IEC Journal

Johnson Tips on Receiving IEC Journal Updates by Email

Thanks to Wayne L. Johnson for providing the following explanation of options for receiving IEC Journal updates by email.  There is an alternate method of learning about updates that may appeal to some:  Make IEC Journal the home page in your web browser.  This will cause your web browser to visit IEC Journal every time you start it up.  To do this in Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to the IEC Journal web site, then select browser menu options Tools | Internet Options | General. Then select the option Use Current:

Some of you may have noticed that you are no longer getting update emails concerning new material being posted on the Interagency Ethics Council (IEC) Journal web page through the rssfwd service. That is because the rssfwd system is no longer providing this service. See Jan. 29, 2009 entry at the RSS FWD blog.

After doing some investigating and testing, I have come up with two other means to get IEC Journal email update notices. In the alternative – or at least initially to make sure you are getting the email updates after you sign up for at least one of the below services - you may just want to check the IEC web site, http://www.iecjournal.org/, every few days to see if there has been anything added.

There are two email update services to do this through: FeedBlitz and Google. For both services you have to create an account. You can use your government email address – you do not have to get a gmail email account with Google – and then sign up to receive updates for "IEC Journal" (in quotation marks).

FeedBlitz: Go to: https://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Subscriptions. Select the phrase "Not registered? Click on Sign Up Here" and follow the instructions. After getting signed up you will get an email to acknowledge this to which you must send a confirming response. Then you will need to sign in again at https://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Subscriptions. Click on Updates via Feedblitz, then click on Subscribe, and then type in http://www.iecjournal.org/ and hit subscribe. You will then get an acknowledgement email saying you are signed up for the "IEC Journal". You must also respond to this email confirming you want to get email updates to the IEC Journal. For more information on FeedBlitz see http://www.iecjournal.org/iec/about/

Google: Go to Google Alerts at http://www.google.com/support/alerts/ and create an alert for updates to "IEC Journal" IN QUOTES.

You may want to try both services and after a few weeks decide which system you like best and cancel the other.

There are probably other ways to accomplish the above, but I have found these two systems fairly easy to figure out and that they work well once you get everything set up. One can also use the above two systems to track other subject matters you want to be kept up to date on.

E-mail Echo Problems?

A few IEC members have reported problems receiving posts by e-mail, like this:

I would like to receive posts by e-mail. However, when I went to RssFwd to register, the web site stated it was closing down. Please advise how to receive information re your newsletter, meeting announcement, etc.

We've posted some troubleshooting tips over the past couple of years, and they should be accessible by looking through the archives of the "About" category in the left hand margin. The easiest solution may be to subscribe to a different free service. We have had good results with Feedblitz, which we have found to be reliable and technically superior in some ways to comparable free services.

The IEC does not control any of these free third party services, and has no control over their performance. With that understood, many members have found them very convenient.

If you would prefer to access IEC Journal information unfiltered by a third party, an RSS reader is an attractive alternative. It seems like every day more important web sites offer RSS feeds, with the most notable recent one being Recovery.gov. Check out the very top of the page on the right hand side. Our article How To Use RSS Feeds has tips on adopting this useful new tool.

Better Art Work?

An IEC member suggests that artwork of some executive branch agency would be more appropriate than the Supreme Court picture in the upper left hand corner. The current photo is a royalty-free picture we happened to have handy when setting up this site five years ago, and it is certainly no artistic masterpiece. 

If you belive have a better royalty-free picture, by all means forward it to us using the Contact Us link at left. We can crop and resize photos, within limits.

Fifth Birthday for the IEC Journal

February 1 is the fifth anniversary of the first IEC Journal posts. Thanks for the opportunity to provide this service to the federal ethics community.

IT Department Blocking Access to IEC Journal?

One IEC member reports:

Beginning a couple weeks ago, my government computer no longer lets me visit the IEC website.  When I try to do so, my computer says:  “You are explicitly denied access to this website "http://www.iecjournal.org/" per local base policy..  Your request was denied because of its content categorization:  Blogs/Personal Pages.”   The good news is that I can still access the site from home.

Another IEC member had the same problem a few years ago. Some unsophisticated automated screening software occasionally identifies the IEC Journal as inappropriate for use on government computers. Similar automated software could also erroneously erase IEC Journal RSS feed e-mail echoes as spam. If you draw either type of error to the attention of a human being in your organization's IT department, they will usually correct the mistake rapidly. If they don't, you should raise the problem to their supervisor.

Of course, IEC members who have been improperly blocked won't be able to read this message, so please draw this solution to the attention of any colleagues you know who have been having problems.

RSS to E-mail Services

We sometimes are asked if our failure to endorse the RSS feed-to-e-mail services mentioned at left is intended to discourage people from using them. We merely want to make sure everyone understands that these are independent services operated by third party businesses. If you find them more convenient than using an RSS reader or checking the web site every day, feel free to use them, but be aware that the IEC has no control over them, and is not responsible for any lapses in service. We provide information about them solely for the benefit of our users who do not use RSS readers and find it more convenient to receive updates by e-mail.

