What is a RSS-Feed? RSS stands for Really Sim­ple Syn­di­ca­tion. But what is the use of RSS-Feeds? RSS-Feeds are some­thing like a mail­ing list. But not the same. You can’t post to RSS-Feeds. You only can read RSS-Feeds. RSS-Feeds are XML-Documents, you can read them with a nor­mal edi­tor with is really silly. Or you can use a RSS-Reader. If you use a RSS-Reader you can orga­nize your feeds. The feeds could be some­thing like the Table Of Con­tent from PLOS Biol­ogy, Nature, Sci­ence or Malaria Jour­nal.
Nerly every jour­nal has RSS-Feeds. But some­times they are hard to find. For the most sites you can use your browsers find func­tion and search for rss.
Now I will show you an exam­ple of a RSS-Reader. As for me I’m work­ing mostly with Linux it is most impor­tant to use some­thing with work under nearly every Oper­at­ing Sys­tem (like Win­dows and Mac OS). So I will show you how to use Mozilla Fire­fox and Sage (an exten­sion for Fire­fox) as RSS-Reader.

1. Step

2. Step

Open Extra -> Add-Ons

Now you should have some­thing like this on your Desktop:

In the lower right cor­ner of the new win­dow is a link (get more exten­sions — or some­thing sim­i­lar to this). Click it!
After click­ing it Fire­fox will open a new win­dow with the URL: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/extensions/

3. Step
Now you can down­load and install Sage (and many more other plu­g­ins).

You will get some­thing like this:

Open the link to Sage and install it by click­ing on the install but­ton on the next page. Before installing you have to wait a few sec­onds to make sure you read the con­tent of the instal­la­tion win­dow. But after a few sec­onds it will look like this:

After instal­la­tion you have to restart Fire­fox (close all win­dows of Firefox).

Using Sage
You can use Sage by press­ing alt+z or by open the menu Extras and click on Sage. After doing this Sage will open in the Side­bar. You can add Feeds with drag&drop and delete feeds by mark­ing them and press­ing del. Below a short expla­na­tion for using Sage (click image for lager image).

Now try and add the RSS-Feeds of PLOS Biol­ogy, Mal­ria Jour­nal, Nature. Hint: Try the search feed but­ton in Sage.

Have fun! For ques­tions post a com­ment (after registering).

Tech­no­rati Tags: rss sage fire­fox howto

What is a RSS-Feed? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. But what is the use of RSS-Feeds? RSS-Feeds are something like a mailing list. But not the same. You can't post to RSS-Feeds. You only can read RSS-Feeds. RSS-Feeds are XML-Documents, you can read them with a normal editor with is really silly. Or ...