A new week, new features, new Tip of the day

Shall we try this again? OK. Let’s do this. (The original was longer and more detailed…) In spite of a very busy weekend, I managed to add two new features to Tech–for Everyone, as you may have noticed. These are visible in the right-hand column on the main website; if you are viewing this as an RSS feed, I invite you to delete “/feed/” from your URL window and take a look.

At the top of this column is still the Search window, which you can use to search prior articles for topics, keywords, and answers.

Next is the familiar Archives, which lumps past articles by month. This is a good place to look at the titles of previously discussed topics, but as far as I can tell, nobody ever actually uses these links. Thus I added the two new features, which appear underneath.

Below Archives is a sort of strange-looking assortment of keyword links called a “Tag Cloud” which will be familiar to some of you. These keywords are Tech–for Everyone topic categories, and the larger the word the more articles you will find under that keyword. If you see a category you’re interested in (Backups, say), just click on that word in the cloud: a new page will load that shows all the articles posted with that keyword (and only those posts).
This is handy if, for example, you remember that I posted an article on clearing the private data that IE stores as you browse, but you cannot recall all the details. Click on IE7 in the tag cloud, and you will be able to review all the IE7 tips and tweaks articles I have posted.

Under the Tag Cloud is a “Top 10” list of past articles. This collection of links shows you the most popular articles I have published. Perhaps you will see a title here that you missed, or perhaps you will just find info interesting… This list is dynamically generated by actual page-view statistics, and not my opinion.

Tip of the day: This blog like so many other frequently updated blogs, news sites, forums, and newsletters, is “syndicated” as an RSS “feed”. Sites that are syndicated will have this icon visible in various places, sometimes in the URL window. Clicking on the icon will allow you to subscribe. Subscribing allows you to be notified when new content is posted to the site.

IE 7’s tool is located next to the Home icon, and it works very much like bookmarking, so much so, that it is accessed in the same place. Click on the RSS icon and select “Subscribe to this feed”. Now your syndicated feed is “bookmarked” (“Favorites” in Microsoft-speak). To quickly access and open your feed, click on the gold star icon, and then the Feeds button, as shown.

By default, IE is set to poll for updated material once per day, but you can tweak this setting to a more frequent rate. However, most people use a “feed reader”, or “feed aggregator” to manage their feeds and receive instantaneous alerts when their favorite author posts new headlines. These are utilities that come in many types and flavors, and if you find that one is too complex, or too whatever, try another. I find mine as useful as I do my email alerter that I have “trapped” on my business email account. A rss reader is the best way to stay on top of rapidly changing events.

Today’s free link: A very popular online feed aggregator/reader is Bloglines, but I use a desktop program called Newzie. From site: “Free News Aggregator–monitor RSS&Atom formatted feeds as well as ordinary webpages; NewsBar and SystemTray Popup Notifier Support; Virtual Channels, Bulk Channels, and Word Watchdogs.”

I am still offering readers a chance to chime in with their opinions about this blog with a quick, 5-question survey — Click Here to take survey

Copyright © 2007 Tech Paul. All rights reserved.

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Okay. Now I’m really mad

I apologize to you Dear Reader. I just finished writing today’s Tech–for Everyone and when I clicked on “Publish” to post it for all to see … it vanished.
Only the title remained. The working draft is blank also.

I am so frustrated that right now I simply cannot contemplate rewriting it, though I promise to do so. Look for it later on this afternoon. Yes, every now and then strange and unhappy events occur, and today it was my turn.

This is my first “glitch” of any sort with WordPress … unfortunately, it was a lulu!

Copyright © 2007 Tech Paul. All rights reserved.