. RSS: The Missing Manual In the beginning, the Internet was an informational Garden of Eden. There were no bannerads, pop-ups, flashy animations, or spam messages. Back then, people thought the Internet was the greatest idea ever. | . RSS The Missing Manual In the beginning the Internet was an informational Garden of Eden. There were no bannerads pop-ups flashy animations or spam messages. Back then people thought the Internet was the greatest idea ever. Those days unfortunately are long gone. Web browsing now entails a constant battle against intrusive advertising and annoying animations. And with the proliferation of Web sites of every kind from news sites to personal weblogs blogs -just reading your favorite sites can become a full-time job. Enter RSS a technology that lets you subscribe to feeds summary blurbs provided by thousands of sources around the world from Reuters to Apple to your nerdy nextdoor neighbor. You use a program like Safari to subscribe to updates from such feeds and then read any new articles or postings at your leisure. The result You spare yourself the tedium of checking for updates manually plus you get to read short summaries of new articles without ads and blinking animations. And if you want to read a full article you can click its link in the RSS feed to jump straight to the main Web site. Figure 20-9. The Length slider controls how much text appears for each RSS blurb if you drag it all the way to the left you re left with nothing but headlines. To change the number and order of the articles being displayed use the search options on the right. And if you feel a sudden desire to tell your friends about an amazing RSS feed you ve just discovered use the Mail Link to This Page link in the lower-right section of the window. Note RSS either stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Each abbreviation explains one aspect of RSS either its summarizing talent or its simplicity. . Viewing an RSS Feed So how do you sign up for these free automatic RSS broadcasts Watch your address bar as you re surfing the Web. When you see a blue RSS button appear identified back in Figure 20-1 Safari is telling you This site has an RSS feed available. To see .
