Recently, one of our readers wrote me that she was “trying to figure out if there is a way to have new posts sent directly to my email… When I click on the [ProfHacker] RSS feed link I just get computer language that makes no sense.” If you’re unfamiliar with the acronym RSS and would like to learn more about it, read on for some helpful links. If, instead, you’d like to learn my answer to this question, I’ve managed to figure out a workaround that emails each new ProfHacker post to an email address. First, however, I’m going to provide a few links to posts we’ve published about using RSS feeds:
How to use RSS and RSS readers
We’ve featured several posts that demonstrate what you can do with RSS:
In “Keeping Up Online,” Jason provides a beginner-friendly introduction to RSS.
We’re now well into summer, when many of us have ambitions of getting a fair amount of writing done. As seems to be not uncommon, a good number of the members of Team ProfHacker find regular writing both a pleasure and a challenge, so we’ve spilled a lot of digital ink on the subject. Here’s a rundown of past posts that may be of interest:
Digital Distractions is an irregular series in which various ProfHacker writers introduce a little game or other pastime to divert your attention for a couple of minutes. Maybe you’re waiting for a bus, or for an appointment, or are on hold, and you would just like a little something to do.
From that point of view, it is perhaps a bit off-topic to include Kingdom Rush Frontiers as a a “digital distraction.” The original Kingdom Rush didn’t so much divert your attention briefly to help you pass the time as plunge you into a k-hole of intensely focused tapping as you build towers and deploy reinforcements in to prevent monsters and demons from overrunning the kingdom.
Fundamentally, Kingdom Rush is a tower defense game. What’s fun about Kingdom Rush is that choices and timing matter. You can build four different types of towers: mage guilds, barracks, artillery, and archer towers,…
GMail has received more than a few mentions in this space since ProfHacker first launched in 2009. Google has made a number of changes to the service since then, including the introduction of a new inbox that began rolling out to users at the end of May.
The primary feature of the new inbox is the automatic filtering of messages into tabs: primary, social (for notifications from your social networks), promotions (ads), and updates (for mailing lists). The updated apps for iOS and Android function similarly.
I’ve been using the new features for several days now, and I’ve been reasonably impressed so far. The categorization has been accurate, and the labels and filters I’d set up previously have continued to work well.
Though I still prefer to use Postbox when working at my own computer, I’ve appreciated using the web interface when using someone else’s, and I’ve definitely found the…
For a long time, the photo hosting & sharing site Flickr has been instrumental to my work, both online and off. Four years ago I wrote about how we use Flickr and Creative Commons to find pictures for the blog, and just this spring I shared some tips from Brian and George about how to use Flickr to make better slides. But Yahoo! does tend to hate it’s most dedicated users, and the recent ad-driven redesign has a lot of people casting about for alternatives to Flickr.
I learned about TroveBox (formerly OpenPhoto) when Audrey Watters tweeted a link to David Wiley’s post about a post-Flickr world. TroveBox is an open-source photo-hosting site (more on this in a minute) that ensures you maintain control over your photos by letting you choose where they live: you can use TroveBox’s servers, or you can keep them on a…
As news nerds everywhere will remember, a couple of months back Google announced (also see George’s post) that they would be closing down Google Reader, which many people used as their RSS reader, and many more used as the backend for their dedicated feed readers. Reader will go away on the first of July.
A July 1 deadline makes it an “after-the-semester” problem, and so I put away thoughts of RSS replacements until after the academic term. But it turns out that the first is only two weeks away–and I do need an RSS replacement! I know that the done thing is to discover news and such via Twitter, but I also use RSS (still!) to keep up with more-infrequently updated sites, often without any sort of social media presence.
Simplifying matters for me is that I use a RSS app called Reeder, which…
Last month, Adobe announced that they will no longer be “selling” tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects and instead will be offering a “Creative Cloud” software subscription model not unlike what Microsoft is trying with Office 365. Those programs are all among the more powerful accessible platforms out there for building and remixing digital content, although they’ve always been pricey. I rely on a lot of Adobe tools in my workflow already, so I’ve migrated to the subscription model, in part to try out some of the Adobe Edge tools as potential ways to more quickly create web animations and interactive content for my current play with alternative scholarly forms.
Adobe used to be known for animating the web with Flash, a program now so behind-the-times that it’s relegated to the “also included” list of the software package. But Adobe is trying to build its…
Last month, Google announced a rebuilt version of Maps for the desktop. In keeping with most Google announcements, it’s cool (integration with Google Earth, photo-generated walkthroughs of locations, etc.) and creepy (more social, learns about you as you search) in equal measure.
If you are interested in finding out about the new Maps, and in ways to build simple maps for research or class purposes using the Google Maps Engine Lite tool, then you might be interested in Mapping with Google, a free self-paced course that starts today and runs for the next two weeks. It is similar to the Advanced Power Searching course Brian wrote about in January.
It is about as gentle an introduction to online mapping as there is.
[This is a guest post by Kimon Keramidas, Assistant Professor and Director for the Digital Media Lab at the Bard Graduate Center. Kimon teaches about the design and material culture of technology and is tasked with integrating and implementing digital media within the curricular and research goals of faculty and students. He also leads the development of digital media and interactives for the BGC's Focus Gallery exhibitions. Find him online at http://kimonkeramidas.net and follow him on Twitter at @kimonizer.--@BC]
One of my favorite parts of ProfHacker is the idea of subtly hacking tools for educational purposes. By subtle hacking I mean not changing the code or structure of a tool, but using it for a purpose it may not have been originally intended for. One tool that I have found is readily hackable in this sense is Prezi. (Editors: See our previous posts covering how…
In February, Ryan reviewed Mailbox, an iOS app with a fast, triage-based approach to handling email on a smartphone. Mailbox uses a nifty swipe-based approach to managing e-mail actions such as deferring, deleting/archiving, or listing e-mails, and it wasn’t hard to see that others would follow suit. And sure enough, later in the spring came Triage, pitched as “first aid for your inbox,” with a cool flick-based interface. This week, there are two new email clients for iOS–Boxer (formerly Taskbox) and Dispatch (from, in part, the programmer behind Due)–that build on a swipe-based interface, but that do so to focus on actually doing things with your e-mail, not just quickly reviewing it until you can get back to a real machine.
Beyond stylish swipe-based interfaces, Boxer and Dispatch offer strikingly different approaches to similar problems. Both apps, for example, recognize the…
is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director of MATRIX: The Center for the Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences at Michigan State University.
Budget restrictions are an ever-present threat to innovation on college campuses. Learn how top technology companies are working with institutions to advance online learning as programs continue to expand on campuses across the country. This special sponsored section features resources available to help develop a successful online education program at your institution.
In February, Ryan reviewed 
Follow Profhacker through your favorite RSS reader: SUBSCRIBE
Budget restrictions are an ever-present threat to innovation on college campuses. Learn how top technology companies are working with institutions to advance online learning as programs continue to expand on campuses across the country. This special sponsored section features resources available to help develop a successful online education program at your institution.
