For several years now, I've published weekly PhotoTips here at Earthbound Light. Taking advantage of a growing technology called RSS, new tips are now available for syndication.

You may have started noticing this icon on some of the websites you visit. Guess what? RSS feeds are commonly denoted this way. The XML icon here links to the PhotoTips RSS feed, or you can also use the URL: http://www.earthboundlight.com/subscribe/phototips.xml.

Please note that this is not a normal web page, as it is written in XML, not HTML. It will display as a color-coded tree view in many web browsers, but you really need a different application to make use of it. Thankfully, there are a number of good options available out there. Read on to find out more.

What is RSS?

RSS, short for "Really Simple Syndication," is a standard based on XML that provides an easy way to publish and syndicate content in a way that can be read by other applications. There are currently two main versions of RSS that are unfortunately not compatible with each other, but luckily most applications that read RSS understand all of them. For the curious, Earthbound Light is currently published as RSS 1.0.

So, what can you do with RSS?

First, you can subscribe to RSS feeds using a program known as a "news aggregator" (or simply "RSS Reader"). Some of the more popular ones (at least as of this writing) include:

• NewsGator    Runs on Windows and delivers news items directly to Microsoft Outlook. Very slick. Shareware.
• SharpReader    Windows freeware. Standalone application but quite well done.
• Klipfolio    A free personal dashboard for Windows that allows you to monitor RSS feeds, the weather, Hotmail and more.
• NetNewsWire    MacOS X. Lite version is free, but the full program version costs a small amount.
• Safari - As of Mac OS X 10.4 ("Tiger"), the Safari web browser does a good job of readingRSS.
• FeedReader    Windows freeware application licensed under the GPL license. Source available.
• Straw    GNOME application for Linux. I know you Linux folks are out there....

Note that there is no charge and you do not need to provide an email address in order to subscribe. Just point your RSS reader at this link and you're done:

You can also use RSS feeds to add content to your weblog ("blog") or other website. Doing so is beyond the scope of what I can cover here though, but there are resources available online that should get you started with syndication.

Want to subscribe to PhotoTips via email?

A free service called RSS FWD now makes it possible to subscribe to RSS feeds including Earthbound Light PhotoTips via email. The service was recently purchased by blue sky factory who also bought a similar online service called Blogarithm. There intent is to merge the two and standardize on the RSS FWD platform to which they have been making a number of enhancements and tweaks. To subscribe, click here. After submitting the form at the bottom of this page, you will receive a confirmation email from rssfwd.com.

Want an easier way to add PhotoTips to your site?

If you want to add Earthbound Light PhotoTips to your site without the hassle of dealling with XML and RSS directly, click here for the nifty PhotoTip Feed Generator.

Want more information on RSS?

If you would like further information on RSS and how to use it, please see these sites:

XML.com: What is RSS?    A good introduction to RSS in it's many flavors.

Blogspace List of RSS Readers    A great list of RSS news readers you can choose from. Other good RSS info too.

Syndic8    A search engine to help find other RSS feeds on the web. Note that Syndic8 is occasionally down for maintenance.

Feedster    A site that searches the posts from over half a million feeds simultaneously

Open Directory Project - RSS    A directory with listings for lots of RSS resources.

O'Reilly Network: RSS DevCenter    A good source of information on how to put RSS to work for you.

What are the terms of use?

While the full text of the PhotoTips (as will all other site contents) on the Earthbound Light site are copyrighted © 2000-2008 by Bob Johnson, Earthbound Light and may not be copied or redistributed in any form, the PhotoTips feed itself is licensed under a Creative Commons License. In short, this license permits you to freely use the XML feed contents for non-commercial purposes so long as full credit is given. Refer to the Creative Commons site for full details. Additionally, we reserve the right to require you to cease distributing this feed at any time for any reason.

Want to add Earthbound Light PhotoTips to your website or blog the easy way? Click here to generate some simple code you can paste on your site.

Want to subscribe via email? Now you can! Email:

Subscribe using any popular feed reader!