RSS Explained
After reading tech news, forums, and review sites for years, I took it as a given that everyone knows what RSS is. After a year of dealing with people using computers in the real world, I've come to realize that knowledge of what RSS is and how it can make your life easier still has yet to break mainstream, even with pushes from both of the major browser companies to makes RSS a more inline, organic extension of the browser.
How does RSS work?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a stream of text called XML, that happens to look a lot like stray bits of HTML (<p></p>, <div></div>, etc.). Instead of abiding by strict rules that give a limited number of identifiers to place between the < and >, XML allows the markup to represent the data. An example would be showing a simple list using XML markup.
Instead of using HTML to say
<p>Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are running in the primaries for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively.</p>
XML uses markup to show
<candidates>
<candidate name="Ron Paul" party="Republican" />
<candidate name="Dennis Kucinich" party="Democratic" />
</candidates>
The great thing about XML is that it can be read into many pieces of software as easily as a database can, allowing programmers to say "For each item in this XML set, I want you to a) put the name up top, and b) assign each name a color based on the party."
RSS is just a form of XML that has been agreed upon by a large number of people as useful to transmit news. It includes a title, description, date and time, url, and various other descriptors that make it useful for staying up to date on a bargain hunting site, a news site, or your friend's blog. Even if you know what they are, if you aren't using them, you're wasting time on the web.
How do I read RSS?
RSS is read, simply enough, with an RSS reader. Many browsers can handle RSS feeds. They typically call them something like "Live Bookmarks." You can also download third party readers like Sage (http://sage.mozdev.org/) as a plugin for Firefox. If you aren't yet using Firefox... Let's just say that most web developers, who genuinely enjoy the challenges of webdev, loathe the work-arounds and crazy hacks that accompany getting a website to work well with any version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft--you could stand to do so much good, if only your ego didn't preclude you from participating in industry-wide standards that can only make our lives easier... Plus, extensions in Firefox almost make it worthy of its own dedicated platform. But I digress.
However you aggregate RSS feeds, if you spend more than fifteen minutes a day mindlessly surfing for no reason at all, try these--you'll still have time to surf mindlessly, but you'll feel like you're getting something out of it as well.