Where Am I?

You’re here, but you’re wondering just where “here” actually is. Or, more importantly, what “here” is. Well, “here,” it turns out, is a blog. But not just any blog. This is the Journyx Project Management Blog. And that means that the items you’ll see here will relate to Journyx, Inc., or project management, or both. Or, in some cases, neither. But in almost every case the stories, articles and links on this blog will relate to business issues that might matter to a forward-thinking, 21st century-type of business person like you.

OK, But what is a “blog”?

“You keep saying ‘blog’ – what does that mean?” you ask. Well, let’s see what the Wikipedia says:

A blog or weblog (derived from web + log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally, but not always, in reverse chronological order). Although most early blogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”. more

So, basically, a blog is a website featuring stories and articles, designed to be read from top to bottom, with the newest stuff right up at the top, so you don’t have to scroll down to see the latest news. In the end, this boils down to the point that this site, the Journyx Project Management Blog, is a website where you can see news about Journyx and find stories and articles relating to project management and other modern business issues. But the kicker is that instead of having to bookmark the site or remember the URL or schedule a time to visit us here every day to see what’s new, you can take advantage of our RSS feed of the content from this site and only swing by here when something interests you.

Hold on, I know what your next question is…

What is RSS?

One of the finer features of blogs is their ability to output a condensed version of their content in an XML-based format known as RSS. Several different folks have varying ideas of what the acronym RSS stands for, but for now we’ll opt for Really Simple Syndication. What’s important about RSS is that, as the New York Times puts it:

it lets individuals request the information when they want it. The R.S.S. readers can be set to check for news every few minutes or every few days – or turned off completely. If a topic or R.S.S. news feed about Donald Rumsfeld begins to bore you, all you have to do is delete the channel. And with today’s high-speed broadband connections, R.S.S. programs can scan for new items without hampering your work. They even work well over slower dial-up connections. more

It’s really a pretty neat implementation of XML as a way to reduce some of the online clutter we all face each day. RSS can speed things up, cut down on the number of sites you need to visit to get your news and generally make the web a nicer place to be. But to get the most out of RSS, you’ll need a way to view it.

Ways of viewing RSS feeds
At this point there are a whole bunch of different ways of viewing RSS feeds. There are stand-alone RSS reader applications – also known as “news aggregators” – too many to list here, but you can see a nice list of them at Wikipedia. There are also a number of web-based services that will display RSS information in your regular web browser. Big names like Yahoo!, Google, AOL and MSN are getting in on the act by allowing you to add RSS feeds to your home page at those sites. There are even mobile phone news aggregators, for the person on the go. And perhaps best of all, a number of web browsers (Mozilla, Safari and Opera, specifically) are starting to incoporate their own RSS reading features.

Finding RSS Content
With no shortage of ways to view RSS, all you need now are feeds to read. The obvious choice here, of course, is our very own Journyx Project Management Blog feed, which you can get just by clicking the RSS Feed link over there in the sidebar, under the “Meta” header. What you’ll really want to do is copy that link and then paste it into the reader of your choice. Or, if you’re using My Yahoo, Newsgator or bloglines, just click the button for your particular service and you’ll be on your way to adding us directly to your collection of RSS feeds. Either way, once you’ve added our feed to your reader, you’re set. As new stories and articles get posted to the Journyx Project Management Blog they’ll show up in your reader and you’ll know what we’ve got going on without even having to drop by the site. Of course, all this content lives here, still, so you’re more than welcome to drop by any time.

Oh, and just because we happen to think RSS is the bee’s knees (and think you will, too) we’d like to give you one last link: Syndic8, which is one of the premier places on the web to find RSS Feeds on a huge range of topics. After you’ve got a reader working and are ready for content, that’s the place to go.

So there you have it. Blogs and RSS in a nutshell. We hope you’ll add our feed to your reader of choice!