Welcome to the Fast-Air Tech Talk newsletter. The Tech Talk newsletter is a free service for all Fast-Air customers. Please feel encouraged to suggest newsletter topics.
Do you spend time on the web reading news, sports, blogs, comics, recipes, announcements, and other informational or entertainment sources? Do you visit each web site when reading that information and slowly wade through each site? Did you know there is a more efficient way to track your favorites sources? That method is called RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication.
Most web surfers are familiar with saving web site URLs as bookmarks or favorites. This convenient feature is supported by all web browsers to quickly visit a web site without remembering the full URL text string. Yet visiting each of those web sites can be laborious and time consuming. A better way is to consolidate that information to help decide what to read.
The RSS system helps users remain current with events and notices without the need to visit each individual web site.
RSS is a subscription system that provides continual updates of informational sources. Users determine the frequency of the updates. These updates are called RSS feeds or just feeds. The information is delivered to each subscriber in a format called XML.
For textual information the article will include the headline and first paragraph or two of the original online article. A link to the original article will be included and often the title of the feed is a link too. Some RSS feeds are audio-video, also called podcasts.
Subscribing to RSS feeds is as simple as looking for a link on a web page that says RSS, Feed, or Subscribe. Be careful when the link says Subscribe when the news source also sells old-fashioned dead-tree copies. Sometimes there is no text link but instead only an RSS icon. The accepted common icon to indicate the RSS service is available looks like this:
Most of the popular web browsers support adding RSS feeds to the browser’s favorites or bookmarks. Often organization is not ideal when RSS subscriptions are stored in web browsers and the updating mechanism can be a bit clunky. There are better solutions.
For Firefox users there are add-ons that improve the built-in RSS features. There are online web sites that provide RSS feed services. Some email clients support RSS feeds.
Dedicated RSS apps are a great way to organize and view RSS feeds. These dedicated programs sometimes are called news readers or news aggregators. Don’t let the “news” prefix fool you as the programs can be used to fetch any kind of RSS feed, such as sports scores or daily recipes.
Generally, most feed reader apps or add-ons use several panes to display information, much like an email client. One pane will be a subscription tree showing all current RSS subscriptions. Usually new feeds for any subscription are indicated by using bold text. Another pane will list only the headlines of all feeds. Another pane will be a viewing pane. The list pane is used to quickly peruse or scan new content and to help decide what to read. When selecting an item from the headlines list, the article appears in the viewing pane.
Like web browsers, many RSS readers use tabs to support downloading the original online article directly into the reader program, thereby bypassing the need to use a web browser. From a security perspective this could be dangerous if the reader does not support the same features as web browsers, such as controlling cookies, JavaScript, Flash, Java, etc. To avoid that concern the reader can be configured to disable those features or open the web page in a preferred web browser. Opening the article in the web browser works the same way as selecting a link in a web page.
Recommendations:
Dedicated reader:
Firefox add-ons:
The Thunderbird email client already has RSS support built in.
RSS is a great technology to improve your web browsing experience and manage browsing time more efficiently.
More Windows 10 News: Windows 10 users continue to realize that the update is not really “free” but has deep hidden costs. As mentioned in a previous Fast-Air Tech Talk, Windows 10 uses a peer-to-peer file sharing scheme to distribute and update Windows 10. That means increased bandwidth usage for Fast-Air customers using Windows 10. Disabling is a manual process.
Yet More Windows 10 News: Windows 7 and 8/8.1 users who received the Windows 10 “nag” notice and have automatic updates enabled are discovering that the Windows 10 updates are being downloaded even when the user has not yet reserved the invitation to update to Windows 10. Fast-Air customers are affected by increased bandwidth usage and increased hard drive usage of 3 to 6 GB of space. Windows 10 is not being installed yet the files are being downloaded. Disabling is a manual process.
Yet Even More Windows 10 News: Windows 7 and 8/8.1 users who received the Windows 10 “nag” notice and have automatic updates enabled are discovering that the same “phone home” and telemetry data collection installed in Windows 10 have been quietly installed on Windows 7 and 8/8.1. Removing the data collection efforts requires some sweat equity beyond simple point-and-click.
Technical trivia: Weighing 23.5 pounds and having no battery, the Osborne 1, the first mass-produced portable computer and forerunner of the modern laptop, is sold on April 3 1981.
Next issue: Password Management.
The world wide web is not the only way people stay connected. Remember old fashioned air travel?
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