Site Information

What is RSS?

An RSS feed is a summary of the most recently updated content on a website, with links to go directly to any content you're interested in reading in greater detail.

If you don't currently use RSS, you will probably be used to visiting several different websites to check whether they have been updated with new content you're interested in. With RSS, you would let a program check those websites automatically, see at a glance a summary of the latest stories on each, and read more on any of them with just one click.

There are several ways of receiving RSS feeds, and the technology is moving forwards and adapting very quickly. The main method is to download a program called a 'reader' or 'aggregator'. You can then set up this program to receive RSS information and browse headlines and story summaries without opening a full connection to the originating website.

Alternatively, some newer web browsers offer similar functionality already built-in which will detect whether the website you are viewing offers an RSS feed and will then let you create a constantly-updated list of links in your 'bookmarks' menu.

How to set up RSS

If you're new to RSS, you can set yourself up to start using RSS feeds in two easy steps:

  1. Firstly, you need to download and install a piece of Feed Reader software. There are many to choose from but all do the basic essentials that you'll need to get started. After that, like any software, it's just about personal preference as to which one you prefer using. To begin with, we'd recommend choosing a free feed reader from the programs listed here.
  2. Once your reader software is downloaded and installed on your computer, you will be prompted to add feeds to it that you want to check. Look for the "Add Feed" option in the reader software and click on it. You will then be asked for the "Location" or "URL" of the feed. Simply cut and paste any RSS address from our list below. You'll only need to add the feed to your reader once; it will then remember the address and fetch new articles whenever the feed is updated.
  3. The feed reader program will then check for the latest stories in the feed and update your software accordingly, depending on your settings, the software should then automatically check for updates at regular intervals.

IT-Director.com Feeds

If you already have a feed reader, the next step is to add a new feed location. Simply Copy and Paste one (or more) of the following links:

Full Feed / Complete Feed

We offer full content on some feed configurations. To access simply append a 7th configuration parameter "full" to the feed URL, i.e.:
http://www.it-director.com/feed/domain/0/rss2_0/30/info/full

Custom Feeds

Our feed system is very dynamic. You can adjust the URL parameters to get different content.

Feed URLs are broken down into parameters delimited by the '/' character.

  • Param 0 = website (http://www.it-director.com)
  • Param 1 = cannot be changed, this is the "feed" script
  • Param 2 = method (domain, blog, author, company, event, news_release, custom)
  • Param 3 = method attribute (varies, normally numeric)
  • Param 4 = format (rss2_0, rss1_0, atom1_0, atom0_3, html, js)
  • Param 5 = number of items (from 5 to 30)
  • Param 6 = feed tag (add your own tag and we can track success of feed)
  • Param 7 = full (leave blank for summary feed)

One of most popular feed configurations is the custom feed. Add Param 2 as "custom" and Param 3 as a keyword of your choice (experiment for best results), i.e.:
http://www.it-director.com/feed/custom/RFID/rss2_0/30/info/full

How often are your feeds updated?

Analysis and Opinion is added every morning around 7am; whereas blogs are added during the course of the day.

All of our feeds are cached on our server for optimal performance and renewed each hour.

Therefore, we recommend setting the refresh interval on your feed reader to a minimum of one hour.