I've finally got around to installing an RSS feed aggregator. For no particular reason other than I found them first, I chose to install a .Net 1.1-based (i.e., executes like Vermont molasses in December) program called SharpReader and something called FeedDemon. There are a bunch of similar aggregators out there so feel free to choose whichever you find useful.
What it's about is getting short snippets or headlines of what someone has just posted (at least in the weblog world. It can be used in other contexts). So if you want to get a wider range of news, while at the same time not having to actually go to each site to check on what's new, the aggregator can make more productive use of your time. On the other hand, if you only hit a handful of sites each day, you probably don't need one.
But now that I've seen how one works, I think I will be changing the format of my posts. For awhile now, I've been just using the days of the week as a headline. Looking at this in an aggregator doesn't give you any useful information to decide whether to click on a link or not. So I will try to have headlines that encapsulate what the post is about so those of you who use feeds can make an informed decision (or at least as informed as you can get with headlines).
In addition, rather than including several subjects under one posting, I may break them up into separate posts so that each has its own headline. I originally was doing that but got tired of having to publish individual sections rather than just one. I'll have to see if it's worth the trouble to do so (especially as there aren't that many people using aggregators anyway).
Aloha!
