Blog-reading 101

I'm a Google-head. Over the last couple of years I've been switching from PC-based applications to Web-based applications. I used to use Eudora for email, now I use Gmail. I need a spreadsheet once in a blue moon, so I now use Google Documents instead of Excel. I use Google Bookmarks to keep track of web pages I like, and so on. I use two different Macs and one PC on any given day, and keeping most of my "stuff" on Google's servers is darn convenient.

My home page is the Google Personalized Home Page, aka iGoogle. I read about 30 different blogs, and use iGoogle's tabs to organize and keep track of them; for example, the "Amherst" tab looks like this:

A neat feature: I can share all the stuff in a tab by clicking on the little triangle in the tab and choosing "Share this tab." If you've got an iGoogle home page, follow this link and you'll be asked which of my favorite Amherst blogs you'd like to add to your iGoogle page.

I do have one criticism of iGoogle-- they make it downright tricky to subscribe to a blog when you have a link to the blog's RSS feed. You have to poke the "Add Stuff" link, then the teeny-tiny "Add by URL" link on the Add Stuff page. Easy when you know how, but it took me a while to figure out that it was even possible to add blog entries to my Google home page.