RSS For Rookies

What are RSS newsfeeds?

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Both mean the same thing, so do not let that confuse you. RSS is something a website (or blog) offers to readers provide a "news feed" their information. E 'available for everyone to add to your "news reader" for free and appear on the desktop or the web browser.

It works almost like a stock ticker, delivering exactly the information you have anonymously "subscribed" to, eliminating the need to go out and check the points for favorite new information, since they are delivered to your computer.

Who needs RSS?

Well, everybody needs it. It 's much more efficient can make it, or getting endless email newsletters. Having the paper delivered to your home makes more sense than driving to the store every day, is not it? Similarly, say you only want the latest news about some topics, and routine and check out different websites to see what's new. Using RSS, Web sites of individual that will deliver news directly to your desktop, suitable for reading, clicking, printing, or ignore.

How can you use RSS?

There seems to be a single definitive answer, because there are many ways to use it. I tell you the easiest way to get RSS feeds, to my knowledge, but by no means the only way. This is the home page of its Web browser.

First, you need an RSS news reader (aka "aggregator"). The good news though is that you may already have one. Since millions of people have Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail or Google account, I'll walk through adding a news feed to your MSN home page. Vai and log in my.msn.com If you do not already have a hotmail account, go ahead and create one. If you prefer, you can go and do the same my.yahoo.com) It only takes a minute to pick up a new account.

After logging on to My MSN, you'll see quite an array of news, weather, sports, advertising, stock quotes, local information, etc. Think of it as the canvas, and you are free to organize or remove information as deemed necessary. Each of these sections you can see me easily moved or deleted. To move them, just click and drag from the top right of each subject area. To remove, click the minus sign (-) sign in the top left of the field. Feel free to delete them all, because you can always add it later.

Now go to the upper left of the screen, just above the area "Welcome" see "Add content" under your name. When you go, you get four choices (Tabs) to add content. The default tab that comes up is "Search". and here are four options and each is clearly defined. If you know the exact web address (URL) to the news feed of a company, you can enter here. The other three cards might be worth exploring too, since they allow users to navigate and company names and subjects. Then just click a box to whatever you want.

After logging on to My Yahoo, you will notice that there are already several news feeds from Reuters listed there, with "Top Stories", "World News", "politics" and "Business". Above those stories, you'll see a big yellow box in the center to explain how you can "Add Content". Click on the link to "add content" and will arrive with a search box that allows you to "find content" on a given topic. Type a search phrase, and you'll be presented with the results of the research that everyone has a button "Add" next to them. Click the "Add" from the desired ones, and then press the "Done" at the top right, and you're done. You have added the News RSS feed to your My Yahoo page. Scroll down to the main page of My Yahoo, news headlines and see that you have added to the bottom of your list. To change the order of your news feed, simply press the small button "edit" at the top right of each news section. To remove a news feed, just as you would press the X to close any window.

Customize your news feed

Now suppose that there is no need to "find" a news feed of a topic, because you already know you want to add a detail. Well, this is too easy. To have to do is identify the "URL of the RSS feed" is the information that you want to add. Most blogs and news organizations for you these hours on their websites.

Look for a small orange box on the site that says XML or the words "RSS Feed" or "News feed" and click on it. In large organizations, like CNN for example, will see a page with a nice set of instructions, and a variety of RSS news feed URL that you can manually copy and paste into your news reader.

Sometimes, however, will see a page that looks like code incomprehensible. Do not let that scare you, as I did the first time I saw him! When this happens, you are actually looking right at the feed itself, and all you have to do is copy and paste what is in the address bar of your web browser, right into your news reader. What is called "knowing the specific URL of the feed" on MSN, and "" Add RSS by URL "in Yahoo.

In My Yahoo, to manually add a news feed, go to "add content" area, and click the link to the right of the Find button that says "Add RSS by URL". Once you paste the URL into that window and click on "add" the headlines should appear there. If they do not, then you may have copied the wrong URL, or add a space at the end. Then just press the button "Add to My Yahoo" and you're done! In MSN, you can paste the URL of the news feeds right into the search box, then click the box when it shows the result.

Providing exactly what you want and when you want it as the Internet should work. Things are only getting better.

In researching this article, I noticed that My Yahoo seems to have problems with a set of manuals URL. Oh well. Nothings perfect .......