Bloglines VS Bookmarks

Okay, I premise this post with the following: I am not at all very experienced with the explosion of the web world. I live in my little corner of the universe and these are my opinions. If you are ultra-web savvy and my post offends from its inability to reach your uber-techno-officiousness, go read slash-dot and leave me alone.

So I signed up for bloglines, and yeah, might as well tell you as I realized (late in the game) that all of my preferences and blogs that I "subscribe" to are public knowledge. Good thing this was figured out before I joined the porn sites, eh? Just kidding random family members who read this. Not my style and you know it.

Bloglines is a great idea, but still kinda young in its execution. I don't like how it doesn't keep the blog-page's original style, believe it or not, I spend time making sure the words are working their way around a picture the right way (when there are pictures). Bloglines tends to spray them and the text willy-nilly enough to lose a word or a sentence; at times making the post incomprehensible. Sad. So I end up clicking and loading the blog page for ease of reading.

Then there's the fact that bloglines doesn't connect to the comments (or so I've heard others say, I actually haven't looked, so crucify my later, 'kay?). Part of the fun of reading some of my favorite blogs is reading what other people have to say. So I have to click onto the blog page anyway.

I have all the pages I stalk (far more than what's listed on my blog) in my bookmarks folder. And Firefox lets gives you the option of opening them all in tabs! A nightmare for my housemate as it's a good LOOOOONNNNNGGGG loading time should I choose to implement the option. Not to mention that Lappy might freeze and die in the middle of it as, well, she can only handle so much lately. But once loaded, the pages are all there in their glory. But it's ALL of them, not just the ones that have been updated, which reminds me...

Then there's when bloglines updates...I'm not at all sure they worked this out well. I'll update my page and then check bloglines and sometimes it's hours later than I see my link in bold. So using bloglines to keep me "on the pulse" of peoples' updates is not all that useful. Though, um, being on the pulse? Not all that necessary. I'm mostly reading knitting blogs, it's not as if it's a life or death situation here. Of course there's also the problem of bloglines missing updates (I read about this a while back, before I even knew what bloglines was), so soley depending on it for updates might leave you behind.

So what is faster and more convenient? I'm not sure. I haven't done any official tests. Bloglines is great for when I'm not in front of Lappy. I can fill my addiction elsewhere with minimal discomfort. Especially as I don't really want to type in my blog address in places where they might be monitoring such things (work) and might put me in some kind of awkward situation. I mean, there's NO WAY I'm gonna be bookmarking personal things on an almost public (work) terminal, that would be beyond silly.

I guess my biggest peeve about bloglines is that if someone soley uses bloglines to read my page, they're just reading black text on white screen. Any trouble I go through to make the page snazzy, they'll never know. Any updates to the sidebar? Lost, unless I point it out. Oh, and any "tracking" or "stats" (not that this is big on my list of "why I have a blog," mind, just an observation) is lost to the ether. You don't get counted unless you actually show up to the page.

So what's my bottom line? I've been using bloglines at home to see if it's worth it. As Lappy is on her last legs, as the "processor-heimers" creeps in, it's best to keep the processing to the minimum. Opening too many tabs at once is a strain on her. So I like the "only click on the blog that's been updated" option. That is less work, even if it involves waiting for an individual page to load each time instead of having them all load up at once. If I miss a post or 7, it's not gonna kill me...I guess I wish bloglines was more advanced than it currently is. Yup, that's what it is. When will the Star Trek universe finally show up? (Maybe that's why I'm procrastinating at buying a new computer...I get the feeling that as soon as I do, the "data-disks" and "palm-computers" will be shipping....urgh.)

Okay, if you're still reading you must love me. I'm signing off for now. Must pack. Or something.