Subscribing to a RSS Feed

 

     In this article we are going to discuss how to place a RSS feed, or a address, of a Podcast, or a website into either a Podcast client or a feed reader. There are a few different reasons why we would want to do this and how useful it can be to either be alerted that a new episode of your favorite Podcast is available, a blog post has been made, or to keep up to date with news or sports headlines. This all can be done by RSS feeds. First off though we need to choose a RSS feed reader, and/or a Podcast catcher. This will depend a bit on what operating system you are using. First lets look at a few pod catchers or Podcast Clients that are available.

     Windows OS:

     The most popular Podcast client for the windows platform is Itunes. Itunes makes it easy to both find a Podcast and also subscribe to it. If you are already using Itunes to manage your music you are just a step away from also using it as a Podcast client. Just visit the Itunes Store, click on the Podcast tab, find a Podcast you are interested in, and click the subscribe button. The available episodes will now be added to the your Itunes library under the Podcast heading. -Another popular client is Ipodder. Thought this may not be as easy to use, it is a great alternative specially if you do not have Itunes downloaded on your computer. Once you have Ipodder downloaded it can be set up to download episodes to either the default folder or you can create your on folder and have all the episodes placed in that folder. To subscribe to a Podcast in Ipodder you can either click on Podcast tab where a list of shows will appear under different headings, or you can click on "add feed" and place the RSS feed or address into the URL box.

     Ubuntu{Linux}

     In Ubuntu there are a few choices including Banshee, Amarok, and Rythmbox. In this article we will pick Amarok as or Podcast client. If you do not already have it installed as a music organizer, it can be downloaded through either "add remove" or under "Synaptic Package Manager". Once you have Amarok downloaded it will be found under >Applications>Sound and Video. Podcasts are found under the play list tab. To add a Podcast right click on the Podcast heading and click on "add Podcast". Then place the address or the RSS feed of the Podcast into the box. You can then configure how you want Amarok to deal with the episodes by choosing which folder you want the episodes to be downloaded to, and also if you want the episodes to be automatically downloaded when available or to manually download them.

     RSS Reader:

      There are a few differences between a RSS feed reader and a Podcast Client. Usually a feed reader is used as a notifier that there is a new blog post, news headline, or sports headline of a particular site. A popular choice for a Feed Reader in both Ubuntu and Windows is Thunderbird which is also a great e-mail client. Liferea is also a very popular choice in Ubuntu as it is Gnome application and works well in the Ubuntu desktop. It doesn't matter which reader you choose, setting it up in both are quite similar. Once you have your choice of reader downloaded and installed it is time to subscribe to a RSS feed. In this example we are going to use Thunderbird as our RSS Reader and we are going to subscribe to a news headline at CNN. First open up Thunderbird and create a new account. This can be done by clicking on >file>new>account and then choose RSS reader as the option. Once you have this account created you should have a News & Blogs account in the left hand pane. Hi-light that option and click on manage accounts. You will have a new window open with the option of "add". Here you will place the RSS feed that you are subscribing to. Now that we have our reader set up it is time to subscribe to a website feed. In this article we will use CNN as a example. -Visit CNN home page and at the bottom you will see a orange square with XML inside of it. Click on this and you will sent to a page in which you will have an option of subscribing to different feeds such as Headlines, sports, etc. Each option will have a different address beside it. Choose which feed to want to subscribe to and then copy and paste that address in to our "add" window in Thunder Bird. Once it is done verifying the feed it will send the most recent headlines to your reader. You can now view these headlines with out visiting the CNN site. This is an easy and fast way to keep up to date with the news. For now one when ever there is a news story posted on CNN it will be delivered right to your Reader. Though some sites handle RSS a little different, in general they can all be subscribed to this way.

Posted by msccomp at 8:09 PM