Reader...

I have been a google reader user for quite some time now, so when I talk to someone who has never heard of it, I am sometimes a little surprised. I shouldn't be! There are so many things that I have never heard of before and I look like a *tree full of owls when first I hear of it.

(*I used that phrase to a native Illinoisan and learnt right quick it was a more southern phrase... which made me wonder why in the world I knew it... until I recalled I was raised by a woman who was raised by an Arkansan. 'Nuff Said!)

Anyhow, back to the Reader...!

Here is where you will find it... on the google page there is a drop down "more" and it is in that list. 

From there, you will want to subscribe to some of your favorite blogs and feed sites.  I like to visit the site on the MAIN page, and then copy and paste the address into the reader. The main page is a little more foolproof because if you are on a particular post, it may or may not load properly. I am not sure if it is all sites, but some give issues. Blogger.com sites work wherever you are.

 Next, you can tell it how to display your feed. I like to have "Show Updated" checked, because then only the blogs that have an update is listed in the left column. If you check "show all", then the updated blogs are in bold, but it is still more difficult for me, as I think I have about 50 blogs in the feed! Thankfully many bloggers are infrequent posters!

One of the best features of this particular reader is I have one click, and every blog I love is right there. It gives the entire content of each post plus the pictures included in the post. Another great feature is I don't have to wait for the actual blog's full site to load. Many sites have backgrounds, buttons, glitter features and the like that are so cute and oh so fun, but take *FoReVeR* to load. Perhaps this is important to me because I will be living in a third world country where internet will not only be slower, but in all likelihood will be limited as to the amount of data I will have access to each month. It will be great to keep up with all my virtual peeps, and not suck up all my gbs each month. I sometimes go to the full site because I do like to get the full effect, especially when the post title is "Like my new blog design?"!! But the Best of all, I don't miss out on anyones updates! They load automatically and wait for me until I have my coffee ready and a few minutes of down time. YAY!

Google reader is a great way to get all my blogs and such into a concise place.