RSS+Information

Podcast Gear Guy explaines RSS.. RSS is a simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest. You might have figured that much out by now. But basically, that’s the essence of an RSS feed – you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader. What the heck is a feed reader? [|Read more...]

It depends on who you ask what RSS stands for, but we’ll use **Really Simple Syndication**. You can read more about RSS at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_%28protocol%29, but the basic idea is that many websites are RSS enabled - you can “subscribe” to a web page “feed” and be notified anytime that page changes. You manage and read your RSS feeds through an “RSS Aggregator”. This allows you to keep track of any updates to your favorite websites without having to actually visit those websites. RSS also has the advantage of not being “spammable” – you manage your subscriptions and decide what you want to read. Most major news sources now offer RSS feeds, as well as other websites and blogs. Anywhere you see an orange XML button, or words like RSS Feed, Site Feed, or Atom Feed – indicates a page you can subscribe to. To get started, you need an RSS Aggregator. There are three main types of RSS Aggregators: web browsers, online aggregators, and client aggregators. (You can read more about aggregators – and see a list of aggregators – at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator ). The following are some suggestions - they are all free (although Safari is only "free" with Mac OS X). **Web Browsers**Both [|Firefox 1.x] and [|Safari 2.x] have RSS capabilities built into them (as will the next version of Internet Explorer). **Online Aggregators**There are a variety of web-based aggregators. The advantage of web-based aggregators is that you can manage and read your feeds from multiple computers without having to worry about them being out of synch. There are many web-based choices, but [|Bloglines] is a highly recommended online aggregator. **Client Aggregators**You can also install an aggregator on your computer. The advantage of these aggregators is they sometimes have more features than online aggregators. The disadvantage is that you are tied to managing your RSS feeds from one computer (or risk having them be out of synch). There are many client aggregators, but [|Thunderbird] (from the makers of Firefox) is a highly recommended one. If you are just getting started with RSS, we would recommend trying [|Bloglines]. Once you get more experience with RSS, then you can better evaluate your choices. Once you have your aggregator, start subscribing to feeds – each aggregator has its own method you need to figure out, but it’s usually pretty simple. Find the site feed URL by clicking on that orange XML button, or the words RSS Feed, Site Feed, or Atom Feed. That will take you to a page that may or may not look like something to you, but all you care about is grabbing the URL and adding it to your feed list in your aggregator. For example, the AHS Weekly Warrior blog is located at http://ahsweeklywarrior.blogspot.com/. If you go there, you can view it like a normal web page. But if you then click on the button that says RSS Site Feed, it takes you to this URL - http://ahsweeklywarrior.blogspot.com/atom.xml. This page is not as readable, but that’s okay – because you’ll never actually see it. You just use the http://ahsweeklywarrior.blogspot.com/atom.xml URL to subscribe to the feed in your aggregator – and your aggregator delivers a readable version to you. RSS is an extremely useful and exciting new technology – we encourage you to explore it further (and, of course, to subscribe to the [|AHS Weekly Warrior], [|AHS Daily Announcements], and [|The AHS Book Shelf]).

[|Click here] to view the wiki that Will Richardson has set up to explain a Wiki.

[] //In depth: what can you do with FeedYes.com? » Generate feeds for any website or specific page » Save those feeds, so you can read them in any rss reader. One click adding. » Syndicate those feeds: put the headlines on your own website » Monitor websites realtime: always know the latest news from any webpage//
 * FeedYes.com gives rss feeds to every page on the web**