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Using Firefox on Windows to Manage RSS Feeds

Windows users can follow these steps to use Firefox.
Presently RSS implementation is not built into Windows Explorer. You have many other software options however. I will present information on using Firefox, which is available for Windows and Macs. I'm using the Mac version and am assuming it is similar if not the same as the Windows version. I'll come back to this post at some time in the future, when I have access to a Windows machine, to confirm exactly the steps for Windows users. Mac users with OS 10.4 will find Safari more feature rich than Firefox, but that's personal preference.

If you need Firefox, you can download it for free from this link.

• Install Firefox. (For Mac users you simply drag and drop the download. It's easy, but Safari on 10.4 has better RSS implementation. Use it if you can.)
• Launch Firefox
• Configure any proxy settings if you need to and know what they should be. Most home computers will not need this. Many work machines will.
• Navigate to http://MabryOnline.org
• Scroll down to the bottom and click on Dr. Tyson's Desk
• Notice the little orange "radar-like" icon at the bottom right hand corner of you browser window. I also put one on the bottom of the right hand grey sidebar on my blog. Don't use it unless you know what you're doing.
• Click on the one at the bottom of your browser window
• A drop down menu appears
• Choose "Subscribe to Atom..."
• An Add Bookmark dialog box appears.
• Click the down triangle to show all bookmarks.
• Click "New Folder"
• Name the new folder "MabryOnline"
• Click Add
• Navigate up to [Bookmarks] in your top menu bar
• Click on it
• At the bottom of the list you will see "MabryOnline"
• Move your mouse over it
• From the Desk of Dr. Tyson appears
• Mouse over it
• The last 15 posts I published appear

You can do the same thing for each of your child's teachers. When you are done, I would suggest putting them all in a folder called "John's Teachers" or "Kimberly's Teachers" and locating that folder on your toolbar for faster access.

In Firefox here's how to move your MabryOnline RSS feeds onto your toolbar in a folder with your child's name:

• After selecting the RSS feeds from each of your child's teacher's blogs, click on [Bookmarks] in the Firefox top menu bar
• Drag each of the MabryOnline folders created in the section above under the "Bookmarks Toolbar Folder"
• Make certain the MabryOnline folder is highlighted and click on the large round blue "Properties" button at the top of this window.
• Give the folder any name you wish (Your child's name? You can make a new folder, one for each child, research project, etc.)
• Click OK
• Click the red button that closes this window (Windows uses click on the "X")
• Your RSS feeds appear on your toolbar

As you can see, this is really very straight forward. If you use a news feed aggregator then you certainly know how to already do this and have some additional powerful functionality. I hope this helps you stay informed about all things MabryOnline!

Posted by Dr. Tyson