While tinkering with this site, I discoved that a link to the RSS feed was broken. Acutally, one link was pointing to an old file that contained content from YEARS ago. Some people probably have not noticed a problem at all, while others may have wondered why our feed never updated. It's working now. Sorry about that. I've been doing web development for 12 years now and apparently I still don't know what I'm doing.

"R.S.S. say what?"

Now, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about here are some tips that may save you a lot of time while you browse your favorite sites. It's a useful tool that can be hard for most people to wrap their brains around but once you get the hang of it, you're pretty much gauranteed to be hooked.

• Almost every blog or news site today offer 'RSS Feeds'. RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication." If you are wondering why something that contains the word 'simple' sounds so complicated, don't worry, you really don't need to know what RSS means just what it does.
  
• A typical RSS feed on a website contains a list of recent blog entries, news stories, tweets (for twitter users) or links.
  
• You can subscribe (for FREE) to a feed by using a 'feed reader'. A feed reader is either a web service or software that you install on your computer that checks your RSS feeds and displays any updates all wrapped up in a nice neat little package.

No more browsing individually from site to site, blog to blog, to see if something new has been posted.

To find an RSS feed, most sites have icons that look like these:

You've probably seen these icons before and wondered what they were. They usually link directly to a feed or a page that contains links to feeds (sites like CNN have feeds orgainzed by category. Ex: latest news, sports, business,  robots attacking old people, etc). 

Feed Readers

To get started using RSS you need a feed reader. There are two types of feed readres: web based and client software (a desktop program). I use Google Reader. It's web based so I can login and see my feeds from any computer. I set my Google Reader page as my browser start page so it's the first thing I read every day. Examples of software feed readers would be FeadReader, NetNewsWire (for Macs), or built into web browsers like FireFox or Internet Explorer. If you are new to RSS I'd suggest using a web-based reader since they can be easier to use when subcribing to feeds. A list of popular feed readers can be found at this wikipedia page. 

Did you know?

RSS feeds can be found in a lot of places. Some of them that may not be obvious are:

• Google News search results. Any keyword you search for on Google has an RSS feed. I have a feed that keeps me up to date whenever my last name appears in a news story. I found out today there is a 'Focosi Lane' in Ludlow, MA.
  
• Twitter Tweets. I have zero knowledge of how people follow other people on Twitter on their phones but you can subscribe to a Twitter RSS feed if you desire to know what color your friend's poop was this morning.
• Craigslist. Same as Google. Search results and categories have feeds. I know a lot of people that read this blog may be interested in garage sales in Lafayette, here's the link to the feed. This is a lot more convenient than the newspaper.
• Blog Comments. Some blogs have RSS feeds for their comments. You can subscribe to a comment feed and your feed reader will keep track of any new comments for you. There is now a comment feed for this site.

That's all. I hope some people will find this useful. I think it may be hard to adjust to a new way of browsing the internet. But if you try it out, and see how useful it really is, you'll never imagine your life on the internet without it.

Your feedback

I tend to think that this is a topic that is a little hard for for people to grasp at first but maybe I'm way off. Are any of you reading this already using RSS? I'd like to hear how you use RSS or how you got hooked or how this is way too nerdy for you. Please leave a comment if you have a thought or any tips. Thanks!