What is Subscribing to a “feed” anyway?

RSS feeds, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way in which you can grab data from a website, without the need to type in the address and visit the site daily.

It is a method that allows the data (usually in text form only) to be delivered to your choice of RSS feed reader, every time the RSS content of the page is updated.

In my case, the RSS content is my individual blog posts. This tends to be the major use for RSS.

So, How do I use it?

Download a piece of RSS retrieving software, or use (and I recommend) Google Reader.

If for example you are on a macintosh, and use the Mail program, clicking an RSS link will open mail (if it is your default), and ask if you would like to subscribe. From then on, if Mail is open, and there are posts to be retrieved, Mail will download these directly to your computer, for your future reading.
Similarly, with Google Reader, you can subcribe to feeds and browse your chosen feeds any time or any place you are on the Internet.
Some Internet browsers like xxx and xxx have RSS readers built in to them.

Why would I want to subscribe?

If you use the web infrequently, but use your email often