In a concerted effort to blatantly beg for more subscribers, I’m publishing a short little How-To for using RSS.

RSS Intro:

What is RSS?
RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Why RSS? Benefits and Reasons for using RSS
RSS solves a number problem for people who regularly visit certain websites.
It allows you to easily stay informed by getting new content from subscribed sites, as it’s published.
It saves time by not requiring you to visit each site individually.
It ensures privacy, by not needing to join each site’s email newsletter (Although that’s a good option too!).

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?
Feed Reader web sites or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds and display them in a consolidated, easy-to-read format.

There are a variety of web-based and software-based feed reader solutions out there.

Web Based

• Google Reader,
• My Yahoo,
• Bloglines,
• etc.

Software Based

• NewsGator,
• FeedReader,
• Microsoft Outlook,
• etc.

There’s solutions to satisfy just about everyone’s system, preferences, and personal tastes.

How do I subscribe to a site’s RSS Feed?
Most sites display a small (usually orange) icon with concentric rings coming from one of the corners, reminiscent of a radio transmission. Either that or they’ll list out RSS, XML, RDF, Atom or other types of feed listings near the top of the web site. Any of these feeds should do to enroll you in the feed.

Why Subscribe?

This site, like all the other billions and billions of little blogs, runs primarily on user feedback. It’s definitely NOT the money, as on an hourly basis, flipping burgers or picking up garbage is more profitable. User feedback is what causes a person to write, and to continue writing. Subscriber count is one way of showing people are interested in the things you’re writing (and consequently encourage you to write ‘more’ of that stuff).

I’ve noticed that I have a very steady and loyal readership, meaning that my subscription numbers hold very steady. They have been slowly expanding, which is good, but I’d like to encourage these loyal and stalwart readers to ‘broaden the scope’. If you do like this web site and haven’t subscribed, PLEASE DO SO. (Upper right-hand side of the blog, little orange thingies. Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

If you’re already subscribed. THANK YOU!!! You’re the crowd that keeps me writing (I’m having to assume that that’s a GOOD thing, from the amount of subscribers). Now the next step is to recommend me to friends and family that might like my writing as well. Tell your cousin-twice-removed, that neighbor that gives you the ’stink-eye’ when you come in after 3:00 a.m. or that college professor that thinks they know ‘just everything’ about the world. It doesn’t matter who you tell, if you just tell SOMEONE.

If you keep encouraging me, I’m just going to keep on writing.