I like to talk about nothing important! Book, film & music/gig reviews. Internet Guides & Website Reviews…. and maybe some philosophy thrown into the mix.
Do you always see the orange icon on interesting websites but don’t have a clue what it is? Well if you fancy keeping up with all the latest news, whether its updates on your favourite football team, gadgets, gardening tips and pretty much absolutely anything else you can think of, then read on. I will explain exactly what it is and how to use them, with links to a few of my personal favourite sites and programs that can utilise this ‘Orange RSS thing’!
Welcome to Web 2.0!
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It works by putting the latest content published by the website into a “feed”, which is a file that can be subscribed to using a program called an “Aggregator” or “RSS Reader”. This then allows you to keep all of your favourite website updates in one simple location. So instead of having to go to a million different websites every day to see if there are any new updates, they are all delivered to your RSS Reader.
Basically what that means is, if you find a feed, usually located on the website page (sometimes the little orange icon appears in the address bar). You can click on it, then once it is loaded into your RSS Reader, you click Subscribe, and that’s it! You will then be automatically updated when the site is updated. That is literally it! Easy isn’t it?
So… what RSS Reader should you use? Well I use a program called SharpReader but I only use that because I have been using it for years, am old fashioned and find it a bit of a nuisance to move onto the new, more sophisticated & suave Web Based RSS Readers. Another bad reason to use a “program” is that, if your computer suddenly dies, which they are known to do occasionally! Then, well, you will lose your nice collection of brilliant RSS Feeds! Now that I am writing this, I might attempt to do the mundane task of moving ALL my feeds (about 50 of them) to one of the sites that I am about to tell you about! (Unfortunately for me, I don’t think there is going to be a simple ‘export’ and ‘import’ function). Anyway, enough about me and my annoying tasks, lets get back on track and talk about some of these Web Based RSS Readers.
I think the best Web Based RSS Reader that I have found so far is www.netvibes.com. It uses a lush programming format called AJAX, and that means that the site can be moved around, edited and just generally chopped however you want it.
When you see an RSS Feed link, click on it, and you will be shown a page like this saying “Subscribe Now!”. Click on your chosen reader, in this case, the netvibes icon, but by all means, try one of the others, as they all pretty much work the same. In my case, I would have to do it the crappy way, click on the “Choose Your Reader” drop down list, then select SharpReader from the list.
After you click on one of those links, it will take you to the selected RSS Reader Website/Application. Some websites may give you a choice of 3 or 4 different feeds, don’t worry about this, they are all going to provide the same content, just in different formats. In most cases, just choose the one at the top of the list. If that doesnt work, then try another one, if that still doesn’t work, then, well, something is going wrong!
You can organise your feeds exactly how you want them, even have tabs for different subjects, you can also have all your web based emails, such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc all configured with NetVibes. Basically, there is far to much for me to list here EXACTLY what you can do on each RSS Reader, but that’s okay, these sites are so easy to use that they shouldn’t really require much explanation once you are on them!
Once you have had a play around and chosen your desired RSS Reader website, then sign up! (In some cases, you may have had to sign up anyway). This is good for many reasons. If your computer dies on you, then all you need to do is go to NetVibes again, log in, and there you have it, all your RSS feeds working great. If you use more than one computer, then you can log in anywhere in the world, and see all your RSS feeds exactly as you would from home.
My suggestion is then to set NetVibes (or whichever site you are using) as your homepage. You can then automatically see any updates from all the different websites on one page the moment you load up your Web Browser! I do hope that you are using FireFox as your Web Browser! So much nicer and built together with a lot of the Web 2.0 generation of websites.
Now you are ready to go and get your RSS kicks and subscribe to every website you come across! How about, to get you started, subscribe to my RSS feed!
For those of you that don’t know, Locust Toybox is the name for the music produced by David Firth, the guy behind the website fat-pie which features alternate animations and random videos. The music produced by Locust Toybox is features in a majority of his work. If your into Experimental music I would very much recommend you check out his stuff which he has kindly decided to release for free.
A few days ago my friend was randomly looking around on Last.FM and came across a festival that I have never heard of called Evolution Festival. It’s located in Newcastle and the event is held on Monday 26th of May, it features a rather impressive line up too.
Spillers Wharf: The Streets, Kate Nash, Reverend And The Makers, Duffy, Glasvegas, Lightspeed Champion, The Whip, and This Ain’t Vegas.
Baltic Square stage: CSS, New Young Pony Club, Crystal Castles, Does It Offend You Yeah?, Hercules And The Love Affair, Who Made Who, The Ghost Frequency, and Kenevil.
And the best part is… it only costs £3 for tickets!
The latest lineup for Download Festival 2008 has just been released:
Kiss, The Offspring, Lostprophets, Judas Priest, Incubus, Motorhead, HIM, Chris Cornell, Jimmy Eat World, Coheed & Cambria, Alter Bridge, Disturbed, Children Of Bodom, In Flames, Jonathan Davies (Korn), Rise Against, 36 Crazyfists, Job For A Cowboy.
