Dear Friend,
Can you believe that it is already December? It's the time of year to kick back, try to slow down, and to spend some time with family and friends.
This year I am singing in my church's Living Christmas Tree program, so I am really getting into the holiday spirit early.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Nancy McCord
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Bright Idea Tip: Understanding RSS News Content Feeds
You've heard about RSS news content feeds, but do you know how to use them in Internet Explorer and Outlook 2007? It's easy to watch the blogs you like or alerts from favorite resources and vendors with RSS news content feeds.
Using RSS Feeds in Internet Explorer
Just look for the orange fan-like icon to be highlighted in your browser when you are visiting a website with a RSS news content feed. The button is just to the right of the home button in Internet Explorer 7. Then click the down arrow just to the right of the feed icon to see what feeds are available for the website. Some sites will have multiple feeds. Click the one you like to review a listing page of the most recent posts, content or articles. If you like what you see, simply click the cross sitting on the star for "add to favorites" at the top of the listing page that says Subscribe. It is that simple. Internet Explorer will check on and pick up any new feed postings continuously once you have subscribed. You can review the content at anytime by clicking the same feed icon on your favorites bar on the left. Just click the RSS feed icon, select your feed (like a bookmarked link) and read the newest postings right from your browser screen. If you click the listing title, the browser will take you to the page online to read the full content.
Using RSS Feeds in Outlook 2007
First find the RSS news content feed link for a site using the same tactic as in Internet Explorer. When you are on the feed listing page, copy the URL for the feed from your browser's address bar. Then go to Outlook and click tools, and then account settings just as if you were going to make a change to one of your email accounts in Outlook. You will see a tab for RSS Feeds. Click new and then add. Paste in the URL of the news content feed that you want to watch in Outlook. Our Web-World Watch RSS news feed address is http://www.mccordweb.com/weblogs/atom.xml so try to add this one first.
Outlook automatically adds a RSS feeds folder in your personal mail folders (look for the same orange fan-like icon). Click open the folders for each feed and you can read the recent posts right in Outlook as if they were emails. One thing that I have noticed in Outlook 2007 is that the date for some feeds will be wrong. In my program all atom feed posts posts will have a date of 1/1/2007. I guess that this is just a bug, but most other feeds will have posts with the correct date.
Why Would You Use RSS News Content Feeds?
- Personally, I find keeping up-to-date in my industry is very simple when I use news feeds. I never have to visit a website unless I want to do so.
- I can scan massive amounts of information in a very short period of time and then only click in and read on the topics that are of interest to me.
- I scan authoritative as well as little know resources digging for ideas for blog content and for my e-newsletters.
- I am able to keep my hand on the pulse of my industry and the needs of clients. Where you see a topic appear frequently in many different news outlets, I know that it is important.
It is so simple to use RSS news feeds that you should take the five minutes it takes and get started today. I think that you'll find that using RSS news content feeds will help you to be more productive.
