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August 15, 2006
Spelling errors, RSS and staying connected
I just realized that I had a misspelling in the title of one of my previous posts, and while I know I'm not a good speller, I hate it when I allow a spelling error to creep into my writing. I have an excuse, but not a good one. It's what I think of as an edito - not a typo, but an edito. The error happened because I made an edit to a word and I didn't notice that I'd deleted one-too-many letters.
My next mistake was to rely on spell check. I use typepad to maintain my blog and I always try to remember to run spell check, which I did. Unfortunately, typepad doesn't seem to check the title of the post. I think I'm going to give the new Microsoft Livewriter blog posting tool a try.
I've already made the correction, which is one of the great things about delivering content via RSS. I know many people reading this are going directly to http://www.terrygold.com and checking to see if I've posted anything new. Unless your web browser is caching the old version, you'll see the new error-free version. It's fine if you want to do that - you get to see my reading list and other information that might be helpful, but there is an easier way to keep up with new posts to my blog, and most other blogs.
If you are not visiting my website, you are probably reading this via an RSS reader. I think a lot of people are missing out because the idea of RSS or "news aggregator" is not widespread outside of the [jarbarish alert] blogsphere. Personally I use Newsgator because the Newgator guys introduced me to the concept, I can use a reader on my phone and via the web and they magically keep what I've read in sync, and they have a free version, so it is easy to recommend to friends who are new to the idea. (And since I just looked up how to spell "aggregator" I realized where the name "NewsGator" came from.)
With Newsgator, I can subscribe to blogs or other sources of news and information, and have it all come to me without actually visiting the individual web pages. It's easy - I go to http://www.newsgator.com and I login. It then pulls up a list of all the [jargon alert] RSS Feeds (blogs) that I subscribe to and it only shows me the ones that have new content. I can quickly scan each feed for anything interesting. As a result I can go through industry news, world news and whatever else that I find personally interesting very quickly without actually going to each and every website to see if anything has changed. I'm using a mobile version on my Treo, which isn't publicly available yet but will be soon, and so I can get news in the odd moments between meetings or while standing in line at the grocery store.
So, back to my spelling error. If I was using email to distribute my writing, I'd either just have to hope no one noticed or I'd have to send a second email correcting the error which would really just serve to draw attention to the error. I expect that one day all press releases and much of the news will be delivered via RSS - Really Simple Syndication in case you are wondering - so go ahead and give it a try.
By the way, spell check caught two errors for me. My fourth grade teacher said I'd never be a success if I didn't learn to spell and I'm still working at it. I also have a new Volunteer Editor-At-Large who has agreed to point out any mistakes, and through the magic of RSS, hopefully I'll be able to correct them before you see them.
August 15, 2006 in Weblogs | Permalink
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Comments
Ack! Ack! I haven't been checking my favorite blogs daily, and I could have caught that edito for you, Terry! Yikes. I'm falling down on the job already. OK, I'll do the RSS thing and then I won't have to check in, right? I'm about as technical as a turnip (well, more than a turnip--I was a tech writer, after all--so OK--I'm probably about as technical as a hydroponic tomato), so I avoid anything that makes me do more than click on a link. I'll try clicking on your RSS link and see what it will do for me. If it requires more than that, expect a phone call.
Sincerely,
Your negligent Ed-at-Large (or EAL)
Posted by: Verna Wilder | Aug 18, 2006 5:16:36 PM