From the latest Treo downloads and reviews to forum topics, stay up to speed with mytreo.net using Really Simple Syndication

Available RSS feeds:  mytreo.net Front Page Stories  Treo and PalmOS News  Treo Accessory and Software Reviews  Latest Treo Downloads  Forum News - New topics  Forum Recent Posts - Most recent posts There are further individual RSS feeds for every board in the forum, just look for the icon at the top right of the page.

What is RSS?

The traditional way to access the latest news and information about anything online is to access a website like mytreo.net. Since the advent of RSS (which originally stood for Rich Site Summary but is now known as Really Simple Syndication), however, you can aggregate your favourite news feeds and have them arrive at a single source, usually an RSS reader.

So, if you’re a news junkie who logs on to the same sites multiple times a day looking for the latest news, you can have up-to-the-minute headlines “pushed” to your desktop where you can read a quick summary of the story and link through to the provider’s website to read the full report. A prime example is the BBC which offers feeds (or channels) for most of its news and sport sections.

How do I use RSS?

In the main you use an RSS reader (there are many free ones available), either by installing software on your PC or Treo or by signing up with a web-based service. You then subscribe to RSS feeds from your favourite news sites by adding them to your reader.

In the case of mytreo.net’s RSS feed, you would paste the URL http://mytreo.net/news/index.xml into your reader to subscribe to receive updates whenever a story is added to or updated on our homepage. By clicking on the news headline in your RSS reader, you get to read our summary of the story and then click through to the main report at mytreo.net.

How do I know if a site has an RSS feed?

Look for an or icon somewhere on the front page (see the left hand side of this page) or an “RSS” text link. If you use Mozilla Firefox (and you should do! - Ed), an RSS icon appears in the bottom right-hand corner of the browser whenever it detects a site possesses an RSS feed. Most of the major news sites now have feeds but ours is the first dedicated Treo site to offer RSS feeds that we know of.

RSS Readers

There is a plethora of RSS readers available for free download or free web-based subscription. Just Google “RSS reader” and the right-hand ads column alone will give you plenty of options, Newsgator being a good example. If you’re a Mac OS X user, we highly recommend Newsfire, which looks and behaves just like a native Apple application.

The difference between web-based and downloadable readers? A web-based reader will obviously aggregate your feeds onto one catch-all web page whereas an application that you install on your system delivers the feeds to your desktop and, by default, notifies you anytime a new story appears.

Get mytreo.net RSS on your Treo!

mNews RSS Reader is available for the Treo 600 and Treo 650. A detailed guide to using this will be coming soon.

An example of an RSS reader

What’s the point?

RSS is great if you are a news hound who doesn’t have time to surf a bunch of different websites looking for the latest news. Think of it in terms of e-mail updates getting to sent to you everytime your favourite sites are updated. If you only visit a few sites a day, it probably isn’t worth the hassle.

For us at mytreo.net, it’s just another way for you to access the latest Treo news straight from our database as and when we post updates. From forum gossip to the latest downloads and Treo news, you can keep up-to-date with us on your terms; at home, in the office or on the road.

Questions?

Leave a comment below or find more help in the forums.

Filed under: Site news