Why RSS?
RSS is the product of the finest minds on the internet and their response to a critical acronym shortage.
Actually, RSS is a way for your favorite websites to tell you when they have updated information or news rather than forcing you to visit each site at random. It has been especially useful for weblogs and news sites where changing information is critical. RSS also helps maintain privacy.
What is RSS?
In simple terms, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standard format for distributing information or news from a website. Many news organizations, weblogs, and other sites use RSS to syndicate their content through what is known as a webfeed. RSS saves time and helps protect privacy by eliminating the need to visit multiple sites for updates or sign up for countless website newsletters and the attendant problems of spam. You can store “feeds” from many different websites and receive only the updated information, which eliminates the need to wade through an entire website hunting for what has changed since you last visited. RSS web-feeds don’t require much bandwidth and are ideal for dial-up users as well.
How do I use RSS?
To read RSS feeds (webfeeds), you will need software known as a newsreader or aggregator. This software maintains your list of favorite websites, checks them for updates and content changes, and then displays them for your perusal. This software is available across many PC platforms and operating systems (Windows, Mac, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, et al.).
If you are using Firefox, Safari, or Opera, RSS should be built-in to your browser software. For more information and for instructions on how to download an aggregator, visit this site:
http://www.feedster. com/help/rssopml.php
How do I subscribe to To Write Well’s RSS?
To subscribe to our RSS feed, you will need to enter our URL (To Write Well) into your aggregator (newsreader) or click on the RSS link on our site--for those of you with the Firefox or other RSS-ready browsers.
There are free downloads to make Internet Explorer RSS compatible. In addition, there are several aggregators (some free of charge) available on the internet. The specific steps will vary depending on your software/configuration.