TeqEdge Blog

RSS feeds are increasingly being used to deliver and process content. Websites, blogs and even Press Releases from various companies are being offered via RSS feed. Google Reader is one of the many products which helps you receive, organize and read these feeds in one centralized location. It can read any feed format be it RSS or Atom or XML. I have tested this functionality with a variety of content using all formats with excellent results. No easier way to read any and all feeds. This means you do not have to visit different websites to catch up with the latest content – on the contrary, have the content delivered to you. Below I present some tips you can use to make your experience with Google reader more enjoyable and productive.

1. Shortcuts help you be more efficient. The most common and useful keyboard shortcuts I use everyday are shown here.

   J – go to next item
   K – go to previous item
   S – star an item for later reading or quickly mark important/favorite
   V – jump to the webpage of the feed item
   R – refresh the content in the reader
   ? – for complete list of keyboard shortcuts

2. Videos can be seen directly inside the feed window. No need to jump to the website or post just to see the video. I have tested playing YouTube and Google videos and they work fine.
3. Tag an item to a particular category. This will help you navigate if you have several feeds and want to look up only certain categories. You can also tag important posts ”important” or ”follow-up” to keep track.
4. Auto-sort is a unique feature I have seen only in Google Reader. I will let Google explain this one. ”When you’re viewing all items, you can click “View settings” to choose a sorting order. Auto-sort prioritizes subscriptions with fewer items, so your friend who publishes one blog item per month won’t be drowned out by higher-volume sites like the New York Times.” You can also sort the items in other ways such as latest on top or oldest on top. By default Google Reader shows you the latest posts first.
5. Sharing your RSS feed items generates a ”Public” page with your shared feeds. Anyone who has the page URL can view it. For more privacy use the email button to, well, email the feed item. You can learn more about sharing your feed here.



6. You can take Google Reader offline. This means you can catch up with your RSS feeds away from online distractions. You can casually sit at the park, on a plane or even in a cab with your laptop and access the same RSS feeds. This involves installing Google Gears. Complete instructions can be found here. Once installed you can synchronize your feed and take them with you anywhere.

This post is part of the RSS Series. The first post gave an introduction and overview of RSS and the second post discusses the types of desktop and online RSS readers. Subscribe to TeqEdge blog today so that you don’t miss any updates tomorrow.

Related Posts

• Desktop vs Online RSS Reader: Choosing The Right Feed Reader
• RSS For Dummies: Newbie’s Guide To Feed Nirvana