by Jim Langdon

© 2005 Designer Blinds

How is RSS different than an e-mail newsletter?
At first look, RSS readers look a lot like e-mail programs or newsreaders.  The difference is that e-mail newsletters are usually delivered at a time chosen by the publisher. RSS makes your favorite sites always available and up-to-date on your schedule.  And you don't have to provide your an e-mail address to get the headlines, so it decreases the amount of junk mail you have to go through and allows you to see what you want to see. Get used to using RSS and you'll find it's a more efficient way to use the internet.

RSS Readers
Recent versions of Internet Explorer can serve well as an RSS Reader.  You can also configure many of the popular web "home" pages like Google, My MSN or My Yahoo to show RSS feeds.  This is how it looks on a customized Google home page:

There are a number of  free stand-alone RSS Readers available, I'm just going to recommend the one I like best, which is called RSS Bandit.  It's a quick, easy download and an easy program to use.  If you want to search the web for other options, you'll find plenty.  Most other RSS Readers are pretty similarly constructed, so you'll be able to add Tip Of The Week to them as well.  When you download RSS Bandit or any other RSS Reader, some pre-loaded sites will be included.  It's your choice whether to keep them or not.  

Download RSS Bandit 
(Link opens in new window - Hold Ctrl key while clicking if you are using a pop-up blocker))

Subscribing to Designer Blinds
Once you've downloaded it, here's how to get subscribed to Designer Blinds Tip Of The week in RSS Bandit.

First Click File... New Feed  This dialog window will open:

In The URL field, paste in: http://designerblinds.com/CSTips/TOTW_RSS.xml as shown here.

Then click the Get Title From Feed button and it will fill in the name of the RSS feed.  At this time now user name or password is required to view Designer Blinds Tip Of The Week, so no information is required in these fields. It's your choice whether to enable alerts when new items are added. I recommend doing so.  Click OK and that's it.  You're subscribed!

Here's How It Looks
Now when you look at the reader you'll see Designer Blinds in the left pane.  Click on that and you'll be able to look at Tip Of The Week Headlines and sort them by name or date.  Click on a headline and in the lower pane you'll see a brief description of that article. 

Click on Read on... and you'll get the full article, fully formatted as it is on the web page.  You'll find it is very quick to navigate between articles in your RSS Reader.

Give the RSS Feed a try to see if you like it.  Of course you can subscribe to Designer Blinds Tip Of The Week by e-mail, or simply visit the tip pages occasionally on your own.