1. Use an RSS reader, as described in a recent Mercury News article.
The catch: A blog must provide an RSS feed.
2. Use the service provided by blo.gs to dynamically generate a list of favorites, ordered by last-updated time. I do this in the left rail of my site, and, since I implemented it, I've abandoned my routine of checking sites one at a time. Now, I only check blogs when I know they're updated.
The blo.gs site provides such "favorites" lists in several formats; more information is on the site's about page.
The catch: It only works for blogs that are kind enough to ping a notification service such as weblogs.com. (Pinging is a way of alerting a central server when your blog has changed. The server keeps a record of blogs' last-updated times and provides this information to anyone who wants it.) Fortunately for me, most of my favorites -- including E-Media Tidbits -- do this.
Of course, I do agree that bloggers should let their readers know whenever they'll be on hiatus, just out of common courtesy.
