Aug 24, 2008
It’s Time For: Everything I Know About Technology I Learned From Reading Bossy.
Bossy has a friend who, for the sake of privacy, Bossy will call Perri because that is her name.
And this Perri emailed unto Bossy and said, “For the sake of privacy I will call you Bossy because you are. Also? I’d like to subscribe to your blog. But how?”
How?
Thankfully Perri directed that question to the right person, where right person equals Bossy (has no clue.) Let’s begin:
If you would like to subscribe to Bossy’s blog, then you should know they have these things called Readers. Readers are people who live in libraries with their noses in books. Readers are also subscription services that notify you when your favorite blogs are updated. Bossy thinks they notify you by email but she can’t be sure because she has never seen a Reader in her whole entire life.
But let’s turn our attention to something Bossy has seen:
Directly over there, in Bossy’s right hand column toward the bottom of the page, live the buttons you see pictured above—where buttons equal ill-sized links all the colors of a beach ball.
The first one is for Technorati. If you’d like to read Bossy’s poem about Technorati, click here. If you’d like to learn what Technorati is used for, click here, where here equals not here because Bossy has no idea what is useful about technorati.
Moving on, Bossy suggests you try clicking on the link below technorati which reads “Subscribe to this blog’s feed.” When you do, you will get the following list of options:
Bossy admits these are not actions in the classic sense—where actions equal tasks that require you to move muscles other than your index finger. She also doesn’t understand even one of the actions listed.
Speaking of index fingers, do you still want to subscribe to Bossy’s blog or not? Well then let’s try pushing the following Google button under “subscribe to this blog’s feed”:
When you click on that little Google icon — not the one pictured above but the one that lives in Bossy’s right column — you get the following:
And finally, let’s see what happens when we click the last of Bossy’s helpful links—this time the Yahoo link below the informative Google link:
And that, friends, is how you subscribe to Bossy’s blog. Any questions? Put your hand down, Bossy.
Sure, MyYahoo is my choice and they suck. But yet your blog comes up first when you search. Idiots.
(Note: this cannot be user-error, I’m just as clear on this as Bossy *and* I somehow got PW on MyYahoo page)
I am super talented in all things SUBSCRIBING, but I heart this tutorial just the same. And, I will follow it, although, as stated, I am super talented in all things SUBSCRIBING because I heart BOSSY even more.
Little Miss Sunshine State prefers to check Bossy’s blog at least 3 times a day, twice to see if there’s any new material and at least once later in the day to read all the fab and funny comments.
Little Miss Sunshine State has a LOT of time on her hands since payroll hours have been cut at work.
I nominate Bossy for Best Technical Blog at the 2009 Bloggies.
Jenn cannot fathom life without Google Reader.
Um, Bossy? I’m totally, like a wee bit more confused than before. But that’s just me.
Being the superiorly-intellected guy that I am, I quite reasonably and intelligently assumed that this was just a case of needing to be a Google or Yahoo reader user ALREADY for those buttons to work as subscription links. “Ho ho,” says-I, “I use Google Reader, and I am logged in, so I will click the Google button and watch the magic happen, even though I already have this subscription in my Reader. And then I will brag to Bossy about how I figured out the problem quite easily, taking only a couple of minutes out of my day to do so, and insist that she acknowledge both how smart I am and what a great favour I have granted her.”
Ho ho.
“Well, perhpas if I click it over and over again it will do something differently, eventually.”
Ho ho.
“Well, perhaps if I unsubsribe from Bossy’s website in Reader and THEN click the button it will work.”
Ho ho.
You win, mysteriously inoperant Google Reader button.
I so heart Bossy’s way with explanations. Perhaps she could explain the large metal plate covering the street in front of my house which arrived in the middle of the night, or the shooting of water from my commode while the City workers inserted orange hose in the manhole in front of my house.
Ah well, perhaps not after all.
Google Reader has made my blog reading one kajillion times easier (that’s a rough estimate).
Also, if you sign up with feedburner (handy url: feedburner.com), you will get one of those nifty little orange buttons that you can use in your sidebar that you can direct people to click on to subscribe. And those buttons are dreamy since they make subscribing very easy.
Not that you’re dying for subscribers (1,138 at last count by Google reader), but it is easier than all those other non-functional buttons you have.
Hmm…I didn’t know this existed. I just check my blogs at night all old-school like, using bookmarks.
I am intrigued.
Hmmm. I just copied bossy’s address and pasted it into my readers “add subscription” thingy. Viola!
But Bossy, this will keep me from obsessively checking your blog everyday to see if you’ve posted…. what then will I do? Do you mean for me to actually work?
Google Reader is my crack. And the little Greasemonkey thing from Firefox that allows you to VISIT IAMBOSSY.COM without navigating away from Google Reader (thereby giving the blogger a page hit without a ton of tabs in my browser), which allows you to leave comments, too? It’s my um…crack. No wait that’s Google Reader. It’s my SALVATION.
My techie skills gave out long ago. Though I did create a “Blog List” on the sidebar, to click away, whenever in the mood.
)
Another beautiful piece of photoshop art – after that, you lost me.
yea, i still do it da ol’ skool way and click on your blog link on my blog to shekk it out. works for me.
The Google button points to: “http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=“
It looks like it needs to be edited to add the feed at: “http://www.iambossy.com/i_am_bossy/atom.xml“
Does that help? No? Meh, I am still looking for a reader I like and am doing it the old-school way myself, so what do I know?
