Number 266 - July 2005

RSS Feeds
by Brian K. Lewis, Ph.D.*, Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
At the persistent request of our Editor, I finally delved deeply enough into the mysteries of RSS Feeds to determine that the topic might be of interest to readers of the Monitor. (He was right, I was wrong, mea culpa.) RSS Feeds, sometimes referred to as "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", are a means of pushing information to end-users. Some might describe it as a way of publishing short summaries of what's new on a website. It can also include a link to the complete web page.    So how do you, as a user, connect to an RSS feed. Actually it is quite simple. You need a "viewer" program that can read the feeds that are written in the same programming language used for web pages. To get a viewer, try a Google search on RSS viewers. My last search turned up over a million responses. (How often does any search turn up less than this?) The neat thing is that some of the best viewers are free. I tried one called "RSS Reader" that states on its web site that it is "freeware". It downloads as a self-executing exe file. Once the application is installed you can then add RSS feeds. Installation takes all of about five minutes.    To add RSS feeds you start the program then click on the "add" button on the menu. This opens a window which allows you to paste the address of the RSS feed you want to add. So where do you get the address? On the RSS reader web site is a list of feeds (www.rssreader.com/ rssfeeds.htm). They are all marked with a red button that reads "XML". You right-click this button and select copy link. Then go back to the RSS window and paste the link. Click add and the program will add this feed to your list. When new information is downloaded there will be a pop-up notice added to the icon in the system tray. Be aware that the first time you add a link there may be a large number of items downloaded.    If you are using Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail software you can add a folder that will handle all of your RSS feeds automatically. However, you must have a recent version. My current version of Thunderbird is 0.9. To setup the RSS feeds you go to Tools-Accounts and in the accounts window click on New Account. In the types of accounts you will see "RSS and blogs" as an option. Select this and then you can name the folder. Once the folder is setup, right click the folder and select manage subscriptions. Click on the "add" button and you get the window to paste in the web address. In Thunderbird, you can set the timing for how often you want the feeds to be checked and downloaded. Another option is whether to show the summary and the full text of the feed when you open an individual item. If you select the full text you will see the complete web page.    You can also download Newsgator (www.newsgator.com/ ngs/ default.aspx) which is a free viewer that works with Microsoft Outlook. I haven't tried it so I can't tell you more than this.    O.K., so you can find viewers. Just what can you get with an RSS feed? On the RSS viewer web site there are connections for business, health, education, food, jobs/employment, sports, politics, science, technology, weblogs, etc. As you surf the web you may have seen pages with XML or RSS buttons. You can connect to these pages via their RSS feed and receive updated information automatically. In some cases the RSS feed is ultimately replacing the sites newsletter. In most cases these feeds are free for personal, non-commercial use. But, you may have to check the sites terms of use.    So there are advantages to using RSS feeds. For example, you receive information directly from sites that you might normally visit. So you save the time involved in getting to that web site and finding the information. In addition, what you receive with the feeds are the most recent updates. You could get the same info with the e-mail newsletters; however, the RSS feed is completely spam-proof. Newsletters are having an increasingly hard time getting through the spam filters that e-mail users are installing. The option for the newsletter people is to set up an RSS feed which then becomes a direct link between the newsletter page and the user. Other problems e-mail publishers are having are related to "disposable" addresses. Users set up an address and when it becomes overwhelmed with spam they drop it and set up a new address. This increases the publishers "bounce" rate and, consequently, a lost address. Given the option, I have converted some of my newsletter subscriptions to RSS feeds. I find them to be much more convenient.	RSS feeds, also referred to as Webfeeds, are ideal for dial-up Internet users. These RSS feeds are low bandwidth items and download quickly. That way a dial-up user can check a number of web sites quickly. Generally, this will consume seconds or minutes of time, rather than the hours needed to surf a number of sites. However, if you select to see the web page, you still have the time required to load the web page.    There are also a number of disadvantages to RSS feeds. First, you have to learn a new technology. I know from my own experience with users, you prefer to stick with what you know. Learning something new is always a hassle. However, developers of viewers have made a real attempt to simplify the setup and use of their applications. The setup in Mozilla's Thunderbird software, for example, could not be simpler. The RSS Reader I tried was also very straightforward and the web site (www.rssreader.com) had detailed instructions on setting it up and using it. It was all in very clear language. So with a very little effort, this new technology can be mastered and put to use.    RSS is a new technology and in some ways still having growing pains. One blogger has written 10 reasons why RSS is not ready for primetime (www.dylangreene.com/ blog.asp?blogID=363). Check out his web site for the full description of his objections.    I don't fully agree with all his comments. For example, he says reading the RSS requires too much time. He can't always find the RSS feed button to set up the download in his viewer. And when there are multiple buttons he doesn't know which one his NewsGator program will pick. I've used some of the viewer sites which have collections of RSS feed topics and the associated links to setup my downloads. So it didn't take the time he is talking about. Also, if I found an RSS button on a site I wanted to connect to, the process of adding it to either the RSS Reader or my Thunderbird e-mail is simple and short.    Greene says an RSS viewer must come with Windows. That would be nice, but the technology involved shouldn't end up in Microsoft's control. The free viewers and the Thunderbird setup are simple and work well. He doesn't think that most Windows users know how to download software or are afraid to do so. Well, I don't think that's true of people in SPCUG. In fact I know many of you who experiment with more downloaded software than I do. So I suspect that as the core of users increases, RSS viewing can become mainstream without the necessity for having it included with Windows. That doesn't mean that Microsoft won't try to take it over if it becomes big enough, ala Windows Media.    He also complains that the content of the RSS feeds is not user-friendly. That's something I didn't find using the Thunderbird system. All of the feeds come through with a complete web page and all the associated formatting. If you have a dial-up system, you can select to see just a summary and thus not download the entire web page until you are sure you really want to read more.    All in all, I found the RSS feed and viewer to be quite easy to use. However, it can increase the amount of reading you do. For example, at this moment my Yahoo New Technology feed has 39 articles. These have accumulated in just the past 4 hours since I last reviewed the contents of this feed. My Boston Globe Business feed has 16 articles that came in during the last 6 hours. When I started this morning, there were no articles in this particular feed. Do I have to read all of these? Absolutely not! When I click on the particular feed, I get a list of topics and sources, very similar to what you get in an e-mail in-box. Any items that don't interest me at the moment can be bypassed or deleted. So I can just screen the list before I open any of them up. Any that I decide to read, I simply double-click the topic and it opens in a Thunderbird window complete with all the web page formatting that would be found if I had opened the page in Firefox. The RSS feeds provide updated information without my having to search for it.    Give RSS feeds a try and you too, can become addicted and remember,it's free!    *Dr. Lewis is a former university & medical school professor. He has been working with personal computers for more than thirty years. He can be reached via e-mail at bwsail@yahoo.com.    Copyright 2005. This article is from the January 2005 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.,
Number 266 - July 2005