Monday, March 2, 2009

Follow Feeds


Wouldn't it be really cool if you could put a watch on some websites and be able to see the articles that come up on that site without actually going to that site and checking it every day? I will tell you one great way to do that - using RSS Readers.
RSS is a technology by which websites publish their contents in an  XML format which can be read using special softwares called RSS readers. Most of the popular websites support this feature - orielly.com, serverside.com, , this very blog ;-) to name a useful few.

Here,I will tell you the easy way to go the RSS way:
1. Install Firefox
2. In firefox, go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks. Create a new folder called RSSFeeds. This is where you will be keeping your RSS feeds
3. Install Brief. It comes as a firefox add-on.
4. Configure Brief to pick up the feeds from the new folder you created ( RSSFeeds, in this case ). Instructions below:
i. Click on the Brief icon ( orange color one next to your address bar, or in the bottom part of firefox)
ii. Click on the spanner icon in Brief to open the settings dialog
iii. In the tab named 'Feeds' select the folder you created earlier
iv. Configure other preferences like how often you want it to refresh from the website etc.
5. That's it! Its all ready now. Whenever any of your fav sites publish some content you will get a popup inside firefox - something like email - that new messages are available. Just click on the icon to read them.

Now You have configured your feed reader. Lets see how you can subscribe
1.        Go to the site you wants to subscribe
2.        Look for the RSS icon for example    
3.        Subscribe and select the RSSFeeds folder you created for storing the feed

That should keep you informed!!