What is RSS?
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. Those words didn’t mean anything to me when I first learned about it so I’ll explain it to you the best way I know how: by example.
Say you follow a lot of blogs and sites with news and want to stay up to date on the content. You’d have to visit those sites every few days or maybe every few hours to get the up-to-the-minute latest posts right? WRONG! With this RSS invention you can install a program on your computer, laptop or hand-held device that will give you all the updates in one place.
The main benefit of RSS is that you won’t miss a post, and won’t have to keep track of all the blogs and news sites you follow. That way you won’t miss a single exciting life-transforming post from this fine publication or The Official.
Here’s what you can do:
(1) Download a program to read the RSS feeds
A nice simple no-frills/won’t-install-tons-of-extra-features/spyware-free RSS reader can be downloaded from here. Go to Step 2 on that page and download the ‘Zip’ file. Install it on your machine and start the program.
(2) Add RSS feeds
Once you have the program open take a look around and familiarise yourself with the buttons. The one that will get you started is the second button from the left-hand side with the green cross and the word ‘Add’ underneath it. Click this button. It will then tell you to add the URL of the feed. You can find the URL by clicking on the ‘Feed’ icons from sites and copying the link from the address bar. Enter this address in that box and you’re set.
Each time you open up the program, all you have to do to get the latest posts is click on the first button from the left that says ‘Get’. That’s all there is to it.
Here’s two feeds to get you started:
http://www.thekassandracomplex.com/feed/
http://theofficial.x-gr.net/?feed=rss2
For more information you can also check out the jargon-filled page on Wikipedia here.