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Copyright 2004 Steve Shaw
No doubt you have seen those small orange 'XML' or 'RSS'
buttons beginning to spread across some of your favourite
web sites.
Perhaps you have clicked on one out of curiosity, only to
be faced with a barrage of angle brackets and
undecipherable code, seemingly designed to scare the heck
out of anyone less than familiar with the intricacies of
this new fangled technology creeping across the web.
But once you click on that button - what do you do then?
This article will show you exactly what to do. RSS? It's
actually Really Simple, Stupid.
The first thing to do of course is click that button. It
may be an orange button with 'XML' or 'RSS' written across
it; or you could see the word 'Atom'; or, less commonly, it
could be blue with maybe the initials 'RDF'; or it could be
a simple link with something like 'Grab My Feed'. Gets
confusing, doesn't it? But what the acronyms like XML and
RSS actually stand for is less than important - what to do
after clicking the button is the important bit.
After clicking the button, you will see all that code - if
you have ever viewed the source code to a web page, it
looks a little similar.
RSS is just another language of the web, but you can
actually completely ignore the code itself, just like you
can ignore the source code behind web pages that you visit
- you are only interested in the end product that the code
is designed to produce for you, the end user.
In the case of RSS, that end product is up to date news on
the topics you are interested in.
For example, if you want to keep up to date with the latest
information on financial markets, or growing marigolds, or
your Aunt Mildred's blog as she travels across the
Antarctic, and you see a feed on that particular topic, you
can 'subscribe' to it and receive messages via the feed,
each time the publisher of the feed updates it.
So how do you 'subscribe' to an RSS feed? The important bit
is what is in the browser address (or location) bar after
clicking the feed button, i.e. the bit at the top of your
browser window that usually starts with 'http://...' and
tells you the web address of the page you are visiting.
After clicking the RSS (or XML, etc.) button, you need to
copy that address - it's that address that you need to
'plug' into what is generally known as a 'news reader'.
News readers allow you to keep updated with the feeds that
you are subscribed to. There are several to choose from -
some involve downloading some software, some involve
visiting a web site, some are free, and some require a
small investment.
Once you have chosen a particular news reader, you simply
take that address that you have copied, and, following the
instructions provided with the news reader to subscribe to,
or add a new feed, simply paste it in - the reader will
take care of the rest, and keep you updated with your new
feed. Once you have done it once, you will see just how
simple it really is.
Here are 15 different news readers you can choose from, in
approximate order of recommendation under each category:
Browser-Based:
BlogLines (http://www.bloglines.com)
AmphetaDesk (http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/)
NewsIsFree (http://www.newsisfree.com/)
Software For Windows:
NewsGator (http://www.newsgator.com/) - integrates into
Microsoft Outlook
FeedDemon (http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/)
Awasu (http://www.awasu.com/)
SharpReader (http://www.sharpreader.net/)
FeedReader (http://www.feedreader.com/)
NewsWatcher (http://www.newswatcher.com/)
NewsRanker (http://egofile.com/newsranker/) - claims to
learn from your news reading to prioritize the feed items
you receive
Novobot (http://www.proggle.com/novobot/) - extracts
headlines from feeds, and also web sites that you are
interested in
Radio Userland (http://radio.userland.com/) - blogging tool
with an integrated news aggregator
Software For Mac:
NetNewsWire (http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/)
Software For Linux:
Straw (http://www.nongnu.org/straw/) for GNOME
RSS2email (http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/rss2email/) - Python
script that sends you new messages from your feeds via email
It's useful to spend a few minutes researching some
appropriate choices - once you've decided on one that you
believe to be suitable, you can start picking up new feeds
straight away. It's Really So Simple, you won't look back.
About the Author:
Steve Shaw creates software and systems for effective
e-marketing at http://takanomi.com. Sign up to his RSS
feed, and receive important information on using RSS
effectively for e-marketing - just click the following link
to sign up:
http://takanomi.prorss.com/r/sp/21
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