Apt Design

the apt design blog will now begin shifting its focus to its real purpose – offering graphic and web design tips, tools, ideas and suggestions; as well as connecting you to other interesting websites.

our first topic – rss. Have you heard the term RSS but really have no idea what it is or how it may make your life easier? read on for a brief introduction.

RSS in its current incarnation stands for Real Simple Syndication. As the internet continues to evolve more and more emphasis is being placed on website’s content being updated often. this is especially true in the realm of blogs which may be updated multiple times daily. other examples of constantly updated content include news stories, sports scores, photo albums, and forums.

now, if you are interested in getting multiple streams of current content often you could quickly find yourself spending all day going from site to site to check for anything new. this is where rss comes into play and can save you enormous amounts of time. instead of going to find all of this information, you can make it all come to you!

the first step is to download an rss aggregator. one of the most popular is google reader, though there are a variety of free aggregators. some customized homepages like igoogle and myyahoo can also be aggregators.

after you have an aggregator you need to subscribe to a site’s rss feeds. you will often see the rss logo or a ’subscribe’ link to click on. this will automatically notify your aggregator when the content you have subscribed to has been updated.

now instead of visiting multiple sites, you can just open your aggregator and it will let you see which of your subscriptions have been updated, as well as show you the new content. don’t worry, if you need to go directly to the page that was updated you can do so easily from your aggregator.

finally the best news – real simple syndication is all free! so go ahead and subscribe to this blog for updated tips, ideas, and links – just click the ’subscribe’ button at the top of the blog page!