RSS for dummies

DoctorIt

I tried to asked this in private, but Andy suggested I take it out in the open so that others might benefit...

Hi, I'm Erik, and I don't know how to use RSS feeds. :wave

I'm hoping someone could teach me how to take advantage of RSS/Atom feeds, in a very simple manner. I feel like a total idiot because I've been trying to figure it out for a while. I mean, I know what they are supposed to do, and I have a few default ones up in the left hand corner of Firefox. But when it comes to adding something new, I'm clueless.

For example, in some thread, someone mentioned how great it was to read the smugmug release notes feed everyday. Well yeah, that'd be great! but exactly how do I do that? I can go to the smugblog, read it, and at the bottom is the link to the "feed", but Firefox doesn't know what to do with it. I've tried an extension or two, but they don't seem to do anything. What am I missing?

I also noticed I can input custom "web clips"/feeds into my Gmail - that would be a great way for me to read feeds since its always open, right?

How did this happen? I used to be internet savvy!!!?!!! :cry

photodoug

remove the "feed:" from the beginning of what you find on smugmug, use this as the feed address:

http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/feed/

and git yerself a decent RSS reader....try Mozilla's Thunderbird. And note that most new versions of email programs will include the ability to aggregate (read) RSS feeds.

DavidTO

Doc, you're on a Mac, use Safari. It's got the easiest RSS implementation. Built in to the browser, it's easy peasy. Drag the feed URL to your bookmarks bar and it'll update with unread articles at a period you specify (like 30 minutes).

I tend not to use RSS for dgrin, since I browse it so often and don't want to rely on RSS, but I do use RSS for smug release notes, found on smug, all the blogs that I read and most of my mac news sites. I love it.

BeachBill

DoctorIt wrote:

For example, in some thread, someone mentioned how great it was to read the smugmug release notes feed everyday. Well yeah, that'd be great! but exactly how do I do that? I can go to the smugblog, read it, and at the bottom is the link to the "feed", but Firefox doesn't know what to do with it. I've tried an extension or two, but they don't seem to do anything. What am I missing?

I actually track new messages in Dgrin via RSS in Firefox. It was extremely easy to setup. While at www.dgrin.com, I clicked on the little satellite icon in the far right hand side of the web address bar in Firefox. Firefox calls it a live bookmark and will display the icon when it detects an RSS feed for the current page.

I just added the RSS feed for the release notes, first I went to http://blogs.smugmug.net/release-notes/ and Firefox displayed the satellite icon:

firefox-live-bookmark.JPG

I clicked on the icon and the Add Live Bookmark dialog popped up. I clicked OK. Done. Now I have the RSS feed for release notes in my browser. Make sure you have the Bookmarks toolbar visible (View/Toolbars/Bookmarks Toolbar).

DJ-S1

This was a helpful thread for me - thanks for taking the bullet for the rest of us dummies, Doc.

DoctorIt

DavidTO wrote:

Doc, you're on a Mac, use Safari.

I don't like Safari. It borks half of my online account sites (banks, credit cards, etc) and it doesn't like any of the advanced gmail functions.

I do like the fact that you get the little (#) to tell you if there's new stuff in Safari.

DoctorIt

BeachBill wrote:

I actually track new messages in Dgrin via RSS in Firefox. It was extremely easy to setup. While at www.dgrin.com, I clicked on the little satellite icon in the far right hand side of the web address bar in Firefox. Firefox calls it a live bookmark and will display the icon when it detects an RSS feed for the current page.

I just added the RSS feed for the release notes, first I went to http://blogs.smugmug.net/release-notes/ and Firefox displayed the satellite icon:

firefox-live-bookmark.JPG

I clicked on the icon and the Add Live Bookmark dialog popped up. I clicked OK. Done. Now I have the RSS feed for release notes in my browser. Make sure you have the Bookmarks toolbar visible (View/Toolbars/Bookmarks Toolbar).

I have never ever seen a little satellite icon! Huh?

I guess it just looks different - I was finally able to add an RSS link by clicking on the, in my case, orange broadcast looking square thingie. But, I had to go into my preferences and do something with live bookmarks. It wouldn't work at first.

BeachBill

DoctorIt wrote:

I have never ever seen a little satellite icon! Huh?

I guess it just looks different - I was finally able to add an RSS link by clicking on the, in my case, orange broadcast looking square thingie.

The orange icon is the standard for RSS feeds, and I'm not sure why my Firefox doesn't have it (1.5.0.5 on Windows) but I thought it used to have the standard orange icon.

Anyway, hopefully you've got it working like you'd like it now.

DoctorIt

BeachBill wrote:

The orange icon is the standard for RSS feeds, and I'm not sure why my Firefox doesn't have it (1.5.0.5 on Windows) but I thought it used to have the standard orange icon.

Anyway, hopefully you've got it working like you'd like it now.

