Banff Centre RSS Feeds
RSS feeds bring automatically updated information from The Banff Centre, straight to your desktop.
More and more areas of The Banff Centre will soon offer feeds, which you can identify by a small button that says RSS, and a link to the XML file that contains the news information. However, if you click one of these links, you will most likely get a page full of code in your browser (Internet Explorer 6). To properly read the news feeds, you need an RSS reader.
There are two main types of RSS reader. Standalone applications are simply programs that process RSS feeds for you. The advantage of a standalone is that it is a new program that you can use and manage as needed. The disadvantage: it's one more program to use. The other type is the "plug-in". These programs work within an existing program you may have such as Microsoft Outlook or Internet Explorer.
Option One: Download an RSS Reader
Here is a site which lists some rss readers which are free to download. Many of these are are free or offer free trial periods. Most commercial RSS news readers cost from $20 to $30. By purchasing the app, you often have access to more tools and features you can use to control each of the news feeds you may subscribe to.
A standalone reader most often you will contain a toolbar and three window panes arranged much like the preview mode in Microsoft Outlook. The pane on the left side typically displays RSS feeds, or channels, to which you are subscribed. These can be organized into categories or folders. The upper-right panel typically shows a list of articles within whichever channel is selected, and the article content is then displayed in the lower-right panel. To change channel groups, just click the drop-down box at the upper left beneath the menus.
Option Two: Download a modern browser, or plugin
Browser-based readers, on the other hand, automatically display a chosen article within the browser, usually with a link in the toolbar areas.
To download firefox, which has integrated RSS capability click here.
To view and download plug-ins for Microsoft Internet Explorer click here.
Most RSS readers come with some preloaded channels, but you will want to add your own and perhaps remove the others. Most readers will allow you to create new channel groups to organize your channels. To add a channel, browse to a page which contains the RSS icon and click the link. Right-click or use CTRL+C to copy the URL from the address bar of your browser, (which now should show a page full of XML code). Go back to your newsreader, choose the category where you want the new subscription to live (Business, Entertainment, the New York Times), and select New or New Channel from the File menu. In most cases, the URL you copied should automatically be pasted into the URL field in the New Channel wizard. If not, you can cut and paste the URL yourself.
In browser-based plug ins, often the web browser will tell you that the page contains an rss feed and provide a button, or tool to add it. Each time the information changes in the feed, your news reader will update links and information related to it, automatically.
To remove an RSS feed, most programs will simply allow you to delete the title of the feed, and once removed this information will no longer be available.
Then your RSS reader won't seek out that information anymore, and you won't get any content from the RSS news feed unless you go to its site or resubscribe to the feed.