Radio Times magazine published a list of TV’s top 25 insults. My favourite is definitely Edmund Blackadder. So funny.
Basil Fawlty - Fawlty Towers. To Sybil: “Oh dear, what happened? Did you get entangled in the eiderdown again? Not enough cream in your eclair? Hmm? Or did you have to talk to all your friends for so long that you didn’t have time to perm your ears?”
Mrs Merton - The Mrs Merton Show. To Debbie McGee: “So what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”
Edmund Blackadder - Blackadder II. To Lord Percy: “The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn’t he, Percy?”
Roseanne Conner - Roseanne. To husband Dan: “Your idea of romance is popping the can away from my face.”
Father Jack Hackett - Father Ted. “Drink! Feck! Arse! Girls!”
Carla - Cheers. Cliff: “I’m ashamed God made me a man.” Carla: “I don’t think God’s doing a lot of bragging about it either.”
Patsy Stone - Absolutely Fabulous. “One more facelift on this one and she’ll have a beard.”
Jim Royle - The Royle Family. Nana: “Is this hat too far forward?” Jim: “No. We can still see your face.”
Malcolm Tucker - The Thick Of It. To a junior minister: “All these hands all over the place! You were like a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra! It was like watching John Leslie at work!”
Statler and Waldorf - The Muppet Show. Statler: “Wake up, you old fool, you slept through the show.” Waldorf: “Who’s a fool? You watched it.”
Inspector Monkfish - The Fast Show. To a bereaved woman: “I realise this must be a very difficult time for you, so put your knickers on and go and make me a cup of tea.”
No Offence - The Fast Show. “I notice you’re not wearing a wedding ring which, given your age, means you’re divorced or a lesbian.”
Rupert Rigsby - Rising Damp. To lodger Alan, who complains his room is too cold to study in: “The only thing you study is your navel. You even shave lying down.”
Nan - The Catherine Tate Show. Describing an encounter with an overweight hospital volunteer: “She said to me last time, ‘You look bored, Mrs Taylor. I’ve got three words for you: Barbara Taylor Bradford.’ So I said, ‘Yeah? I’ve got three words for you too: calorie controlled diet.”‘
The Professor - The Mary Whitehouse Experience. “I have here a copy of your book, Origins of the Crimean War. It smells of poo.” “That’s because it’s been inside your mum’s bra.”
Alf Garnett - Till Death Us Do Part. “You Scouse git!”
Alexis Carrington - Dynasty. “I’m glad to see your father had your teeth fixed - if not your mouth.”
JR Ewing - Dallas. “Ray never was comfortable eating with the family - we do use knives and forks.”
Dr Perry Cox - Scrubs. Dr Elliot Reid: “I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation here. I am dangerously close to giving up men altogether.” Dr Cox: “Then on behalf of men everywhere - and I do mean everywhere, including the ones in little mud huts - let me be the first to say thanks and hallelujah.”
Dr Gregory House - House. “You can think I’m wrong, but that’s no reason to stop thinking.”
Gary Strang - Men Behaving Badly. “Let’s face it, Tony, the only way you’re gonna be in there is if you’re both marooned on a desert island and she eats a poisonous berry or a nut which makes her temporarily deaf, dumb, stupid, forgetful and desperate for sex.”
Arnold Rimmer - Red Dwarf. “Look, we all have something to bring to this discussion. But I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence.”
Larry David - Curb Your Enthusiasm. “Switzerland is a place where they don’t like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate.”
Sam Tyler - Life On Mars. To Gene Hunt: “I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.” Sam: “An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding?”
Well, got there a bit late, just in time to watch the last song of either Madina Lake, Fightstar or Circa Survive. No idea who it was as Ive never really listened to any of those bands and wasnt fussed!
But did watch all of Coheed and Cambria… And they were pretty good! The sound was a bit off, and the fact that they had 2 hot chick backing singers (?) which was a bit weird! But the band can still play their instruments and Claudio can still sing! They played 2 out of the 3 songs I wanted them to play, being Welcome Home & In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth, unfortunatly they didnt play The Crowning but thats okay, I forgive them.
I was put off by the other guitarist constantly having problems and walking to and from the stage for pretty much the whole set, but hey, sometimes those things happen!
I wouldnt say this was the best gig of all time, but I am glad that I got to see Coheed and Cambria again (first time being at Download Festival a couple of years ago). If anyone likes Coheed and Cambria and you get the chance to see them live, then I do recommend it!
There is everything on that site, such as the Loo of the Year Competition, Sponsorships, Information on how to Get Involved and links to other Toilet related websites like World Toilet Organisation and Restroom Association of Singapore.
Do you always see the orange icon on interesting websites but don’t have a clue what it is? Well if you fancy keeping up with all the latest news, whether its updates on your favourite football team, gadgets, gardening tips and pretty much absolutely anything else you can think of, then read on. I will explain exactly what it is and how to use them, with links to a few of my personal favourite sites and programs that can utilise this ‘Orange RSS thing’!
