October 30, 2005

Free email services

Just a reminder about using email.

Personal email
You can have a free email address based upon the bishopthorpe.net web site.

This gives the advantage of being able to set it up in your email program on your computer - in Microsoft Outlook for example. Your emails however can also be operated in a web browser - known as webmail - rather like using Yahoo or another commercial service. The advantage of bishopthorpe.net webmail however is that you get no advertising on your email screen, and of course you can get access to mail anywhere in the world with internet access.

Just send an email to this address with your first name and last name, and your preferred email name in the form "yourname"@bishopthorpe.net.

Bishopthorpe Friends List
You can join the growing group of Bishopthorpe people who communicate via the Friends email list. Sign up to send and receive news, or to ask questions of local people.

To subscribe to this village email list, send an (empty) message to this address.

The mail program will send a confirmation request back to you. To confirm your subscription, you just reply to the "Reply-To" address.

Posted by martin at 08:51 AM | Comments (5)

March 01, 2005

Keeping in touch - news feeds

I know there is not always a great deal of news on this web site, and its a fag to keep on having to log on and check it for something new. But there is another way!

This web site is based upon a system known as a web log. One of its features is syndication through the use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. Emerging originally (as usual) in the USA, web logs and news feeds have become important and are used by all sorts of people to campaign and inform on every subject from personal views to corporate and political news. There is a strong case made for their use here.

Although I could see the case for an automatic alerting system for stuff that might interest me, getting started loked difficult. In order to receive newsfeeds from web sites, you need a newsreader or aggregator on the your computer. In fact it turns out my email program already has one built in - I use Mozilla Thunderbird - its free, it works and it isn't Microsft so is not as vulnerable to virus attack.

As well as downloading a news reader to your computer, you can download an Outlook plugin, or sign up for an online site such as www.bloglines.com

1. In order to download a news aggregator, you can go to http://blogspace.com/rss/readers and select one based on what operating platform you are using.

2. If you prefer to install the Outlook plug-in and receive your news directly to your Outlook email, you can go to http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/default.aspx and download it from there.

3. If you do however prefer to access your newsfeed via an online service and without downloading any software or plug-ins, you can sign up to an online site like www.bloglines.com.

Recommended newsreaders are SharpReader, and Feedreader. Bloglines, Feed Demon, NewsGator, and many other news aggregators operate similarly. They're free, and each has slightly different features.

Once you have a newsreader installed, all you have to do is look for and right-click the text Syndicate this site (XML) on this web site, and copy the web address in to your newsreader in order to create a folder. You can do the same for the other sections of the Bishopthorpe web site, and then follow instructions and sit back and wait for results!

Another alternative is Live Bookmarks

"Live Bookmarks is a new technology in Firefox (the sister browser to Mozilla Thunderbird - much better than Internet Explorer - even my 84 year father uses it! - Ed.)that lets you view RSS news and blog headlines in the bookmarks toolbar or bookmarks menu. With one glance, you can quickly see the latest headlines from your favorite sites.

A site is enabled for Live Bookmarks when you see a special icon on the bottom right corner of the browser. Clicking on the icon and selecting an RSS feed will bring up the Add Bookmark dialog. Select 'OK' and you will see Live Bookmarks with the rest of your bookmarks. Many people find it especially convenient to save Live Bookmarks in their Bookmarks Toolbar folder."

Posted by martin at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)