RSS aggregator link added to IEC home page

You may have noticed a new logo on the home page of the IEC website. The typical orange RSS aggregator symbol that appeared on our home page on November 13, 2006 is one more feature that makes receiving news easier for our readers.

You can subscribe by clicking here.

An RSS aggregator is a simple way of providing you with an instant way of knowing when particular web content has been updated. You simply receive content through a news reader. This is a small programme that can be linked to your web browser or a dedicated email reader of which there are many, some free-of-charge available on sites such as www.2rss.com, others, such as FeedDemon, that can be purchased for a minimal purchase price.

The letters RSS actually refer to a family of web feed formats and therefore, depending on the version, can stand for Really Simple Syndication (where the term syndication means making content available to other sites for them to use), Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary.

There are several advantages to your subscribing to an RSS aggregator for receiving news of Internet publications rather than having to search for articles on a website yourself or registering separately with a service that then sends you email messages:

• One advantage is the simplicity of use. Basically, the information that is displayed with RSS appears rapidly in a more condensed and simplified manner than it would do on each website so that, with the help of a good reader which helps in enhancing the display and organization of text, you can speed-read through titles and summaries of articles, picking out those in which you’re really interested, leaving others for reading at a later time;

• Another advantage is the automation of the service. You open your reader and once you’ve chosen the subjects that interest you, they remain there, listed under your own keywords, in the order you have chosen;

• You don’t have to provide an email address to receive the feed, which means that there is no risk of being sent spam or other irritating mail that uses up your time and space;

• You can link a reader to your MP3 player so that it can synch with any multimedia files you have chosen to download for later listening;

• And, if you choose to stop receiving news you simply remove the relevant site feed link from your reader.