By day I manage the online presence of a public broadcasting station. I promote local TV and radio programs and community events. I develop and edit content and write scripts. I produce faculty interviews and educational forums. I compress videos and author DVDs. I initiate online chats and implement Flash slideshows.

And how do I spend the ...]]> It’s a blessing that my professional life is so closely connected to my personal interests. But it’s also exhausting.

By day I manage the online presence of a public broadcasting station. I promote local TV and radio programs and community events. I develop and edit content and write scripts. I produce faculty interviews and educational forums. I compress videos and author DVDs. I initiate online chats and implement Flash slideshows.

And how do I spend the remainder of my waking hours?

I write about newlywed life. I share food stories and post recipes. And I contribute to three other blogs on those topics.

I track my runs on Nike+, and I keep in touch with my family on Skype. I share videos on both YouTube and Vimeo. I have accounts with StumbleUpon and Digg and Newsvine, and I’m connected on LinkedIn.

On delicious, I bookmark my favorite finds and tag them as crafting, data visualization, ecofriendly, fitness, font, gocco, HTML, jQuery, photography, public media, recipes, travel, typography, usability.

I subscribe to over 200 blogs in categories like cooking, baking, design, technology, photography, and social commentary. My Google Reader has not been clear for months.

There is undeniable overlap. I create media. I consume media. I am always immersed in media.

I have a personal Facebook page, and I administer five group pages. I have a personal Twitter account, and I tweet to one professional account.

I’ve been uploading photos to Flickr since 2004, and I recently set up a stream for my station.

I manage no less than six public media websites, and there are always new projects on the horizon. On the side, I maintain four websites for freelance clients.

I feel pressure to be plugged in all hours of the day. It’s an ever-evolving environment, and — GASP — what if I miss something?

What if I don’t check-in on Foursquare or connect via Ning? What if I don’t understand the difference between TweetDeck and HootSuite? What if I don’t use Tumblr or Posterous? What if I don’t share my music preferences on Last.fm or post my restaurant reviews on Yelp? What if I don’t track trends on Slashdot or Mashable?

What then? Nothing. That’s what.

{photo credit: author’s personal collection}

Life will go on. Just as it did when my husband and I both completely unplugged for an entire week last August. No iPhones. No MacBooks. No watches. No worries.

How do you manage your plugged in time?

© Elizabeth Anne Designs, 2010 · Permalink · 5 comments · StumbleUpon It!
Posted in: Blogging, Life, Motivation, Technology

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This is my friend Megan, and recently she said those very words to me concerning Google Reader.

But this post isn’t about Megan, it’s RSS feeds, and how to utilize ...]]> Have you ever pointed something out to a friend and been unsuccessful in getting them to give your recommendation a try? And then months later they come to you and say “I just started using that thing you suggested and I love it! I can’t believe I didn’t start using it earlier!”

This is my friend Megan, and recently she said those very words to me concerning Google Reader.

But this post isn’t about Megan, it’s RSS feeds, and how to utilize them like my friend Megan did. It’s written for those of you who are the Megans of my life, thinking it’s best not to take my brilliant advice. I’m hoping I can help you understand why you might want to change your mind.

First, let’s talk about what an RSS Feed is.

Actually, let’s not talk about it because it’s all very confusing. If you try to understand how to use RSS feeds that way you will hear words like “metadata” and “XML” and that is more than we need to know.

So instead we’ll focus on who has an RSS Feed, because I think if you understand who/what type of blogs have them, you will better understand how you use them. RSS Feeds are utilized by website with revolving content. Blogs, news sites, YouTube, etc. Basically any site that is consistently updating with new information or content.You know a site has an RSS feed when it has an orange square in the righthand corner of the address bar (Firefox), or when you see the little button that looks like this turn orange (Internet Explorer).

Does that make sense?

Some of you are already utilizing RSS Feeds on your Blogspot blogs (probably without even knowing it). This is my friend Jill’s blog, and on the righthand side you can see the words “My Blog List”. Underneath that she has a list of her friends’ blogs (including me cuz Jill and I are like BFF). Under each blog titles sits the title of their last post, and the names are arranged in order of the last time a person posted. This is all done through the magic of RSS feeds.

I think there is an even better way to utilize RSS Feeds and that is with Feed Readers. I’m going to be talking about Google Reader because that is what I use, but you also might like to take a look at FeedReader, Bloglines, and NewsGator.

Google Reader can be accessed by logging into your google account and clicking on the link in the upper left-hand corner. Google accounts are logged into when you visit Gmail, Google Docs, or any other Google based page that requires a login. Or you can visit: http://www.google.com/reader.

This is what your Google Reader page will look like (once you have it full of blogs like I do!)

You add blogs and other websites with RSS Feeds to your Google Reader by clicking on the button in the top left corner that says “Add a subscription”. If you want to subscribe to EAD Living, all you have to do is copy and paste “http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/living” into the box that will drop down when you click that button.

All of the RSS feeds that you are subscribed to will show up in the left-hand box. I’ve organized all of my feeds into folders based on how I know the bloggers or who they are. When I click on one of those folders the latest post will pop up on the right-hand side. I hit “J” to see the next post, “K” to see the previous, and “V” to open the original post in another window/tab to comment on it.

Google Reader acts like the newspaper delivery boy – each time the website updates the RSS Feed is updated, and Google Reader has the fresh news waiting on your virtual doorstep. Wait, now that I think about it Google Reader is even BETTER than the newspaper delivery boy because ne never throws the paper in the rose bushes AND you don’t have to read the paper right away. In fact, with GR you can go without thinking of the blogs of your friends and family for days without missing a single adorable thing they have to say because GR stores all of the posts for you, and will keep them there as long as you want.

One argument I have heard against Google reader is “But I just don’t want to be adding another sit to my list of sites I visit on a daily basis”. That’s why Google Reader is so amazing, it doesn’t add an extra site, it eliminates a whole bunch of others. Instead of visiting 10 different websites to find out what each post is about you can just look at all of them in your Feed Reader. Then if you want to leave a comment about their post you can click over and do so. More than anything, Feed Readers are HUGE timesavers.

There are some, like my friend Sabrina, who don’t use Google Readers for one very specific reason. Once you start subscribing and reading using a Feed Reader you don’t visit the persons site anymore, unless you want to comment. This keeps you from seeing their pretty new header, or the latest photos they put up on their sidebar, or other interesting people they’ve linked to in their sidebar.

If you do end up switching over to a Feed Reader after reading this post, I encourage you to take the time to visit peoples homepages every once in awhile, and continue to make an effort to keep commenting (it’s extremely easy to just hit “J”, “J”, “J” and keep scrolling through the posts that people worked so hard to write). I appreciate all of you and the time you take to stop by and say hello to me!

Have any questions for me?

© Elizabeth Anne Designs, 2009 · Permalink · 1 comment · StumbleUpon It!
Posted in: Blogging, Technology

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