What Is RSS?

Commonly known as Really Simple Syndication and also as Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary, RSS provides a method of publishing short abstracts or headlines about new website content with a link to the actual page if a reader wants more detail.

Put simply, it's a useful and comparatively easy way of distributing or syndicating website content to interested subscribers.

For users it's a great way of keeping up to date with the latest content you want quickly and efficiently. With RSS you don't need to wait for pages to load, or deal with annoying popup's or graphics. Content is strictly text, although RSS can provide enclosures which can include pdf files or pictures.

RSS feeds are available from numerous websites and there is an increasing trend for sites to provide feeds for company news and press releases. More specialist use can include price list updates, audio and so on.

To use RSS, you'll need a piece of software called a "Reader" or aggregator. There are plenty available including the excellent freeware RssReader. Alternatively, a number of browsers, such as Firefox and Opera allow you to access RSS feeds. The other point to note is if you are not running Windows 2003 or Windows XP/Vista and have never installed the free Microsoft .NET framework you will first need to download and install it. The easiest way to do so is to run Windows update or otherwise visit Microsoft.

RssReader can be configured to collect news in the background at user specified intervals and add a popup in the system tray that a new message arrived. To view, click the news headline to see a short description of the news or open the original news web page in RssReader or your default browser window.

How do I add a site to my feed?

Just right click on the RSS icon then select Copy, to copy the address of the link. Open RSSReader and click Add to subscribe to the new feed. If you right clicked the link, then paste it into the URL address field.

Here at TCAS we have RSS feeds for all our News Releases - it's a great way to keep abreast of the latest news about the Showground and the Society - automatically!

What's the URL for the Three Counties Agricultural Society feed?

http://www.threecounties.co.uk/feeds/rss/rss.xml

Other useful links:

RssReader - http://www.rssreader.nl/

Windows update - http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Microsoft - http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/framework1_1