On this page: What is RSS? | Recommended RSS Reader Software | Sample Instructions for a Windows-based RSS reader
If you do an online search for "RSS" you will find that this acronym means different things based on the author. At Assumption College the intended definition for RSS is "Real Simple Syndication." This technology has been taking off more than ever in the past year although it was first developed in 2000.
So what is it and why is it terrific?!? The traditional way of finding out if your favorite news Web sites have been updated is to bookmark those sites and visit them daily. However, when you visit Web sites you must scan the pages to see if there is anything of interest to you.When you find something interesting, you click on that article in order to read it. This process can take time but RSS saves you both time and effort by doing the work for you. In order to benefit from RSS you must first install an RSS reader (aggregator) on your computer.
RSS is an aggregator of Web site feeds. Some larger sites have news broken down into categories such as local, national, international, sports, entertainment, etc. On those sites you can subscribe to the types of news that most interest you.
How does it work? Once you have the RSS reader software installed on your computer (either as a stand-alone software desktop program or as part of your web browser) it constantly monitors all of the sites that you are interested in. As those sites are updated with new stories the RSS reader will let you know and give you the title of the story along with a brief description (the length of the description varies from site to site). If you're interested in the story you can then choose to read the entire story by clicking on a link.
In a way it's like creating your own personal newspaper! By adding the Assumption College news feed to your RSS reader, you can now be informed of all the latest news about Assumption as it happens!
RSS reader software is available on most operating system platforms including: Windows, Macintosh, and Lynux .
You can choose to have RSS feeds directed to your personal Yahoo! or Google home page. RSS feeds can be e-mailed to you using e-mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook. You can even choose to have RSS feeds directed to your personal hand-held devices such as cell phones and pocket PCs.
Windows desktop RSS readers:
http://www.rssreader.com/
http://www.kaizan.us/pages/products/desktop.do
http://www.alertbear.com/
http://www.rssowl.org/
Macintosh desktop RSS readers:
http://www.rssowl.org/
http://www.benkazez.com/newsreader.php
http://www.newsfirerss.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vienna-rss
Web Based RSS readers (most any operating system platform will work):
http://www.google.com/reader/things/intro
http://e.my.yahoo.com/config/my_init?.intl=us&.partner=my&.from=i
For a more complete list including RSS readers for mobile devices check out http://www.newsonfeeds.com/faq/aggregators
http://www.rssreader.com/
Figure 1 
- Next, you will see the screen below. Select the entire web site address and "Copy" it to your clipboard.
- Then open your RSS program. [1]Click the "+ Add " button [2] Click the "Next" button (as seen in the screen below) and follow the next prompts then click the "Ok" button.
- And that's all there is to it! Now you're subscribed to the Assumption College news and you'll get updates as they happen!
- Inside most RSS programs (like the one demonstrated above) you can go into "Tools > Options" and choose how often you want to receive updates.
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