iLife Keeps You Connected

It's no secret that the Internet is a great way to stay currentwith news, family, and anything else you find interesting.

A relatively new Internet technology makes it even easier to stay current with subjects of interest. It's called RSS, and it allows you to subscribe to information, called feeds, from Web sites and other Internet sources.

Say your hometown newspaper is called The Banner, and you're interested in keeping tabs on it. If the newspaper provides an RSS feed, you can subscribe to the feed using the latest versions of Apple's Safari browser or a separate newsreader program, such as NetNewsWire (www.ranchero.com).

After you've subscribed to a feed, it's updated at regular intervalsfor example, every 30 minutes in Safari. Want to see what's new in the hometown? There's no need to go The Banner's home page. Simply check your RSS feed in Safari. RSS brings the news to you.

What does all this have to do with iLife? Apple has built RSS into several of the iLife programs. As a result, you can subscribe to audio content, you can publish and subscribe to photos, and you can create Web journals (called blogs) to which others can subscribe.

I'll cover the details behind RSS and how it relates to iLife '06 throughout this book. Here's an overview of how iLife '06 and RSS work together to keep you current.

Use Safari RSS or a newsreader program? Don't forget to subscribe to the feed for this book's companion site at www.macilife.com

What Does RSS Stand For?

RSS is YACA: yet another computer acronym. Some say it stands for really simple syndication while others maintain it stands for rich site summary. It doesn't matter. Just as you don't need to know what DVD stands for in order to create or play one, you don't need to know what RSS stands for to enjoy its benefits.