Washington Post RSS Reader Review

A Washington Post article reviewed four RSS readers (sometimes referred to as "aggregators."  This popular type of software makes it easy to keep up with web sites  that have "RSS feeds."  This site's feed is located under the hypertext link "This Site's RSS Feed" at left.

Continue Receiving Posts by E-mail? (Was: "Updating RSS Feeds")

Missing your e-mail fix of IEC Journal postings? There may be a reason.

As part of an upgrade of their system, RSS FWD (sometimes referred to as "RssFwd") sent out an e-mail last Friday (archived at their web site) announcing that subscribers would have to re-subscribe to their new system to continue receiving service. Learning that some users at his agency had mistakenly deleted the announcement e-mail as spam, the ever-alert Wayne Johnson drew the change to our attention.

As noted recently, IEC Journal recommends our users obtain updates via RSS readers. We do not endorse RSS FWD nor the similar service Feedblitz, but we provide information about them for the benefit of our users who find receiving updates by e-mail more convenient. We would prefer to operate our own mailing list, but resource constraints make it impractical at this time.

Some users have reported better satisfaction with the similar Feedblitz service (free, like RSS FWD). While we assume RSS FWD's service will improve as a result of their upgrade, those interested in exploring alternatives to RSS FWD may wish to experiment with Feedblitz. Our September 15 post has subscription information for both services. Let us know if you have feedback about either service you would like to share with other IEC members.

Again, thanks to Wayne for the tip. We live or die by the help from him and other unselfish IEC members.

Updated Oct. 1: A few small improvements, including more descriptive title.

E-Mail Update Option Summary

A query from a new IEC member who had difficulty subscribing to our e-mail echo prompted the realization that an updated summary of subscription information is appropriate. First, though, a reminder:

The IEC Journal offers a free RSS feed. If you would like to receive instant updates whenever you want, the best option is to use an RSS reader. These programs will give you easy automatic updates of IEC Journal, and any other RSS-equipped web sites you choose, any time you want them. Alternatives are available:

E-mail Updates

The IEC does not presently operate an e-mail mailing list to notify members when new information is posted. Rather, we have suggested that members who want e-mail updates can use free third party e-mail "echo" services. Two such services are RssFwd and Feedblitz. We do not endorse either of these services, but note their availability for those who find them convenient.

These third party services "scrape" new postings off the web site by automated checking and then send an announcement by e-mail. These are free services, and they operate on their schedules, which may not be consistent. There is always some lag time between when we post something on the web site, and the time the echo services mail their announcements. For example, we posted a comment on outsourcing to the web site early one Tuesday morning. RssFwd sent its alert around 6:00 AM on Wednesday and FeedBlitz around 6:00 PM Wednesday.

Some users have reported trouble subscribing to RssFwd, and we have some troubleshooting tips for that service. If you are aware of an e-mail echo service better than Feedblitz and RssFwd, let us know and we will be glad to pass your recommendation along.

We would like to add an IEC-operated mailing list to our services, but it would require either:

1. One or more volunteers to maintain the mailing list and manually send an e-mail each time the web site is updated.
2. A volunteer with the technical knowledge needed to set up an automatic e-mail update procedure. This could be through scripting, or perhaps assisting in moving the web site from TypePad to another platform that supports automated e-mail echoes. We believe Movable Type offers this feature, and there are probably others.

If you have suggestions or would like to volunteer, we would love to hear from you.

Web Site Searching Alternatives

While welcome and very effective overall, the recent upgrade of the OGE web site has a few downsides, including changing the links to many pages. Many older links no longer work. A workaround I sometimes use when searching the archives here at IEC Journal may also save time when searching the OGE site:

For example, for our September 1 post I needed to obtain the new address for the USOGE 2008 Schedule of Important Ethics Dates. When I entered the search term "Calendar" into the OGE web site's search engine, after some delay I eventually received the response "Your Search returned 367 Records." Making matters worse, the search engine displays only five "hits" at a time.

Scrolling through 73 screens of search results in search of the one page I needed was not an appealing prospect, so I went to Google and entered the following search request:

site:www.usoge.gov calendar

Bingo! The calendar I was looking for was at the top of the list of search results.

Adding "site:" to the front of the OGE web site address tells Google to restrict its search to only that site. You can test it yourself. The secret? Unlike old-style search engines, Google and its closest competitors use sophisticated techniques to rank search results by relevance. The page you are looking for is more likely to be closer to the top of the results list. 

This using-an-alternate-search-engine trick won't always work, but it's a big time saver when it does. I used to use it frequently at the Department of Justice web site before they upgraded their dedicated search engine. I use it at IEC Journal on the frequent occasions when this site's dedicated search engine isn't giving me the results I want.

I use Google only because I'm more familiar with it. However, you would probably get comparable results using the top Google competitors that also use sophisticated relevancy rankings. Check their documentation to see how they restrict searches to a particular site.