Monday 22 February 2010

Feeding and reading

Since I started to use a feed reader, I've used Bloglines. However, not all blogs update in it - some are several days late and some don't update at all. Google Reader is much quicker and more reliable - but is this because Bloglines isn't efficient, or is it being unfairly squeezed out? Sometimes I can help things by unsubscribing and then resubscribing with a different link, but not always.

Recently, several bloggers have moved servers and the matter has become worse. Now, I have nothing against google except that it's so damn big. I like to support someone other than the market leader - but I often miss updates because I've got a good many blogs marked and I don't get around to clicking onto them on the offchance that I haven't been notified of a new post. it's got to the stage that I have a number of blogs marked in both readers, which takes a whole lot more time to sort through.

One thing I'm not fond of in Google is that one has to scroll through every post or mark all as read, or else they remain highlighted, even if I've clicked through to the blog - which I usually do - I like to read a post in its proper setting. Otherwise, I don't much care about the details. But if I change completely I've got an awful lot of blogs to change the settings on. Some of them haven't been updated for ages and may never be - but I don't want to lose them, just in case.

Sorry, this is something of a non-post. But advice or explanation gratefully received.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Better than google and no tracking:

http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

Won't help your blog feed but.

Why am I up so early?

オテモヤン said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dave said...

I don't use one.

Z said...

hello, Anon. I sympathise - I was awake at 3.55 myself, and had been for three hours. I did go back to sleep though. And thank you - the amount of data kept is worrying and Google does nothing to stop it.

As you say, however, nothing to do with what I asked about!

Dave, I follow a lot of blogs and various other websites too. Checking all of them every few days isn't feasible, especially those that rarely update - but might at any minute and I don't want to lose touch.

Rog said...

Since Google introduced the blog gadget favourites list automatically sorted in new post order I've just used that from the comfort of my own blog.

Takes a bit of serendipity out of it I suppose...

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dave said...

As many of the blogs I read are on Rog's list too, I just pop over to his place from time to time to check up on them.

The others I have to look at manually, as in the good old days.

Z said...

This post has certainly brought out the spammers, hasn't it?

Too many to do that with, Rog - about 250 on Bloglines and a few more (because some overlap) on G reader. As I say, that doesn't mean I have that many to keep up with daily - some are dormant and others are just sites I read - humour or information websites.

Dave said...

Are you aware I wrote a new blog-post 11 hours ago?

DILLIGAF said...

Being technoligically inept I have no idea....and it's far safer that way..;-)

Greg said...

Persevering with Bloglines here, purely because I can't face setting up the feeds elsewhere.

There has to be an alternative to this or Google...

Anonymous said...

I just use the reading list in the dashboard and add all those I want to keep up with as favourites - though mostly as anonymous so I can delete them without offending anyone if I get bored of that site. quite a few of mine are informative ones - gardening, Mark kermode's film reviews etc. It seems to update without any trouble.

Z said...

I left a comment on that, Dave, first thing this morning, but it's disappeared. How odd. I'll leave another one.

Z said...

I'm quite happy with Bloglines, except for the problems with updating, and I just have the feeling that they are being deliberately squeezed out of the market.

Zig said...

I use Rog's list! I would do my own but don't know how and haven't had the inclination to learn as yet. Keeping senility from the door is keeping me fully occupied at the moment.