FlyingGiants RSS Feeds

Now serving XML! Stay on top of all the happenings on FG by subscribing to these feeds:

FlyingGiants Leading Edge Newswire RSS Feed
The Giant SwapShop!
FlyingGiants Community Forums - All forums
The Media Gallery RSS Feed - Reports new videos and photos

Alternately, you can use these:

"Giant Essentials" category
"Community and Friends" category
"In the Air " category
"Product Talk" category
"Tradin' Post " category
"Community Events and Competitions " category
"Everything Else " category

A Special RSS tutorial for our members:

If you're still scratching your head wondering what this is all about, I'll provide a simple tutorial on how to get started.
This technology is actually one of the great functions that we have provided within this website. If you're an information junkie who enjoys keeping on top of all that goes on at FlyingGiants.com, read on..

What the heck is this RSS thing anyway's?

RSS Stands for "Really Simple Syndication", and it's the technology behind all the funny orange XML and RSS icons on websites that you see every day. Yep, just another TLA (three letter acronym) for all hobby nuts out there to learn, but this one is actually worth looking at. Keeping up on all of your favorite sites on the net can be an arduous exercise in futility. There is simply too much information that changes on a daily basis to keep on top of. That's where RSS comes in.

First, you're going to have to download an RSS "Reader" - an application that can interpret the gobbly goop that you see when you tried to click on the icons above. A TON of RSS readers are free of charge, or at least the ones I use. Take a look here for a comprehensive list readers for all operating systems.

Note: some software interacts heavily with external "aggregators", or services that gather information for you, then pass it to your reader application. There are plusses and minuses of these types of services - some see them as giant personal demographic gatherers.

For purposes of this demo, I am going to install "RssReader". RssReader is a stand-alone application that pulls only the feeds you want. You can download it here. Install the application with all default options.

This is what it looks like when you open RssReader for the first time.

Click on the "+Add" sign, copy and paste one of the links above. In this example, the RSS feed will pull all new threads that are created anywhere within the forums. The other RSS links above will pull the latest news from our homepage, and even new pictures and videos posted to the media gallery!

Hit Next...

Optionally, add groups to more effectively organize your feeds.

After hitting okay, the RssReader will go out to FlyingGiants and pull all of the unread forum feeds! You will see a summary in the main window, and upon clicking will be presented with the entire article. Pay around with it and add all three links above. Whenever something new happens here, you'll be the first to know! This application (along with the many others) run in your system tray, and will notify you of new changed to the articles which you have subscribed.

Conclusion:

This tutorial only scratches the surface into the world of RSS. While RSS, Atom, XML, and similar technologies are in their relative infancy, they promise to help all of us get our hands around the ever increasing information mound that we call The Internet. FlyingGiants.com is fully RSS enabled for the benefit of the modeling community.

A great, comprehensive RSS Tutorial can be found: http://www.wizard-creek.com/rss/tutorial/
A great list of RSS readers can be found here.