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RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication that
allows content publishers to send updates to
their subscribers in an easy way. This means, if
you have added RSS feeds from BBC, New York
Times, CNet and Washington Tines; you can read
all the updates right from one single page!
Moreover you can have your own blog available as
RSS. The aim here is not to tell you the
technicalities of RSS but to how how just about
anyone can do it.
Let's start a step-by-step
tutorial to how how you can take advantage of
RSS feeds by incorporating them in your webpage.
We will also publish your blog as RSS so that
others can add your feed.
First, it is important to know
that you need a web-hosting service that
supports RSS inclusion. For this walkthrough, we
have selected MyYahoo. Open up your browser and
surf to my.yahoo.com
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Signup for a new
account.
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You will be
prompted to click on a link to verify your email
address and activate your account.
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Check your mail
and activate your account, you can now login to
MyYahoo.
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MyYahoo is
designed so that you can select from a list of
items (that Yahoo provides) to be displayed on
your personalized page. From various sources of
news and weather info, you can customize the
page layout and content placement. Currently in
its beta version, Yahoo has added the option for
adding RSS in MyYahoo pages.
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We are now going
to locate BBC's cricket news RSS and add it on
MyYahoo, making it possible to see what's the
latest in the world of cricket. Browse the BBC
home page and from the sports section, choose
Cricket. At bottom bar, the last link on the
right hand side is 'RS version'.
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Clicking 'RSS
version' link brings up an RSS info page. Along
with general description of RSS, you will see
'Click here for your RSS feed' next to an orange
icon labeled 'XML'. Remember, whenever you see
this sign while browsing the net, it denotes a
RSS link which can be used in your site or any
RSS reader application or news aggregator.
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Right click the
XML icon and copy the shortcut. This will be
used in our MyYahoo page. Go to
add.my.yahoo/rss
.
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Click the 'Add
It' button. Paste the link we had just copied in
the field given on page.
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Our link is there
in the text field. Press the Search button. This
takes us to the next page.
Note that this field can be used for directly
adding a RSS link (what we did) or an be used to
search for RSS feeds. There's also a link to
browse Yahoo's most popular RSS feeds.
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BBC cricket has
been recognized by MyYahoo. Pressing the Add
button here will finalize the addition of the
RSS feed, so press it to see MyYahoo page again.
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Congrats! The
news item has been added in 'RS Headlines'
section.
Setting your
blog for RSS and adding it to MyYahoo:
Time now to
publish our blog and place it on MyYahoo.
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Here's what you
need to do to get started with blogging. Signup
at BlogSpot (Blogger) at
www.blogger.com.
After filling out initial forms, you will
be asked to select a template.
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After signup is
complete, the posting area is visible. From the
top bar, select settings. Then select "Site
Feed' from the horizontal bar just below
settings tab. Here's where you can define your
RSS settings.
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We are now in
Settings > RSS Feed. Make sure the 'Publish Site
Feed' dropdown is set to Yes. Copy the 'Site
Feed URL' given on this page. This will be used
to add our blog to MyYahoo page. Let's create a
blog entry quickly. Click on the 'posting' tab.
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After entering
some text, press 'Publish Post' button given at
the bottom of this page.
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The blog is
ready! We have copied the feed link as well. All
that's left is to add it along with that cricket
RSS.
Adding blog RSS
to MyYahoo
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Back to MyYahoo. Click the edit button on top
right next to RSS Headlines section. Paste the
link just copied from the blog site to 'Add New
Sources' section.
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Press Search
button. This will fetch our blog to Yahoo.
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Click Add and a
page appears which gives you the option of
setting up display preferences for your RSS
feeds.
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Select 'short
summary' from 'For each article, display the..."
drop down menu. The number of articles from each
source is set to 5 and the date option to 'any
date'. Click finish.
Along with the cricket headlines
and a some text, a blog entry will appear too.
In this way, you can collect information from
various sources over the net into one place (as
yahoo calls itself an emerging newsreader) - all
updating automatically giving you a one-stop
solution for most of your surfing needs.
This ends our short RSS tutorial
- happy reading and publishing!
Written by Nabeel Khalid |
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