Getting Started with RSS

If you are already familiar with RSS, click to subscribe to our RSS feed.

If you are not familiar with RSS, we recommend you read the rest of this page so you’ll know what you’re in for if you subscribe to an RSS feed (ours or someone else’s).

In a world where there are more web pages than there are people, keeping up to date with the information you want can be a drag. Wouldn’t it be better to have the latest news and features delivered directly to you, so that you wouldn’t need to click from site to site? Now you can, thanks to a very clever service called RSS. There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but the majority plump for “Really Simple Syndication.” Put plainly, RSS allows you to identify the content you like and subscribe to it, almost like a newspaper, so that it will be delivered directly to you. RSS takes the hassle out of staying up to date, by showing you the very latest information that you are interested in.

Privacy concerns? Read the Technical Note below.

In general, the first thing you need is something called an RSS, or news, reader. (Don’t confuse RSS readers with readers for Usenet newsgroups.) There are many different versions, some that are accessed using a browser and some that are downloadable applications. All allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want. Here is a screen shot of a popular reader for Mac OS X, NetNewsWire. It shows a view of one of our feed’s articles. From this point I could go directly to the page on our site to which the article refers, displaying the page in the reader‘s window or in my default browser.

Once you have chosen an RSS reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want. Many Web sites indicate that they have RSS feeds available by displaying an orange button that you click to subscribe. The “official” standard button is shown on the left here, but many sites may still have an older button such as the two smaller ones here (or even a button of a different color):

RSS is a special version of XML. For most Web sites, whichever button is there will subscribe you. To subscribe to our Web site’s RSS feed, simply click the link at the beginning of this article or any of the three buttons above. If your browser does not know what to do with the feed's URL, open your RSS reader and tell it to subscribe to http://www.richardspens.com/richardspens.rss.

There is a range of different RSS readers available, and new versions are appearing all the time. Different RSS readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to take this into account when you make your choice. Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera, and Safari, can pick up RSS feeds automatically for you. For more details on these browsers, please check their Web sites. If you prefer a separate RSS reader program, About.com has a good list.

Technical Note The purpose of RSS is essentially the same as that of “push technology” services like the now-defunct PointCast. But it works differently. Most importantly, you don’t provide personal information to anybody. Instead, providers of RSS feeds create files on their sites that are very much like Web pages. When you subscribe to a feed, you’re simply telling your RSS reader the address of a page you want to receive. Your RSS reader then fetches the contents when you tell it to, or on a schedule you determine. Nothing is ever shoved at you.