Life According to Krista

In the first chapter of Journalism Next by Mark Briggs, the author talks about many of the very basics in using computers. He goes on to write about how these tools can help journalists in their careers.

Briggs explains how using RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds can help people easily keep up with news they are interested in. He explains the difference between different possible RSS feeds and which ones may be right for you.

In a sentence, Briggs describes an RSS feed as “a convenient, one-stop information shop tailored to your needs and interests” (Briggs, 15).

Some good RSS feed sites he recommends are:

• Netvibes
• PageFlakes
• Google Reader
• Yahoo

If you would like to be able to read your RSS feeds without internet connection, however, he recommends downloading NewsGator’s NetNewsWire for Macs or FeedDemon for Windows computers. These sites make it easy to read your content anywhere, anytime.

He also gives new RSS users a few tips including:

• Making different folders for different subjects
• Subscribing to things that may help with your particular beat
• If you want to be able to access feeds from different computers, do not use the downloadable RSS feeds, rather use the websites

Briggs then goes on to talk about the use of html and gives examples of simple html codes.  To learn more about html, you can go to:

• www.j-learning.org
• http://webdesign.about.com
• www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide
• www.webmonkey.com/tutorial/tag/web_basics

To finish out the chapter, Briggs gave a checklist for people to remember when learning about or starting to use the web. These can be found on page 39 of the Journalism Next book.

1. Check your browser to make sure you have an up-to-date version.
2. Download a new browser. Briggs recommends using Firefox, Google Chrome, or Opera.
3. Create an RSS feed. You can start off subscribing to 10 feeds, then add more as you learn how it works.
4. Subscribe to news alerts. You can do this on Google or Yahoo and add it to your RSS reader.
5. Create a Web page. This is easiest when using the tutorials listed above.