don't trust giving my email address to other web sites as I hate to receive spam.  But I trust this service. Its a pretty convenient way to follow the blog.

The alternative to email is  to read the blog is through an RSS feed. There are lots of RSS readers out there. One example is on the Mac, the Mail can read RSS feeds. I'm sure there are lots of other mail apps which can read the feeds, but this is the one I know. In Mac's Mail app, you can add an RSS feed from the File menu. Go to 'Add RSS Feeds' and when the window comes up, select the 'Specify the URL for the feed' option, and then provide the RSS address:

http://svluckness.blogspot.com 

The title for the RSS feed will show how many unread articles there are, so if you've read them all, when I post a new article there will be a little number '1' there showing one unread article.  You can remove the RSS feed from your RSS reader at any time.

Update: On the mac, once you upgrade to Mountain Lion (10.8) you won't be able to read RSS feeds through the default mail app, or safari.  Apple has dropped RSS support.  This provides an opportunity for developers to write applications which provide that service.  As I am a software developer, I decided to write a blog/news reader app for the Mac.  Its available now.

So, go to the Apple App store, search for either "LuckNews" or "Craig McPheeters".  Click on the LuckNews icon and buy my app!  Its only available for the Mac version 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or higher.