[amitchar]

Ok I have downloaded the RSS reader bottom crawler and have installed it. I now have many items to choose from like CNN and No blood etc. I then select No Blood and I get a list of topics that I can choose from.with date , item title and item category. Great, except I am still not sure how best I am going to use this.

[LarryEitel]

Dr Amit, if you have it running, perhaps automatically when your system starts, it will show by the channel name becoming bolded. It is kinda like what you see when you have new unread items in your inbox. That way all activity is nicely organized by 'channels'. For example, if you are subscribed to the NoBlood.org Forum channel (by clicking on the RSS icon at the top of the NoBlood Forum page) you will be notified of this reply.

[LarryEitel]

I almost forgot to mention. We recently added the ability to 'subscribe' to Forums. For example, if you wanted to subscribe (and hopefully participate in) one of our most popular forums, you can subscribe by clicking on the Ask a Professional forum link and then click on the RSS symbol (see attachment). The more healthcare professionals that do and are able to help out from time to time with answers or commentary on the various questions raised, the greater the benefit to all involved... especially the person who is disparately searching for information.

[LarryEitel]

For those who are using Microsoft IE7.0 RSS reader, please be aware that when you first open the browser with the "View\Explore Bar\Feeds" (Ctrl+Shift+J) checked on, it may not show (bold) the channels that have updates. This is because RSS readers 'poll' the various channels at user or feed specified intervals. You can also 'refresh' the channels by right-clicking on any channel link and selecting "Refresh All". See attachment.

[LarryEitel]

If you are using NewzCrawler, you can configure feeds of your choice to display a balloon (click thumbnail) when there are updates to the channel.

Note recommendation from CNet.com: "Of all the commercial RSS newsreaders we've reviewed, none beats NewzCrawler for its breadth of features, ease of use, and intuitive interface."

[LarryEitel]

I just discovered a nifty tool that uses Skype as a RSS reader! Goto the wiki article RSS Skype Robot from Anothr.com. for further details.

[LarryEitel]

If you use Google Desktop, here is another convenient way to monitor activity on NoBlood.org. Install one of the Google 'gadgets' such the gdRSS reader.

For example, if you click on the reference to Anemia, notice how nicely it shows the changes that were made to a wiki article (50% actual size):