Some people bookmark favorite websites that they expect to return to again and again. Others forget to check back and count on Googling a website by name the next time they’re inclined to catch up. Still others wait for email from someone else to prompt their attention to a site’s latest content.
Well, we Trout Louts are nothing if we’re not high-tech.
Www.troutlouts.com provides a much easier way to stay current on recent events in the continuing calamity we call Troutism. All of our pages feature the latest flavors of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom to alert subscribers whenever a new post has been added.
If you know about RSS or Atom and have a browser or news aggregator that supports them, you’re probably already receiving our feed. If not, these technologies are worth learning about.
The simplest method I’ve found is to use the built-in feed reader utility included with all modern web browsers, such as IE or Firefox. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer 7.0 include excellent feed parsers built into their standard toolbars and they work great! Just look for the universal orange and white feed reader icon and you’re good to go.
You could also load up one of several free Browser Plugins such as the popular Sage widget for Firefox or Google Toolbar for IE and FF. Google Toolbar is one of the more useful all-in-one innovations since browsers were invented, and its reader distills any page’s RSS feed service directly to your personal Google Home page.
For Louts who prefer their content delivered offline, tools like RSS Popper provide freeware solutions to add RSS and Atom feeds to Micosoft’s Outlook and Outlook Express email clients. With Popper installed, new web content arrives automatically in your email inbox.
Finally, dedicated feed aggregators like NewsGator Online, a free web service news reader (or its more powerful commercial cousin, NewsGator FeedDemon) are another way to view your RSS subscriptions without spending a lot of time surfing.
However you find your way back here, RSS is the wave of the future and we Louts intend to face it as squarely as we might a full bottle of the noble Macallan 18 on a dark and stormy night.
Be there or be square.