What is RSS?

Audio and Video Podcast

Tidbits

Book Recommendation

Children's Savings News

Money Saving Tips

Keep yourself updated with with RSS.

What are RSS feeds?
How can I use them?
Where can I get a news reader?


What are RSS news feeds?

Rss news feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and video in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.

Feeds are also known as RSS 'Really Simple Syndication'. In essence, the feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.

How do I start using feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. 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.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want it to receive. For example, if you would like the latest MyEggNest's Money Saving Tips, simply visit the Money Saving Tips section and you will notice an orange button .

If you click on the RSS button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may just have a normal web link.

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

Where can 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 choose one that will work with your computer.

Here are the top picks for reading news on Windows from technie professionals at About.com

1. NewzCrawler
   NewzCrawler is a fantastic RSS feed reader with a highly usable interface and tons of useful features and gimmicks. While NewzCrawler lets you post to blogs, its weak spot is news item relations. 
2. FeedDemon
   FeedDemon is a clean and well thought-out approach to reading RSS feeds. Easy to configure and use, FeedDemon still has a very comprehensive feature set and hardly any weak spots.
3. Omea Reader
   Omea Reader makes staying up to date with RSS feeds, Usenet news and web pages a smooth experience tailored to your reading style and organizing talent with search folders, annotations, categories and workspaces.
4. Bloglines
   Bloglines is a great, web-based way to read RSS feeds. There's no software to wrestle with, and using Bloglines is smooth and easy. You can even subscribe to searches in either your or all feeds and publish a blog with remarkable simplicity. 
5. Google Reader
   Google Reader is a decidedly simple yet very usable and, thanks to a flexible labeling system, quite comprehensive web-based RSS feed reader. 
6. NewsGator Online Services
   NewsGator Online Services make your RSS feed follow you. Using intelligent subscription and item synchronization, you can read news on the web, via POP email, on a mobile device or in NewsGator for Outlook. Unfortunately, the NewsGator Online Services web edition lacks a bit in features and functionality. 
7. NewsGator Inbox for Outlook
   NewsGator does the very right thing of integrating RSS feeds (and Usenet news) with an email client. NewsGator lets you read, archive, organize and search news with all the power of Outlook. 
8. Awasu Personal Edition
   Awasu Personal Edition is an extremely feature-rich RSS feed reader. The option to enhance it with plug-ins and hooks in particular makes Awasu a powerful aggregator, in spite of some limitations. 
9. Blog Navigator
   Blog Navigator is a sophisticated RSS feed reader that packs a lot of power — search folders and offline article archiving, for example — in an easily approachable interface. There are still some rough edges, though, Blog Navigator comes with little documentation and search as well as organization show room for improvement. 
10. SharpReader
    SharpReader is a great RSS feed reader that knows how to organize news and blogs in their logical order to make following them easy. Virtual folders and searches would be logical next steps.

We were a little surprise to see Mobipocket omitted from About.com's Top 10. As the name suggest, Mobipocket not only allow you to send RSS onto your PC but also onto your mobile devices like mobile phones, PDAs and tablet PCs.  

Since most media organisation now have RSS, you can access, on your mobile device, the latest news, articles and blogs from almost every TV news, newspapers and magazines, all for free (you never have to buy a newspaper again!!!).  In addition, Mobipocket also has a great ebook module which allow you to buy and download ebooks on your device.  However, if you don't want to spend any money, why not just download the thousands of free ebooks online.

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