Team Espinoza

If you like Rock and Dance music, you must check out Electra Radio. It is a great mix of old and new hits. Do you remember that song that starts off “My name is Luca and I live on the second floor…”? They played it! I haven’t heard that song since I was a kid.

We listen to it through our itunes radio. If you go to their website you can use their Windows Media Player link if you are using Windows.

The just played 4 Non Blondes! How awesome it that? I so need to karaoke ‘What’s up’.
Here is a list of what they just played. Good stuff.

06:43:44		4 Non Blondes What’s up Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:40:43		Degrees Of Motion Shine on Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:36:42		Lifehouse Unknown Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:32:41		Train Drops of jupiter Plus d’infos sur ce titre
06:28:40		Rooney When did your heart go missing Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:58:29		Cascada Everytime we touch Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:56:29		Blur Song 2 Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:52:27		3 Doors Down When I’m Gone Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:48:26		Ghinzu Do you read me Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:44:25		Fiction Plane Two sisters Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:35:22		Rage Against The Machine Killing In The Name Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:30:20		Sunrise Avenue Fairytale gone bad Plus d’infos sur ce titre
05:27:19		Kelly Clarkson Breakaway Plus d’infos sur ce titre

I wrote this article for another blog and thought that I would share it here. It covers what RSS is, how to use it, and asks “Is RSS really that great?”

You may have noticed the little RSS icon on many websites with a statement that usually says, “Subscribe to My Feed.” The icon is also in the address window at the top of your web browser. The icon is typically orange with two white curved lines.

So what the heck is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or “news feed.” RSS is the format that syndicates content from blogs, news headlines, and podcasts into a subscription. Then a feed reader will read the subscription and show you the content of the website’s articles.

An RSS blog format contains the text and pictures of a blog post. Then the feed reader will show you all the blog posts of all the websites you have subscribed to in one window.

Back in the day, you would have to Bookmark a page in your web browser and then manually click on each individual site. Now with a feed reader you can view all your favorite websites in one window. Saving you time and making it easier for you to keep up with your favorite blogs!

Here is a picture of what my feed reader looks like. (This is the list view.)

Here is a picture of what a blog post looks like in the feed reader.

Here is a picture of what that same blog post looks like on its own website.

How Do I Use RSS?

Step 1. Get a feed reader. There are many feed reader options. If you already have a Gmail account, you can easily use GoogleReader. Other popular feed readers are Bloglines, Rojo, and Newsgator. You can also add RSS to your MyYahoo! Page, but it only gives you the titles of the blog posts. The titles of the blog posts then link you to the actual site.

Step 2. Go to the website you want to subscribe to and click on their RSS icon.

Step 3. A window will open and ask you which feed reader you are using. Choose the feed reader that you have an account with.

Step 4. Set up any necessary preferences. GoogleReader asks you if you want to view it on your Google Homepage or Google Reader. Bloglines opens up some display options.

Step 5. Enjoy viewing the content of multiple blogs all at once!

Is RSS really that great?

I really like my GoogleReader. I could spend hours reading all the content in my reader. GoogleReader posts the time that the blog post was created, so I can know the second that my friends update their sites. It is really great to have all the posts on my favorite websites in one place. Sometimes I will miss a post when I actually view the site, but I will catch it in my reader.

A feed reader is great for friends who don’t blog often. Instead of going to a website multiple times only to be disappointed that they haven’t blogged in three weeks. You can subscribe to their feed and be pleasantly surprised when one of their posts pop up in your list.

The bad part of using RSS and a feed reader is that you can’t view the comments or write a comment on a post. You have to click through to the post on the website and then comment. For this reason, I still personally visit all my personal friends’ sites, because I enjoy commenting.

If a website has the option you can subscribe to the comments through RSS, but you still can’t write a comment. Also, I have found that popular sites will have many comments that pile up in your reader.

One problem that I have had using my feed reader is that I will subscribe to a blog that I think looks cool, but then I don’t keep up reading the posts and I loose interest quickly.

Another down side to using a feed reader, is that you can’t see a site’s design. You can’t view the fun treasures in the sidebars of your favorite websites. How else will I know what books my friends are reading or who else is in their blogroll? The flip side is that there are no pesky advertisements in the feed reader.

I enjoy using my feed reader to keep up with websites that are informative and where I don’t comment much, but I will still personally visit my favorite friends’ blogs.

Extra Credit:

If a site does not have an RSS option, you can plug the address (URL) of the site that you want to view in your RSS reader into feedity.com.

Further Reading on RSS:

Explaining RSS the Oprah way
RSS in Wikipedia
Easy RSS Explanation

Do you use RSS? Do you like it? Which feed reader do you use?

There have been a lot of good movies on the tube the past few days. I am so excited to watch my favorite Christmas movies this year. I have already watched bits and pieces of a few of them this season.

