June 19, 2004

  • For those of you using news or feed readers I have added an XML feed. Just click this icon  in the header or footer (I am not sure yet where I plan to keep this link).


    I have also added a feed reader link for my team blog (http://bodylife.blogspot.com) you can visit that site and then click this icon  or look in my sidebar and click on the icon. I administer this one with FeedBurner and soon I will get my Xanga feed on it as well.

    Are you asking yourself what is all this about?  Why should I use a feed reader? What is XML and RSS anyways? Then check out this site for a small introdcution to it all. http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/aboutrss

    Need a feed reader? Try http://www.Bloglines.com. They offer a free online reader for all of your feeds. Or you can download Sharp Reader. It's an easy-to-use, first-class feed reader for your PC and its free.


    Want the undocumented Xanga code for news feeds. Just type the following link in your browser address bar http://www.xanga.com/rss.aspx?user= then place your Xanga user name after the equal sign. It would then look like this http://www.xanga.com/rss.aspx?user=soninthefaith.

    Another useful XML site is http://www.feedburner.com . Here you can do a variety of things with your XML site from tracking statistics to configuring it automatically to be viewable in other formats and mediums (like wireless devices).

    Check out the comments for a deeper description of XML, RSS, and Feed readers.

    I hope you find this info useful.

Comments (6)

  • What is XML?  Is it a browser for reading news?

  • Yes and No While you can read news in it you re not limited to that. Schools, research centers, news media, blogs, and other things are using this web language to distribute the content of their sites or documents to any user in a universal format. While you can use your browser to look at XML it is difficult to read. That is why one uses a Feed Reader or one designs a website to interact with the XML in readable format.

    Here is a technical definition. "Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere."  

    http://www.w3.org/XML/  

    Here is a more basic definition. It is a universal computer or web programming language that is used to allow for the easy interchange of documents on the World Wide Web.

    Uses of XML and Feed Readers. News sources, blogs, and other websites are including XML, RSS, or ATOM links on their websites so that users can more easily read the content of their site without the having to bother wth all of the formating of the site. Another useful reason to use XML and feeds is so that you can monitor a XML feeds and their websites for updates without ever having to visit the site. Most feed readers have an auto update feature that looks for changes in the feeds you monitor. This could be useful for Xanga for someone who wants to read my blog, but does not want to join Xanga. Using a feed reader they can always know when I have posted a new blog and then they can either read it in their reader or visit my site.

    Where I work we are going to be using XML so that students can access their student info fairly easy. It will not be used in feed readers, but it will help us format our website in a way that the data can easily be moved from a data format to a website view for the appropriate user.

    My Use of XML
    Basically, I am just experimenting with this technology. I want to see how I can use XML to promote my site as well as provide an easy way for readers to get at the latest content of my blogs.

  • Thanks, very informative.

    BTW: Happy Father's Day.  Hope you had a good one.

  • Chill site, just thought I’d tell ya that I’m declaring this Tuesday (June 22nd) to be National Redneck Day. Check out my site , If you want to do redneck day ive got a list of things you could possibly do.

  • you signed my  guestbook so I'm leaving a post!   Like the site, but what is the islamic writing in the background mean?   And if you could look at my site it's been given a facelift from that slate purple and orange...  Have fun!

    Kudos in the LORD,

    Stephanie

  • The background is actually Hebrew. It is the theme verese of my site. Psalms 40:5 in the english and 40:6 in the Hebrew.

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