Get email notifications whenever I post something new!

A few days back I was complaining about how Blogger should have the ability for all 3 of my regular readers to get an email whenever I post something new to my blog. I looked around on the Internet, talked to some people in the know, and found out that there ARE ways to do that. My friend Blake pointed me to some good possibilities, such as Yahoo Alerts.

But I didn't really love any of the available options, so I created one of my own. I called it "Blog Alert." So, you can now experience the sheer pleasure of receiving email updates every time I decide to share my wisdom.

To sign up:

1. Enter your email in the "Subscribe" form on the right. Or you can use this link.
2. Submit the form.
3. You'll get a confirmation email to make sure it's really you -- just click on the link in the confirmation email and you're ready to go!
4. You will get at most one email per day -- if there were any new posts that day, you will get an email with a summary of the posts; if there weren't any new posts that day, then you won't get anything.

You can also use Blog Alert to sign up for email notifications from other blogs and sites. Here is a list of popular feeds that you can try out. Or you can try one of my favorites (after clicking on the link, scroll down to "My other recommended RSS feeds").

And finally, if you have a blog of your own, you can add Blog Alert to your own site so people can get email notifications whenever you post something new. You just have to know the URL of the RSS feed for your site (which will vary depending on what blog service you're using). If you're using Blogger it's http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml. Once you figure out the RSS feed URL, you can get the HTML for your site here.

Enjoy! And please let me know what you think!

Caz and Z

As you may have heard, I won a recent contest for cutest niece and nephew in the world.

Don't believe it? You be the judge!

(Kodak will try to trick you into creating an account, but you don't need to. Click on the above link and then go to "View Photos without signing in" on the bottom right. The only reason you might want to create an account is if you want to save the album for future viewing.)

(Yes I know flickr is better. But I don't feel like paying the $25 a year, as of yet...)

(No, I don't mind if you skip this section if you aren't in my family. :)

I know you want to subscribe to this blog... but how?

OK, I figured that a lot of you (i.e. my mom) would want to get notified by email whenever I posted something new to this site. And I figured that that would be pretty standard functionality.

Well, it looks like I figured wrong! I can't find anything about email notifications for blogger posts. If anyone out there knows how to do it, PLEASE let me know, nate _at_ lunchclub _dot_ com.

So I guess RSS is the only way to subscribe to my infinite wisdom. For those of you geek-tech-com-soft types, my RSS feed is:
http://natetanner.blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you're new to RSS, it's a way to get all your news and other publications of interest aggregated, using an (aptly named) "aggregator," such as Feed Reader (which is free, and the one I use).

(If you aren't already in the RSS game, then it would be a silly idea to sign up just for my feed. I'm pretty sure that I won't post to this blog often enough to make it worth the time. But if you're already an RSS person then it can't hurt.)

My other recommended RSS feeds:

1. The most popular sites that people have bookmarked:
   http://del.icio.us/rss/popular
   
   
2. The most "dugg" tech news and tidbits:
   http://digg.com/rss/index.xml
   
   
3. All that Web 2.0 craziness:
   http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch
   
   
4. The sports guy!
   http://search.espn.go.com/keyword/search? searchString=bill_simmons& page=espn&filter=null&feed=rss
   

Enjoy!

Shawn Marion at the car wash!

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while, and today seemed like a good "journal entry day."

After dropping my roommate off at the airport this morning, I went to Danny's Car Wash. (I had a voucher for a free car wash, since my company, DineSmart, has been doing some advertising trade with Danny's.) As I was in line at the carwash, I heard some old guy behind me say "So, are you guys going to take 'em tonight?" and I looked back, and he was talking to Shawn Marion!

I didn't say anything at that point, but when I went out to the parking lot (where they dry the cars) to pick up my car, there was Shawn again, so I sat down by him. I made some small talk, and then said, "So how's Amare doing?" At that point I think he might have grimaced a little, as in "Hey I'm an All Star, I'm CARRYING this team, stop asking about Amare!" But then he answered "He's coming back tonight." I said, "Wow, I guess I should read the paper. That's big!" Shawn sort of shrugged.

So then we sat there for a minute or two. Everyone that walked by would say hello to Shawn or nod or wave or smile shyly. I felt like I was sitting by Vito Corleone in the Godfather with everyone coming to kiss his hand. So I said "Shawn, let me ask you, does it ever get old having everyone recognize you everywhere you go?" He said "Hey, if I didn't want to be recognized I should have gone into something besides basketball." I said, "Yeah, or you shouldn't have been so good at it." He nodded, and went on to talk about how it's all good and positive to have people like you, but sometimes you don't want to be bothered, but if you come to a public place like a carwash without bodyguards or anyone to provide a buffer zone, then you have to expect people to talk to you and be cool with it.

Then one of the car wash minions came over and gave Shawn a quick bow to indicate that his car was ready. (For everyone else, they yell out something unintelligible from across the parking lot, but NBA players get a little special treatment, even at a car wash). Shawn said something like, "Hey, later man" and was gone.

So there you go. Shawn Marion -- nice guy, clean car. Go Suns.