Republished from November 2009 “Bytes” contribution to our local parish Newsletter.

What is RSS?

New content from your favourite web-sites can be delivered as a stream of rich-text, links & pictures, movies or even podcasts into an RSS reader. Instead of you having to visit all your usual News, Rugby or Hobby web-sites you can have them automatically deliver updated content into one place. The big efficiency saving is that you are just scrolling through the stories that interest you and skipping over those that don’t – instead of navigating to each website separately.

I started using RSS with Google’s free RSS reader (www.google.com/reader) which allows me to group or categorise my RSS feeds to suit its content. Using Google RSS both at home and work means that stuff that I’ve read at home, doesn’t reappear when viewing from work – so it keeps a track of unread RSS topics from wherever you’re reading.

You subscribe to an RSS feed by first finding its RSS feed. This is usually indicated by an orange symbol (shown above). Most internet browsers display an RSS icon in the address bar whenever a site has that facility.

An alternative to Google’s online RSS reader, most internet browsers have an RSS reader; Firefox, Flock, and Opera are good examples. Oh, just in case the question comes up at your local Quiz Night, RSS has a two meanings; really simple syndication and sometimes, rich site summary.

Alternatives to Microsoft Office

Whether at School, College or work, most of us are using Microsoft Office for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. But what can you use on your home-built PC or Dell PC bought online?

You can buy a discounted Educational License of Microsoft Office Ultimate for around £40.00. Search www.microsoft.com using “Ultimate Steal UK”. Incidentally they have a load of free resources for Parents and Kids including homework planners, clipart, templates and brainteasers. When I was young, we only had a paper school lesson timetable, and we were lucky! (See http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/school/)

You can try the next best free alternative to Microsoft Office called OpenOffice. This is a comprehensive collection of “Office” applications including word processor, spreadsheet, database, drawing package and presentation tools. All of these applications are compatible with Microsoft document formats, meaning you can open, amend and save files back to their original Microsoft file format.

If you’re frequently out of the office without a computer, you can resort to Google Docs (see docs.google.com) which has online versions of Calendar, Word Processor, Spreadsheet and a Forms Creator.

Nick

Local Local