CONTRIBUTED BY MEREDITH NOVARIO
I’m in a gnarly and predictable tug-of-war match over here. On one side is my life in Okinawa. On the other side is my life after Okinawa. When the weather is gloomy like today and Joe is gone like today, I start making notes of the details I won’t miss. My van that collects gallons of rain water in the trunk. The bag of fermenting grass next to our garbage can. The mold. The heat. The rust. But that is all petty. Life in Okinawa is full of Japan-ness and friendship-ness which I dread leaving behind. Tug, tug, tug.
It’s that tricky balance between savoring the last days, weeks, months and planning for what lies ahead. I banned myself from looking for houses on-line until we get orders. When the orders arrive I’ll sign up for a Smooth Move Workshop. Until then my feet are planted in Okinawa. Until then I might just buy every Anpanman gadget that crosses my path. Consider yourself warned, Joe.
So about those polls. We need to talk. Clearly you are not obsessed with blogs. Not judging, just wondering, if there something more satisfying out there than blogs? Fill me in.
As for the aggregator. I’m not even sure aggregator is a word people say out loud in the real world. Just like people don’t really say bathroom tissue when they mean toilet paper. Or mammary glands.
Moving on.
Let’s talk aggregators or readers or feed catchers or whatever. An aggregator collects all of your bookmarks and manages them on a single page. Just like your mailbox collects all your mail, an aggregator collects all of the sites you subscribe to and lets you know when they have been updated. Now if you are only reading a handful of blogs, which seems to be the case with most of you lovelies, then you may not need an aggregator.
But I am about to beg you to use one because the more people who subscribe to our blog, the more options we have for attracting advertisers who could sustain the blog for decades and centuries to come. If you scroll down below the polls in the right sidebar you see an icon that looks like this:
That means that 20 people have subscribed to our blog and view it through an aggregator. Advertisers are big on how many readers a blog has. The more readers, the more better, the more worthwhile to invest in us.
But this isn’t entirely about us. I’m a little worried about you frankly. You should read more blogs. Blogs don’t care if you shower. Blogs are better than taco rice. Blogs can relax, stimulate, enrich, humor, inspire and challenge you. For real. The wave of the future, these blogs.
What’s your poison?
Gossip. Cooking. Fashion. Music. Arts & Crafts. Photography. Entertainment. Sports. Politics. Great writing. Belly laughs.
(I don’t endorse these blogs per se. They are all nominees for the 2008 bloggie awards. I apologize if they offend or unhinge you.)
So gather a few blogs from your bookmarks or favorites and open an account with Google Reader or Bloglines. Friends, meet the aggregators. Google will require you to have a gmail address which you’ll never have to use except for opening this account. Bloglines requires nothing of the sort. I have used Google Reader but am switching over to Bloglines for giggles. Plus I find it easier to organize and somehow sexier.
Google Reader looks like this:
Not so sexy, right?
But how about some Bloglines?
Cleaner. More organized. Less blue. Love at first sight over here.
I double dog dare you to go forth and aggregate your blogs. Let’s jack up our subscriptions and get you all addicted to blogs. After you go Google or Bloglines or whatever else tickles your fancy you can click the RSS feed button at the very bottom of the right sidebar. It looks like this:
Yes, we can.
p.s. What are you reading besides Okinawa hai!?
p.p.s. In the time it took me to write this blog it appears we have lost a subscriber. Down to 19. Is all this shameless self-promotion offending thee?
p.p.p.s. Boo-hoo about the p.p.s
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All the posts in Meredith’s “Me & My Big PCS” series: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX
For posterity’s sake we have left this universally euphoric, terrified, confused, “what am I doing?!” series on Okinawa Hai. However, we have closed comments for future readers. If there is relevant information for all readers to benefit from, we have taken elements from this series and created new posts, which we’ve linked to from the original text. Thank you for joining us on this ride.