Thursday, February 10, 2011

Help! I'm still clueless....

Thank you all so much for helping my clueless self out - but I clearly need remedial training!!!

I'm not sure I even knew the dashboard existed, though it is ringing some distant bell... but that's a whole different story.

I've now gone to the dashboard and it mostly looks like google reader.  It seems to show the most recently updated posts first, and it has an alphabetical listing of all the blogs on the left - this is a great place becuase I know I've followed a few blogs but then forgotten to add them to my roll and until I trip over that blog again I'm out of luck. 

But it only shows the first paragraph or so of each post before it moves onto the next post and in order to read the rest of the post it seems I have to click the title of the post which then opens up the whole blog in a different window - just as if I'd clicked it from my blog roll.  I'm hoping to avoid actually going to the colorful blogs (or at least have that option when I'm not doing what I should be doing at work).  Am I missing how to use the Dashboard most effectively - or does it in fact just open the entire blog in order to be able to read the rest of the post.

Thanks for your continued support of this dense little girl.

6 comments:

LDswims said...

Ok, I use reader, used to use dashboard and sometimes still do.

Here's the thing with reader. As you scroll through the blogs, it will mark them as read for you, so it's much easier to keep track of what's new and what's already read - once you get it caught up.

Reader only keeps a months worth of blogs in the "unread status" so while you have 4 million right now, you probably really have 60 gazillion. Those 4 million are literally the last 30 days.

If you scroll down on the left side under subscriptions, you can click on specific blogs to see just those blogs. If you know you are looking for something from Joey, find her over there and limit what you are scrolling through that way.

You can adjust your settings in reader so that you are looking at newest at the top or oldest at the top, depending on what you are after.

You can also go ahead and mark all as read so that only new ones show up as unread for you. For me, that works out to usually about 100 a day.

Reader is great when 1) you get used to it, and 2) you get it caught up with where you really are. As I scroll through it marks em as read, like I said, but I can also click the title to get to the blog to leave a comment. Since I don't comment 100% of the time, I don't really need to open 100% of the blogs - and having to do that with dashboard used to leave me with massive memory problems with my work computer.

I hope this helps.

Jacquie said...

Also, I think you were so much less clueless when Ricky was visiting... think she needs to come back for an extended stay!

Anonymous said...

I've never used the Google Reader, so I'm clueless about that. (Looks like LD gave you some great advice though). I always go through my Dashboard to read blogs. :)

Anonymous said...

Hey Read. Yep, you have to click the post title link to open a new window and read the entire post and leave a comment. I only follow 25 or so blogs, so it doesn't take me very long to go through them, but if you read a bunch more than that, then the Google Reader might be an easier option. :)

Jess said...

I prefer using the dashboard. I think I tried google reader once but I didn't care for it. And yes, from the dashboard to view the full post you must click on the post title and the entire blog opens in a new window.

Stephanie M. said...

I love Google Reader. I do tech support for old people for their "I've fallen and I can't get up" button, so I'm sure it would be a breeze to teach you how to use Google Reader if you want to email me your number and set up a time for me to call you, I'll be happy to walk you through it.