In the past, if you
wanted to check for the latest club news or
for your section’s latest standings, you had
to visit this website, take a look, and if
your desired update was not there, return at
another time to check again. This might not
have been a good use of your time..
RSS is basically, the opposite of the
above-described experience. RSS sends the
news and updates to you, shortly after they
are posted.
You choose the updates that you want to
receive and then they arrive automatically.
For example, if you curl in the Mixed
Section and also in the Tuesday Women
Section, you could choose to receive RSS
feeds to those two sections and to the Club
News and Updates. You would not receive
updates for any other sections.
What is RSS?
A common definition of RSS is "Really Simple Syndication". When you
"subscribe" to RSS feeds, the latest news and additions to the website will
be delivered directly to you. You don't need to click from one site to the
next, trying to see the new content that has been added since your last
visit. It allows you to identify the content you like and have it delivered
directly to you.
Two videos that provide a basic understanding of RSS
Many websites have links labelled "RSS" or
"Atom". These are ways of saying that you can find out about
updates to that site without having to visit the site in your web
browser.
This feature is referred to as "syndication" or "aggregation". Sometimes
it's just called subscribing. And these days, instead of one of these words,
lots of sites will use a little orange button. The standard one looks like
this and it means
that the site you're
viewing has a feed available.
Who Publishes Feeds?
Anyone that publishes on the web
can publish a feed. Blogs (or weblogs) were the first types of sites
to offer feeds. Most major newspapers and news websites, hobbyist sites, and
even stores like Amazon.com, offer feeds, too.
What Do I Need?
To watch a video clip or
listen to music on the web, you need a "player" of some kind. To subscribe to
feeds you also need a special "player" called a feed reader. There are many to choose
from, so you can find the one that best suits you.
The feed reader lets you subscribe to feeds you want and then checks automatically to see
when they're updated. Then it displays the updates for you as they arrive.
Feed readers can run on your computer or you can use a
feed reader that runs on the web. If you use one of the web-based readers,
you can access your feeds from anywhere you go, just by signing into the
website that manages your feeds. If you use a feed reading program that
installs on your computer, your feeds can be stored for you even if you're
not online at the time that they occur.
What Feed Reader Should I Use?
On the web: If you don't want to have to install a
program, many people choose My Yahoo!,
Google Reader,
My MSN, or
My AOL to read feeds right within
their browser.
If you want a separate program to read feeds, you can use
FeedDemon with Microsoft Windows and on a Macintosh running OS X, try
NetNewsWire.
On your computer: If you want a feed reading program
that runs on your own computer, just use the feed reader associated with
your browser.
RSS with Chrome
Google Chrome has not done RSS well in the past. However, there is
now an extension that allows RSS to work well in Chrome. There is a catch.
You must be using Chrome 4.0 or higher to be able to easily install
extensions. So, if you really want to use Chrome and RSS, and, if you do not
have the current version, go to the Chrome site to install the latest
version. Once installed, if you click on the tools menu, you will see the
choice "Extensions". When you
open the Extensions page, it will tell you that you have no extensions
installed but would you like to visit the gallery? Do that and you will find
the RSS extension to install.
