If you visit my blog via a browser, you'll see that I added a “Recent Posts” section in the top left corner. This actually has some humor to it since I've been on a 82 day unplanned hiatus, so none of my posts are really “recent”. But, none the less, I wanted to share how I added that. I did absolutely no programming or changes to the blog controls. Just a few things to set up with NewsGator Online services and a single line to add to your blog (you can even add it in the “news” section if you use a hosted .Text or CommunityServer so you don't event need to touch anything on the server).

So here are the steps to add your “Recent Posts” section to your blog:

1. Go to NewsGator Online Services and register for a new standard/free account. Your account will be active immediately so sign-in to your account.
2. Now we have to add your blog to the default “location“ for your account. Click the “Add a Feed“ link, then select “URL & Import“. Here you can add the Uri for the rss feed for your blog.
3. Now go to “Edit Locations“, then click the link for “Headlines“. If you don't see a link for “Edit Locations“ then click the link for “Settings“ first.
4. While in the Headlines area, check the box to enable headlines for this location. Then edit the text in the text area to look something like this (You can modify this to look however you want. I added images in my list):
   
   

   <p><a title=$description$ href="$link$">$title$</a></p>

   
   
5. Modify the number of posts to show in the headlines (this will limit how many items you want to show in the Recent Posts list).
6. Before you save the changes, you'll see, in bold, right above the checkbox, a line that starts with script src=. Copy this line then save the changes.
7. All you need to do now is add the line you copied from the Headlines page to your blog. The line for my blog looks like this:
   
   

   <script src="http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/headlines.aspx?uid=66566&amp;mid=1"></script>

   
   
8. You can modify the pages/controls for your blog to add it somewhere, or if your blog is hosted somewhere and you don't have access to the files, simply add it to the News section under the Configuration options in the Admin pages (For .Text or CommunityServer, I'm sure other blogging engines have something similar).

That's it. Thanks to NewsGator's free service, you can add that where ever you want. You could add some other feed to that as well if you wanted. If you already have a NewsGator account, then you'll want to create a new location and add you blog to that location. The point is that the headlines show for all feeds in that location, so you want to have a location with just your blog feed added to it. Have fun.