RSS and Visual Styles

Hi again!
Well, this is a first, I'm writing a blog post for the second time in as many days.

Had a nice day today, it wasn't too long or boring, so that was good.

Today I'm going to tell you about two things-- RSS and Visual Styles.

Really Simple Syndication (or RSS for short) is like a news feed for websites. If there's a website that posts frequent updates (like a webcomic, a news site or a blog) you can subscribe to the RSS "feed" for the page.

"But Andrew, what does it do?"
Okay. Say you subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog. You'll see a little link to each blog entry. You can mark items as "read" so you'll only get notifications for ones that are new.

"Okay, but how do I recieve a RSS feed?"
In so many ways.
First, and easiest, is to create a "Live Bookmark" in Firefox. If you're using Firefox (and you should be) it is frighteningly easy. Let's take a look at my blog for an example. Screenshot tour!

Once you've clicked that icon, you should see a drop-down menu saying
Subscribe to Blogular Blog - Atom
Subscribe to Blogular Blog - RSS
They both do the same thing, but pick Atom. It has a few advantages.
Next, you'll see a page that looks a little weird. You'll see all the blog posts, and then at the top, a few options. Leave them, and click "Subscribe now"

Done.

Now, apparently Internet Explorer does this too. But...it's Internet Explorer, and that's reason enough to switch to Firefox.

Now, if you don't want to use a Live Bookmark, you can use Google Reader (or any other web service) Google reader is easy, too!
Go to the homepage and create a free Google Account (useful it works on Blogger, Youtube, Gmail and every other Google service) Then log in and start adding feeds. Just click "add a subscription" It's really easy, just enter what you think the feed might be called, eg. "digg" Select the correct feed and you're done! Because it's a website, you can access your feeds from ANYWHERE with an internet browser.

There's also desktop RSS readers. They work the same way, but they're actually a program that runs on your computer. I use ReadAIR Follow the instructions on the site and you're in business.


That's it for RSS, onto Visual Styles.

In (literally) all of my screenshots, I've had a custom theme running, instead of the default "Luna" XP theme. How? With the magic of Visual Styles.

Microsoft, during the development of XP, had the idea of letting people choose between different styles for the window-frame and taksbar etc. Then they dropped this idea at the last minute lost forever.

Not.
Step 1:
Patch your uxtheme.dll file. This is the file that manages what theme is running. By default, it is set to only allow themes Microsoft made. Let's change that. Follow all instructions exactly, I won't be held responsible if you accidently stuff something up.

Okay, that's the hard part out of the way. Now you need to find a Visual Style. The best and safest place you can find them is DeviantART. Here's a link to the Visual Styles section. Find one you like and download it.

Then, open up the folder (or unzip the contents of the archive to somewhere you will remember)

Find a file that looks like this. Double click it, and hit "OK" in the next window. Done. Dusted. Change your style as much or as little as you please. Have fun.

DISCLAIMER:
The instructions I have provided are for Windows XP. Because I use XP, I don't know if these work with Vista/7.
I have patched my uxtheme.dll file twice. Nothing bad has happened. Still, you should take any instructions you read in the installation of the uxtheme multi-patcher seriously. Nothing terrible will happen, but just remember that you are replacing a system file.

That was a long one, eh? I hope you've found the guides today helpful, and I hope you have a good weekend.
Song of the Post is "Together in Electric Dreams" by Phil Oakley.

Bye!