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Tech-Knowledgy: RSS Feeds, Memory and Google Recipes!

The estimated reading time for this post is 4 minutes

Welcome back to Tech-Knowledgy, where I answer your questions about tech. I continue to get many great questions from readers and I am posting the questions and answers below so others can learn and/or respond. Feel free to post your tech questions in the Comments section or email me at [email protected].

Q. I really have been enjoying reading your blog and I want to subscribe so I can get emails when there is a new article, but I am a little confused. I put my cursor on that orange square with stripes next to the About button, and it said Subscribe to The Wonder of Tech RSS. I clicked on it and then I went to a screen where your blog looks really different. What is RSS and how do I subscribe to your blog?

A. I am very glad you are enjoying the blog. Here is how to subscribe so you receive an email when I post a new article:

– On the sidebar, under my picture, is a place to enter your email address.

– Type in your email address and click Subscribe

– You will get a confirmation email from [email protected] with a link in the email.

-Click on the link to confirm your subscription.

You will then receive an email notification when a new article is posted to The Wonder of Tech.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is how you can easily get news feeds to post to a web page, such as My Yahoo or Google Reader, so you don’t have to search the web for updated articles. RSS readers are a great way to keep with your favorite blogs and news sites.

Here is a You Tube video that explains RSS well. Two warnings about the video: first, he goes fast so you may need to watch the video more than once to follow along. Second, he does use one term you may not be familiar with – URL. That is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator, which is the address of a web page. It’s what you see in the address bar above.

Other than those two warnings, this is a great video to help you understand RSS:

Q. What is the difference between memory and hard drive? I have an old computer that has plenty of space left on it, but it loads web pages very slowly. Someone told me I need more memory for my computer but I don’t know what that is.

A. Many people get confused between computer memory and hard drive space. In fact, I was listening to a tech expert earlier this week talk about the two and he accidentally confused the terms in his talk. He realized his error and quickly corrected himself, but the two terms can be confusing.

Think of hard drive space on your computer as shelves in a library. Your files, such as pictures, music, documents, video, software, etc., are like the books that fill up those library shelves. The bigger your hard drive space, the more files you can store on your computer.

Memory is the space used for the files you have open on your computer. If you are someone who has a lot of windows or tabs open on your computer at one time, listening to music on your computer while you surf the web, you need more memory than someone who just keeps one window open and is working on a word processing document. I think of memory as the horsepower for  your computer. The more memory you have on your computer, the more horses you have to power your computer and the easier it is for your computer to perform several functions at once.  If you are a serious online gamer, you need a lot of memory for the best experience. If you are mostly using your computer to check email and create spreadsheets or word processing documents, you need less memory.

If you are thinking of buying a new computer, you should look for a computer that has at least a 320GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM (memory).

Q. There are so many recipe websites out there. I don’t want to check them all, but I like being able to search for recipes, read reviews of them and see videos. Any suggestions?

A. Yesterday Google introduced a new way to search recipes. If you search the title of the recipe on Google, say “Chocolate Chip Cookies”, Google will show you the results of your search. Look at the left column of the results page and click on Recipes. You will then be taken to a results page with the top rated recipes and be able to select the results by ingredients, preparation time, and calories.

Google Recipe Search

Enjoy the cookies!

 

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Comments

  1. Gramps says

    I have a 6-year-old HP Pavilion zv5380us laptop that works fine but probably won’t last forever. Are there any warning signs that will let me know that I should start searching for a replacement?

    • Carolyn Nicander Mohr says

      Hi Gramps, If your laptop is performing well, then there is no need to worry. But if you notice it is slowing down significantly or you hear noises coming from it that you hadn’t heard before, then start backing up the files (if you hadn’t been backing them up already) and start shopping.

      • Matt says

        Additionally, if you are not a “power user” and you notice your lappy acting sluggish, a more cost-effective way to clean it up is to restore it. This involves formatting the primary drive (to completely erase it, since when you delete stuff it doesn’t really go away) then reinstalling the Operating system. Then you;d need to reinstall the drivers etc, which “should” be all on a cd that they “should” have given you when you purchased the machine. Drivers can also be found on the internet if say, one of your less tech savvy siblings just up and LOST the system restore discs! Took me months to fix that one.

        • Carolyn Nicander Mohr says

          Thanks, Matt, this is very helpful. You’re right, it’s important to keep your backup disc in a safe place. I appreciate your great suggestion how to retrieve the drivers if the disks are lost.

          Increasing memory is fairly simple and inexpensive, but many folks are a bit nervous at opening up their computers to add a new memory card. It’s best to load up on memory when you buy the computer.

  2. Joyce says

    Thanks for the explanation…someone just asked me this week if I have RSS feed with my blog and I was not sure how to answer. Do you know how I can add it to my blog (blogger) if its not there. I know you know how but can you tell me how : ) Just so I”m clear-this is for someone who wants an email when I have a post up. I’m a technological toddler…sorry!

    • Carolyn Nicander Mohr says

      Hi Joyce, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech. I checked out your blog and Good News! You have an RSS feed for your blog (I subscribed). If you look at the address bar when you are on your blog, you will see the RSS symbol (the orange square with the stripes) and clicking on that will take you to the subscription page for RSS feeds. But RSS feeds send the articles to your reader, not to your email. An email subscription is set up separately.

      A suggestion for your blog that I just discovered: CommentLuv. You see it as an option on my blog when you leave a comment. If you’re a blogger and enable CommentLuv, then when you visit other blogs with CommentLuv enabled and leave a comment, below your comment will appear the title of your last blog and a link to your blog. Here is a link to CommentLuv for Blogger.

      Here is a link to the latest post on Joyce’s blog, Across the Pond, titled Five Things on Friday.

    • Carolyn Nicander Mohr says

      Hi Lydia, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I love chocolate chip cookies too. And I love the ways you can search for recipes, see reviews and filter ingredients, time for preparation, etc.

      Thanks so much for your visit and awesome comment! 🙂

    • Carolyn Nicander Mohr says

      Hi Thomas, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, even if you have a tried and true recipe, you may want to try a new recipe every so often.

      Thanks so much, Thomas, for your visit and comment!

  10. Charlie Sharpe says

    Hi Carolyn,

    I like the questions and answers that you have posted in here especially about the RSS feed since I’m still trying to understand what is the meaning of that. Thank you for posting such useful information in here.