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Alan Paterson

Alan Paterson

May 8, 2006, 8:33 a.m. (Message 45193)

OK. Full confession time.

I have not the slightest idea what RSS is and what it can do for me.

Anyone with an explanation to hand?


Alan
Anselm Lingnau

Anselm Lingnau

May 8, 2006, 9:12 a.m. (Message 45194, in reply to message 45193)

Alan Paterson schrieb:

> I have not the slightest idea what RSS is and what it can do for me.
>
> Anyone with an explanation to hand?

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format) -- in essence, RSS 
(variously known as »Really Simple Syndication« or »Rich Site Summary«, among 
others) is a way of making available, say, news headlines or blog entries in 
a standardised way such that you always get to see the last few ones posted. 
You can use a program called a »feed reader« or »aggregator« to collect RSS 
listings from various sources and it will, in effect, give you something like 
a personal newspaper. If you have ever used the Firefox browser, you may have 
noticed its »live bookmarks« feature; this is based on RSS.

Nowadays, RSS is also taking over the rôle of what us old fogeys used to know 
as Usenet or »Netnews«. RSS is inferior to Usenet in countless ways, but 
hey -- it's new (Usenet having been around for not quite 30 years now), it's 
XML-based, and so it simply *must* be better!

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Fear less, hope more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate
less, love more -- and all good things are yours.           -- Swedish Proverb

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