RSS - Really Simple Syndication

What is RSS and why use it?

In a nutshell, RSS is a way you can know when something new has been put on a website without going to the website to look. This saves you time and trouble.

Simply put, there is a page on the website where an entry is made when something new is put up on the website. This may be done automatically or it may be done by hand by the webmaster. You, the viewer of the website, use some sort of RSS news reader to see this information. The reader is either a separate program or part of another program such as an email program. The announcement that there is something new on the website will come in much as an ordinary email. When you get the announcement, you will know that there is something new. You will get a little information about what it is and a link to click on to go see it. Alternately, you may see the entire page in the program.

How to sign up for this information?

First the website needs to have RSS available. You will usually see a link for the RSS feed with or without the little orange RSS icon . Generally you can right-click on the icon and save the link, or you can click on it and then copy the link from the browser's address window. You paste that address into the blank for the Feed URL in your RSS news reader

The RSS URL for the ARI website is: http://cpprovince.org/ari/rss.xml

Programs for RSS news reading

Thunderbird Email

One of the easiest programs to use is Thunderbird, an email program. Download Thunderbird here.

1. Left pane is the list of email folders. The section "News & Blogs" is where the RSS feeds are. Notice there are (8) unread with a total of 10 items in "Provinc....es". That has a grey highlight and is the folder being looked at in the picture. If there were nothing new in the folder, it would not be bold as you see with "Codejedi Wiki" above it.
2. Top right pane shows the list of subjects. Those that are still in bold, have not been viewed yet. This is the same way emails look when they have not yet been read. "Early Monastic Hospitality" is currently being viewed.
3. Bottom right pane is the page being viewed. The program could have been set so that only a brief description with a link to the page would be shown. Note that Subject, From, Date, and Website link appear in the heading.

RSS Popper for Outlook/Outlook Express

If you are already using Outlook or Outlook Express, you may want to install RSS Popper. RSS Popper will give those programs the ability to do RSS news. There is a version for Outlook and another for Outlook Express. Download RSS Popper

The display of the material is much the same as above in Thunderbird as shown here in Outlook.

Firefox and Internet Explorer 7

Firefox has several extensions for RSS. Sage is a good one. There is supposed to also be RSS now in Internet Explorer 7. The problem with using the browser to check for updates on a website is that it still requires you to browse a bit to see them. It's not quite as handy as having the announcements simply appear in a folder in your your email program.