Google Desktop Hacking

Power Up the Sidebar to Read Blogs and RSS Feeds

The Google Sidebar is one of those features that you either love or hate. When you install Google Desktop, it's turned on by default and runs down the right side of your screen, and displays a wide variety of information in individual panels—news articles, e-mail, clips from the Web, photos, and more.

I've found that most people turn the Sidebar off, because it takes up screen space and is usually too confusing to use. But when configured properly, it's a great tool for displaying and alerting you when there are new blog posts, new e-mail, and more. Here we'll show you how to use the Sidebar as an RSS reader.

Start off by killing the clutter so that it'll be easier for you to read blogs and other RSS feeds. By default, the Sidebar displays far too many panels; it includes everything from photos to stock information, weather reports, e-mails, news, and even a "Scratch Pad" for taking quick notes. To remove a panel, click the down arrow at its far right, and select "Remove." To remove many at once, click the down arrow at the top of the Sidebar, select "Add/Remove Panels," and remove the ones you don't want. Make sure that you leave the Web Clips panel, because that's the RSS reader.

By default, the Web Clip panel picks up two RSS feeds—the CNN top-stories feed and the official Google blog. To add others, click the down arrow on the Web Clips panel, choose Options, then type in the URL of the RSS feed you want to add and click "Add URL."

What if you don't know the feed URL? No problem. As you browse the Web, Google Desktop automatically gathers the URLs of RSS feeds as you go. So head to the blog or page you want to read using RSS, and Google will automatically pick up its URL. Once you've visited the pages, follow the steps for adding an RSS feed from scratch, outlined in the previous paragraph. You'll notice at the bottom of the screen the names and URLs of all the RSS feeds associated with pages you've visited. Select the one you want to read in the sidebar, click Edit, then press Ctrl-C to put it into the Clipboard. Click OK, and then when you're back on the Web Clips Options page, paste it into the "Add URL" box and click "Add URL." If you're looking for an RSS feed for a site you've recently visited, click the Add Recent Clips button, highlight the RSS feed you want to view, and click OK twice.

Once you have the feeds you want, they'll automatically show up in the Sidebar. Click any you want to read, and it will expand out so you can read the entry in the Sidebar itself. Click the headline to visit the entry on the Web site.