Just when I thought my computer skills peaked during the era of the Commodore 64, I seemingly successfully probably maybe but not sure managed to get my site feed up and running through Blogger. I was only vaguely knowledgable about site feeds to begin with and frankly I'm still not sure how much I really understand the whole process. Because I pull up my news and blogs the old fashioned way, i.e. surfing and clicking, I never really concerned myself with a site feed. Even when I first started tampering with the settings I successfully created a site feed but then had no link to it, so the site feed was of little value. Kinda like having a brand new car with no motor. For those with even less technological savvy than I (Amish readers with a bootlegged hard copy of my blog maybe?) let me back up.
Some people read their blogs via a news reader which is a software program that goes out to whatever sites you want and looks for any new postings and articles. Specifically it looks for a file stored on the site with an xml or rss extension (if you don't know what an extension is at this point, you probably are getting through life just fine so I won't bother explaining.) My problem was two-fold: At first I didn't know how to create such a file; and secondly once I had created such a file, I didn't know how to put it where people could find it. Just when my frustration level reached an all-time high trying to figure this whole thing out and I was ready to throw in the towel, one of my beloved readers hits me up with a comment wanting to know if I've ever gotten my site feed up and running. I think I can finally say yes.
Provided your happy with the Atom format, you can point your news reader to my site feed at www.cocktailswithkevin.com/atom.xml. I've tested it with Newscrawler and it seems to work for me. You even get to see the favicon I created several months back. If you don't know what a favicon is, good. It's really more hassle than it's worth. Currently I provide the full post in the site feed, but please do pop in to cocktailswithkevin.com every now and then via your browser because my deflated ego requires seeing my hit counter go up periodically, and I don't think using a news reader to get the atom file will cause the counter to bump up. I don't know. I'm just guessing.
If on the other hand you prefer the rss feed like Feedburner uses, you're just going to have to deal with not getting it. Sure, if I feel so inclined, I might try and tackle it later, but right now I'm just happy I got the one up and running. Got it? Do you understand? I don't mean to be the rss gestapo but if you came here looking for rss I'm gonna have to say No site feed for you!
Additionally I've started writing for Metroblogging Atlanta. They claim to be somewhat selective in that you have to apply to write for them and for a long time they weren't looking for any additional writers in the Atlanta area, but their standards must have dropped because they let the likes of me in. Then again it could be because much of the postings that were being left were one- or two-liners that even the aforementioned technophobic Amish would find mindnumblingly dull. Anyway, if the website you're currently viewing and the cyber vanity within don't give you the Kevin fixings you require, click over to the Metroblogging site and check out some of my latest ramblings there. Metroblogging discourages authors from merely copying and pasting from their own blogs so if I continue to adhere to that rule, you'll see fresh stuff there.
No real closure to this article. Just this:
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