What are News Feeds?
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. There is some discussion as to what RSS
stands for, but most people plump for '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 SCC stories, simply subscribe to the square orange RSS link
below the ? you just clicked.
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.
NEWS READERS
Windows
Newz Crawler
FeedDemon
Awasu
Mac OS X
Newsfire
NetNewsWire
Web
Bloglines
FeedZilla
NewsGator
Microsoft Live
My Yahoo!
Browser
Mozilla Firefox
Other News Readers (GOOGLE)
How do 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.
