OK, this is a question for all you software folks out there. In good old fashioned plain English, a phrase I use to eliminate "techie speak", how does RSS work? How does one start using it? What are the pitfalls to avoid? And any recommendations for non-techie boomers? Many thanks!
It's actually pretty simple... You have to get an RSS "reader" (a number of free ones can be found here: http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?t...er&tag=srch) to start. The way you use it is, naturally, different for each product. However, the general idea is that you get a URL from some website - for example, you can find the links for Yahoo's RSS feeds at http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?t...er&tag=srch - and give that URL to your RSS reader. From there, you just enjoy whatever it is you're getting! Slightly more technical, an RSS reader acts sort of like an automated web browser for specific pages. A site sets up an RSS feed, which is essentially a text based stream of the content on their website. You obtain the URL for this feed and give it to your reader, which then will download that text based website on a recurring basis, automatically. It would be like going to Yahoo News and hitting refresh every 5 minutes for the rest of your life Keep in mind, you can't feed any web page into an RSS reader - it has to be properly formated for use as RSS. Typically, if a site offers an RSS feed, the link will be shown as a small orange box with white "RSS" lettering in it.
