RSS Feed Help
Current
Feeds:
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and sometimes content to a wide number of people. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading..
RSS works by having the website author maintain a list of notifications on their website in a standard way. This list of notifications is called an "RSS Feed". People who are interested in finding out the latest headlines or changes can check this list. Special computer programs called "RSS aggregators" have been developed that automatically access the RSS feeds of websites you care about on your behalf and organize the results for you. (RSS feeds and aggregators are also sometimes called "RSS Channels" and "RSS Readers".)
Producing an RSS feed is very simple and hundreds of thousands of websites now provide this feature, including major news organizations like the New York Times, the BBC, and Reuters, as well as many web logs.
Think of an RSS aggregator as just a web browser for RSS content. RSS aggregators automatically check a series of RSS feeds for new items on an ongoing basis, making it is possible to keep track of changes to multiple websites without needing to tediously read and re-read each of the websites yourself. They detect the additions and present them all together to you in a compact and useful manner. If the title and description of an item are of interest, the link can be used to quickly bring the related web page up for reading.
There are many RSS aggregators available. Some are accessed through a browser, some are integrated into email programs, and some run as a standalone application on your personal computer.
It is getting more and more common for websites to have RSS feeds. They usually indicate the existence of the feed on the home page or main news page with a link to "RSS", or sometimes by displaying an orange button with the letters "XML" or "RSS". RSS feeds are also often found via a "Syndicate This" link. Text "RSS" links sometimes (there are lots of variations) point to a web page explaining the nature of the RSS feeds provided and how to find them. The buttons are often linked directly to the RSS feed file itself.
Once you know the URL of an RSS feed, you can provide that address to an RSS aggregator program and have the aggregator monitor the feed for you. Many RSS aggregators come preconfigured with a list to choose from of RSS feed URLs for popular news websites.
(Used With permission from Software Garden, Inc.)
RSS/News Aggregators (also called
Readers) will download and display RSS
feeds for you. A number of free and
commercial News Aggregators are
available for download.
Many aggregators are separate,
"stand-alone" programs
or extensions of
existing programs such as web browsers.
Web-based feed readers and news
aggregators require no software
installation and make the feed available
on any computer with Web access.
other services will let you add RSS
feeds to a Web page. Yahoo! users can
add RSS feeds to your My Yahoo! page.
Once you have set up your newsreader, you can subscribe to any of the Corvallis School District 509J RSS feeds. To do this, first copy the URL of the feed's XML page. Then follow the instructions for your particular newsreader and paste this location wherever it asks for the location of the service to which you wish to subscribe.
For your convenience, here are a few directions for common aggregators:
Firefox:If the page you are on
has feeds available, you will see an
icon in Firefox like this: 
Click on the icon and select the
feed you would like to "Add". Next, all you have to do is
select where you want to save the Live
Bookmark. If you decide to save it
on the "Bookmarks Toolbar Folder", it
will show in the toolbar and will easily
be accessible.
If the page you are on
has feeds available, you will see an
icon in Internet Explorer 7 like this:
Click on the icon and select the feed
you would like to "Subscribe To".
It will now be displayed in
Feeds section of your
Favorites Center.
If the page you are on
has feeds available, you will see an
icon in Safari like this: 
Click on the icon and select the
feed you would like to view. Once
the feed is displayed, bookmark the RSS
feed so you can return to it later.
Create a folder of your frequently
viewed RSS feeds from a single window,
then browse everything in one cleanly
formatted page.
Desktop RSS readers are fast and easy to use. You install them onto your computer like any other program. Free readers include SharpReader, FeedReader, RSSReader, and Omea Reader. Follow their directions for adding feeds.
