What is RSS?
RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like
sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community
sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for
news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete
items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a
wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of
a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware
program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes
in an appropriate way.
RSS-aware programs called news aggregators are popular in the weblogging
community. Many weblogs make content available in RSS. A news aggregator
can help you keep up with all your favorite weblogs by checking
their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them.
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How do I start using RSS feeds?
In general, the first thing you need is something called a news
reader. There are many different versions. Some news readers, such
as Google, present the information on a web page. Some news readers,
such as iTunes, are downloadable applications. All allow you to
display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want.
Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, have functionality
which automatically picks up RSS feeds for you. For example, Firefox
displays the information in the bookmark function with something
called "live bookmarks." For more details on these, please
check their websites.
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How do I get a News Reader?
There is a range of different news readers available and new versions
are appearing all the time.
Different news readers work on different operating systems, so
you will need to take this into account when you make your choice.
Windows
Mac OS X
Web
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