RSS Explained

Andrew Marx — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 05:29:00 GMT

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

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.

Firefox Extensions

Andrew Marx — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:35:00 GMT

If you're running Firefox and aren't using extensions, you really need to see what you're missing. If you're hesitant to plow through the list due to the sheer number of them, don't worry. Here's a list of the best extensions that I've found so far.

Fasterfox
Speeds up Firefox by changing a few internal settings. Useful if you usually have many tabs open.

FireFTP
Fast, decently-built FTP client. Not as nice or feature-rich as BulletProof, but free.

StumbleUpon
This is the biggest productivity killer ever. Tell it what categories you like, and it will take you to pages you would never have found on your own. When people ask where you found such cool pages, tell them you just happened to 'stumble upon them.'

CustomizeGoogle
Let's you remove ads and Google click-tracking from Google. Also allowed you to turn on Google Suggest, which pops down popular search queries as you type. Very useful.

ForecastFox
Adds the weather to your Firefox status bar.

DownThemAll
Speeds up downloads, allows you to pause and resume downloads.

Adblock Plus, Filterset.G
Blocks ads from known ad servers. I haven't seen a banner ad in months :)

Web Developer
One of the most amazing plugins ever. If you do web dev work, this allows you to edit css on the fly, view page elements in a myriad of ways, and countless other time savers.

There are many, many more, of course. They can all be accessed by clicking Tools->Extensions, and then clicking the Get More Extensions link at the bottom-right of the dialog box. Just one more nail in IE's coffin...

MSE Tech : firefox

RSS Explained

Firefox Extensions