Thanks for your interest in subscribing to this blog!  Unfortunately, how this works will depend on your email account.  The blog just generates a feed that updates whenever I write a new post, and then your email account has to figure out a way of receiving the feed.  I only have instructions here for Outlook 365 and for gmail.  (Sorry, everyone who doesn’t use Office 365 and/or gmail.)

The link to the feed is http://www.autisticscholar.com/feed/.

Subscribing with Outlook 365

If you have Office 365, you should be able to open Outlook and navigate to File/ Account Settings/ RSS Feeds.  Click on the “New” button.  Copy and paste the feed link (http://www.autisticscholar.com/feed/) into the box that pops up, and click “Add.”  This will automatically send you an email notification whenever I post something.  To change the folder that the email notification goes to, click “Change Folder.”  Conveniently, the emails you will get sent will include the actual text of the blog post I wrote.

Subscribing with gmail

If you have gmail, I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated.  You’ll have to open a (free) account with a website called IFTTT, because gmail doesn’t have a built-in way of subscribing to RSS feeds.  First, use your gmail to sign up for an IFTTT account.  See where it says “Get started” right under “Connect RSS feed to gmail” at the IFTTT page I linked earlier?  Click on that, and use your gmail to sign up by clicking “Continue with google.”

Once you’re signed up, go to “My Applets.”  If you haven’t already, click on the little box about getting email updates from IFTTT and move the slider so that those notifications are disabled (unless you want them, I suppose).  Then click the “New Applet” box.  A page saying “If this then that” should pop up.  Click on “this,” then click “RSS feed.”  Click “New feed item.”  Paste the Autistic Scholar RSS feed link (http://www.autisticscholar.com/feed/) into the Feed URL text box.  Click “Create trigger.”  That tells IFTTT you want something to happen when I write a new post.

To tell IFTTT to send that post to your email, click on “that.”  Then click “email” (NOT “gmail”).  Then click “Send me an email.” First, put something that will remind you the post is coming from my blog in the “Subject” box, like “Autistic Scholar Post:”.  Then click on the first “Add ingredient” box, under “Subject,” and select “EntryTitle.”  Then click on the other “Add ingredient,” under “Body”, and select “EntryURL” and “EntryContent” (in that order).  Click “Create action.”  Finally, click “Finish.”

When you get email notifications, you’ll easily see the title of the post and the content in the email.  You’ll also see, at the top of the email, that you will have a funny little link.  Something like “https://ift.tt/2OuauFp”.  That will take you to the original post on autisticscholar.com.

If this doesn’t work…

You should know I’m not a technological expert.  Sometimes I say things that aren’t true…  If something I say isn’t working, let me know, and include details!  Comment below, or send an email to psdwyer at ucdavis dot edu.  Then I’ll be able to fix the instructions so I’m not leading others astray.  Also, if you have a method of subscribing to get email notifications about an RSS that is for another type of email account, besides Office 365 and gmail, I’d love to hear more.  Same for if you have a better way of subscribing to gmail…