RSS, What the hell is it and why should I care?

[Big Booger]

Anyone have a good rundown of what RSS is in plain English, how it works, and why it is important?

Any info either third party or first hand would be great. I think TZ uses it for news.. but I am not that into that part of it.. Would like to know more about it though

[Reverend]

RDF (resource definition format) is a format first developed by Netscape Corp. in 1999 to provide "channels" of information on its Internet portal. The format consists of up to 15 items, each comprising a headline, short summary, and address (URL) where the main article could be retrieved from. The format rapidly became the de facto standard for providing short listings of articles and news on the Internet and evolved into RSS (RDF site summary, sometimes referred to as rich site summary).

http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/

http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html

BTW,we use RDF in our news feeds. http://www.techzonez.com/modules.php?modid=3

[Big Booger]

So basically it's like the CNN ticker for the Internet?

Except you have a clickable URL?

[MSNwar]

It is just a means to distribute data between computers running the same software. It can be highly advanced in terms of sorting the data between computers in a number of ways. Kind of like a group of television stations (syndicates) that want to distribute a program across the network (portal) in a organized method. Example, station 1 wants to show program 1 at 0100 hours in region 1. However, the station also wants to distribute the program to its syndicates at percisely 0100 hours operating in other regions. All of the syndicates will access the network (port) at percisely 0100 hours and distribute the program in their respective regions. The exact time the program is aired is dependent on the regions time zones. The end result is all of the syndicates (web sites) received the content at percisely the same time.

[egghead]

do we have a firefox compatible rss feed?

[petard]

Yes they do! Sage!

http://sage.mozdev.org/

[rik]

I've not used RSS within a browser window yet. I have the Desktop Sidebar running and have used it's RSS reader for a year or so now.

[egghead]

how do i get the built in rss reader for firefox to work with tz?

[petard]

Once you have Sage installed, you'll have to configure Sage to point to a default Bookmark folder.

Then, for instance, copy this URL into Firefox:
http://www.techzonez.com/modules.php?modname=backend&action=rdf&id=1

It should appear as HTML-like code. Save the page (bookmark the URL) in the Sage folder.

Open Sage (within Firefox), refresh the list, and you should see the TechZones "main" news feed.

[rik]

Is it the general consensus that Sage is the best RSS reader extension to use?

[rohitk89]

Is it the general consensus that Sage is the best RSS reader extension to use?Yes and bloglines is the best web-based RSS reader (for the times you don't have your fx installation with you).

how do i get the built in rss reader for firefox to work with tz?Click on the RSS icon at the right end of the address bar. You will be prompted to create a live bookmark. Add it to your bookmarks toolbar folder. The only shortcoming in fx's built in RSS reader is that you don't get update notifications like with Sage/Bloglines.

edit: I just realised that egghead asked that question almost 2 years ago :p

[rik]

heh, yeah I dug up an oldie...Actually what I'm looking for is something to give me a "scroll" affect, something like the newsreader in Desktop Sidebar. I prefer that to just having a page of headlines.

Does anything exist like that?

[rohitk89]

Does anything exist like that?I'm not too sure about what you mean by "scroll effect" but this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_news_aggregators) is the mother of all lists of news aggregators. You might find something there.

[rik]

I'm not too sure about what you mean by "scroll effect"

Click this link http://securitywizardry.com/radar.htm and on the left hand side watch the news headlines. I understand that this is a JAVA app but that is like what I want.

A "News Ticker" of sorts.

[rohitk89]

A "News Ticker" of sorts.Enlightenment at last.

Try this (http://www.softplatz.com/Soft/Network-Internet/Browsers-Tools/NewsPiper.html) or on this page (http://www.softplatz.com/kw/news-ticker/) see the other programs they've got (50).

[rik]

Cool Thanks. I reinstalled Desktop Sidebar for free. I only use the news ticker from it tho.

http://www.desktopsidebar.com/index.html