92 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
92 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
#!
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PAGE="$1"
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SITE_URL="$2"
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export TITLE="How to subscribe to joeac's blog"
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export DESCRIPTION="How to subscribe to joeac's blog"
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#!
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<section>
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<h1>How to subscribe to my logs</h1>
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<p>
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The short version: use my <a href='/blog/rss.xml'>blog RSS feed</a> and
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<a href='/microlog/rss.xml'>microlog RSS feed</a>, or my
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<a href='gemini://joeac.net/logs/loglog.gmi'>gemlog</a>.
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</p>
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<p>
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If neither of those things means anything to you, no worries. You could just
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look at my website every once in a while, but that gets old. A better way is to
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use my RSS file. Here's how.
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</p>
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<p>
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An RSS file, if you don't know, is a file containing a list of posts in a format
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that's so stupid even computers can understand it. Mine is at
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<a href='https://joeac.net/rss.xml'>https://joeac.net/rss.xml</a>,
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and I've also got one for just my blog posts at
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<a href='https://joeac.net/blog/rss.xml'>https://joeac.net/blog/rss.xml</a>,
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and one just for microlog posts at
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<a href='https://joeac.net/microlog/rss.xml'>https://joeac.net/microlog/rss.xml</a>.
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Since computers can understand it, you can get software to read it automatically
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and tell you when I've made a new blog post. That's much less hassle than having
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to check manually yourself!
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</p>
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<p>
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I'm not the only person serving RSS files, of course. You might not have heard
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of them, but they're actually all over the Web. In the early days of the Web,
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everyone was using them, so they've ended up built in to a whole load of
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foundational Web technology, and hence ubiquitous, even if most Web users have
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forgotten they exist. Once you've subscribed to my logs, you can subscribe to
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basically any blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, and a lot of other Websites for
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news, organisations, whatever. Point a well-designed RSS aggregator or RSS
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reader at most Websites, and it'll automatically find an associated RSS feed.
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</p>
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<p>
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If you're not persuaded, try reading
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<a href='https://doctorow.medium.com/you-should-be-using-an-rss-reader-76aed31151f9'>
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Cory Doctorow explaining why RSS is ridiculously good
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</a>. He's terrifyingly persuasive. Also, read his novels!
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</p>
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<p>
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If you just want to give it a go quickly, probably the quickest way is to
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use someone else's RSS aggregator that they'll let you use as a service.
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<a href='https://feedly.com/news-reader'>Feedly</a> and
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<a href='https://www.inoreader.com'>Inoreader</a> have free tiers.
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</p>
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<p>
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If you want to have a little more control, you can self-host an RSS
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reader, like <a href='https://tt-rss.org'>Tiny Tiny RSS</a>,
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<a href='https://miniflux.app'>Miniflux</a>, or
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<a href='https://freshrss.org'>FreshRSS</a>. But why would you do that?
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Self-hosting is complicated! Why not just use a normal, local app? Here are
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some options for that you might want to investigate. All these are active
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free and open-source software projects at the time of writing.
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href='https://hyliu.me/fluent-reader'>Fluent Reader</a> (Linux, Windows, Mac, also mobile I think?)</li>
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<li><a href='https://www.rssowl.org'>RSSOwl</a> (Linux, Windows, Mac)</li>
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<li><a href='https://capyreader.com'>Capy Reader</a> (Android)</li>
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<li><a href='https://apps.kde.org/en-gb/akregator'>Akregator</a> (Linux, Windows (unstable))</li>
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<li><a href='https://gfeeds.gabmus.org'>GFeeds</a> (Linux)</li>
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<li><a href='https://lzone.de/liferea'>Liferea</a> (Linux)</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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For the terminally geeky, there is also
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<a href='https://newsboat.org'>Newsboat</a>. I used it for ages, it works
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fabulously, but it's all in the terminal, so you have to be OK with that.
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</p>
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<p>
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You can also just enter 'RSS feed reader' into your favourite search
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engine, software distribution, or app store and see what comes up. Try
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adding 'FOSS' into the query to prioritise free, open-source software.
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</p>
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</section>
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