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Well the news section is fairly straightforward - an archive listing of news articles and headlines from the world of docs.

It does have a rather nifty RSS feed however. If you're thinking 'what's that?!' then read on…

What is RSS?

RSS - Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary; the jury is still out - is a cool way to have your choice of the latest information from the World Wide Web come directly to you. A sort of mountain coming to Mohammed if you like.

By using RSS you can see when sites from all over the web add new content, without having to trawl through every site individually. Headlines, articles - even audio or video - can find you via an RSS newsfeed and keep you up-to-date, hassle-free. Major sites that use RSS include the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times. And now of course, DFGdocs.
What is an RSS feed?

A feed is simply a web page - but with a difference. They're designed to be read by computers rather than people.

The thing to do is to get yourself a newsreader, a piece of software that acts somewhat like a psychic medium, channelling the information sent by RSS newsfeeds from the internet into an easily-digestible format. Some readers are downloadable applications, while others are accessed using a browser. It's horses for courses really: applications allow you to download the feeds much as you would receive an email, while browser-based readers can be accessed from any computer.

The next thing to do is to subscribe to your chosen newsfeed: DFGdocs for example. This is as simple as clicking the orange RSS button you will see on beside the 'Latest News' section heading on our homepage. You can then drag the URL into your news reader or cut and paste it into a new feed in said reader.

What's really clever is that if you're using a browser like Firefox, Opera or Safari, you can tell if a site has an RSS feed, because it will show the little icon in the URL window.
News readers

Apart from ensuring that the reader you choose works with your operating system, and deciding whether you want a free one or one you have to register, the choice is fairly idiot proof.

Here are some to try:

Browser Based
My Yahoo
Bloglines
Google Reader

Applications
Windows:
Opera
Awasu
Feedreader

Mac OS X
NetNewsWire Lite
NewsFire
Shrook 2

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