Skip to main content

Are you really really really sure you want to unsubscribe?

Nope this isn't a post about gaming but about blogging or rather about using a reader to subscribe to other folks blogs.

Up to about a year ago I didn't bother with a reader, I just had a folder of favourites stored in Firefox and a single right click opened the whole lot in tabs. This became unwieldy when the number of blogs I keep an eye on went much into double figures so I started to use a reader service to simplify things.

Without doing any research I plumped for Google reader because it seemed to be easy to use and because it appeared to integrate seamlessly into Blogger and into my iGoogle home page.

It works pretty much as advertised. Each day I log in see a list of recent blog posts, so far so good. Problems arise however when I try to do a bit of maintenance. I go into Google reader and am presented with a list of my subscriptions. I hit the "manage subscriptions button" and proceed to add new blogs and remove those which I no longer wish to follow. The list is updated and all seems good. However when I come back the next day I find that not all my changes have been remembered. The new blogs I add are there all right but the ones I trim refuse to go away. The list keeps growing and growing and I can never permanently un-subscribe to any blogs!

My current working hypothesis is that this arises because the integration between Blogger, Google Reader and iGoogle is not as good as it should be and that deleting a blog from Google reader does not remove it from the other two spots and they in turn add the deleted blog back into Google reader on next log in. Its like a self replicating computer virus. I am going to test this hypothesis by manually deleting all occurrences of a blog in each place and see if I can finally unsubscribe to something.

Comments

Starburn said…
I use netvibes.com - also an online reader, but no problems to report so far unsubscribing and the like - would recommend taking a look :)
mbp said…
Thanks Starburn, I will look into it.

Deleting the blogs everywhere did work in the end by the way. Its just a tedious thing to ave to do.

Popular posts from this blog

My First Gaming Mouse: Logitech G300

I bought a gaming mouse yesterday a Logitech G300, here my initial thoughts. What is a gaming mouse?  There are a wide variety of devices available classified as gaming mice but a few features  seem common: 1. Wired rather than wireless: Although some high end models are wireless wired connections are just better and faster than wireless so most gaming mice stick with wired. As a bonus wired mice don't need batteries so the mouse is lighter.  2. High response rate: 1 to 2ms response rate so the mouse immediately responds to input.  2. High DPI. Gaming mice invariable boast high DPI numbers from 2,000 DPI upwards. This makes the device very responsive to the smallest movements.   3. Adjustable DPI . High DPI improves responsiveness but reduces precision so gaming mice generally allow you to adjust the DPI down for precise work such as pulling off headshots in sniper mode. Generally the mouse allows dpi to be changed on the fly by pressing a button.  4. Extr

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p

Return to New Eden and a Secret Confession

I feel a growing temptation to return to EVE but having been away from mmos for quite a while I am not quite ready to resubscribe.  Instead I started a disposable character on a free trial to test my resolve.  Knowing that this character will be thrown in the bin in a couple of weeks is actually quite liberating. Freed from the fear of gimping my character I feet no necessity to min max anything. I picked a Gallente because I think they have cool looking spaceships and went from there. First obvious change since I last played is being able to walk around my Captain's quarters. Its a nice idea but hardly a game changer. Can you decorate your quarters I wonder and if so do these home improvements move around with you wherever you go? The second obvious change is the much improved tutorial. I managed to make it through the first steps introduction without having to resort to on-line help or the  chat channel which is a first for me in EVE. Even better once you have finis