This is going to be a page about how I keep up with the world.
In a nutshell...
I found a piece of software called The Yoke that checks RSS feeds for me. I hacked on it a bit until it would send nicely formatted email. I put it on my personal server on a timer to check various feeds and now I get an email in my inbox when something has changed that I might want to read. Coolness -- I can read things without having to keep paying attention to them, and if I don't read for a while they're still waiting for me when I get back.
But what about sites that don't have RSS feeds? Oh, the horrors!
I found some very nifty software called WebSec (Web Secretary). This stuff works kinda like the above but keeps an eye on a whole web page and emails me when it changes.
Better yet, it shows me what on the page actually changed. Even more coolness!
So, a bit more magic on ye olde personal server and now websec runs every once in a while watching web pages for me.
Yep, a personal server. Doesn't everyone have a personal server? I thought not.
That's the problem -- in order for a lot of this stuff to be useful and actually save you time you have to be a hard core geek like me and set this stuff up.
Maybe someone should sell a monitoring service that does this for people. Hmmm.