Etips is a publication of:
Your Guide to Professional Web
Site Design and Development
Hello,
Welcome to this week's edition of Etips.
With the spa*m problem on the rise, many ISPs now have filters in place that
are making it very difficult for ezine publishers to get their publications
to their subscribers. For this reason, many publishers have stopped publishing
all together, while others are now using RSS feeds to deliver their
publications.
For those who aren't familiar with RSS, it stands for Rich Site Summary.
It is an XML format specifically designed to share content. Netscape originally
developed RSS to drive channels for their Netscape Netcenter.
Formerly known as RDF, RSS was developed in 1999 and has quickly evolved
into the dominant format for syndicating content. Well-known sites, such
as CNET, ZDNet, CNN, Wired and many more utilize this powerful means of dynamic
content delivery.
If you'd like to learn more about using RSS to distribute your content, my
article,
'Syndicate
Your Headlines Using RSS,' will assist you.
In this week's edition of Etips, Steve Shaw will assist you in learning how
to read RSS feeds.
I hope you'll enjoy the publication.
To your success!
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 15 Ways to Read an RSS
Feed
By
Steve Shaw Copyright
© 2004
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 indecipherable 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 part 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 selected a particular news reader, you simply follow the
instructions provided to subscribe to or add a new feed and simply paste
the address in - the reader will take care of the rest and keep you updated
with your new feed.
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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 additional feeds. 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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Highly
Recommended
| Tip of
the Week |
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If you're developing a web
site,
Jimtools.com
offers a variety of free online tools to assist you. Some of the tools include
validators, generators, encryption, scripts, programming and more.
Today's tip is an excerpt from the highly acclaimed
Web Design Mastery series.
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