RSS and Atom feeds allow you to syndicate your blog and for others to search, read, and keep updated on your postings without visiting your blog. If you've got many friends, it can become difficult to stay updated on their blog postings. Using a feed reader can help.

Probably the easiest to use and most readily available feed reader for everyone is Internet Explorer 7. If you haven't moved to IE7, then you should; or at least run Firefox as well. Both provide feed readers, however, IE7 provides a few more perks to those running Windows Vista.

Using Your Browser as a Feed Reader

Start by clicking on a feed category link on the blog that you enjoy reading. This links to the atom feed of that blog. IE7 and Firefox will know how to parse this ATOM document and will offer you the opportunity to subscribe to the blog. Other browsers on the market also support this functionality, but the process for all of them is pretty much similar.

After subscribing, that blog's feed will be bookmarked in your browser. You can return to it via your bookmarks. In IE7, click on the yellow star icon, and then the orange rss feed icon. All your subscribed feeds will be there. You may want to take the opporunity to delete and feeds you don't want that Microsoft dumped in there. When viewing a feed in IE7, you can then search the feed or filter it by category. Unlike the main blog site, the blog feed will be displayed in an unstyled format.

Using the Feed Gadget in Windows Vista

After you have subscribed to a feed via Internet Explorer 7 on Vista, it will become available to other applications within the operating system. One of them is the Windows Sidebar. On your Windows Sidebar, click "Add Gadgets..." to display your install gadgets window. Drag the Feed Headlines gadget over to your sidebar. It will then begin to list posts from your subscribed feeds

The Feed Headlines is an easy way to stay up-to-date on your favorite blogs. It will even allow you briefly skim the post to see if you want to go visit the blog to read more. Or, you can even read the post right there without even visiting the blog.

Using Windows Live Mail Desktop for Feed Reading

Subscribing to a feed in Internet Explorer 7 also makes it available to Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Windows Live Mail Desktop. Windows Live Mail Desktop is still under beta, but its simple, free, and easy to use. You will find that this application has many features for managing and perusing your favorite feeds. Including everything you've come to appreciate from reading your email.

Microsoft Windows Live Mail Desktop supports authoring blog entries and posting them, but only for your Windows Live Space. Microsoft Word 2007 is a little more versatile, but I've yet to find a way to get it to post to our Apache Roller server.

Many other Feed Readers exist, post a comment on readers you've tried and what you like about them.