Did you know that as your blog grows an RSS Feed is growing too? (Look at the last line under "Recent Posts" on the right side of this page.) So what the heck is that?

An RSS feed is a sort of summary web page that links to the entries (posts) in your blog. But it's in a special format that is recognized by computer programs that many people have on their computers. These programs might be the web browser you're using. Click the RSS feed link to find out. If you're using Internet Explorer 6, you can't currently see this page the way you should be able to. But there are free RSS Readers (Aggregators) out there for you; go to your favorite search engine and look up "RSS Reader". What you want is a FREE program that runs ON YOUR COMPUTER, not a service you subscribe to.

Why is this cool? Look at the graphic showing what my reader (Safari browser) looks like. You'll see that the entries are sorted by date, and the dates that are orange are ones I haven’t read yet. But I was actually alerted to the presence of unread entries before I brought the page up. The reader is set up to check for new posts every 30 minutes while I'm doing other stuff. What a great way to be alerted to news items! In fact, I see I have 253 unread items at The New York Times, so maybe I should stop writing and start reading.