All about RSS
Certain readers of my blog have expressed how they haven’t read my blog until now because wasn’t syndicated on Livejournal. I just wanted to show these people how I read their blogs, be they on Livejournal, Blogspot, WordPress, or a custom system like The BBC or New York Times.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.
1. Get Firefox. It is good. It is free. It makes your web surfing experience faster, it’s less prone to viruses than Internet Explorer and it has a few terrific features like tabbed browsing that will make your internet experience even better.
2. Get the Sage RSS reader extention for Firefox.
3. Open the Sage sidebar. There are many ways… one is to hit Alt-S while in Firefox. I prefer to use Tools | View | Customize to drag the Sage icon onto the toolbar; Then I can just click on the icon next to my Firefox Refresh button.
4. Go to your favorite blog.
5. Click on the little magnifying lens icon in the Sage sidebar. It will find the RSS feed for the blog automatically. Choose a feed with your mouse and click “Add Feed”.
6. Do steps 4 and 5 for all your favorite blogs. Some of mine are BoingBoing, TJIC, the Technical Video Rental.com blog, BBC News, Gizmodo, CNN, Craigslist Bikes for Sale in SF, My sister’s blog on Livejournal. All of these sites have RSS feeds. My list is a lot longer but it’s on my desktop computer, which is still being shipped to me. (it should be here today… goodie!)
7. Whenever you’re wondering if any of the blogs in your list have been updated, click on the little Refresh icon. It will automatically check all of the blogs in a couple seconds and indicate to you all of the new content.
There are RSS feeds for a tremendously wide array of websites. RSS is an internet standard. It’s good that way. Use it. You’ll like it.
Neo: I know what you’re trying to do.
Morpheus: I’m trying to free your mind, Neo…but I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.