Thursday, August 27, 2009

Get Write Stuff news delivered to your desktop!

Welcome to "All The Write Stuff," the blog that will keep you up to date on new developments about The Write Stuff 2010, the 17th annual conference of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group! We're  eager to tell you what we have in store. But first, some technical stuff for those of you who would like to receive updates without having to type http://glvwgwritersconference.blogspot.com into your browser each time you want to see if we've posted something new.

Anyone can do this
You can bookmark the blog just like you would any web page so you can return to it with just one click. But wait: Joan knew something about the conference before you did! How did she find out...

Mac Users
Just so happens that Joan is on a Mac. If you are too, and are using Safari as your web browser, Safari has a built-in RSS reader. RSS = Real Simple Syndication. Our blog is set up to provide an RSS feed that Safari can receive; you'll know this has happened when you type our blog address into the Safari browser and see the RSS icon on the right side of the address bar. (Wait--you're there right now--see the icon?)
     1. If you click on that icon you'll see a new page with your list of feeds in it (if you've never used it before, there won't be any). This is the RSS page. If you want to keep up-to-date with all the latest Write Stuff news, scan the options in the right-hand sidebar of this RSS page for "bookmark this page." In the bookmarks dialogue box that comes up, you can choose to put the RSS feed right in your bookmarks bar. Then, as new updates occur, Safari will display the number of unread posts next to the bookmark. When you're at your computer and notice that a new feed has been added, click on the bookmark icon and the feed page will drop down so you can start reading.
     2. If you use Apple Mail you can get the feed to show up under "RSS" in your sidebar on that page, if you prefer. You can set that up from the same RSS page you had open in step "a" above. Simply select "Subscribe in Mail" from the action list and the blog feed will be added to the list of RSS feeds at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar.
     3. Confused? Here's a handy link that will explain things better if you need more help establishing your feed, or if you'd like to know more about how to customize your Safari RSS page.

PC Users
But Frank wants to follow, too, and he's on a PC! If you are too, and use Internet Explorer, the feed icon looks different but the process is quite similar. Here's a brief article that explains the specifics. There are too many PC mail programs to give instructions on how to add an RSS or Atom feed to them all. Consult the help menu in your e-mail program to see if there's a way to get the feed to show up there.

Already using a feed reader?
If you use one of the popular news aggregators on your home page, such as My Yahoo!, Google Reader, or Newsgator, or if you already follow blogs on services such as Bloglines or Netvibes, you can add a subscription to this blog through the "Subscribe" button on the left sidebar of this blog page. Alternatively, clicking on the "Atom" button should take you to your browser's feed page, where you can add the subscription as per the Mac and PC instructions above.

If you are already using a type of feed reader not listed above, type in either of the following two URLs to add this blog's feeds to your list:

 Atom 1.0: http://glvwgwritersconference.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default 
~OR~
RSS 2.0: http://glvwgwritersconference.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

That should do the trick. Whew! Can you tell yet how very much we want to keep in touch? Now we can get on to the fun stuff—The Write Stuff! We've got all sorts of things we are eager to share, including conference news updates, presenter interviews, deadline reminders, that all-important list of agents and editors, and conference tips. And by following your choice of the above instructions, that info will get delivered right to your desktop as it becomes available.

Thanks for joining us, and let the countdown begin--140 days until registration opens!