About RSS

By DE Editors

Desktop Engineering news and information is available through Really Simple Syndication(RSS) feeds to deliver headlines, summaries, and links to full-length articlesto your desktop, web site or blog.Desktop Engineering News Feed What is RSS? RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is an easy way to keep up with news and information.An RSS feed contains headlines, summaries and links to full news stories on deskeng.com.If you click an RSS link, you will see XML (or eXtensible Markup Language) codein your browser. RSS content is not through a browser, so it will look like alot of gibberish. Instead, headlines are viewed through an RSS reader.What are RSS Readers? RSS news readers are small software programs that aggregate RSS feeds and displaythe story information. They allow you to scan headlines from hundreds of newssources in a central location. Where Do I Get an RSS Reader? A wide range of RSS readers can be easily downloaded from the Web. Some readersare Web-based while others require you to download a small software program ontoyour desktop. Most are free to use.Google and Yahoo! both offer comprehensive lists of RSS readers. A few readersare listed below for the purpose of evaluation from Technology at Harvard Law: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/directory/5/aggregatorsAmphetadesk—http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/ (Windows, Mac, Linux) Bloglines http://bloglines.com/ (All OS, browser-based) BottomFeeder—http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/BottomFeeder/ (Windows, Macintosh, Unix) RSS Bandit—http://www.rssbandit.org/ (.NET) NetNewsWire—http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/ (Mac OS X) How Do I Use an RSS Feed? First choose an RSS reader. Each reader has a slightly different way of addinga new feed (also called a “channel”). In most cases, here’s how it works:

0. Click on the small RSS button and you’ll see a page displaying XML code.
0. From your browser, copy the URL that appears in your Address Bar.
0. Paste that URL into the ‘Add New Channel’ section of the reader.

The RSS feed will start to display and regularly update the headlines for you. Where can I get help with a reader? How often are the Dekstop Engineering RSS feeds updated? The Desktop Engineering RSS feeds are updated constantly throughout the day,week and month. Every time a story is added to our Web site, it is also addedto the RSS feed. Where Can I Learn More about RSS? There are a range of articles about RSS available online. Here are a couple ofresources: http://channels.lockergnome.com/rss/resources/articles/quickstart.phtmlhttp://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html