This entry should actually be filed under “housekeeping,” but since I don’t have that as a category we’ll just leave it under General Thoughts. It’s something that I was finally able to figure out how to do, so I want to pass it along. I might even add it as a sidebar instruction since it doesn’t seem to be intuitive.

The topic is how to add this blog to your RSS reader. Those who are into the whole Web 2.0 thing are probably familiar with RSS readers. They are tools that let you aggregate the content from various blogs in a single place so you can see what’s out there and decide whether to read it. (Hopefully the answer is always “yes” for Life in the Fastpitch Lane.) Google Reader, My AOLand Yahoo! are three examples. Bloglines is another.

In the past I’ve tried to add the buttons in the sidebar that make it simple, but it hasn’t worked. I’ve also tried using their tools, but when I entered the URL for this blog I received an error message.

Yesterday I figured it out. What you have to do (assuming you have an account with one of the services) is click on the button that lets you add a feed, then come to Life in the Fastpitch Lane, click on the type of feed you want, then copy and paste THAT URL into the feed reader.

Here’s an example from Google. On the Google home page, go to the top and click on the link to More. In the left hand column there is a button that says + Add subscription. Click on that, and it will give you a box that tells you to find feeds or paste in the URL. With me so far?

Now come to Life in the Fastpitch Lane. In the right hand column there is a section labeled Syndicate. Click on your choice (Entries RSS 1.0, Entries RSS 2.0, etc.). The page will change and there will be a new URL at the top of the page. Copy that and paste it into the box on Google. Once you’ve done that your feed reader will start showing the latest entries.

I haven’t tried it on the others yet but I will. If there is anything different to do I will let you know. But I know it definitely works with Google.