Thing 4 – Twitter, RSS feeds, Pushnote

Thing 4 – Twitter, RSS feeds, Pushnote

I know, I’m miles behind on my cpd23!

Luckily for me I’ve been registered on Twitter, and have used it for about a year now, so I can put my hand on my heart and say I’ve reflected on that one (see my earlier blog post).

I can also put my hand on my heart and say that I’ve previously tried RSS feeds, but not found them easy to use! Reading through thing4 made the use of RSS feeds sound easy, and more useful than I had previously realised, so I gave it a go! I’m not sure how I did it, but initially I managed to get the cpd23 feed onto my browser bar, so it’s there permanently, although unintentionally! So far so good, now to follow the actual instructions and get it onto my Google account. Oh, seems like I have somehow managed to get other feeds onto my Google Reader page – which is a bit odd as I have never knowingly used Google Reader! Ah, now, on closer inspection they seem to be blogs that I have subscribed to, probably blogger ones, and certainly ones from other cpd23 participants! So that’s what happened when I subscribed; it actually turned them into an RSS feed and put them on my Google Reader, not send me an email like I thought it would!

Well, that’s something unfamiliar, so let’s try something I do use regularly – putting them into iGoogle! Yeah! It worked! I now have a page of RSS feeds in my iGoogle which I will find useful!! Now I’m off to see if blogs from other blogging software can also be RSS fed into iGoogle.

In the meantime, I’m reading about pushnote. Hmmm, no, this is too tricky. I wouldn’t say my work computer is completely locked down, but it is really rather difficult to download stuff, without asking for help from an IT colleague – and that just isn’t on at the moment. Things are no easier at home either; I don’t have administrator rights, so I have to weigh up whether it’s more important that I encourage the OH to decorate the kitchen or download new bits of software for me! No contest really. If anyone out there thinks I’m really missing out on a trick by not having access to pushnote, do let me know and I’ll revise my thinking!

All in all, I am keen to get to grips with new technology and whizzy web developments, but I like to understand how these things will benefit me before I go through all the hassle of getting stuff onto my pc.