RSS = push locally, pull globally

Trying to find what's new on the internet, however, used to be a tedious process, which involved visiting dozens of Web sites and trying to remember which stories I'd read and when.

RSS, an acronym that doesn't expand to any one definition, is better described as "push locally, pull globally."

I downloaded one of the RSS news reader tools which is called FeedDemon. FeedDemon and NewzCrawler are the most powerful ones in RSS news off-line reader software at present. Compare these two, the function of NewzCrawler is much stronger than FeedDemon, it can not only read the content of RSS channel but also release Blog. But it is a pity that NewzCrawler can’t support to Chinese localization very well, so I finally chose FeedDemon.

Now I will give you a brief introduction to this software.

This is a basic interface of FeedDemon, it can be divided into 3 parts, from left to right are Channel Bar, Headline Bar and Read Bar.

To subscribe to an RSS feed, you install news aggregation software or create an account at a Web site that manages the process and scans Web sites for updates. Sites that offer RSS feeds usually have a small icon or the words "Syndicate This Site" linked to the feed's Web address.

A user copies the link from that icon or text typically by holding down the mouse or right-clicking and selecting Copy Link, and then pastes it into the news aggregator. The news aggregator verifies that the link is valid, then adds the feed to the list it monitors.

Most aggregators check for updates to a feed on a defined interval: every 30 or 60 minutes at a certain time after the hour. Updates on demand are also possible in many programs and sites.

If the file contains newer items than the last time the software checked, the aggregator software flags the item as new, displaying the latest headline and an abstract.

Every time a new item is found, the aggregator software presents it to you as a new item, much like a new e-mail message. And there will be a little pop-up window at the bottom of your desk-top.

If you're using standalone software, the item shows up in a list that you can then select to read a summary of (if one exists) or double-click to open in a Web browser. You can also receive RSS updates integrated with your e-mail or via a Web site.

Here is another important function we should know about this software. If you want to focus something special in your channel, you can create a new watch to meet your requests. A watch searches incoming news items. When a channel is updated in FeedDemon, this watch will collect news items which contain the keywords you entered before.

For example, I want the watch to help me in my major project, so I titled the watch “major project” and entered the keywords “citizen journalism” and “mobile” then click OK.

You will see there are 7 items now in the channel which contain the keywords.

If a blogger on my list updates his blog which contains these keywords, my watch channel will also update as soon as he did. In other words, all the news that fits, it pulls. That is why we called it “push locally, pull globally.”

RSS also has its disadvantages. Not all the website support RSS, even though there are so many versions that we should care about the compatibility. Sometimes when I added a new website it turned into a corrupted file. But after all, using RSS tool is really a good way to get the latest news on the internet, and I am looking forward to its helpfulness to my major project.