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Brians Blog

Brian Cunningham

Wednesday 28 June 2006

Today I decided to investigate RSS which stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'. I had seen little orange RSS boxes on Exc.el and on some news websites that I browse, but never really understood what it was all about.

Turns out that it’s an alternative means of accessing the vast amount of information that now exists on the world wide web. Instead of the browsing websites for information of interest, the information is sent directly to you.

I found out that to use RSS an RSS reader is needed so I had a bit of a browse and downloaded Sharpreader one of the many free RSS readers available. Its a piece of software that collects data from news feeds or blogs that are RSS compatible and turns them into text and links that you can browse at any time you wish.

The beauty of it is that you can take feeds from only websites / blogs that are of interest to you and it allows you to browse the latest information from a range of sources without having to visit half a dozen websites to view half a dozen blogs or news articles. With Sharpreader all I have to do is paste the address of the blog or news item etc into the window at the top, hit return and it presents all the information I require in a simple way, much like the “in” box of an Outlook based email system such as the council has.

I was amazed by how simple it is and it will definitely save time as the information I require is delivered to me without me having to spend time browsing the various news and blog sites to see what everyone is up to. A real winner. I would urge anyone who isn’t already using it to give it a go.

Comments

RSS - try Bloglines too?

David

Thursday 29 June 2006

Welcome to the world of RSS! You migt find Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) useful for those occasions when you can't install software on a PC, such as in school. Because it's web-based, your RSS feeds follow you wherever you go...

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