Making RSS your bitch....

Making RSS Your Bitch.....

RSS, depending on who you ask, stands for Rapid Site Syndication or Really Simple Syndication. It's basically XML. If you're interested in the tech behind it, here's a link: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html for now, all you really need to know is what it does and how to use it.

Like a good researcher, you should be checked news web sites daily. but remembering all the URL's and taking the time to visit each is such a pain in the ass. Why make yourself wade through links on the NY Times website when you can have an application automatically pull all the articles for you? Don't. Let your fat lazy ass sit around while an RSS Reader does it's thing so all you have to do is scroll through lists of new articles. You can have your application check as frequently or as infrequently as you like and you get notified when new shit becomes available. But what is this magic?!? RSS - Research Shit Simply.

First you need an RSS reader. Some application or plug in to all you to read the RSS "feeds". I use FeedReader on windows because it's free, easy and works, also it has a low memory footprint so it doesn't slow things down too much. If you want to try one, here's a bunch of links and recommendations.http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/directory/5/aggregators Install one that looks appealing to you. Note that FeedReader comes with a bunch of stuff preprogrammed in that I tend to ignore but may be useful for you.

Secondly you need RSS feeds to consume. These are links that you put into your program which point to an XML file. That XML file tells your RSS reader application what new things are available for you to look at (or in the case of podcasts, listen to, watch, or otherwise consume)

I have a file here called feeds.txt which has the links to the RSS feeds that I subscribe to. Not all of them, but some of them. You'll notice that some of them point to the same site but different feeds. The New York Times for example produces feeds for different sections and/or topic areas, so I get front page news as well as business and international news. There may be some overlap in articles but this makes sure I get complete coverage. Simple add the links into the RSS reader (called an aggregator) of your choice and you're off.

How do I find more feeds? Google is a good start, search sites or topics and add terms like "RSS" or "xml" or "syndicate" to your search to see if different blogs or websites have RSS feeds related to what you want. Also, pay attention while you're surfing the sites you normally visit. If you see an icon like this one or a link that says "syndicate this site" you've round an RSS feed, Right click (or control-click if on a mac) and copy the shortcut that the link points to. Pop that link into your RSS application and you're set. Now you don't need to constantly check that site. As new information is release, the XML file gets updated by the people who maintain the website and your RSS aggregator will check it regularly for new content. As new content is made available the program lets you know new things are available and you're off.

So why is this so bad ass? You no longer need to check sites and remember what you've seen and what you haven't You don't have to keep bookmarks to the sites you regularly check. you simply need to fire an application and allow it to run in the background so it can tell you when there is new stuff for you to waste time with instead of being productive in World of Warcraft.