Keeping Current with RSS
Candice Benjes-Small, cbsmall@radford.edu
Kevin Tapp, ktapp@radford.edu
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary” or who knows?
The important thing is what it does: notifies you when a Web site is updated As a user,
you would choose an RSS reader (or ‘aggregator’) and subscribe to Websites which have
RSS. These Websites automatically send their headlines to your reader. You can click
on the headline link to go to that exact story. You no longer have to visit the individual
sites- instead, the content is pushed to you in a one-stop-shopping way. Many readers are
available as Web pages; others are separate software you need to download.
How do you know which Websites have RSS?
Look for the RSS symbol. Some possibilities
a.
b.
c.
In general, look for the orange icon- that seems to be the RSS signal. Sometimes it just
has the words RSS as a link. Most news sites, journal sites, blogs, and some library
databases have RSS capabilities.
Getting RSS to work for you
Step 1: Set up an account for an RSS Reader
You can use a stand-alone software program or your browser. Web readers can be
dedicated Web pages or can be integrated with the browser into its bookmarks or
toolbars.
Dedicated Web pages are often the easiest because you can check them from any
computer.
For Web readers, you will need to set up an account with the sponsor (Google, Yahoo,
Bloglines).
Google Reader
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iGoogle
Step 2: Populate your RSS Reader
Visit a Website that has RSS availability.
Click on the symbol or RSS link. You will be provided a URL that you can then put into
your RSS reader. Many pages have it automagically set up so you can just click a link to
add it to your reader.
In Firefox 2.0:
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In Internet Explorer:
If you are using an earlier version of IE, when you click on the RSS icon you may see a
page of XML code. If this happens:
1. In another window or tab, go to your RSS Reader and choose the option to add a
feed (may be called “Subscribe to” or “Add stuff”)
2. Go back to the page of XML code and select and copy the URL.
3. Return to the RSS Reader and paste the URL into the Subscribe to box.
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Setting up the RSS ticker
Step 1: Make sure you have Mozilla Firefox on your computer – any campus
computer….or any other computer for that matter should have it…if not…it’s a free
download – always good to check and see that you have the most current version (under
help – use the “check for updates” feature)
Step 2: go to: https://addons.mozilla.org/search.php?q=ticker&type=E&app=firefox
Click on “RSS Ticker” –(see below)
Then, on the page that comes up, scroll down to the link that says “install now” (see
below)
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An installation wizard should then pop up which looks like this:
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Go ahead and click “install now” – after it installs – you will be asked to restart firefox –
make sure you don’t have any groundbreaking projects which will cause the world to stop
spinning if they are interrupted – and then go ahead and restart firefox.
Now you are ready to go ahead and start adding RSS feeds to your RSS ticker.
Step 3:
choose an RSS feed….go to a website you are interested in – and look for RSS or the
symbol
In FireFox – adding this RSS feed is quite easy…simply click on it – and you should see
a wizard pop up:
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Note that this wizard calls this a “live bookmark” -- live bookmark is just Firefox’s name
for an RSS feed.
Here you can decide where to locate this “live bookmark” (leaving it in the toolbar
somewhere is normally fine) – and also note that you can “display this feed in the ticker”
After this – your ticker is up and running!
Step 4: Going back and refining your ticker settings
You can always go back and edit your ticker settings (change where the ticker is
located…what happens to feeds you’ve already read, etc.) – and more importantly – add
new feeds and delete feeds you get bored with. To do this:
-- From the firefox toolbar -- Choose tools >>Add-ons (see below)
This will bring up a list of your Firefox extensions – locate “RSS Ticker” and click on
“options” (see below)
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This will bring up an “options” dialog box which allows you to customize your ticker in
many ways (see below)
You are now up and running with the RSS ticker!Note that you can disable it at any time
by going back to your ticker settings, and completely disabling the ticker..you can then
reactivate it at any time also.
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