What is RSS?

For ages I knew practically nothing about RSS. When I first heard about it, even the name seemed technical and complicated and I didn't feel like I wanted to take the time to figure it out.

Then someone showed me a really easy way to use it - and now I use it every day!

Why bother?

If you want to know whenever a new activity or page gets added to this site, an RSS reader can automatically show you whenever a page is added or updated.

Its like a paper route, only electronic

All RSS is, is a system for having your news and updates delivered to your doorstep. But instead of a boy on a bike throwing your paper onto your porch, an electronic 'Reader' collecting your news for you and keeps links to your news items handy in one place on your computer, for when you want to read it.

If you want to keep up with a website, or have someplace you like to get news from (like a group that updates regularly, a blog, or a news page) then RSS can be very handy and useful to you.

"RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication."

To get updates from the sites you like, you have to subscribe to the "RSS feed" of a particular website, like doorway-to-self-esteem.com, or another site you like.

It is easy to subscribe or unsubscribe. Whenever a new page is added to your favourite site, a notification shows up in the Reader, with a link to that page.

This saves you from having to go back to pages on the site all the time, to see what's new.

What's also nice is you don't have to join up with an email address. When you don't want the updates anymore, you just delete the feed and that particular 'news' is no longer delivered to your reader.

I use NetNewsWire to get feeds from my favourite websites.

Getting Started

There are two ways to access RSS Feeds:

You can view RSS feeds through your browser

You can get your news feeds from Firefox's Live Bookmarks, My Yahoo!, or Feedly. Just click on their button in the block of buttons that you see in the left column of every page on doorway-to-self-esteem.com. Follow the instructions after that. For My Yahoo! you will need a Yahoo account.

You can view RSS feeds through your own RSS Reader

I use NetNewsWire and it works well for me. You can download a free RSS Reader using the links below. An RSS Reader is special software that reads the "RSS feeds" that are sent out from sites like mine and delivers them to you in an easy to browse and read format. Voila!

For Windows - RssReader

For Mac - NetNewsWire

Subscribing to Doorway to Self Esteem updates

Once you're set up with the RSS Reader, follow these steps:

  1. Right-click (control-click for Mac users) on any page of this site.
  2. Select "Copy Shortcut" ("Send link" for Mac)
  3. For Windows users: paste that URL into your RSS Reader.
  4. For Mac users: an email should open up with the url in the body text. Paste that URL into your RSS Reader. Delete the email without sending.

I put the NetNewsWire icon in an easy to reach place on my computer and when I want to catch up on my favorite websites I just click on it to open it and browse through what's new.

Hope this works for you too!

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