Can RSS feed help you?

If you look at the top of this screen where the url for this blog page is displayed, you will notice a little icon on the right of the blog url that looks a bit like this - only it's smaller:

Maybe you've even wondered why it appears after certain urls and not after others.

Well, the reason for that is that it indicates whether a site has RSS feed or not... and our blog does.

Whoopee!

OK, so what is RSS feed?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

'Ah-ha!' I can hear you all saying.

And what on earth does that mean?

Don't ask me...

I don't know why anyone called it that either, but basically RSS feed can be used to get information that's on a site - and it's particulary useful if the information on a site, blog or forum is updated regularly because you can subscribe to the RSS feed and get that information sent to you (by clicking on the RSS icon in the url) - don't worrry you won't be asked to pay any subscription fees!

Once you've subscribed and added the RSS feed to your personal homepage (see previous post for information about how to set up a personal homepage), the RSS feed will automatically update the information displayed there if/when new posts appear on the site you have suubscribed to.

This little video clip gives you all the information you need to get started.

Creating your own personal homepage/RSS feed reader

If you are like me you probably find that you don't really have time to check all your favourite websites for new posts/information, so maybe you ought to think about creating your own personal home page which you can set up so that it automatically gets any new posts or information using RSS feed and displays them there.

To get a better idea about what a personal homepage is all about watch a training video by Nik Peachey, a learning technology consultant, writer and teacher trainer or read his blog

If you'd like to see an example of someone's personal homepage, check out Glady Baya's Pageflake site.

Here's a screenshot of mine:

Finally, here’s a site which compares the most commonly used personalized home pages: www.mashable.com

P.S. If you don't know what RSS feed is, watch this space!