Do you use RSS? (A news reader, etc)

[thinkbible]

Do you use RSS?

[Pastor Matt]

Oh yes, I can't live without it.

[LAF]

At the risk of sounding dumb whats rss?

[thinkbible]

At the risk of sounding dumb whats rss?

"Really Simple Syndication".
It's a system by which web sites "publish" information. this is read by the user with a "News Reader" program.

Watch for "RSS" to appear in the URL window on web sites. Also look for "RSS" logos within sites. Clicking on the RSS icon will "Publish" the site news to your news reader. I publish one forum on my Resource site (see my signature below).

So what's the neat thing about this? Eventually you will will have published (fed) sites of interest to your News Reader program. So once or twice a day you open your news reader and a summary of "news" (such as new posts) will appear from ALL the sites in a nice neat window.

Mostly RSS is used to "feed" news articles, web updates, important news. On a site like Online Baptist there is much too much info to publish but, for example, the "Board News" section could be publish. Anytime there is an addition it shows up in your Reader.

Again, the advantage is that you don't have to go to 25 or 30 sites to catch up on your latest news, all the published news for the sites will show up in the reader. For example, I'm subscribed to SermonAudio.com (newly added mat'l), several christian news feeds, versiontracker.com (shows newly added software), etc

There are many free readers. I encourage you to find one and try it. I use a Mac so I use "NetNewsWire". Someone can probably suggest a good reader for Windows. Also look on http://versiontracker.com

[LAF]

"Really Simple Syndication".
It's a system by which web sites "publish" information. this is read by the user with a "News Reader" program.

Watch for "RSS" to appear in the URL window on web sites. Also look for "RSS" logos within sites. Clicking on the RSS icon will "Publish" the site news to your news reader. I publish one forum on my Resource site (see my signature below).

So what's the neat thing about this? Eventually you will will have published (fed) sites of interest to your News Reader program. So once or twice a day you open your news reader and a summary of "news" (such as new posts) will appear from ALL the sites in a nice neat window.

Mostly RSS is used to "feed" news articles, web updates, important news. On a site like Online Baptist there is much too much info to publish but, for example, the "Board News" section could be publish. Anytime there is an addition it shows up in your Reader.

Again, the advantage is that you don't have to go to 25 or 30 sites to catch up on your latest news, all the published news for the sites will show up in the reader. For example, I'm subscribed to SermonAudio.com (newly added mat'l), several christian news feeds, versiontracker.com (shows newly added software), etc



There are many free readers. I encourage you to find one and try it. I use a Mac so I use "NetNewsWire". Someone can probably suggest a good reader for Windows. Also look on http://versiontracker.com

Ok I'll have to try it next time I see it .

[thinkbible]

btw... some browsers have an RSS "mode" and can act as a news reader. Go to "HELP" on your browser and search for "RSS". The "stand alone" programs will have more features and recommended.

[zealyouthguy]

Also... if there is a special interest that you like to keep up on...

Google Alerts is a tremendous source for those. I have all kinds of stuff sent to my mail box about the phrase "IFBx" or "Independent Fundamental Baptist". It's even more powerful than RSS because it's google-crawl enabled, meaning that the whole net gets crawled by google and items don't have to be on an rss feed to reach you.

Example: Tomorrow, or the day after at latest... I will receive an email with THIS here post in it, because I used the phrase "IFBx" and "Independent Fundamental Baptist"... but only for the stuff that happened since my google alert... not for everything out there.

[thinkbible]

ahh yes... google alerts... excellant tip....

[MilkmanDan]

For windows IMHO the best browser is Firefox. In conjunction with FF I'd recommend a look at Sage.

Once you have DL'd Sage, then its a matter of opening Sage hitting an icon and subscribing to the feed. Really easy even for me (technologically illiterate :duh ).

If you have the bandwidth I'd recommend Google Reader and I believe IE has one as well.

[thinkbible]

I use NetNewsPro for Mac. While in my browser (safari) I just hit the RSS feed button or link. Safari launches NetNewsPro (default reader is set by user in the prefs) and all I do is confirm that I do want to subscribe. So it's literally two clicks to subscribe to the feed.

[Pastor Matt]

I just let Thunderbird grab mine.

[thinkbible]

Also... if there is a special interest that you like to keep up on...

Google Alerts is a tremendous source for those. I have all kinds of stuff sent to my mail box about the phrase "IFBx" or "Independent Fundamental Baptist". It's even more powerful than RSS because it's google-crawl enabled, meaning that the whole net gets crawled by google and items don't have to be on an rss feed to reach you.

Thanks for mentioning Alerts.. You just gave me an idea for perhaps the "best" alert.... Your own name. By create an alert which watches your name you can keep up with yourself on the web!

[zealyouthguy]

Thanks for mentioning Alerts.. You just gave me an idea for perhaps the "best" alert.... Your own name. By create an alert which watches your name you can keep up with yourself on the web!

lol, yeah, that's one that I do too.

[anime4christ]

I have Opera handle my feeds. Personally, I prefer Atom over RSS.
I have an Atom feed on my blog, btw.
http://detyabozhye.com/feedme.php

[MilkmanDan]

I have Opera handle my feeds. Personally, I prefer Atom over RSS.
I have an Atom feed on my blog, btw.
http://detyabozhye.com/feedme.php

Why atom over RSS.
I didn't know there was a difference?