Technology Stuff

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Wading through the onslaught of RSS feeds

If you don't know what a RSS feed is, you should. (I'll wait while you follow the link and read up on it.)

Okay, so now you know what RSS means, but why is it such a big deal? For me, RSS is rapidly becoming the tool that I use to keep up on all the latest information. Whether it is news, new products, weather, or tips on how to save money, RSS feeds are what I read. By subscribing (at no cost) to RSS feeds, I am able to load up a single page in my browser and view new content from a multitude of websites. This is an incredible timesaver as I no longer have to actually go out and visit each website every day. I don't have to bookmark all of those sites, nor do I have to sit through a bunch of graphic-intensive ads as each website loads into my browser.

As I wander through the Internet each day, I invariably stumble across content that I like and may want to read more about in the future. When this happens, I look for a feed that I can subscribe to. If you are a Firefox or Safari user, the existence of a feed will be highlighted for you in the address bar of your browser. If not, just scan the page for words "subscribe", "rss", or "feed". You can also look for a little orange icon somewhere that is the accepted symbol for RSS feed.

Once you choose to subscribe to a feed, then you will need an application known as a "feed reader" or "aggregator". You can find lots of them out there, but I would recommend Google Reader as a good place to start. It's easy to use and accessible from whatever computer you happen to be on.

As you start collecting a few feeds, you will invariably come across one that has "high traffic". This means that they post new content many times throughout the day. This can be overwhelming if you have many feeds to browse or if you haven't checked your feeds for a few days.

I have recently ran across a tool that helps with this problem. It is called aideRSS. This is a great tool and even comes with a nice training video that shows you how to use their site. By using this tool, you will be able to add a filtered feed to your reader instead of the original one that you were interested in. This allows you to only spend time reading content that aideRSS has noted as popular.

The main drawback of this approach is that you won't be the "first" to read the new content and/or comment on it. If that is important to you, then you should retain the original feed subscription. For me, personally, I am content with a delay before I see the content when it means that I'm going to be viewing content that the community has already voted as popular.

Take a few moments, check out aideRSS, and let me know how it goes.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Switching Cell Phone Providers, pt 5 (Customer Service)

The last aspect of this whole evaluation I wanted to look at was their customer service. I have heard raves about Tmobile's customer service. I have called them a total of two times so far. They are certainly the friendliest company that I have dealt with. I was very impressed.

My second call to Customer service was to actually port my Cingular number over to my Tmobile account. After getting through the ARU, I spoke to the initial operator who validated my info and then transferred me to a more technical staff member for the number porting. He walked me through each and every step and about how long it would take. My expectations are well set (should be all done by tomorrow) and I'm ready to go.

At this point, I would have to concur with others that I've read from and talked to. Tmobile's customer service really is great!