RSS is your friend

I have never really been one for reading the newspaper (except for maybe the comics), I don't really know why... I guess it's just not my thing. I have, however, always been a huge fan of keeping abreast of things via the Internet. As the number of sites that I visit regularly continues to grow, I have been searching for a way to make keeping up-to-date a little easier. This is where RSS comes in.

For those of you who don't know what RSS is, I will briefly explain. The "current" meaning of RSS (it's meaning has changed somewhat over the years) is "Really Simple Syndication". It is a news feed (i.e. a file) on a website that lists the latest headlines for the content on that site. Not all websites have them, but many do (especially news sites and blogs).

RSS feeds can be read by "feed reader" (or aggregator) software. The idea is that when you are surfing the Internet and you find a site you like, you use the feed reader software to subscribe to the site's RSS feed. Then later, rather than going back to all your favorite sites to see if anything is new, you check your feed reader software. The feed reader will automatically go to each site grabbing the most current RSS info and display it in summary form for you to review. If any of the new content interests you, you simply click on the link in the feed reader and it takes you straight to the article on the website.

Some feed readers that I have tried:

• Google Reader
• Wizz RSS (as a plug-in for Firefox)
• Thunderbird

The RSS feeds for Tougas.NET are:

• Latest Articles
• Latest Comments