How To Get Up-to-Date Weather Info Via RSS Feeds

How To Get Up-to-Date Weather Info Via RSS Feeds

If you haven't heard about RSS or Atom feeds don't feel bad. I just started using
them about 4 months ago myself. Still, you can take a step right now to take your web
surfing to the next level.
Perhaps you have heard of Blogs or Weblogs as they are properly called. These
gems of the web started out and still continue today as diaries or journals put up on the
net by those that just like to write and share their everyday world with the outside. These,
still at this time, June, 2005, are still the largest part of blogging on the world wide web.
You can find these very easily by going to Google or Yahoo and typing in a subject
followed by the word blog. For example, I just typed in Tornado Blogs into a Google
search box and got 150 different blogs about tornadoes.
With that kind of exposure you can find blogs on any subject on earth. The great
thing about this is that after you decide which blogs are your favorite you can put them in
your favorites, bookmarked or otherwise presented on you desktop. The great thing is that
many, including myself, have gone to the next level and have turned their blogs into RSS
Feeds. A very simple process if you use Blogger.com
If RSS is the same as blogs then what's all this blog stuff? Let me explain, Blogs
and RSS feeds are not quite the same. In short, the blogging idea was picked up and many
major news sources like Fox and CNN and on and on started putting their own blogs out
in the form of newfeeds. Simply RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. And we as
end users can gain access to the latest news about anything including weather on our
desktops.
Yet, doing this is a mystery to so many that I decided to put this report on the
website so that you could gain instant access to newsfeeds and hopefully my own
TipsOnTornadoes blog and RSS feeds. Now, you should understand that newfeeds are
similar to HTML and require a special piece of software that allows you to read the feed.
The computer language is similar to HTML on a web page but not really the same. To
read a feed we need a "reader". There are many "readers" available for free online.
The one that I use is Feedreader, available at Feedreader.com. The download is
free. It is simple to download and easy to use. It has a great feature that helps me out a
great deal. That feature is a little balloon that rises up off your task bar when one of your
favorite feeds has just uploaded a new article for you to read. The significance of this will
become apparent in a moment.
I wrote this article for my subscribers to enjoy my tornado blogs as well as any
other content they can subscribe to. Every time I upload a new blog to my RSS feed you
can receive the notice that something new is available. And let me say, I update a great
deal with stories from all over the globe which relate to weather. While I would like to
think that you would love to see my feeds show up on your desktop every time I upload
one, I'm not that naive.
The real beauty of this feature, for those interested in weather, occurs when you
subscribe to a NOAA feed for your state. You see as the NWS issues alerts for your state
the Feedreader window will pop up and you can take a look to see if your exact area is
going to be effected by the weather that is maturing. How cool is that? It's like a Weather
Alert radio on your computer.
These feeds are not exactly easy to find. The NOAA feeds for your state come in
this format http://www.nws.noaa.gov/alerts/co.rss where "co" is the state of Colorado or
the two-letter postal identifier for your state. So, all you have to do is copy this link into
your feedreader and change the co (in this link) to the two-letter identifier for your own
state.
As you may expect that there are search engines for RSS feeds. They work similar
to Yahoo, MSN, Google and others. The trouble is finding them. So here are a few for
you to peruse and choose your favorite(s). My favorite is Feedster.com.
Chordata.info
Syndic8.com
Feedsfarm.com
Feedster.com
Now, that you know what RSS feeds are you may be wondering about these little
RSS and Atom tags you see on some web pages. First, let me show you a tag that I am
speaking about.
While there are subtle differences in the programming of RSS, RSS 2.0 and Atom
feeds most readers like Feedreader and Pluck read either format so to you, the viewer, the
operation is seamless. However, it should note that RSS 2.0 is written to include
enclosures. An enclosure as applied to RSS is the same as an attachment with your email.
It simply is something added to the entire file. You may have heard of Podcasts. Podcasts
use RSS 2.0 or RSS with enclosures and that is where the audio portion of the feed is
kept. The regular part of the RSS is used to present show data like who the artist is and
title of the podcast.
I only added this here to help you understand what the differences were when you
see the various tags. Now, that you have seen these tags let us examine how to use these
tags to our benefit.
In general, these RSS or Atom tags are encoded with the link to the various links.
You will see these on my websites like TipsOnTornadoes.com or GetYourBizGoing.com
However, just clicking on these images or RSS tags as I have been calling them. Nothing
happens. A newsfeed doesn't pop up or do you get redirected to some other page. What
you have to do is "right click" the tag and save the link You click on "copy link" as shown
and then install it in your feedreader.
Then after you have internally saved the link or copied the link, you can go to your
feedreader so that you can save that newfeed and update it as you prefer. New updates
when using feedreader will appear in the bottom right corner by your systray. On the next
page I will show you how to enter the feed into your Feedreader .
How To Enter the RSS Feed into Feedreader
To add the copied link to your Feedreader you open the "File" tab at the top left
of the page and choose "Add New Feed". Using your keyboard command of Ctrl + V the
link will magically appear in the window. Then you choose the "Next" button and finish
the process. It is just that simple and now you have a new feed entered into your
Feedreader. You will start getting updates immediately if there are any to be updated to
your chosen feed. If you want to check you can just check on the green button with Ying
and Yang arrows to update all feeds on your Feedreader.
At this point you should be able to procede to the feedreader site of your choice, I
recommend Feedreader.com and Pluck.com for the best or most used readers. Once you
download your reader you'll be able to enjoy a whole new world of online surfing. Plus,
you get alerts that will inform you when your favorite RSS feeds have new content. This
is a very sweeeeeet thing. You will wonder, just like the internet, how you did without
this for so long. You won't want to do without it after this. Enjoy!
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About the Author
Jeff "Griff" Griffin is an author for major publishers for over 25 years. Retiring soon from
being an airline pilot he has chosen to market his writing skills in various forms online.
RSS feeds are available at his websites of various interests listed below. He invites you to
copy the RSS feed addresses for your use. This article is available for republishing on
your webpage as long as this resource box and all material is unaltered.
http://tipsontornadoes.com
http://kg0ye.typepad.com/tips_on_tornadoes/atom.xml
http://getyourbizgoing.com
h ttp://kg0ye.typepad.com/get_your_biz_going/atom.xml
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About the Author

Jeff Griffin has been a published author for 28 years with major publishers writing on weather and flying. Nearing retirement he now focuses on internet marketing of his books, courses and music.