Wolverhampton City Learning Centre (CLC)

If you browse the Internet on a regular basis, you can’t have helped but notice little symbols like this () or this () popping up all over the place. What do these icons mean? How can you use them to improve your Internet experience?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS newsfeeds are one of the easiest ways to stay in touch with what is happening on your favourite websites without having to manually visit each and every one of them everytime you spend time surfing the Web. If you’re like me, then you spend a lot of time on the Net actually revisiting favourite pages (for me it might go something like BBC News –> BBC Sport –> Wired News and so on). Wouldn’t it be easier if all of the latest stories from each of these sites could be brought together into one place for me to browse? RSS makes this happen.

OK, so we’ve established that RSS is a good idea in principle. But what do we have to do to actually use RSS newsfeeds? Basically, there are two possible ways to access your favourite RSS newsfeeds:

1. Subscribe to a news aggregrator online service. Examples of these include Bloglines, My Yahoo and Newsgator. The advantage of using an online service is that you can access your RSS feeds from anywhere in the world.
2. Download and install a newsreader program like Awasu. This will give you extra features and more control over the way you receive your newsfeeds, but, of course, you need to have access to a PC with the software installed.

Whichever method you prefer, the basic process of using a newsfeed is much the same:

1. Find a newsfeed. Sometimes, these can be identified by the or symbol. Sometimes they are labelled by text links - e.g. “Syndicate this site”, “Newsfeed” or “RSS”. In some cases, a web-page may directly give you the address (URL) of the feed.
2. Copy the address (URL) for the newfeed into your newsread software / online news aggregator service.
3. Read the news!

Just to give you an idea of the process in practice, here are some annotated screenshots using the newsreader software Awasu:

Adding a newsfeed with Awasu

For example, on the homepage of the City Learning Centre website, we can see the symbol below the latest news section of the front page:

Clicking on the RSS symbol opens up a file that may not look very useful at all . . . .

(added 16/08/05 - The RSS feed from the CLC website now looks a little different from this. It has been “styled” to make it look more attractive and readable)

This document is actually the raw code for the newsfeed in the structural web language known as XML. However, if I go up to the address bar in my browser, I will see this:

http://blog.wolverhamptonclc.co.uk/wp-rss2.php?cat=4

This is the address of the newsfeed. I select this address by dragging my mouse across it, then select “Edit –> Copy” (or Ctrl-C) to copy the address.

I now open up Awasu and select “File –> New channel”:

Awasu is clever enough to automatically insert the address I just copied into the text box. In some newsreader packages, you will need to paste the address in (Ctrl-V). I make some further choices (giving the feed a name, selecting how often I want Awasu to check the feed for updates etc.), then click on “Finish”

I have now added the CLC newsfeed into Awasu. Whenever a new news item is posted onto the CLC website, it will appear in the list of news items in Awasu.

So remember to look out for newsfeeds the next time you’re surfing the Web; if you value the content of a site, think about incorporating their newsfeed into your everyday web experience.