Here is a list of my favorite 5 Christmas movies.

1.

Home Alone. I watched this a zallion times as a kid. I like the beginning of the movie when he has the house to himself. I thought it was cool. “Keep the change you filthy animal!”

2.

White Christmas. “snow! Snow! SNOW!” The best and most entertaining classic Christmas movie. My sister and I would sing the ‘Sisters!’ song all the time. “Sisters, Sisters, There were never such devoted sisters…”

3.

Love Actually. I love the stories and how all the characters’ intertwine with each other. Each couple shows a different aspect of love.”Eight is a lot of legs, David.”

4.

You’ve Got Mail. LOVE IT. My daughter is even named Annabelle, like Annabelle Fox in the movie. It is a good, clean, romantic comedy, and it is set in New York City. “Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?”

5.

Bridget Jones’ Diary. It begins and ends with Christmas. Colin Firth in a reindeer jumper. “You like me just the way I am.”
Come to think of it – this list contains two Colin Firth movies. It’s a good list.

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

P.S.

Thanks Dawn for the favorite five idea.

… but not this cold.

moar funny pictures

In honor of Black Friday, I thought this was an appropriate post. Check out this short article on zenhabits.org and determine if you are an Under-Buyer or an Over-Buyer.

I am completely an Under-buyer. It was like this article was reading my mail.

“You often need to come up with a makeshift solution, such using soap because you’ve run out of shaving cream, because you don’t have what you need.”

Completely true.

Someone suggested using baby shampoo for face wash years ago and that is still what I use. Recently we ran out of hand soap in our bathroom, so I used my baby shampoo to wash my hands.

We still have not completed re-finishing Annabelle’s dresser that was given to us. So I converted a boot-shoe box into a dresser drawer. I cut up the lid to divide the box into four sections. I have since built a table of boxes to hold up the makeshift dresser. This is sad. We should just finish the dresser.

“You often consider buying an item, then decide, ‘I’ll get this some other time’ or ‘Maybe we don’t really need this.’ ”

All the time.

“You think, ‘Not buying these things shows that I’m frugal and not a consumerist sucker.’ “

Absolutely.

Which one are you?

Doing my NaBloPomo Duty. No time to do a post, I am about to head out to the outlets with my mom-in-law, dad-in-law, and uncle for some midnight shopping. Why? Because we are INSANE.

Hooray, it’s that time of year for turkey, all the trimmings and pies! Yay!
Daniel baked two pumpkin pies and a pecan pie tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I saw this meme on my favorite blogger’s website, so I thought I would use it for my post today. I don’t want to bore you with the details of my experience at Portrait Innovations, my new Kangaroo brown/lime kicks, Bunco at the church, and late night coffee with the girls.

So here we go.

Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I am skipping numbers 3 and 4. It’s the holidays, I don’t want to give anyone that pressure. But if you are my blogging friend, feel free to do the meme, and post a link to it in the comments.

Seven random/weird things about me:

1. I can stick my index finger up my nose past my first knuckle. It is a true sight to witness.

2. One of my favorite things to do is read a book and then watch the film version of the book. Then, I love to compare the two and think of why something wouldn’t work in the screen play, “why did they leave out that character,” “why did they change the ending?”

3. I wear the same jewelry everyday.

4. The only food I don’t like to eat are olives.

5. I call the frontage road next to the highway “the feeder.” Daniel likes to make fun of me for that.

6. My favorite movie for forever was Home Alone. The Sandlot is a close second.

7. I really enjoyed my labor and delivery. It was completely textbook. I think this one is definitely weird.

• Bohanan’s Steak House on Food Network’s “Glutton for Punishment” – This is cool, because Daniel proposed to me at Bohanans. The entire restaurant applauded. Mark Bohanan the owner and head chef came out and congratulated us. They even gave us complimentary champaign.
  
• Larry Ratliff’s Must-See Holiday Movie Previews – Good list of upcoming movies. Even if I don’t go see the movie, I like to know what is coming out and what the movie is about.
  
• Interesting story about Eagle’s Nest Christian Fellowship – The news may be a little slanted, but I still wonder how much of this story is true. I am praying that the church can put their focus on God and His will for His church.
  
• Delicious recipe for Vegetarian Tacos – They seem easy enough to make.
  
• Grinders in Shertz – There is a new restaurant opening in Schertz called, Bellacino’s. It sounds really good.

20 days until we leave for the Philippines! Aah!

Today was the second to last training for our trip. The team is pumped. It is getting exciting now that it is getting so close.

The doctor told us yesterday that Annabelle has an ear infection in both ears. She is on antibiotics for ten days, then we go back to the doctor in two weeks. So hopefully, she will be well just in time. Even after two doses of the medicine, there is a definite increase in Annabelle smiles.