Google Reader - Get updated.

Long time no update. I shall try harder from now on. Anyway...

I briefly mentioned Google Reader in my post about RSS. I'm currently using Google Reader as my main feed reading program, and it has some great features. First of all, it's on the internet, so I can access my feeds from anywhere with internet access. If you have a Google account, you don't need to sign up for it again. You can set up Firefox to automatically add feeds to Google Reader when you click on the feed link. Google Reader has handy shortcuts, like "r" for refresh, and "u" for full screen mode. After you've added feeds, Google will recommend other feeds for you based on your preferences. You can also star items for easy access.

Google Reader is a great tool for subscribing to and reading RSS feeds. I highly recommend it to beginners and experts.

How RSS can help you

What's RSS? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (sometimes, anyway). An RSS file feed is a file that you can find on many websites, like news websites and blogs. When you subscribe to it, you can read the latest news or blog posts without having to visit that particular website.

You may notice the orange icon to the right of this page that says "Subscribe". If you clicked on it, you would go to a page that shows the contents of the feed (my blog posts) and with links to help you subscribe. To subscribe to my RSS feed, you would need a program called an RSS aggregator, or RSS reader. You may have one built into the web browser you are using, or you can use an online RSS reader like Google Reader. I currently use an RSS reader built into my browser, as well as a nifty program called Feed Reader.

Once you have an RSS reader, it's very simple. You usually just have to click on a link to subscribe (you can find them on many websites if you look closely; they often say RSS or XML) and your feed reader will automatically subscribe to the feed. Then it will update the feeds periodically to give you the latest news.

What if you click on the link and you get a bunch of weird computer code? That's the code of the feed, which doesn't really matter to you, most likely. Your feed reader will probably let you copy and paste the address of your feed.

For more on RSS and a perhaps simpler explanation (I probably lost you, didn't I?), go to http://computer.howstuffworks.com/rss.htm.