RSS: How I read the news.

If you're wondering how I get my news, it's quite simple, really. I use something called "RSS" which any decent site that has regular updates should have. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Even blog sites have it. For example, at the bottom of Ars Technica is a link for RSS feeds. It's a simplified process many sites use to send out their news, which includes either summarized or full text. This benefits the user as they can have all their news in one place, instead of having to open each site one by one, or having newsletters spam your inbox. There are many different programs for reading RSS feeds, so it's really up to you to choose. Personally, my choice falls on a service by Google called "Google Reader"



As you can see, I have a bunch of categories such as "Games", "Blizzard", "Technology", and within those categories are my subscribed feeds to various sites such as "Ars Technica", "Kotaku", and "This is why you're fat". Clicking on a folder brings up recent, unread articles for those various websites. As I scroll down, they automatically get marked as read. Generally what I do is I skim through the titles, and read articles if they're interesting. If I really like the article, I click on the "Star " button, and if I feel it's worthy to share, I click on the "Share" button. This means that you can see the articles I shared at this link.

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/pavtran

RSS is a great way to keep up with sites without having to bookmark them multiple times. With Google Reader, it's easier since Google Reader is entirely online, and you only have to log into your Google account at a computer to access your feeds. A good idea is to subscribe to sites you actually read, instead of everything I previously did. Hence why my "News" folder has over 1000 unread articles, because I don't read them or the news is just a repetition of other sites I've subscribed to. It doesn't necessarily have to be news sites either, for example, Ctrl+Alt+Del (Comic) and LFGComics also have RSS feeds.

Finally, I highly suggest these two websites if you want to start reading more about technology.

http://arstechnica.com/
http://www.tomshardware.com/us/

I found these two sites to provide a wealth of good, quality information. Ars Technica has MASSIVE reviews, spanning 15-18 pages for certain products (such as the recent iPad, and Windows 7). With Toms Hardware, you learn more about... well, hardware. They've got benchmarks on their website for Video Cards, CPU's, etc... That can help you determine what to look for in a PC.

Lastly, here's a site I use that many people can find a use for just because of all the tips, tricks, hacks, etc... They provide. It's not entirely technology based, but the majority is.

http://lifehacker.com/

It's amazing what tips they provide, such as what programs to use in order to convert videos, guides on how to do things out of the ordinary such as installing OSX on a Windows system, or even random things such as a recent article about "Save old, scratched CD's with Vaseline".

To sum up, RSS makes getting news from multiple sites incredibly easy and centralized. It's not complicated at all to use, especially if you use Google  Reader. If you're interested in the feeds I use, I've exported all my feeds from Google Reader and you can grab it here.



Good luck, and have fun!