I hope that it pleases BOSSY to know that I’m not any more confused than I was before this tutorial.
I subscribe to Miz Bossy via Bloglines. It was painless and I haven’t been the same since. A little woozy, maybe.
Madness seconds Bossys nomination. and SEE I TOLD YOU Madness and Bossy were like *this* {does the crossed fingers thing to show you how close we are} .. just last night (not the night before) Madness clicked on her very first “subscribe via feed” linky button thing and Madness STILL had no clue what it was all about. Madness even had a dream about GoogleReader, YES WAY.
But now .. oh great Bossy one .. it all makes perfect sense.
Love,
Madness
~additionally~ did you know that Madness has officially *crossed the line* in that Madness is going to be late for work if she doesnt get up from Bossys blog *right now* but Madness wont do it .. because this is more important. Please send help.
Love,
Madness
Oh Hi .. its me, Madness.
So .. Madness thinks your google feed reader subscriber button is broken. It is not functioning properly..and while this was uber funny during your tutorial…its not so much when Madness is trying to add you to her feed reader thingy.
ok, love you, bye.
Madness
So glad to hear I’m not alone in my technical illiteracy.
There is so very little I know about in life. And Google Reader is/was one of them. I’m all over it now. Well, soon. After I finish READING.
clear as mud bossy.
Ok! uh, huh?
I did it! All I had to do was click on the first thing you said. “Subscribe to this blog’s feed.” Yay!
“And that, friends, is how you subscribe to Bossy’s blog. Any questions? Put your hand down, Bossy.”
I keep coming back to read your above sentence. I know, it doesn’t take much to amuse me and I chuckle each time I read it. Keep up the good work, Bossy.
I am like a Yorkshire Terrier during a thunderstorm in regards to all things technical, such as the above. Cowering under the bed until it goes away. I just check your site obsessively throughout the day in the hope that something new is there to entertain me. I wouldn’t dare try and link my favorite blogs to a feed, as I would probably delete all their archives accidentally in the process.
Me so confused. I’ll just go to “my favorites” and scroll down to iambossy, click on that and read your blog. Every day, like I do now.
Thank you Bossy. Because like Mrs. G. says “everything I learned about computers I learned from the Amish.”
A much easier way, at least for techno-challenged me, is to add your blog to my Window’s Favorites, then I can just click on it and VIOLA, not violin, there you are. Unfortunately, if I’m away from home and on another computer, I have to find your link through Google, because I am sick and twisted like that, that I HAVE to read you even when I’m away.
Okay, admittedly, I have no life. And now the internets know it.
It’s like trying to subscribe to AT&T’s wireless internet service.
Thank goodness you set us all straight.
Bossy, maybe next you could tackle Twitter – Chesapeake Bay Woman wants to know. Thanks.
Er…okay!
I use Bloglines as a reader and it’s much more Bossy-friendly. They give you a bookmark to put in your browser’s favorites, which reads “Sub via Bloglines.” Then it does the work for you and notifies you when Bossy’s got something new to laugh about until mashed potatoes shoot out your nose, as mine just did.
The My Yahoo button is broken. If you want to have Bossy’s blog feed (not food) show up on your My Yahoo page (which I already do) here are some basic instructions:
1. Log into your My Yahoo page
2. Click the Add Content button
3. Click Add RSS feed
4. Paste http://www.iambossy.com/i_am_bossy/index.rdf into the URL box and click Add
5. Wait for it to add it
6. Click I’m done
WTF? Omigod. Now I have to go stick my head in my Easy-Bake Oven.
I am simple and old-fashioned though an admitted New Media Douchebag. So if I were to subscribe to my favorite 436 blogs via a reader, the number of blogs I FAIL to read every day would increase exponentially in said reader, giving me for the first time a numerical expression of the failure I’ve become.
Also? A reader sounds like homework, which is anathema to me.
I am so relieved.
Can I just keep using the I ? BOSSY button on my sidebar? Pretty please?
I thought technorati was the official term for the martial-arts-like moves I put on my computer when, due exclusively to operator error, I can’t do any of the following: anything except type text onto my blog due to techno-idiocy.
I have a black belt in technorati, as defined above.
Oh, my — thanks for the laugh reading this. It’s so nice to see someone equally talented in the technology department.
And, hey, Bloglines makes subscribing pretty easy (http://bloglines.com — see “Feeds”). Even I could figure it out and that’s saying somethin’.
Thank you for not fully grasping the usefulness of Technorati…
Yet another thing we have in common.
X thanks Bossy for the lesson. X would also like to thank Bossy for bringing back the Dole-speak. As in Bob Dole. X doesn’t want to vote for Bob Dole, she wants to vote for Bossy.
X is signing off now.
Here is my little claim to fame:
That lovely young man in the Google Reader tutorial is a high school classmate of mine. He is wicked-smart, excessively talented musically and theatrically, and his first car was an orange & white 1950’s Buick with the shift on the steering wheel. We hung out. We were buds.
We kissed on stage once for a play. (No other hanky, though. Friends.)
Plus, I believe him to be single and retired (yes, retired) from Google. Go get ‘im ladies.
Go check out Bossy’s link!
Bossy… You’re awesome! There. I said it!
Good to know I’m not alone in thinking Technorati is fairly useless. Still, I signed up and occasionally (OK, fairly regularly) check my rating.