RSS feeds

What is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites. It's not just for news. Anything that can be broken down into individual items can be syndicated via RSS. For example:

• Updates to a web site
• Announcements or events
• Technical support updates
• Employment and job vacancies
• Daily jokes, quotes, hints or tips
• Movie and cinema showtimes
• Blog postings
• Weather information
• New listings for a realtor

Once information about each item is in RSS format (usually XML), an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

A news aggregator or RSS reader (for example your Google personalised home page) can help you keep up with all your favourite weblogs by checking their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them.

Our RSS feeds

Here are the RSS feeds for www.microsofttraining.net:

Microsoft Office hints and tips:		Or choose a specific application feed from hints and tips
Low fill courses:		Courses on which you can receive an additional discount
Free courses:		For customers who take advantage of our on-site promotion
Freelance vacancies current work:		Freelance trainers can see what current work we have available

How to save/use RSS feeds

Around our site you may notice RSS buttons like these:
This means you can subscribe to the live feed of the dynamic content of the page.

Internet Explorer 7

When viewing a page with an RSS feed in Internet Explorer 7, the orange feed icon will illuminate on the toolbar. Clicking this icon allows you to subscribe to the feed.

Mozilla Firefox

When viewing a page with an RSS feed in Firefox, an RSS icon will appear at the end of the address bar. Clicking this icon allows you to add a Live Bookmark. Once you've done this, check your bookmarks folder or menu. You should see the feed's title, followed by the latest items of the feed. Clicking the item's titles will take you straight to the content on the web.

Google toolbar

If you have the Google toolbar installed, you can use the 'RSS subscribe' button to add the feed to your favourite RSS reader. If you can't see the subscribe button, click on google toolbar 'options' button, ensure you're on the 'browsing' tab, then tick the box next to the 'subscribe button' logo.

Google reader / personalised home page

When you click the icon, you will be taken to Google's RSS reader options. You can then choose to save the feed to your preferred Google RSS service. eg. Google Reader.

Other browsers / methods

Another way to save or view an RSS feed is to click the icon. This will display an XML output of the feed. You can then copy and paste the URL of the feed into your favourite browser or RSS reader. Alternatively, right click the icon and choose "Copy shortcut" or "Copy link location".