How to subscribe to ID&C’s blog and receive RSS feed (news feed) alerts when the blog has been updated via an RSS reader (software application).

If you would like to receive automatic alerts when ID&C has updated their blog, you will need to subscribe to our blog and ensure that you have an RSS reader/news reader (software application on your desktop. You will then be able to subscribe to the xml feed from ID&C’s blog (by cutting and pasting the URL) and have updates appear on your desktop RSS reader.

To download the RSS reader/news reader (software application on to your desktop) visit one of these external websites:

News Readers

Windows

Mac OS X

Web

What are news feeds?

News feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and video in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.

Feeds are also known as RSS. There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but most people plump for 'Really Simple Syndication'. In essence, the feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.

How do I start using feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.

Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.

If you click on the RSS button on www.idcband.co.uk you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.

Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may just have a normal web link.

Most modern browsers, including Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display the orange RSS icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier.