Beginning with the January 2007 issue, UW OnTechNews will be available via RSS.

RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is a file format that can serve news, blogs, or podcasts directly to your desktop. Most Web sites that update their information frequently also publish an RSS news feed of their updated articles. If you monitor these RSS feeds, you will have access to these updates without requiring you to check the Web site for them.

Subscribing to an RSS feed is not like subscribing to a mailing list; you remain anonymous and never have to register with anyone. Also, RSS updates change as new feeds are published, so there's never an accumulation of old news. However, if you are looking for an old OnTechNews article, you can always go to the Past Issues section of the OnTechNews Web site or use the search feature.

How Do I Use RSS?
In order to use RSS, you will need an RSS feed reader (also referred to as a news aggregator). You can download a reader from the Web and run it on your desktop like any other application. There's a wide variety of RSS reader applications available on the Web. You can find a list of RSS readers that can be downloaded as applications from this Google search list. You can also find one just for Windows or Macintosh.

You also can use the built-in RSS readers available in the newest browsers. Both Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 allow you to subscribe to RSS news feeds when you click the RSS icon on the Web site. Then you can monitor your favorite news feeds for updates from the convenience of your preferred browser.