By: Cary Briel, Skaneateles Design

You’ve probably heard of RSS, but do you really know what it is? RSS is an anacronym that can have several meanings, but the most recent is “Really Simple Syndication,” not that you really care about that. It’s also often called a RSS feed or simply a feed. There is a lot that can be said about RSS from a technical standpoint, but you probably don’t care about that either. How can RSS make your life easier? Think of being able to view the latest articles from 10 or 20 websites all in one place and using one user interface, quickly. Sound like this could be useful in your busy life? What you’ll need is a RSS reader, and one of the best out there is Google Reader. If you already have a Google account, just sign in and go here. If not, create a Google account here. The best thing about Google Reader outside of its great features is that it’s accessible anywhere, from any computer that has a web browser, which means that you can use it on the road, or from uncle Fred’s computer on Labor Day when you don’t have access to your laptop.

Here’s a snapshot of my Google Reader page showing all articles. Click the thumbnail for larger version.

Note that I have added three RSS feeds on the left in Google Reader, and the latest articles for all three appear listed on the right.

When I added the three RSS feeds on on the left, I used the URL of each feed, which can simply be obtained from any site offering RSS by clicking on their RSS feed icon or link. For example, the recent Posts RSS feed URL for Skaneateles Design is http://skaneatelesdesign/feed. To find this, you can click on one of the two RSS links present in Skaneateles Design’s sidbar. In this case, Skaneateles Design offers one RSS feed for a list of recent Posts, and another RSS feed for a list of recent comments. This is common for WordPress sites, but many sites may only offer a single feed.

You’ll only need to add each RSS feed to Google Reader once.

Once I’ve added a RSS feed to the list on the left, I can quickly scan the articles on its right and decide if I wish to read any. If nothing looks interesting, I close the window and I’m done.

But, let’s say that I’m interested the latest article at Skaneateles Design named “Wordie.” I click that title, the excerpt displays, and still I haven’t left the reader.

If I do decide after reading the excerpt that I want to visit the Skaneateles Design website and read the full article, I click double arrow icon and I am taken directly to the Wordie article at Skaneateles Design.

But here’s the important part. I was able to quickly scan all articles at all my websites without ever having to leave Google Reader, selectively deciding which articles are worthy of an actual visit.

Give it a shot! Visit Google reader here.