Yeah, I guess it wasn't all that hard - except for the part where I'm pretty sure my live bookmark prefs were somehow messed up. Regardless, I've got it now.

I do wish that Firefox would indicate if there was new content in the feed, like Safari. Which brings up a new question: what are special "RSS readers" for? I mentioned above I had tried some FF extensions in the past to no avail, I'm guessing I wasn't using them right. I gather that an RSS reader is more like an email/news reader?

Whats the consensus, do some of you advanced RSS'ers prefer a reader? Do those indicate new content?

I guess my thing now, is that these live bookmarks just sit buried in a folder in my bookmark bar and I still have to remember to check them (except in Safari, yeah yeah). Whats everyone's standard ritual/procedure/setup? RSS reader? Have the live bookmarks as your homepage so they load up first thing? Share - help us less savvy folk become more efficient!

(Yes, I'm being curious and nosy - its my job as a mod to fill this thread with as much good info for posterity as possible! )

bwg

DoctorIt wrote:

Yeah, I guess it wasn't all that hard - except for the part where I'm pretty sure my live bookmark prefs were somehow messed up. Regardless, I've got it now.

I do wish that Firefox would indicate if there was new content in the feed, like Safari. Which brings up a new question: what are special "RSS readers" for? I mentioned above I had tried some FF extensions in the past to no avail, I'm guessing I wasn't using them right. I gather that an RSS reader is more like an email/news reader?

Whats the consensus, do some of you advanced RSS'ers prefer a reader? Do those indicate new content?

I guess my thing now, is that these live bookmarks just sit buried in a folder in my bookmark bar and I still have to remember to check them (except in Safari, yeah yeah). Whats everyone's standard ritual/procedure/setup? RSS reader? Have the live bookmarks as your homepage so they load up first thing? Share - help us less savvy folk become more efficient!

(Yes, I'm being curious and nosy - its my job as a mod to fill this thread with as much good info for posterity as possible! )

i use the personal google start page as my startup page, i just add my feeds there.

like so:

click the Add Content >> link in top left
click the Add By URL link
paste in the url to the feed

doneski.

the entire personal google page is just a collection of feeds....more or less any customizable start page (netscape, yahoo, msn) is.

DoctorIt

bigwebguy wrote:

i use the personal google start page as my startup page, i just add my feeds there.

like so:

click the Add Content >> link in top left
click the Add By URL link
paste in the url to the feed

doneski.

the entire personal google page is just a collection of feeds....more or less any customizable start page (netscape, yahoo, msn) is.

good one

StevenV

http://steven.vorefamily.net/feeds.html

BeachBill

DoctorIt wrote:

I guess my thing now, is that these live bookmarks just sit buried in a folder in my bookmark bar and I still have to remember to check them...

In Firefox, go to Bookmarks / Bookmarks Toolbar Folder

The is where Firefox places my live bookmarks and they are separate from the static bookmarks I've saved.

And make sure the Bookmarks toolbar is visible:
View / Toolbars / Bookmarks Toolbar

Then in Windows at least you will have buttons below your address bar:

firefox-bmtb.JPG

I just click on the "Digital Grin" button several times a day and it shows me the last 15 or so posts. If something interests me, I click the link and firefox opens it in a new window. This saves me from having to constantly be visiting the actual website.

I also go to www.dgrin.com at least once a day to browse around in the categories to see replies to threads I'm not subscribed to. The feed only shows new posts in Dgrin.

DoctorIt

BeachBill wrote:

In Firefox, go to Bookmarks / Bookmarks Toolbar Folder

The is where Firefox places my live bookmarks and they are separate from the static bookmarks I've saved.

And make sure the Bookmarks toolbar is visible:
View / Toolbars / Bookmarks Toolbar

Then in Windows at least you will have buttons below your address bar:

firefox-bmtb.JPG

I just click on the "Digital Grin" button several times a day and it shows me the last 15 or so posts. If something interests me, I click the link and firefox opens it in a new window. This saves me from having to constantly be visiting the actual website.

I also go to www.dgrin.com at least once a day to browse around in the categories to see replies to threads I'm not subscribed to. The feed only shows new posts in Dgrin.

Thanks Bill, hate to sound smug, but I think I know my way around Dgrin. I reckon I must click on it a few times a day. Just sayin'...

I'm guessing you haven't used Safari, which puts a little number in parentheses next to your bookmark in the bookmark toolbar. That's what I was getting at, if anyone knew of a way to make FF do that.

Regardless, I think BWG has the right way, or at least for me - I've done the same thing and setup my Google start page with all the good feeds. So I basically have a feed reader, like Thunderbird, but its open in a tab in my browser, which I pretty much ave open all the time and keep a watch on new content. Pretty slick, thanks again Google (and Lee)!

DoctorIt

StevenV wrote:

http://steven.vorefamily.net/feeds.html

Good notes Steven, Thanks