In options on a post I see this Subscribe to RSS feed,I also have seen in my own profile that I can get a RSS feed of this member me in this case.Could some one in laymans terms say what this RSS is and how to use it in a forum?
I would appreciate it greatly.
I myself rarely use RSS feeds. From what I can tell though they can be very useful. In IE7 and IE8 there is an icon to the right of the home button that lights up orange when there is an available RSS feed on a website. This is IE's built in RSS reader. I have heard you can also get an RSS reader in firefox through add-ons however I do not know from experience.
RSS feeds are a quick and easy way to get updated info on a website minus logos, ads, pictures, links to other parts of the website, etc. Of course this is only available on certain sites that create RSS feeds for you. I know most Microsoft based websites like MSN do this. When I viewed your post via RSS feed it was basically your reply, a search box, and no other graphics. If you are up to date in your IE8 lingo the closest thing these feeds can be compated to is a web slice.
The following is a link to an article about RSS feeds that was published published by Microsoft around the time IE7 was released.
In options on a post I see this Subscribe to RSS feed,I also have seen in my own profile that I can get a RSS feed of this member me in this case.Could some one in laymans terms say what this RSS is and how to use it in a forum?
I would appreciate it greatly.
I haven’t really used RSS feeds myself but since WIN7 RC (and maybe VISTA for all I know <g>) has a RSS Gadget I did install it on my first test bed WIN 7. I’m not sure I would see an advantage in having it on a setup like here but it may be worth playing with.
Firefox was one of the first browsers to support RSS, no extensions necessary (although there are some available). RSS feeds can be placed on the Bookmarks Toolbar as what Mozilla refers to as “Live Bookmarks.”
Thanks to everyone,
@Send yes I saw that when I clicked on this thread in options..... a new window opened with the "live Bookmark ".I have more studying to do so will get back with how I find it (If I chose to use it of course!)
Mo,
Go ahead and play with it. You can right click on any of the Live Bookmarks and delete it and be done if you aren't impressed. I find that RSS is not really a practical way to follow threads in a forum, as the number of posts, and hence, the number of entries listed in the bookmark grow too quickly. It gets rather messy. It's really easier to just log into the forum. What Live Bookmarks are really good for is to keep up with websites that you routinely follow day to day. For example, Calendar of Updates maintains a running list of software updates for all manner of programs. Rather than go to the site everyday to see if there is an update to one of my apps, I have a Live Bookmark that shows the updates in a dropdown menu. If I need to get information about one, I simply click on that entry and it takes me to the page. Similarly, I follow Brian Krebs' Security Fix blog through RSS. I click on the bookmark and the topics of the most recent posts are shown. I have about half a dozen Live Bookmarks and find I can very quickly go through my "must-check-daily" sites and visit only the pages with new content that I choose to view. A real time saver!
Hi all
Ok I did my homework albeit briefly 
This is what I learned(feel free to correct) Definition 1) RSS from The Whatis link= Rich site summary
Definition2)RSS from Send's link =Really simple syndication(Microsoft definition)
Apparently you need a Feedreader or News aggregator software BUT reading SendOf Jives link suggests BOTH IE7 and IE8 are these.I am unsure of FF as when you click on subscribe to the RSS feed on the message it asks which to choose from One is Google and I can not remember what the other 2 were.
I agree with SendOfJives reasoning that because These forums have a high turn over rate that you would be driven mad by the onslaught (if you are connected to a lot of posts) of feeds.Better to stick to a few.I do like the other point as well about keeping up to speed with infrequent posts or blogs or whatever has a RSS feed connected to it that takes your interest.
Could you please confirm that to use RSS with Firefox all you have to do is check the "Always use live bookmarks to subscribe to RSS feeds" ..........Just clicked on it and it Adds itself to the bookmarks toolbar.
Thanks
Oh and how secure are they??
Hi Mo,
Firefox was actually a year or two ahead of IE in supporting RSS. Before Firefox and the browsers that followed it, you did need an RSS feed reader to collect and display RSS content. Now you only need a feed reader if you need to do more with RSS than the browsers offer. So, no, you do not need anything beyond Firefox itself to take advantage of RSS. The option to use Google, or Bloglines or other readers is available, but you can ignore those and just save the feeds as Live Bookmarks in your Bookmarks Toolbar. There are also extensions for FIrefox to add more capabilities for using RSS. I myself have never used anything but the basic Firefox feature. Looking at the Google promo page for the Google Reader will give you some idea of what a simple reader might add.
Mo,
As to security, I cannot find anything written very recently but here are two short articles on the issue. I would say that since RSS uses http, the security aspects would be similar, but I am not really very knowledgeable about this. Certainly RSS is now universally used and accepted so, just as web surfing and email entail some risk that can be addressed through security software, so too with RSS. Subscribing to RSS feeds from known, trusted sites should not put you at any more risk than things you are already doing online.
http://www.feedforall.com/rss-security.htm
Thanks to all who shed light on this subject,and to you SendOfjive who gave me a great and easy understanding of it all.
You’re most welcome. RSS is very nifty for sites with changing content. Hope you can use it.