While some of my more technologically-astute readers will think I’m ooohing and aaahing over sliced bread, here’s a great feature for the rest of us to discover… RSS feeds.

Do you sometimes forget to check your favorite blog and miss a good post?  Or, do you sometimes check several times and nothing new has been added?  Well, something called an RSS feed can improve your computer life!  An RSS feed is a method of having new posts sent to you, instead of you going to them.  The advantages include:

• No need to check for new posts
• No more checking and finding only old posts
• Going to 1 site and having posts from all your favorite blogs delivered to you

How to Cope with Pain has an RSS feed available, and most likely your other favorite sites do also.

Here’s one way for you to set up your RSS feeds, (courtesy of Suber, who is 1 rung up above me on the tech-savvy ladder):

1. Go to www.google.com and click on “Personalized Home” in the top right hand corner.  (If your page says “Classic Home” instead in the top right hand corner, go directly to step 2.)

2. Under the Google search box, you’ll see in parentheses “Don’t have a personalized Google homepage?  Get started.”  Click “Get Started” and follow the instructions to open an account.

3. Go back to www.google.com and click on “sign in” in the upper right hand corner.  (Or, if your email address already appears in the upper right hand corner, you’re already signed in.)

4. On the right side margin, click on “Add stuff.”  Next, at the top of the page, put “google reader” into the Google search box .  Next, click on the button “Add it now” under “Google Reader (Labs).”  Then click on “Back to homepage” in the top left hand corner.

5. You should see Google Reader (Labs) has been added to your homepage.  Click on “Sign up for Google Reader to view your reading list.”  The 1-minute video of what Google reader can do for you is cute and helpful.

6. On the left hand side of this page, click on “Add subscription.”  You can put in the URL of any site that has an RSS feed.  This will then send a list of the site’s most recent posts to your Personalized Google Homepage.  For example, for my How to Cope with Pain blog, put in the URL “http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/.“

You’re set!  Now, anytime you open your Personalized Google Homepage, you’ll see if any new posts have been made to the sites that you’ve subscribed to.  Good luck!

(I’m still more in love with the “task” function in Outlook, but RSS feeds are right up there.)