Simple Is as Simple Does

This week's lesson, children, is about feeds.  And I'm not talking hotdish buffets.  I'm talking RSS.

RSS means "Really Simple Syndication."  Apparently someone, somewhere, thought this stuff was simple. Well, to paraphrase the immortal Forrest Gump, "simple is as simple does." Things that seem simple to the technologically adept are not so simple to the rest of us (whom Diane Chambers of "Cheers" fame caustically described as 'the lumpen proletariat').  But I found, to my surprise, that the RSS waters weren't as rough as I had feared.

First, a little more background.  (If this is stuff you already know, just skip this part.) Normally, most of us visit our favorite websites 3-4 times a day or more, looking for current news, new blog posts, etc. Sometimes there's new stuff, sometimes not.  But in each case, we initiate the visit to the site.

When you subscribe to an RSS feed, the website, in essence, visits YOU.  That is, whenever there's updated news or a new post, the website sends it to you.  This saves you lots of time in wasted repeat visits to websites where there's no "new news."

To get myself started, I went to the MSNBC website, my home page. At the bottom of the page I found the RSS icon, a little box with white curvy stripes. I clicked on it, and found an excellent explanation of what it means to subscribe to an RSS feed. I also learned something I hadn't known before: in order to subscribe to an RSS feed, you have to sign up with an RSS reader.

This clarified something that had confused me.  I understood that the selected websites sent news and updates to me, but I wasn't sure how I got it.  Did I get an e-mail?  Was it posted on some other website? Did it just float out there in cyberspace waiting for me to capture it while drifting by in the space capsule?

No, grasshopper, it goes to your RSS reader.  Some of the most popular RSS readers are offered by Google, Yahoo, Bloglines, WindowsLive and NetVibes.  Go to any of these sites and look for the "Reader" function.  When you sign up with a reader, essentially you create a new webpage for yourself where all your news and blog updates can be delivered, giving you access to all of them in one place. You can use it as your home page, or you can just put it in your Bookmarks toolbar for easy access.

I used Bloglines, only because MSNBC provided a link to that site.  It was easy--I signed up, picked the news media and blogs I wanted to follow, checked the little boxes, and voila!  Now instead of visiting all those sites periodically to check for updates, the updates come to my Bloglines page automatically.  I can see at a glance on that page whether any updates have been posted by any of my feed sites.  If you don't find the sites you want to follow on their list, you can add any site just by entering the URL.

Of course, many sites have e-mail alerts that you can subscribe to, and if you prefer to get your news that way, you'd want to use that option and skip the RSS.  But many of us get too many e-mails already with all the junk mail in our mailboxes, so RSS is a good alternative.  At least, I think it is; I'll get back to you on whether it's working for me.  As I mentioned in a previous post, mistakes are not always immediately apparent, so only time will tell whether I did it right.

A side note: on the way to learning about RSS, I found a new browser that allows you to put nine different webpages on one "speed dial" screen for instant access.  The browser is called Opera, and you can learn more about it at http://www.opera.com. Opera also lets you download widgets for Facebook and Twitter, so you can access those sites directly from your desktop.

So I'm feeling smug today--I learned something about RSS, set up my reader page, discovered and installed a new browser, took my calcium and Vitamin D horse pills, and it's only noon. Damn, some days I even impress myself!