Feed Me!

Day 28 without an iPhone and I am still learning to use the internet in different ways. Being forced to check my favourite websites (and my email) on a PC has made me look at how to save time doing those things so that I can be more productive.

In my last post we looked at the Inbox Zero method of taming your email dragon. Today, I’ve got a tip for you that can help with your small time OCD problem of refreshing you favourite websites too regularly 🙂

It’s called RSS. Really Simple Syndication. Ok so it’s not a new thing on the internet (I mean it was released in 1999 – where were you man?:)) but it’s not something I made a lot of use of, until now.

Basically, it works like this: Instead of browsing to all your favourite websites and having to refresh them from time to time for new content, you use a Feed Reader to have the new content from the sites you like delivered to you, and collected in one place for easy reading! You can see the potential this has for saving you a lot of time!

The best part is that, perhaps unknown to you, you already have a good feed reader – Microsoft Outlook! Since I already have to use Outlook for work, having the feeds delivered like emails has meant that I no longer have to check my favourite sites – they tell me when there is new stuff! Cool huh?

“OK, so how do I do this?” you say…

Outlook 2007* and up has a built-in feed reader – have a look under your “Outbox” folder for it. To subscribe to a feed, just right-click on “RSS Feeds” and click “Add a New RSS Feed”. Then copy and paste the RSS link from your favourite website in there and click “Add”. That’s it. Easy as 3.14159265! 🙂

You can try my site’s RSS feed if you like, the link is on the right hand side bar (or just use https://rodbarnard.wordpress.com/feed/).

If you need more help, take a look here for some more info, or drop me a reply and I’ll try give you a hand!

Happy Feed Reading!

*If you use Outlook 2003, you could try RSS Popper!

Inbox Zero

Day 25, and I’m still getting surprised looks from friends and family when they see me iPhone-less 🙂

Yep the rumour mill is still at it, some say we’ll haven an upgraded iPhone “4S” that will just look like an iPhone 4, still others say the completely revamped iPhone 5 is imminent – as in “announced within the next week or so” – and some say we’ll see both. Only time will tell I guess!

But, while we wait – and seeing that it is officially Spring here in SA – perhaps it’s a good time to do some cleaning.

If you have ever looked at your Outlook mailbox and thought that would be a good place to start some cleaning, I’ve got a great tip for you!

It’s called Inbox Zero

Clearly, the problem of email overload is taking a toll on all our time, productivity, and sanity, mainly because most of us lack a cohesive system for processing our messages and converting them into appropriate actions as quickly as possible. – Merlin Mann

I have been applying Merlin Mann’s email system to my mailbox for over four years now and I have found it to be an incredible way to tame the heaving mass of information that is your inbox. It’s good for the soul, really.

Right now, as we speak, I have exactly ONE mail in my inbox, and once that’s dealt with, I’ll be back to Inbox Zero – so I NEVER have to do an email box cleanup. Ever!

Sound confusing? Do yourself a favour and check out the video (you only need the first 30 mins, but it IS totally worth it!)

Enjoy!

Day Three: Who r these ppl?

Ok, so this is only a little embarrassing! I can see myself sending a lot of these “Excuse me, I don’t recognize this number, who is this?” SMSs!

More mocking. I’m sure…

Remember when we actually remembered phone numbers? I used to be able to recall quite a few actually! Now I’m lucky if I can remember a handful: Mine, my wife’s, the works, our home number…and probably, Emergency Services 😉

Instead of making our lives simpler, maybe our smartphones have made us simpler?

Good thing my old iPhone had synced up my contacts with MS Outlook, so I could do a quick search through and see who some of my “new” friends were!

Unfortunately there was no easy way to get my 327 contacts from Outlook onto my SIM card (which can only take 200 BTW), so I just manually entered a few numbers of people I thought I might be in contact with in the near future.

I think I’m going to have to buy an SMS bundle to keep up with all this 🙂 It’s a lot more expensive than email, in fact, it’s probably one of the most expensive ways to send info!

But it is direct and quick, still very popular – and just about every phone can do it – so I think it will be around for quite a while still!

SO, IF I TAKE

A WYL 2 GT 

BCK 2U, U

NO Y! 😉