Organize Your Life | Review on: Google Reader

You know when you find something cool and you’re excited for a while? We’re in an age today when that instant gratification wears off a little too soon. I bought a new Nikon lens a few days ago and I caught myself just today trolling B&H! Um, seriously? An NAS (Nikon Acquisition Syndrome) Warning should come on every box. All that to say, I spend A LOT of time online. I search tons of resources, blogs, websites, Facebook pages, Flickr photostreams…I could get lost for hours. My bookmark folders would probably make your head spin. I found myself missing a lot. These last few months I’ve been on nights so while I’m sleeping all you wonderful people are tweeting away about the latest this and the coolest new that. I was tired of being the last to know. I was talking with my friend Samantha and she introduced me to the wonderful world of the Google Reader.

I love Facebook, but I love blogging more. Blogs are this intimate personal way a writer can share their thoughts and images with their reader and give the site a style all it’s own. A fellow photographer explained that your website is the formal living room of your business, but the blog is the kitchen where everyone sits around and talks. If you knew my family, you would know that I am a in kitchen sort of girl. I LOVED that analogy. But I didn’t feel like others blogs where a kitchen at all. I have a ridiculously slow internet connection and I’ve made the mistake of opening 40 tabs at once (Firefox DID try to warn me, but of course I didn’t listen). I missed reading about all of favorite people and what they were doing! I had to constantly DIG to find information. Ridiculous. I’d had enough and Samantha showed me a whole new world. This isn’t the whimpy kind of gratification that comes from pop-rocks and soda. This is major league stuff because after nearly a week I’m still in love! I wanted to share with you how to set it up so you don’t miss a single blogging moment, including mine ;)

I’ve never known much about RSS and truthfully I still don’t. I’ve been told there are other programs out there but admittedly I wanted to stalk people both here and at work. I didn’t want a program I couldn’t download on a government computer. Enter Google Reader. I don’t personally care for Gmail but I was open to whatever could make my life 10,000 times easier. You simply copy the blog URL, enter it under the subscriptions and wa-la. Streaming, live, current photo and blog review from said favorite photog. Bliss. My girlfriend Christina recently switched over to WordPress (yeah!) and I hadn’t even realized it because I’ve been lost in a sea of uber thoughts. I added her blog to my Reader as an example of how to do it on the web.

Awesome right? But WAIT! There’s more!! More? Of course there’s more, it’s GOOGLE and they make life easy. Well except for Gmail, it has a stupid interface. Anyway. I wondered. Could there possibly be an iPhone app to take this awesomeness to another level? There sure is. I finally found Mobile RSS. It’s SO easy to use. Downloaded the app, plugged in my Gmail info and BAM all my subscriptions were at my fingertips. You just swipe left and right to go back or see the next blog. Jessica Edwards posted an amazing blog this morning with some beautiful images! The photo quality looks great (her being an amazingly fabulous photographer gets all the credit there!) and I can read the info and move on with my life. Or while waiting on my takeout I can catch up on DPS’ latest post. It’s just nice to know I have an option because pretty soon I’m losing my “unlimited” internet.

I wanted to combat two things. One I was tired of having 30 emails in my inbox that often went overlooked and unread. Email (along with FB) steals a lot of my time. So having the Reader set up will be great for that. The second thing I wanted to avoid was going in my drop down menu of 80 gazillion book marks and try to remember whose blog I haven’t read. The Reader keeps tab of which blogs I’ve read, and my favorites. Can’t praise this FREE product enough. The MobileRSS is only 2.99 but it’s got to be one of the coolest apps on my phone ;)

What ways are you guys staying current on blogs? Do you use Google Reader, or do you have another fav product? I’d love to hear your thoughts!