RSS has several meanings: Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, and RDF Site Summary where RDF in turn stands for Resource Data Framework. In any case it is a method of summarizing the latest news and information from a website in a lightweight form that can be easily read by any of a number of news readers or news aggregators. The idea is to give users the ability to quickly obtain the latest news and updates from a site in a headline or news digest format. This in turn helps during high-traffic periods by reducing the load on the servers.
There is a great deal of information on the web about RSS and its various formats and uses. Here is a brief article describing it: Pssss... Have You Heard About RSS? You can find many more RSS resources including Frequently Asked Questions, always a good place to start, at the Oasis Cover Pages and Open Directory Project.
To use our RSS feeds, you need a feed reader or news aggregator installed on your computer. These are applications that can be set to read the feeds on a recurring basis, generally once an hour or so.
You can choose stand-alone applications or web-based options. The following are popular choices:
Links to other software can be found here:
Here is a list of feed readers and news aggregators from the Open Directory Project.
Here is another list of feed readers and news aggregators.
Once you have installed a feed reader or news aggregator, you simply add the RSS feed address (either RSS2 or RSS0.91 listed at the top) to the list of feeds in the reader. The installation instructions for the readers will help you with that. If your browser, newsreader or aggregator uses "auto-discovery" then simply enter the XCOttawa.ca main address (http://www.xcottawa.ca/rss.php) and it will find the feed.