Web Productivity: Browse Several Bloglines Folders at Once
I love Bloglines.com. It's my favorite tool for tracking my online inbox of interesting, useful or entertaining web posts. I have over 400 feeds in my account including all of my blog feeds, webcomics, news sites and podcasts. My current total count is 4,054 unread posts and 258 items marked "keep new". It can take a while to process a folder with 150 posts in it, even when I'm skimming and only reading the ones that look interesting.
Sometimes, I want to take a break from reading tech news to read a webcomic. Sometimes I want to listen to a podcast while I work and then pause it while I check out the new entry from a friend's blog. The problem comes in when you click on a different folder or feed than the one being displayed. Doing so causes the entries you were looking at get marked "read" and are deleted from your account whether or not you were finished with them.
I've discovered the easiest way to skip around my feeds without loosing my open entries is to leave the folder I'm on open in one window or tab and just spawn a new empty page in my browser and load Bloglines.com into it. I can navagate to whatever else I want to look at on one page and return to the other page whenever I feel like it.
When I finish with one feed or folder I can either load another into it or close it. Being able to skip between several folders or feeds really keeps the larger ones from feeling like forced marches that have to be done all at once. This trick works with any browser and lets you treat Bloglines.com like a buffet you can pick and choose from instead of a TV that only plays one channel at at time.
Another great way to use this trick is to have one instance open that you can use for account management. If I find an article that turns me onto a new site or feed I want to subscribe to, I'll just add it here without loosing my place. I can also use it to rearrange feed or add folders without loosing what I'm sifting through in the other windows. Enjoy!
