The Simplicity of Web Feeds using Firefox

In a previous post, I've talked about RSS or web feeds in general. With web feeds, the functionality that I was looking for was two-fold: (1) generating web feeds for my blog and (2) aggregating web feeds from other blogs and websites.

I found out that Blogger generates Atom, a web feed similar to RSS. And the magic software that aggregates Atom feeds (including RSS) is Mozilla FireFox's Live Bookmarks! Yes, it's right there in one of the most popular browsers today. And it's been available since release 1.0PR in 2004. (Whaat?!)

To use this piece of genius, simply open the website using the Firefox browser, look for the radio waves symbol, and click on it. A popup for Live Bookmark appears. Click Ok.

To view your recently created Live Bookmark, click on Bookmarks --> Bookmarks Toolbar Folder --> Web Feed Name and voila! You can now see the titles of the most recent posts.

Very handy.

• 2006-06-19: Moved my blog's address for easy recall. Messed up my feed settings without knowing it.


• 2006-06-22: Discovered SharpReader as a convenient aggregator. Also discovered that I messed-up my feed settings.


• 2006-06-24: Fixing my feed settings. Discovered that Blogger's giving RSS feeds already, but still without feed subscription statistics. Stayed with the use of Feedburner.