What is RSS?
Take the hassle out of staying up-to-date; now you can get the latest news delivered directly to you, rather than clicking from site to site. It is called RSS or 'Really Simple Syndication'. Put simply, it allows you to identify the content you like and have it delivered directly to your nominated 'news reader', such as News Crawler or Feed Demon (see below).
Not all websites have RSS, but it is growing in popularity with many of the top 'news' sites such as the Guardian, New York Times and BBC providing it.
BRAIN is also now providing this 'RSS feed' facility so that you can add the BRAIN Brent community news section to your chosen news reader.
How do I start using RSS feeds?
- The first thing you need is something called a news reader. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. All allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want.
- Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want. For example, if you would like the BRAIN community news simply visit the BRAIN home page and you will notice an orange RSS button at the bottom left hand side of the page.
- If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.
How do I get a News Reader?
There are a range of different news readers available some of which you have to pay a fee, some are free. Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to take this into account when you make your choice.
News Readers
Windows
Newz Crawler - US $25
FeedDemon - US $30
Awasu - free
Mac OS X
NetNewsWire
Web
Bloglines
My Yahoo
NewsGator