You’ve Got Milk June 5, 2008
Posted by Doriano "Paisano" Carta in Blogs, rss, Uncategorized.Tags: rss, Snackr, utterz
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Thanks to an excellent Adobe Air application called Snackr, you can now view the posts on Utterz from your circle of friends on your desktop! The good news is that it works on Windows, the Mac and even Linux and best of all it’s FREE!
Here’s how easy it is to setup:
Go to Utterz and copy the URL to your circle of friends (sometimes referred to as your Herd). Tip: It will be in this format:
http://www.utterz.com/~h-Paisano/v-circle/r-1/rss.php
(replace Paisano with your Utterz name, of course).
Go to
http://snackr.net
to download and install their cool RSS ticker. If you’ve never installed Adobe Air before (used by other services such as Twhirl, Snitter, AlertThingy and many others) then you will need to install it first. Go here to install Adobe Air.
Once Snackr is installed it will ask you what you want to do. Select the manually add feeds. Then click the plus sign on the bottom leftside of your screen and paste the URL of the RSS feed for your circle of friends on Utterz.
Within seconds all of your friends’ utterz including your own will begin scrolling across your screen and look like this:
Note: You can add all kinds of other RSS feeds to Snackr as well. This was just a way to show utterz members how to add their feed to their desktop.
Want a Personal MilkShake?
By the way, you can add your own Utterz RSS feed to services like GoogleReader and FriendFeed. Just add your own RSS feed from Utterz just as you would for any other RSS feed. (On FriendFeed click the add Blog feed option) Here’s the format:
http://www.utterz.com/~h-Paisano/list.php
(again, replace my name with your Utterz user name). Bada Bing, Bada Boom! You’ve Got Milk!
How to Add RSS feeds to your Outlook May 29, 2008
Posted by Doriano "Paisano" Carta in Blogs, Microsoft, rss.Tags: Microsoft Office, outlook, rss
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How to Add RSS feeds to your Outlook
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way for content publishers to make news, blogs, and other content available to subscribers. You can add your favorite RSS Feeds as subscriptions in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. There are a couple of ways to add an RSS Feed.
Adding a single feed at a time
Copy the feed URL that you want to add to Outlook
Go to the RSS folder in Outlook and Right-Click the root
The following menu will appear:
Select the Add a New RSS Feed (Third choice from the top)
Paste the RSS URL in the following box
Important Tip: Outlook seems to like XML RSS Feeds the best so whenever possible select that type of feed. It will look like this: 
View Feed XML
If you don’t see that link, you can try adding ?format=xml to the end of their rss feed.
How to add a collection of RSS feeds
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 supports the .opml file format for exchanging a collection of RSS Feed configuration information between programs that can organize and display RSS Feeds. Such programs are known as RSS aggregators. Office Outlook 2007 includes the functionality of an RSS aggregator.
A collection of RSS Feeds is shared by exporting it to an XML file with the .opml file extension and sending the file to the other person. You can attach the .opml file in an e-mail message, copy the .opml file to a network shared folder that both people have access to, or copy the .opml file to removable media such as a disk, CD, or a memory device. The other person can then import the .opml file and choose which RSS Feeds to add to Outlook.
In Office Outlook 2007, a collection of RSS Feeds can be exported to a file with the .opml extenstion.
You can import a file with the .opml extension to Office Outlook 2007 or other RSS programs.
- On the File menu, click Import and Export.
- Select Import RSS Feeds from an OPML file.
- Click Next.
- Click Browse to specify where the file to be imported is located, and then click Open.
- Click Next.
- Select the Feed name check box for each subscription that you want to import.
Tip Click Select All or Clear All to quickly select or clear all check boxes.
Note You are importing only the subscription information, not the actual items from the subscription.
- Click Next.The .opml file is imported to Office Outlook 2007
How to export Your Google Reader RSS Collection as an OPML file
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Click the Manage Subscriptions link and click the Import/Export option
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Save the file to your local system
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Now you can import your Google Reader feeds into Outlook (all of them or selected feeds)
Feed Me, Seymour! February 20, 2008
Posted by Doriano "Paisano" Carta in rss, Social Aggregators, Social Media, social networks.Tags: feed readers, feeds, Google Reader, rss
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Just about everyone knows about RSS and how to aggregate their feeds, so I won’t get into that here. I just wanted to share something that you might not realize that you could do with your Google Reader (if that is your RSS reader of choice, of choice). I will demonstrate how easy it is to share all of your own personal feeds from your blogs, twitter, utterz, Flickr, etc. As you know, Google Reader allows you to share anything you read by simply clicking Share at the bottom of the post you’re reading.
OK, that’s all basic stuff so far. Here’s where the fun stuff happens.
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Click on the Feed Settings button
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Select New Folder
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Enter My Feeds
You will now have a new folder to store all of your own personal feeds. Now let’s start adding your feeds.
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Click the Add Subscription button and start with your own blog(s) by entering their feeds (feedburner being the best, of course)
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Add any of your micro-blogging feeds that you have, such as Twitter (www.twitter.com/YourName), Utterz (go to profile to copy the rss feed link), Tumblr (YourName.tumblr.com), Pownce (www.pownce.com/YourName), etc.
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Add any other feeds you have from sites like 43things.com, Flickr, etc.
Here’s how My Feeds look (Only added some of my many feeds):
Combining your personal feeds with Google Reader’s powerful share option allows you to share your own content with others with the click of a mouse button. Sure, you can do something similar with any of the countless social networking aggregators as covered in Identity Crisis, but that solution requires others to stop what they are doing such as reading their feeds and go to your lifestream. The beauty of sharing your content (your voice) via Google Reader is that it keeps everything in one place, making the process of exchanging feeds extremely quick and easy for everyone involved.
For example, if others you know start using Google Reader’s Shared Items as suggested here, then you would see them listed like this under Friends’ Shared items:
The folder called Your Shared Items located above your friends’ shared items is more versatile and useful than most think. It doesn’t just share your own content but also any other content that you feel was worth sharing with the world. The shared item can be a post from another blog or something your friend posted on twitter or a photo they shared on Flickr, a video from Youtube, etc. etc. Think of Your Shared Items like a powerful social bookmarking service like Delicious except that it lives and breathes in your RSS reader!
Note: Please don’t confuse Google Reader’s Shared Items feature with Google’s Shared Stuff service which I will cover in a future post. They are similar sounding creatures but I will show you how different they really are. In the mean time, read your feeds and start sharing the love!
p.s. In case you were wondering, the title of this post and the image at the top is from “Little Shop of Horrors“.
If you are new to RSS and want an excellent video demo of what it is then check this out.
