Calling Chris Sells: I hate blogs that don’t work with Google Reader

by on November 26, 2006

One thing wrong with Chris Sells blog? I can’t find the RSS feed there and neither can Google Reader (which works remarkably well at finding feeds on most blogs).

Chris, that’s just lame for someone who is a developer, particularly one that is hip and using Vista (it has an RSS reader built in). It’s time for you to get a big feed icon and hook it up to your RSS feed.

Can someone go over to building 42, find Sells, and slap him upside the head?

Google Reader tip: I added a “subscribe” button to my toolbar. Here’s how you do that:

1) Open Google Reader (I do that by typing http://reader.google.com ).
2) Click “Settings” at the top of Reader’s page.
3) Click the Reader’s “Goodies” tab.
4) Drag the “Subscribe” link to your toolbar.

Unfortunately I can’t get that to work with IE 7, just with Firefox.

UPDATE:  I’ve noticed that the subscribe button doesn’t work consistently, but using the RSS icon in Firefox to subscribe to feeds does.

  • Uhhh...some folks (particularly developers) have more to do than work with their web blog. Blogging is cool -- but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't work with another one of Google's Borg applications.
  • Hello!

    There is a feed on the start page:
    http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/rss2.aspx

    Regards, Roman
  • If you open Sells Brothers in IE 7 the feed icon lights right up. besides the fact He provided rss links at the top of his page.
  • I noticed the same behavior with the "Subscribe ..." button and IE7. Since the subscribe button is just a bunch of JavaScript, it should be easy enough to wrap it in something palatable to IE7.

    I'm guessing some of the new security features in IE7 stopped this feature (bug?) - the ability to drag arbitrary JS to the toolbar - from working.
  • Jonathan
    Google Reader picks up the feed on the homepage just fine.
  • I agree with Robert. An RSS feed for the overall site is different from having an RSS feed on the blog page. If there's a way to subscribe to the Spout, I couldn't easily find it.
  • Hah! Talk about cooincidence I was having trouble finding the feed myself just this morning (was looking for updates on the new revision of his WPF book)
  • Rod: why write a blog if you don't care about the people who want to read it?
  • Dustin
    Why do you use the "subscribe" bookmarklet in Firefox? All you have to do is click the RSS button in the address bar to subscribe to any page you are on. Configured correctly it will add it to Google Reader.
  • Dustin: I just tried that, thanks. But it takes two clicks, where the subscribe button only takes one.
  • dyu
    You can changet hat setting under FF 2.0 in Tools->Options->Feeds "Subscribe to feed using.." and select Google.

    I'm not sure if there's actually any advantage over the bookmarklet though..
  • Sells Brothers shows up in Google Reader for me. I followed these steps:

    1. Log in to Google Reader.
    2. Clicked on the "Add subscription" link
    3. Typed the web site URL: "http://sellsbrothers.com" (no quotes)

    That's all it took for it to show up in my list of subscriptions.

    I've had a link to my feed on the front page of my site for years and it's supported auto discovery for years. How else is it supposed to work?
  • Chris: there's no feed showing at http://www.sellsbrothers.com/spout/ which is where I thought your blog was.

    The sellsbrothers.com one shows fine, but I can't be the only one who wants to subscribe straight from your blog.
  • The Spout page is where I dump random editorials. The Tools page is where I dump random tools. The Fun page is where I... you get the idea.

    My "blog" is the home page and contains links to my stuff elsewhere on my site as well links to stuff elsewhere on the web.

    In other words, if I were to provide an RSS feed for just the Spout page, you'd get very little of my actual blog postings.
  • Ahh, the dangers of having multiple blog-like pages. I found this page by doing a search for your name. If someone told me "subscribe to Chris Sells' blog" that's where I would have gone.
  • Sooooo, now that's cleared up, what's the status of the whole hitting Chris on the noggin thing?
    Is that go or no-go?

    Just wondering.

    There might be a crowd of frustrated RSS vigilantes wandering around Redmond even now looking to vent their righteous fury on harmless onlookers.

    Oh my God what horror have we unleashed?!!
  • Julian Birch
    If you do, please could you make sure it gets onto YouTube.
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