Do you recognize this giant orange icon? You may have seen it on the pages you visit–it’s the icon for that page’s RSS feed. If you don’t know what RSS is, you’re missing out on the greatest thing ever. Seriously. Set down all those gold bars in your hand, throw the keys to your Ferrari out the window, and start using RSS.
What is RSS, you ask? RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way that websites broadcast the changes that are made on them. For example, when your friend posts something on their blog, an RSS message can automatically tell your computer about the new post. The majority of websites that you spend hours each day checking are already doing it, so there’s no need to check them constantly. Why not use RSS to save a bunch of time? Find out all the changes to your favorite sites in a few minutes with a program that can read these RSS messages.
Here’s a quick example: on my Mac, the first time I open my Mail program each morning it tells me every update that has happened on about 30 websites that I follow (friends’ blogs, news sites, gadget review sites, stuff like that). Chad wrote a new blog, Engadget.com reviewed a new phone I was looking at, and some guy in India learned how to build a calculator out of apples. That’s neat. I read through the list in ten minutes, and I’m up to date!
Now you might be wondering, how can I attain this marvelous bounty? There are many ways to receive RSS feeds. Like I said, mine comes straight into my desktop email application. Feel free to try any one of the many RSS readers available on the internet. Here’s the easiest way I’ve found, though:
- Right click an RSS link (this page’s RSS link is on the sidebar to the right) and click “copy link URL” (or copy shortcut), then visit Google Reader, click “new subscription,” and paste in the link you just copied. Google will watch any pages you give it throughout the day–and out of nothing but the goodness of their little techno-gadgety hearts! From any computer, just go to reader.google.com and you can see what’s new.
That’s it. Enjoy your extra time each day!
PS If you follow this page, please take the time to subscribe by clicking on one of my RSS links. Even if you have subscribed before, I recently changed feed formats and you’ll need the new feed address–make sure to resubscribe while you’re here.