bluefacedpixie

[This is post is a little complicated but helps you use blogs. It is likely to be updated with clarifications as I explain the parts that aren’t clear.]

You are reading this article. Maybe you visit occasionally, or only when someone (such as myself) emails you. Maybe there are several blogs that are fun but you only look at occasionally because it’s too much trouble to check them everyday and there is only sometimes something new. RSS is the solution to this problem.

This technical HowTo will give some guidelines on using RSS - just click on more.

RSS (sometimes called feeds) is syndication – like the Dilbert cartoon in the newspapers – only one newspaper/website has the original but many other newspapers/websites can pick it up. It’s an ugly way to explain something simple.

The idea is that you subscribe to an RSS feed from another program and check that program once (or more) daily. This program watches all the other websites for you and tells you when they changed – when there is a new Dilbert to look at for instance.

The programs you can use can be special RSS programs (like NetNewsWire), the browser you use (like Firefox) or a website that manages RSS feeds. I like this last approach (I use bloglines.com) because then I can access this list from work, home and any computer I happen to use that is connected to the Internet.

Basically – you should do this, life is too short to visit 100 blogs (or even 3) every day. So here is the How-To, in short Gordon style:

1. Somewhere on your screen either your browser is showing a big cheery RSS symbol (e.g. at the end of the address bar in Safari) or an obscure radio logo (in the bottom right hand side of Firefox) or on the page itself it says “RSS”. For fun sometimes a cool RSS graphic is displayed, but these always vary (although they are normally orange or blue) and sometimes even say “XML” – confused?
   

   • On the bluefacedpixie using the bfp theme the RSS feeds are in the bottom right of the column in the Geek section: Entries (RSS) – for RSS on the main posts – and Comments (RSS) – for RSS on the comments people post to the posts.
     
   • On planetdanika using the Blue Horizon theme the RSS feed for the posts is on the bottom of the page (called RSS).
     
   • For premodernist the RSS links are also at the bottom and are for Entries and Comments (like bluefacedpixie).
     
   • On hellion (which isn’t a machaggis.net blog) there isn’t an explicit RSS link, but Safari and Firefox show RSS logos showing they found a feed.
     

2. The feed is just like an internet link. It looks something like this: feed:http://machaggis.net/bluefacedpixie/?feed=rss2 or this: http://machaggis.net/bluefacedpixie/?feed=rss2.
   
3. Add the link to an RSS reader – I use bloglines.com but reader.google.com has some promise.
   

   • You generally do this by:
     

     • right clicking on the RSS symbol/text and choosing copy this link (your wording may vary).
       
     • going to the website and “subscribing” to the link you have copied (paste it in)
       
     • if the link starts with feed: then sometimes you have to delete it – its a speed of technology thing
       

     It is, however, better if there is a special link like this: which generally does all this work for you (for bloglines at least). I’ve added one to bluefacedpixie and will add them to the other blogs in time.
     

4. (Alternative: Just to click on the RSS link and then add it to your bookmarks – if you use Safari or Firefox then these work as basic RSS readers for you and will check these live bookmarks regularly)
   
5. And surprisingly, that’s it. Go to your reader and look at your list of blogs. On a regular basis it will show a new post from the website you are interested in and you can read it or click through to see the whole text.
   

And it isn’t restricted to just personal blogs – RSS was originally intended to distribute news headlines so http://www.nytimes.com/rss is the feed for the New York Times for instance (the orange XML at the bottom of the main page).

More info:

• wikipedia’s RSS entry is a little more tech than this, but gives examples of the icons
  
• blogspace has a nice RSS description page
  
• the Safari RSS description
  
• and then there is always the A9/google search results.
  

Have fun with RSS!