Help?
What is RSS?
How can I use RSS?
How do I get a news reader?
What is RSS?
With the millions of websites out there today it is almost
impossible
to keep up with even your most popular sites..
Wouldn't
it be better to have the latest news and features delivered
directly to you, rather than clicking from site to site?
RSS
allows you to see when sites from all over the internet
have
added new content. You can get the latest headlines and
articles
(or even audio files, photographs or video) in one place,
as soon
as they are published, without having to remember to visit
each
site every day.
It
takes the hassle out of staying up-to-date and will give
you
more time to work on your busisness.
RSS
feeds are just a special kind of web page, designed to
be read
by computers rather than people. It might help to think
of them as
the free, internet version of the old-fashioned ticker-tape
news
wire machines.
Not
all websites currently provide RSS, but it is growing
rapidly
in popularity and many others, including the Cape Times,
New
York Times and CNN provide it.
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How do I start using RSS feeds?
In general, the first thing you need is something called
a news reader. This is a
piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read
any new articles
that have been added to them.
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 to receive in your news reader, by finding
and subscribing
to the relevant RSS feeds. For example, if you would like
the latest
SABusinessHub News stories, simply visit the Entertainment
section and you will
notice an orange RSS button on the left hand side.
If
you would like the latest SABusinessHub News World video
stories, visit the
World section of the SABusinessHub News player and click
on the RSS button
at the bottom of the World section.
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If
you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed
in various
ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS 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 RSS feeds use
a similar
orange RSS button, but some may just have a normal web
link to
the feed.
Some
browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically
check for RSS feeds for you when you visit a website,
and display
an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing
to RSS feeds
much easier. For more details on these, please check their
websites.
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| 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 |
|
