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export TITLE="How to subscribe to joeac's blog"
export DESCRIPTION="How to subscribe to joeac's blog"
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<section>
<h1>How to subscribe to my logs</h1>

<p>
The short version: use my <a href='/blog/rss.xml'>blog RSS feed</a> and
<a href='/microlog/rss.xml'>microlog RSS feed</a>, or my
<a href='gemini://joeac.net/logs/loglog.gmi'>gemlog</a>.
</p>

<p>
If neither of those things means anything to you, no worries. You could just
look at my website every once in a while, but that gets old. A better way is to
use my RSS file. Here's how.
</p>

<p>
An RSS file, if you don't know, is a file containing a list of posts in a format
that's so stupid even computers can understand it. Mine is at
<a href='https://joeac.net/rss.xml'>https://joeac.net/rss.xml</a>,
and I've also got one for just my blog posts at
<a href='https://joeac.net/blog/rss.xml'>https://joeac.net/blog/rss.xml</a>,
and one just for microlog posts at
<a href='https://joeac.net/microlog/rss.xml'>https://joeac.net/microlog/rss.xml</a>.
Since computers can understand it, you can get software to read it automatically
and tell you when I've made a new blog post. That's much less hassle than having
to check manually yourself!
</p>

<p>
I'm not the only person serving RSS files, of course. You might not have heard
of them, but they're actually all over the Web. In the early days of the Web,
everyone was using them, so they've ended up built in to a whole load of
foundational Web technology, and hence ubiquitous, even if most Web users have
forgotten they exist. Once you've subscribed to my logs, you can subscribe to
basically any blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, and a lot of other Websites for
news, organisations, whatever. Point a well-designed RSS aggregator or RSS
reader at most Websites, and it'll automatically find an associated RSS feed.
</p>

<p>
If you're not persuaded, try reading
<a href='https://doctorow.medium.com/you-should-be-using-an-rss-reader-76aed31151f9'>
Cory Doctorow explaining why RSS is ridiculously good
</a>. He's terrifyingly persuasive. Also, read his novels!
</p>

<p>
If you just want to give it a go quickly, probably the quickest way is to
use someone else's RSS aggregator that they'll let you use as a service.
<a href='https://feedly.com/news-reader'>Feedly</a> and
<a href='https://www.inoreader.com'>Inoreader</a> have free tiers.
</p>

<p>
If you want to have a little more control, you can self-host an RSS
reader, like <a href='https://tt-rss.org'>Tiny Tiny RSS</a>,
<a href='https://miniflux.app'>Miniflux</a>, or
<a href='https://freshrss.org'>FreshRSS</a>. But why would you do that?
Self-hosting is complicated! Why not just use a normal, local app? Here are
some options for that you might want to investigate. All these are active
free and open-source software projects at the time of writing.
</p>

<ul>
<li><a href='https://hyliu.me/fluent-reader'>Fluent Reader</a> (Linux, Windows, Mac, also mobile I think?)</li>
<li><a href='https://www.rssowl.org'>RSSOwl</a> (Linux, Windows, Mac)</li>
<li><a href='https://capyreader.com'>Capy Reader</a> (Android)</li>
<li><a href='https://apps.kde.org/en-gb/akregator'>Akregator</a> (Linux, Windows (unstable))</li>
<li><a href='https://gfeeds.gabmus.org'>GFeeds</a> (Linux)</li>
<li><a href='https://lzone.de/liferea'>Liferea</a> (Linux)</li>
</ul>

<p>
For the terminally geeky, there is also
<a href='https://newsboat.org'>Newsboat</a>. I used it for ages, it works
fabulously, but it's all in the terminal, so you have to be OK with that.
</p>

<p>
You can also just enter 'RSS feed reader' into your favourite search
engine, software distribution, or app store and see what comes up. Try
adding 'FOSS' into the query to prioritise free, open-source software.
</p>
</section>
