I realize that since I have been asking my readers to subscribe to my RSS feed, that some of my less tech-savvy readers might not know what that means. A RSS feed, Really Simple Syndication, delivers blog entries, News Headlines and Podcast to an aggregator or RSS reader; in most case for free. For example, subscribers of The SolidWorks Geek RSS Feed receive in their reader the latest published post usually within a few minutes after it is published. This will keep you up to date on all your favorite blogs that you you have added to your own aggregator without having to visit the site itself.

Finding Your Own RSS Reader

There are a number of free web-based or desktop-based RSS readers, each with it’s own pros and cons. I currently use Google Reader but I am slowly moving my feeds to Netvibes on the advice of Ricky Jordan. Just because you pick one reader doesn’t mean you are stuck with it. There is nothing keeping you from having a few different readers to help figure out which one works best for you but I hope you add The SolidWorks Geek Feed to each of them .

Below is a list of the some popular aggregators, readers, available for free:

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• NewzCrawler
• FeedDemon
• NetNewsWire

Wikipedia has an awesome list of RSS aggregators here.

Subscribing to a Feed

Many blogs, including The SolidWorks Geek, uses an icon somewhere on the page the represents the RSS feed. Every icon will look different but they all have a common element, the symbol for RSS.

Clicking this icon will take you directly to the feed content page. This page will look different depending on how the blog set up its feed. I use Feedburner for my feed but that is a different post.

From this content page you will be able to select the reader you use and it should add the feed automatically. If your reader is not listed or the page doesn’t list any readers, you can copy the page URL from the address bar use CTRL-C.

Then paste the URL into your reader.

Well, folks that was a quick introduction to RSS feads. Hopefully now you will feel compelled to subscribe to my feed and you might just win a cool prize. I hope everybody has a great 4th of July weekend and I will see everybody on Monday!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

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