If I irritate you then you can just delete the feed from within RSS Reader. At all times you are in total control, but as long as you keep it live in RSS Reader it will tell you when the feed is changed. In other words, all the benefits, none of the drawbacks. Custom designed for control freaks the world over.

Plus, of course, NOT ONLY FIRSTSCIENCE HAS A FEED!!!

You can add as many feeds to RSS Reader as you want in exactly the same way. (Though make sure you add - http://www.firstscience.com/site/rss/firstscience.xml - to yours now, before you forget!)

Just lookout for the little 'xml', 'rss' logo's or the 'RSS Feed' text on other websites, and you can add their feeds to your reader in exactly the same way. So you can in effect build up a whole resource of sites that you love. Who tell you when there is new stuff added, potentially instantly, whilst you still maintain control over the information you recieve! So, for example this travel site has a choice of six rss feeds on travel! Now that is Cool.

Plus, if you hate installing software, there are also now online services to read feeds through your browser if you prefer. Here are three you can check out:

Bloglines - www.bloglines.com
NewsIsFree - www.newsisfree.com
Feedster - http://feedster.com/register.php/

And these also have lists of feeds so that you can copy and paste new feeds to your hearts content either online or into RSS Reader.

We do indeed live in exciting times and RSS feeds has tremendous potential. I have really only just touched on the tip of the iceberg! This little guide is just a taster! And I myself have a lot to learn about what is possible. But ultimately, the power of RSS Feeds is in experiencing them for yourselves. So take action, setup RSS Reader or sign up to one of the online services and see the depth of information that already exists for you to explore...

http://www.firstscience.com/site/rss/firstscience.xml

PS - If you are a webmaster and suspect that your own readers don't have a clue what your 'XML' button is doing on your site. Then please feel free to link to this guide. Some sample html code you could use for the link is as follows:

<font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Guide to <a href="http://www.firstscience.com/SITE/editor/071_ramblings_24092004.asp">RSS
Feeds</a></font>

Which will produce this text link - Guide to RSS Feeds

Copyright - Stuart Brown