thomasr (and no doubt michael_horse) wants you to move into the 21st century and learn how to use RSS to read your favourite websites! A recent survey showed just 2% of people use RSS, and frankly that's lamey lame lame. Get with it peeps!
What is it?
from this page, Programs known as feed readers or aggregators can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that they find.
Why?
Because it's quicker and more efficient to use a reader to check your sites of interest. You can also expand the number of sites you catch up on without spending ages surfing about like an idiot. I have 165 and rising.
How?
IE7 and Firefox 2.0 have built in readers (or "aggregator" if you prefer). There are a number of web based readers as well. I use bloglines. to add a new site, you just cut and paste the URL of the RSS feed (or indeed just the raw URL) and the readers searches for the feed and then you put it in teh category you want and whammo!
list of Web based RSS "aggregators"
Google have improved their version (I used it a bit, but it kinda sucked at first- recent update=much better) The advantage of google reader is that if you company has blocked lots of sites, google reader can get around it- sortof. Take M+N. You might not be able to post, but you can read the feed baby: http://feeds.feedburner.com/messandnoise_today
What happens next?
Each time I login to Bloglines, it displays my list of "watched" items and only shows (in abbreviated form) the updated items. I can browse through all my news items and then click on the ones that interest me and they open up in the original page.
here's what I subscribe to Yes I subsribe to my own blog RSS- just to see it is working...
Pose your RSS questions here and we'll see what we can do.
I don't get it
ok. what is it you don't get Wipe-ster....
TLDR
i don't get it either. i'm tired.
Ok short version.
Go here, sign up, shut up
that is all.
Good grief, this thread is full of anaemic insomniac wasteoids. HARDEN THE FUCK UP
but i like surfing round like an idiot
poor thomasr.
ahem
tough crowds on friday. thanks for trying. i'll read it next week.
I'm not interested in anything that requires yet another login. I reached login saturation point some time ago and am now refusing any more logins wherever possible.
I use Firefox, it does RSS already.
I'm not interested in anything that requires yet another login.
You tick "remember me" and you never need login again. also it uses an email address as login, so dead easy. PLUS bloglines is web based, therefore you can login anywhere and get your RSS goodness anywhere unlike browser based RSS aggregators.
Pray continue...
looks blank
RSS sux arse.
"1283 articles unread."
They come in faster than I can read them.
"mark all read" start again...
Does RSS stand for "Really Sick Shit"?
I like surfing around like an eejit as well.
Rump Steak Salad, Modi.
Also, the shit thing about RSS is that if you want to delete or edit a post, people know.
As a blogger it's made me much more self-conscious about getting it right first time.
And what sucks the most is the m+n RSS feed. All I want to do is read the review of Red Riders but then I click Discussions because why the hell not? And then I'm here for two hours.
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I'm willing to jump on this RSS bandwagon, but which reader should I use? Firefox, Google Reader, Feedburner, or Bloglines?
I'm thinking about going with Feedburner, or is that more for publishers rather than readers? (I'm off to sleep, I'll read the answers later)
I use Bloglines, but a newb ought to go with Google Reader for supreme portability.
thanks Thomas. I'm running Firefox portable on my flash disk so portability is important. I'll give Google Reader a spin (it looks like Google has acquired Feedburner recently)
I notice that PortableApps now has a game called Frets on Fire. Think I might give that a spin too!
30 uses for RSS. Some very handy
So, it's not net surfing, it's like web rafting.
I used to use bloglines.
Now I'm with google reader and I like is much, much better.
okay, now a different RSS question.
how do i make my own RSS feeds? i update my website manually, so is there an easy way i can make an RSS feed for every time i add a new news post?
here are some pretty step-by-step instructions
or, if you use something like blogger/wordpress there is a setting where you can tick the box to say 'make a feed'
wouldn't it be good if, reading the Beat/Inpress/Timeoff/Scene etc. each event, or venue ad, had a barcode next to the night that you could scan with your mobile phone/PDA and that would upload it into your pda/phone calendar which you could then sync with your computer one?
phone and computer calendars? people use them for non work related things? gosh!
Or messandnoise even..?
no.
More on-topic, wouldn't an RSS feed gig guide be a good idea?
Yes, I think so.
thanks elaine.
i've definitely come around to the RSS way of thinking this past week. there are sites i still like to visit individually - pitchfork, ateaseweb - but it's great for all those places i regularly forget to check. (and that when i do check, have a month-old news post telling me about this or that limited as fuck release or whatever that i missed out on.)
Facebooko events can be downloaded as Outlook calendar events. Mine then sync to my phone by 'emselves.
ive wanted to love RSS for so long, but i find it so painfully inadequate. maybe i'm doing it wrong? if i subscribe to something (say, a blog), i want the full post to come down to my reader so i don't have to visit the site. but generally, all i ever get is a sentence or two, usually in plain text.
i want my RSS reader to deliver the whole content, formatted, to the program or page where i manage my subscriptions. is that too much to ask? (i think it probably is) i don't even mind if they want to pop an ad in to it to make up for the lost revenue. i just want to maximise my web browsing while minimising my effort (and RAM use and proxy footprint if at work).
not that i've become the world's biggest advocate of RSS, palin, but google reader does what you're asking.
Palin- it's a combination of both the reader (set it to show full feed) and the content supplier- some only provide partial feeds to ensure you do indeed go to their site. Screw them.
just after posting this, i went over to bloglines to catch up on my feeds after 14 months of inactivity, and one of the feeds has updated to provide full content, with piccatures which was nice.
i don't really do google though. so i'll give google reader a skip. i have issues with google and their privacy and data retention policies. i just stick to search.
oh, and that tabbloid thing mentioned in the 30 RSS uses article looks pretty awesome. brilliant way to get all your daily info behind a work firewall without getting in trouble.
Poor thomasr wants an RSS hat.