18.11.06

RSS. Do it.



If you're scared of computers, don't worry, this is simply meant to make your life easier.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows you to know as soon as a new news item is posted on your favorite news website or when your favorite blogs have a new post. This eliminates the necessity of having to visit each website to see if something knew has been posted. For example, I know that I don't have to visit Justin's blog, because he hasn't posted anything new since November 4. I do know however that there are seven new articles on the How Stuff Works website since I last looked at the feed. All you get are the headlines and a short description or the first few lines of the article, so you can browse ad free and click on the articles or blog posts that most interest you. All Blogger blogs automatically generate an RSS feed.

To take advantage of all this, you need an RSS reader. I use one that is built into my browser Safari on my Mac. Easy as anything to add an RSS or XML (same thing basically) feed to your bookmarks. Any page that carries a feed will have an RSS or XML on the right end of the URL (website address). Just click on that and you get the RSS page, then add to favorites.

Windows has a whole bunch of RSS readers too. I'm sure Sirdar or kevininspace can recommend one. Firefox and Explorer have RSS reader plugins that you can download.

Some feeds that I subscribe to are the Edmonton Oilers, Wired, CBC Canadian News, New York Times Movie News, Apple News, and of course Strength and Honour Showtimes.

4 comments:

Aimée said...

Zaak-any trouble with my blog? I've had the occasional complaint that people can't get the RSS feed.
Are you reading?

Zaak said...

Aimée: I just checked to see if it was up-to-date and it's fine. I haven't had any problems with it at all. Enjoying it very much actually. One of the best "feeds" I have.

Zaak said...

NOTE: I just added an RSS feed to zaakistan.com for you die hard fans.

Sirdar said...

I was using it for most of the blog people I visit but what I found was I wanted to see what the comments were on the previous post. Therefore I just open all of them at once and go from blog to blog.