EchoDitto Blog

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March 7, 2008 - 10:53am

Well, you may not know this, but I'm quite the baker and crafter. My parents call me "Martha, Jr." I've been supplying the DC office with sugar cookies for the last 18 mos and I have to say no one has complained. Although Ben is quite the cook as well - he's definitely challenging me for the title of "office baker." Where am I going with all this?

Well recently I haven't had a whole lot of time to spend doing the crafty things that I like to and then, like a beam of light down from the sky, I discovered an RSS link on the food network site. It struck me! I don't have to just monitor news, friends, craigslist with my RSS reader - I can monitor food blogs, recipes and crafy magazines too!!!! [insert sound of angels singing]

I'm not really sure why all of this didn't occur to me earlier. I think I've gotten so stuck in the routine of monitoring work stuff over the last 3 years with RSS that I didn't realize the fun folks had finally caught onto RSS in the last year or so. This has definitely inspired me to make some time for being crafty. Some of my favorite finds are on del.icio.us if you're curious. And if you don't know what I'm talking about with all this RSS mumbo jumbo, watch this video, it's great:

So, being that I'm an internet strategist - longtime fan of crafty bastards - and just now having the aforementioned epiphany, it should be no surprise that I'm also just now hopping on board the etsy train. I'm amazed by the breath and strength of the community surrounding handmade crafts - what a great resource. In the first week, I've gotten personal tips on selling products from another local etsy fan and have even placed my first order. And to think, I can thank my RSS reader for all of this!

( categories: Technology | Weblogs )

Hey Cristen

Talking of Food and RSS...check out www.alertle.com, a new web-based RSS feed reader (I'm one of the geeks behind it). When you signup for it (which takes a few seconds and is free), "Food" is one of the pre-subscribed feed bundles which you get, which already contains about 60 top-food related feeds.

Some interesting features of Alertle include:
- Feeds are represented by desktop-like icons
- Autoplay - its like a slideshow of articles. Saves a lot of clicking.
- Intuitive keyboard shortcuts (use up/down arrows to move between articles)

Hope you like it :)

Submitted by Varun Mathur on March 7, 2008 - 3:41pm.