What is RSS?

RSS allows you to see when a site has added new content. You can get the latest headlines and articles (or even audio files, photographs or video) in one place, as soon as they are published, without having to remember to visit each site every day.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail. You can also use My Yahoo (my.yahoo.co.uk) in the same way.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want to receive in your news reader, by finding and subscribing to the relevant RSS feeds. For example, if you would like the latest news of updates to the Unique Property Site all you have to do is subscribe by clicking on the relevant RSS button. I shall be running several feeds. One general feed, and a feed for every category I have on the site, so you can choose which content news to receive. Or of course you can subscribe to them all.

If you click on the RSS 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.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for RSS feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to RSS feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.

You will find that I am also enabling my pages to take advantage of Firefox's facility for producing Live Bookmarks.

If you are still using old fashioned Internet Explorer then it is probably time to throw it out and start using a modern browser. I would recommend Firefox.

Newsreaders

For Windows users there is:
Newz Crawler, which can be found at:
http://www.newzcrawler.com/
Feed Demon, which can be found at: http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdId=FeedDemon
and Awasu, which can be found at:
http://www.awasu.com/

For the Mac user there is:

Newsfire, which can be found at:
http://www.newsfirerss.com/
or NetNewsWire, which can be found at:
http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdID=NetNewsWire

Of course there are others.

How to use RSS

To receive our feeds you need first to get a newsreader. Some cost money, but usually they are cheap. Others are available free.

Open the newsreader.

Drag and drop the RSS button into the main frame of your newsreader, the source url will be dropped into the location bar, and you can click the ADD button.

Generally you will have to fill in a couple of dialog boxes as the program wizard takes you thru the basic steps to set up your news feed. Most of the items will probably be dealt with by just accepting the default settings, but you do get the chance to configure the way the feeds are displayed, and how often your newsreader goes looking for updates.

If you get any problems email me for help, but do tell me which reader you are using and where precisely you get stuck.