What is RSS

How do I start using RSS?

RSS feeds available on Bosconet

What is RSS?
There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, 'Rich Site Summary', or  'Really Simple Syndication'. It allows you to identify the content you like and have it delivered directly to you. In fact, you may instead discover an icon that simply says XML and not RSS.  XML means 'Extensible Markup Language' a form of html.  The icon is often orange, sometimes blue, probably no colour other than those two.

RSS/XML takes the hassle out of staying up-to-date, by showing you the very latest information that you are interested in.

Not all websites currently provide RSS, but it is growing rapidly in popularity.

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 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. A possible choice is one called Sharpreader.  It may ask you, at the point of installation, to also download and set up .Net Framework 1.1  The latter takes about 15-20 minutes to download but is simple to install.  Sharpreader installs immediately once that is set up.  But there are other readers which do not require .Net Framework which is Microsoft related.  Most readers are free.

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 to receive austraLasia this way, simply visit the austraLasia section on the homepage and you will notice an orange RSS button on the right hand side.

If you select 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. NOTE: if you click ont he button you will open a page that is 'raw' xml or extended html - it can be read but it is not much use to you.  A Feed Reader on the other hand, knows how to 'read' that text and show it to you as normal text.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, have functionality which automatically picks up RSS feeds for you. For more details on these, please check their websites.

RSS Feeds available on Bosconet

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