Blogging these days without an RSS Feed is like blogging before the 1990s. The only way people will know whether you have new posts would be to go directly to your site and wait for it everyday. Most readers don’t have such time and luxury to do that these days. Thus, the creation of the Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

In a nutshell, RSS is a godsend for those who wish to be updated on the latest news, events on their favorite website, without logging into the site. It’s also a great way for publishers to send out their information to a wide audience. This has changed the way people read the news i the internet these days, as it saves more time for them to scan over a lot of sites in one look.

In order for you to enjoy RSS you must have an RSS reader as well. There are a lot of readers in the internet, and all you need to do is google them. Have a grand time RSS’ing!

Here are certain easy and simple tools on your Mac and PC that can assist you in your web publishing endeavors. Pay attention and you may not need those swanky design soft wares out there. Said tools and a little programming know-how can save you some moolah.

Note Pad
This is the infamous default Windows text editor which is available on most Windows systems by clicking the Start button, then Program, and then Accessories. Its icon is a little blue notebook.

Note Tab Light
This can be a Note Pad substitute, but it can also be a very versatile text manipulation tool. It’s freeware and downloadable in many sites – such as the official one . It’s also very easy to use too.

Simple Text
This one is for Mac users as it is the default text editor of the Mac. Another option is the TextWrangler. Like the Note Tab light, it’s more powerful, versatile, and not to mention, free!

If you feel like importing, exporting, or merging your blogger-powered blogs, then you’re in for a treat:

The import/export feature opens up a whole new range of portability for your blogs, as well as allows for a few new options in the blog creation process. To get you started, we’ve rounded up a handful of ideas that can be done with importing and exporting:

* Merge two or more blogs into one. Have a few scattered blogs and want to get a fresh start? Now you can combine comments and posts from multiple blogs into a brand new blog.
* Move individual posts from blog to blog. Cross-publish your posts on multiple blogs, or transfer large batches of posts from one blog to another with a single click.
* Back up your blog to your own storage. It’s never a bad idea to create backup copies of your own content, and now you can easily export an archival copy of your blog to your hard drive with a simple tool.
* Move your blog somewhere else. Our standard Atom XML export format will open up new blogging channels between providers, and let you take your content with you should you decide to move somewhere else. And of course, if you decide to come back to Blogger, importing your export file will get you back up and running in seconds.

As of the moment, it’s only available for Blogger blogs.

Source

Image Source: wangtam.com

Widgets were created to simplify our tasks as bloggers. It often adds flavor to the over all blog site and it spices up even more with simple utilities. its really not surprising why everybody loves the widgets. You can keep track on your local weather by installing a weather report widget. There are a number of very useful widgets that serve as important factors in keeping your site fun and even profitable. Its up to your creative imagination, really. Here are some of the widgets that you must have to help you with a lot of things.

• Jaxtr is a widget that lets your visitor call you on your MOBILE PHONE while keeping your number private.
• 3Jam on the other hand, lets the guest of your site send an SMS to your mobile phone. Again it does not give away your phone number.
• Box Widget provides your visitors direct online storage through box.net

Image source: www.digitalphotoguides.com
Picasa is a delightfully easy way to organize, edit and share photos. It’s basic, yet goes beyond the basics of the basic photo editing software that is ususally bundled with a digital camera.

Advantages of Using Picasa
-Free!
-Easily upload images and video to Picasa Web Albums, free online web hosting.
-Beautiful and elegant interface including slideshow and timeline.
-Intuitive and straightforward navigation.
-Excellent set of easy-to-use editing tools and filters.

Robust set of features including labeling photos with keywords and star ratings, emailing images from within the program, Geotagging photos, creating videos, Photo CDs and backups, support for RAW files. It’s latest version has a slew of improvements and new features such as a Retouch tool to remove unsightly blemishes, face recognition with automatic red-eye removal, and the ability to add text and watermarks to photos.

Manually set the program to “watch” specified image folders on your computer hard drive.

Organize, rearrange and sync Picasa Web Albums from your desktop