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Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or RSS to keep tabs on a constant stream of new content and scientific updates

	Facebook http://facebook.com/saveyourself.ca Chatty, more informal announcements … and lots of discussion.
	RSS feed feed://SaveYourself.ca/rss.xml Full text versions of all new content, “fed” to you by the miracle of RSS. See below for more information about RSS.
	Twitter http://twitter.com/painfultweets (@painfultweets) About a dozen tweets per week: the most concise announcements.
	LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/company/saveyourself.ca All regular updates, plus some focus on publishing tech & business.
	Google+https://plus.google.com/109179690737303705484 The new on the block. Almost exactly like Facebook. But not Facebook.

Facebook wins! Over 2010, Facebook quickly proved to be by far the best way for me to “hang out” with my readers. I am consistently amazed by the quality of the people who have turned up there, and the conversations that we have. Join us!

What is this “RSS” you speak of? An RSS primer

I publish new content on SaveYourself frequently. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could be notified when there’s something new to read? Without having to check the website? Without signing up for a mailing list?

RSS will let you do that!

This website has an “RSS feed.” An RSS feed is a special web page that summarizes content on the site and “feeds” it to you. Your web browser, a RSS reading program (often called a “news reader”), or even your mail program can read that page and will automatically let you know when it has been updated, and show you only what’s new. Yay!

(RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, by the way — a distribution system.)

To learn more about RSS feeds and how to read them, here’s a tutorial for beginners Getting Started with RSS, or a fun little YouTube video (3:44):

Video: RSS in Plain English 5:00

Software to help you read RSS

You can visit an RSS feed just like a webpage, and bookmark it just like a webpage. Modern web browsers are often equipped to manage RSS feeds, and will let you know when a feed has been updated with new items. But RSS feeds are the most powerful when they are managed by “feed readers” — software that is specially designed to keep track of and present RSS feeds. There are a lot of options — too many, perhaps!

Online: websites like feeds.reddit and Google Reader let you check all your feeds from any web browser. As usual, Google is dominating — I recommend Google Reader for the average beginner.
Mac OS X: NetNewsWire is easy to use and powerful, and Apple’s Mail program has basic RSS reading powers.
Windows: SharpReader is simple, but gets the job done.