With the help of assorted others I have finally got a feed reader set up where you can see all the bloggers in New Vrindaban in one spot. Check it out at New Vrindaban Bloggers.
I have been working on this in fits and starts for the last two years. Or more accurately, I had a desire to do so for two years, and occasionally played with it. The original inspiration was when I discovered Planet ISKCON.
The first year was mostly about getting content generated, so there would be some blogs the feed aggregator could subscribe to. A feed aggregator goes out on a periodic basis and checks all the blogs it is subscribed to. If there is new content, it copies it to its own address and presents it in the form of a feed reader.
Thus, by going to one url, the end user can see the content from as many sites as are subscribed to without having to visit each individually. This is especially useful when the sites being visited don’t update daily.
The second year was about the tortuous process of doing something by the ascending method. I was learning, but had no guru or scripture to guide me, and lacked strong determination to power my way through. Little obstacles that others may have hardly noticed, were like boulders in the road for me.
Somehow or other, a little piece here, a little piece there, it came together. A shout out to Manish who was able to solve my “chron job” problem that made the updating process automatic, and to Shyam Pandey for designing the header.
While a particular blog will reflect an individual’s perspective, when there are many blogs, a more community oriented view can can experienced.
The one disadvantage of using the feed reader instead of visiting the blog directly is that you don’t get to read any comments that may have been posted by readers. If you have an interest in that, you can always go ahead and click through to the individual blog itself.
The hope here is that the reader will have a chance to make a virtual pilgrimage to New Vrindaban on those days physical presence is not an option. The Holy Dhama has no geographical boundaries, and if reading New Vrindaban Bloggers helps someone experience that, it will be successful.
