This probably seems pretty random, but every so often, I wanted to throw up a tech tip. This post is about RSS!I'm sure you've heard the term before. Maybe you've also heard people say, "RSS Feed" or "RSS Channel". And maybe you've always wondered what that orange satellite looking icon meant. So what does RSS stand for? Really Simple Syndication. Basically, it's a standard way for 'updates' to be published.
Now RSS can be used for a whole variety of things, but the one use that I want to focus on was for blogs (like this one!). The structure of blogs in general is that they are based on 'posts' - that is, discrete chunks of new content. It's not like a normal website that has its internal contents constantly changing.
But then two problems arise:
1) How do you know when content is updated? It gets annoying sometimes to constantly check a site to see if there's a new post. Or, you'll feel bad when everyone is talking about the latest Disgracepoint post, but you were studying really hard and had no idea there was even a new post up! Oh, the injustice!
2) What if you regularly check a bunch of blogs? There are a whole bunch just even at Gracepoint Fellowship Church that Emily features now and then (or look at the bottom of the right sidebar). Again, it becomes annoying to check these one by one.
RSS solves these problems by having a simple and standard way to aggregate these updates. Many sites nowadays have RSS feeds. In Safari, you can tell by the RSS box on the right side:
In Firefox, it'll look like the RSS icon on the right side (but blue):
In IE ... first thing you should do is get and use Firefox.
If you click on those icons you'll notice a very plain looking list of all the posts (Note: if you have a choice between RSS and Atom feeds, choose the Atom feed. It's just a newer format).
Instructions for Safari users:
1) Bookmark the page after you click on the RSS button (and choose Atom if applicable).
2) Add the bookmark (cmd + d) to the Bookmarks Bar, or a folder within the Bookmarks Bar if you like organizing things that way. For example, I have a folder of blogs, and folder of news feeds that I regularly check.
3) Update preferences to your liking (cmd + ,). I would definitely recommend checking the "Highlight unread articles" checkbox. As you'll notice, the number of unread articles will appear next to the Bookmark, making this very convenient.
Instruction for Firefox users:
There are two ways to go with this. One is to use the default RSS reader in Firefox (called Live Bookmarks), or to use an add-on. I personally like the Sage add on, so we'll go with instructions for that.
1) Install Firefox 3 if you haven't already (optional).
2) Install Sage (choose the right version based on what version of Firefox you have).
3) Click on the blue satellite looking icon (choosing Atom if applicable), and add the bookmark to a folder that should already have been created called "Sage Feeds" (Note: it's in the bookmarks menu).
4) To see all your feeds, click on the nice green leafy Sage icon. And viola!
Conclusion: RSS is an easy way to aggregate all the feeds you want, tell you when things are updated, and have a simple unified format for everything. You can also experiment with other feed aggregators, but that's left as an exercise to the reader. If there's a feed aggregator that you particularly like, or even suggestions for future Tech Tips, leave a comment! And finally, to pratice, you should subscribe to this blog's RSS feed right now! I mean, right now!
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Posted By Joe Hwang to Gracepoint Fellowship Church :: Koinonia Berkeley HG 7 [R.E.D.] at 7/24/2008 02:51:00 PM
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