ok, I may be slightly more adventurous in the tech world than the average person, but if you are a blogger, you probably are willing to delve into the unfamiliar, too. If you are a frequenter of or addicted to Craigslist, the fabulous world-wide online classifieds/bulletin board, you will appreciate this trick (I think), and even if you are not technically minded, you may think this is as cool and incredibly useful as I do.
So...here's what I did: this evening I went on Craigslist in Cape Cod to see if anyone was looking for a housemate in the "lower cape", the part of Cape Cod that I want to live in. I did this by going to the category called "shared housing" and typing in the names of the four towns (one by one) that I am interested in residing in the search box up top. There is even a way to narrow the search parameter down by price range, but I was feeling kinda wild, so I left that blank.
I had always noticed that in the bottom right corner of each post or search on Craigslist, were the letters RSS and the text was a link. I never really thought about how to use it until this very night. Now, I am not going to go into an explanation of what RSS is because honestly I have no idea how it works, what it stands for, or anything linear like that. I am more of a "hey, this is cool, I don't know how it works, but I know exactly how it can make my life easier" kinda gal, and besides, so many others have done such a good job of explaining it to folks like me (including the awesome Wendy Piersall from emomsathome.com) that I won't bother trying. Suffice to say that RSS is a way to easily subscribe to a blog or website so that you will get a notification each time that site has changed. You can do this by using a feedreader such as bloglines or newsgator or yahoo, or via email, as with Feedblitz.
So back to Craigslist. There I was, just sittin' there scratching my head and I sez to myself, I sez, "Jessica, wouldn't it just be peachy if each time someone posted looking for a housemate in the four locations I am interested in (Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham), I would be notified in my Outlook 2007 Inbox?
photo courtesy of capecodtravelguide.com
Well, guess what? In just a few easy clicks, I actually made it happen!
Note: this is a hack for Outlook 2007...You may want to explore if it can be done in 2003, or your email client.
First, go to Craigslist in your town or area, search for what you are looking for. When you get to the page that has the search, click on the words RSS in the bottom right corner. Copy and paste the URL (the words in the address bar way up top). Then go to Outlook, go to Tools> Account Settings> click the RSS Feeds Tab> New, and then paste the URL from the Craigslist search into the field that says, "Enter the location of the RSS feed you want to enter into Outlook". Done! You can rename the search and even change the destination folder like I did, so that my feeds come into the folder I had created for my move called Cape Cod. I did this trick for each town and now I know that I don't have to keep checking back every day on Craigslist, I can just look in the folder to see if anything new has come in for me!
I actually groaned out loud because it was so easy and so cool and boy, did I feel smart.
"So Jessica, how does this apply to my life?", you may be wondering...
Have you ever looked for a boyfriend on Craigslist? (I did, and found one!), just type in the search parameters (age range, location, any keywords that might suit your fancy) and then follow the directions above. Bam! Any time some guy posts that fits the bill, YOU get an email to hear about it.
Looking for a suede couch for less than $200? An IT job? A ride to Colorado? A landscaper? The same technique applies. I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods, but here in L.A. competition is fierce on Craigslist for some of the more popular posts. With this hack, you can be the first one on your block to know about a new post.
So, if you have any questions about this, I will do my best to respond to them, but I may be too busy reading my RSS feeds to reply! ;-)
¸.•´ .•´¨¨))
((¸¸.•´ ..•´ Jessica -:¦:-
