submitted by Sang on 06.7.2006 in Random Tutorials, Technology
I promised that I would talk about RSS.
RSS stands for a lot of things, but the most common is Really Simple Syndication.
Say you really like rabbits. There is a website that posts whenever a bunny is born. You want to know when a new one is born, but you don’t have the time to check back every 5 minutes. With RSS, you’ll know exactly when the world has one more bunny.
RSS in its raw form is really ugly. Just take a look at mine. View the source. An RSS aggregator will take your RSS in its raw form and spit it out in a pretty format.
RSS aggregators are all over the place. Modern browsers such as Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 come with a built-in RSS aggregators.
Here is a screenshot of RSS in Opera. Click to enlarge:
In Firefox and Opera, you can subscribe to an RSS feed (technical terms) by clicking the icon in the address bar. Screenshot of Firefox demonstrating this below:
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 is a little different, but not hard to figure out. Screenshot of RSS in Internet Explorer 7 below.
I know there are a few stubborn internet users who refuse to switch to the three browsers mentioned above, so here is an alternative for you. Google offers an interactive homepage that will read your RSS feeds and more. Check it out here. To make Google read your feeds, click on “Add content” in the top left. Screenshot of this below:
Now click on “Add by URL” and paste the RSS feed’s URL into the box.
What if a site does not have the RSS icon in the address bar but has a link to their RSS feed? Just copy the feed link. On my site on the right, under Authors, you’ll see a list of people who have posted stuff to Sangent and their RSS feeds. If you like what a user is posting, get their RSS feed and be informed when they post something new. I’ll use Sangent’s most active poster, Mitsubishi. Right click on the feed icon, and click Copy link address (Opera) or Copy Link Location (Firefox). Below is a screenshot taken in Opera.
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Sangent is a site that delivers entertainment in the form of videos, games, and images. Videos are posted to the front page about 5 - 9 times a day. 
June 22nd, 2006 at 07:18:16
Nice! Thanks for the details on this, Sang. Until now I only knew how to get the site’s feed, not individual author’s feeds. On that note, is there anyway for me to see how many people have subscribed to my feed:?: