What is XML and RSS and why do I need a Feeder?
This is an official download mirror for the Lockergnome News Feeder. Download the Lockergnome News Feeder Here.
All this stuff about RSS and XML and feeders can be overwhelming. Especially, when you're just figuring out how to work your PC and get around on the internet!
But don't fret. There's lots of information available and great tutorials on what the purpose of XML is, how it's impacting the net and what it means to the average person.
What is RSS?
Quoting the official RSS v1.0 specification: ‘RDF Site Summary (RSS) is a lightweight multipurpose extensible metadata description and syndication format. RSS is an XML application, conforms to the W3C's RDF specification and is extensible via XML-namespace and/or RDF based modularization.’
Okay, let's cut it with the "Geek-speak". What is it really you ask? Short and simple, RSS is a language (like HTML) that makes it easy for web sites to distribute their content outside of a web browser. It makes it easy for sites to provide you with up to date content ... news sites can post breaking stories ... an author's site might provide you with excerpts of their latest articles.
That brings us to the next question:
What is XML?
XML is actually short for "eXtensible Markup Language". It's a subset of SGML constituting a particular text markup language for interchange of structured data. The Unicode Standard is the reference character set for XML content. XML is a trademark of the World Wide Web Consortium. To quote directly from the w3.org 'Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere.'
If you'd like to see an example of XML in RSS format you can see the NHO's data feeds here: The NewbieHangout RSS Feeds We've written our feeds so that they are a bit more visual than most. Normally, you would just see the raw data unless you used a News Feeder like the one available here from Lockergnome.
You can take a peek at an example of raw XML here. Not much to look at but very useful and accessible.
To help you understand a bit more about XML, RSS and the whole mumbo-jumbo, we've scoured the net for the best information and have found the following links. We hope you find them useful.
Books about XML
Books about RSS
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