RSS Feeds

Wow! I must admit that I had no clue this functionality even existed. I viewed the second movie, because I screwed something up when trying to view the first. The instructions in that video were very easy to follow.

I decided to subscribe to environmental news from a number of sources. The New York Times option was simple (mainly because that was the example shown in the movie). The SF Chronicle was not as easy as I could not find any RSS icon on the home page. A search for ‘RSS feed’ though, took me right to it. The Chronicle did not have a specific enough section to add, so instead I added one of my favorite pod casts – Mick LaSalle and his movie discussions.

Then I headed back into looking for environmental news feeds. The Wall Street Journal had a ‘most read articles’ feed and a regular RSS feed option. When signing up, I discovered that I had to be a paid subscriber to get that feed….so on to another choice! Rather than trying out different newspapers or magazines, I searched for free RSS feeds and found a zillion. I choose ‘Science Daily’ – it set the whole feed up for me with a series of options (no cut and paste needed). However, I was not given an option to refine the search option to just environmental news. But the ‘Baldness Gene’ article was pretty interesting (for obvious reasons). Then I headed to NPR and looked at their options and subscribed to Environmental feeds.

Next I followed the instructions to use Google news to find articles on Global Warming. That was a wonderful option and also very easy to employ. I then got even more specific and subscribed to Google News covering “greening your home” only.

The search for ‘Green’ blogs was even more fascinating. I subscribed to “GreenMe: Sustainable Living Blog.”

I then tried to add my classmates’ blogs. Ran into some problems there – errors, etc. but most of them added ok.

The final step, or sharing one of my feeds, was a bit harder. By following the directions exactly, I think I was able to share the GreenMe Blog. I have not read much of that blog yet, so I hope it is worth looking at. My apologies if it is not. Considering it is authored in Ireland, it might give all of us a fresh perspective.

My list of feeds started to look a bit overwhelming, but I found an option to manage subscriptions at the bottom. I then created some new folders by topic and put the different feeds into the appropriate folders. Looks much better now.

Overall, I am amazed at this functionality and can, with certainty, say I am so glad I signed up for this course!