A while back I mentioned that I would make some posts about my favourite extensions (plug-ins) for the Firefox web browser. First off, if you still aren’t using Firefox, download it now!
My favourite extension has to be the news reader Sage. Simply put, if a web page that you visit frequently has syndication features, in the form of RSS or Atom feeds, you can add that feed to Sage and quicly read and search your favourite sites in a consistent format.
For instance, if you look to the left side-bar on my page, you’ll see that there is a link for RSS 2.0 – that’s the RSS feed for my site. If you install Sage into Firefox, you can then setup a folder in your Bookmarks (I call mine RSS) and put the link to my RSS feed in that folder as a bookmark. I’ve also added a Sage button to the top bar in my browser (it sits beside my Home button) that opens a side-panel for Sage listing all my RSS feeds. I can then quickly scan or search all my favourite websites each day without having to load up each page individually. I find the content much easier to read when it is shown with consistent formatting.
Here’s a list of some of my favourite RSS feeds – let me know in the comments section if you have any other good ones that you read regularly or if you have any problems getting Sage to work for you. I find it easiest to right-click on the feed, then click Copy Link Location. Then go into Sage and under Manage Feeds, and paste the link (ctrl+v) that you just copied into a New Bookmark.
Hoyd News Network, Scott Mills.ca, Slashdot, Engadget, Wired News, TSN
If you like this extension, stay tunded since I’m also preparing a post about how people have now started integrating audio into their RSS feeds and have these feeds automatically update on their iPod or other portable device – it’s called PodCasting and I’ll be writing more about it soon!