Daily WordPress Tips
Advice to improve your WordPress blog or site.

Part 5 of my pre-season post covers Google Reader and its features and settings for the 30 Day Challenge in 2008 followed by a checklist of action items.

Google Account, Google Reader and its Features and Settings

1. Go to Google Reader and sign up for a Google Account (if you don’t have on) or log in to your existing Google Account.
2. Set Google Reader as the default RSS feed reader by following step 1 of my post on Pre Season Part 2 - The Flock Browser Settings.
3. Add www.tubbynerd.com and www.thirtydaychallenge.com/blog/ to Google Reader by clicking the orange RSS icon (highlighted in red).
   
   
4. Add Ed and Dan’s Twitter feeds to Google Reader
5. Add Twitter search on 30 Day Challenge to your Google Reader and add this also to your Search Elsewhere list on your Flock browser (highlighted in red).
   
   
6. Within Google Reader, view the feeds by clicking “All Items” link and viewing it as a list (highlighted in red).
   
   
7. Click any of the headlines to expand it. Add Star (highlighted in red) allows you to access all starred items via the Starred Items link, sharing wit or without a note (highlighted in blue), you can email the post to a friend, mark it as unread or add tags for easy searching (highlighted in green).
   
   
8. Click on the “Settings” link and leave the “Preferences” as default. Next click the “Subscriptions” link where each feed can be renamed (highlighted in red), a folder or tag can be added to a feed(s) (highlighted in blue), feeds can be filtered by tags or folders (highlighted in green) and feed(s) can be deleted (highlighted in yellow).
   
   
9. Click on the “Folders and Tags” link and you’ll see a list of your folders and tags to be managed. Familiarize yourself with the various options.
   
   
10. Click on the “Goodies” link and it gives you options to Add Reader to your Google Personalized Homepage, Put Reader in a bookmark, Use Reader on your phone and Subscribe as you surf. Familiarize yourself with the various options.
11. Click on the “Import/Export” link and you’ll be able to import or export your current feeds in OPML format. This is useful for moving from another provider like BlogLines. For example, from BlogLines within the My Feeds page, click the Edit link at the top of the left panel. There will be a link to export your subscriptions in OPML format. This OPML file can be imported into Google Reader.

Action Items for Google Account, Google Reader and its Features and Settings

1. Signup for Google Account.
2. Set Google Reader as the default RSS feed reader in the Flock browser.
3. Add 30 Day Challenge RSS and Twitter feeds into Google Reader.
4. Familiarize yourself with the features and settings of Google Reader.