What are RSS and Post feeds?
What is RSS?
RSS, sometimes known as Really Simple Syndication, is a popular means of sharing content (such as news headlines) without requiring readers to constantly visit a Web site to see what’s new. RSS feeds contain headlines and hyperlinks to longer articles or Web pages.
How do I start using RSS feeds?
In general, the first thing you need is something called a News Reader (also known as a News Aggregator). They will download and display RSS feeds for you. 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 latest titles and articles from Ourlove.co.za simply visit our homepage and you will notice an orange RSS button on the right with the text Posts feed or Comments feed.
RSS button
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 or channel in your News Reader.
Some browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Netscape 8, Opera and Safari RSS, have functionality which automatically pick up RSS feeds for you. For more details on these, please check their websites.
How do I get a News Reader?
Different News Readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to take this into account when you make your choice.
Many free and commercial news aggregators are available for download, but we’ve included a sample of how you would subscribe by using Internet Explorer 7’s built-in Reader.
First, on our pages, look out for the following orange icons. Click on Post feed.
You will be presented by the following screen.
In the yellow block, click on the link that says Subscribe to this feed. You will be presented by this screen.
Click on New Folder and type in the site name - in this case Our love(see below) and click on Create.
If your screen looks like the following then click on Subscribe.
If everything goes well you will be presented with the screen confirming your subscription was successful.
Now to read your feeds click on View my feeds
Whenever you want to check up on your feeds, click on the star icon on the left hand corner of Internet Explorer (your favourites centre) and click on feeds. You will see a screen like this…
And that’s it really. Sit back and relax - every time your favourite website posts a new article or if someone writes a new comment it will automatically pop up on your feed reader. (provided that you’ve connected to the internet at some point or another of course)
Now use the same method for every website you want to subscribe to. It’s Real Simple Syndication - really!
