I had to use a PC today in order to run Exact Target to do a mailing. I was stunned and astonished at how much the experience has degraded since my last exposure. There were dozens of pop ups and flashing lights and buzzers and it was awfully frightening.

At the same time, I discovered that just a tiny portion of the population is using RSS to watch their favorite blogs.

SO, HERE’S WHAT YOU SHOULD DO to dramatically increase the quality of your online experience.

1. Download the free Firefox browser. Just click here and follow the instructions: Firefox – Rediscover the web. It really is free, it really only takes a few minutes, and it’s not hard.

2. Whenever you visit a blog or similarly updated site, look for that funky radar symbol at the bottom of the page (see above.)

3. Click on the symbol and Firefox will ask you if you want to store that link. Choose to store it on your toolbar.

4. From now on, you’ll have a menu that looks like this:

which will automatically list the headlines as they are updated.

That way, you don’t have to wonder if a blog has been updated or not.

Ten minutes, tops. Worth it.

Now, many people are worried that the IT guys will get mad if they do stuff like this. So they ask. Don’t ask. Just do it. You won’t break anything, and even if you do, they love to fix stuff.

Did I mention that if you go to the preferences menu item, you can choose to turn off pop-up windows? Well, you can.