News Aggregators, RSS and you

I'm getting used to routine of being unemployed now. Get up in the morning, check e-mail, check job sites, then work on getting my computing environment polished.

The first step was to get the website up and going, mainly for the ability to post my resume and provide a showcase for my skills. The next step was to get my personal computer up and going. I've mostly got that worked out now. Next was setting up a compute environment that I felt comfortable with and was productive. That included doing research on popup avoidance, spam filtering, spyware and such which I speak briefly about here. Now I'm in the process of setting up a news aggregator to consolidate not only job listings but general news as well.

News aggregrators are a realitvely new web technology which monitors web sites and delivers a synopsis of new items to a single application for the users convienence. I've investigated a few of the applications and found a gem in Pluck. I've setup feeds for ESPN, some Humor spots, several Techsites, plus a strangely reconvergent link to this blog.

I strongly advise readers to investigate this new technology. Here are a few articles describing it better than I can.

All About RSS (Really Simple Syndication) - UserLand
Aggregators Attack Info Overload - Wired News
News on Demand - PCWorld
RSS News Readers Browse for You - PC Magazine
Welcome to the 'new' Web, same as the 'old' Web - CNN

And as hinted to above, the feed for this site is http://stacysdesk.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Spiff