Continuing our beginner’s guide to Really Simple Syndication or RSS on Apple OSX.

Today’s article is the second part of our series on using RSS feeds. If you have not read part one then please do so before continuing.

Today we will look at Apple Mail running on the latest version of OSX, Snow Leopard. In the next article of this series we will review Google Reader.

Here again is a list of feeds that I find interesting. Let’s review a few places to get feeds and then add a feed to Apple Mail. Simply click on a link to view the feeds.

1. NPR Feed list – Contains everything from Arts and Culture to World News.
2. Yahoo Feed list – This is another site that covers a lot pf topics but also has a unique feature in that you can create custom RSS feeds with very little effort.
3. Google’s page on RSS – Google has a page with information on RSS feeds, click the link to Available feeds.
4. CNN’s Feed list – This is a link to CNN’s website feeds, and the Money feed is one that I personally subscribe.
5. RSS Weather Feeds – Go on and setup your local weather!
6. Ebay Feeds for sale items –  Would you like to monitor Ebay for a hard to find item?
7. Slashdot RSS Feeds –  Nothing like slashdot to keep us techies satisfied!
8. Funny feeds here –  Because everything in our feed reader does not have to be serious.
9. Financial Feeds – Well not one feed but 100 Best RSS Feeds for Your Financial Literacy.
10. RSS Feeds from The Onion web site –  Sarcasm

Have you found something you want to add to your Apple Mail RSS reader? Great! For this example I am again going to use NPR, but they all basically work the same. So open your Safari web browser and go to http://www.npr.org/rss and then open Apple Mail and we will add the feed.

I have opened the NPR page and clicked on the RSS feed link for Morning Edition.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Screen Shot of RSS links on the NPR page from Apple Safari.
Safari should open a new window with the URL we need to copy.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Screen grab of RSS URL in Apple Safari - Apple OSX
Copy this link and go back to Apple Mail and choose File -> Add RSS Feeds and the RSS feed dialog opens.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. View of menu in Mail to add RSS feed - Apple OSX
Now the new RSS Feed dialog box opens. Select Specify the URL for a feed button and then paste the URL from the last step into the box and click add.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Screen grab showing the last step in adding RSS feed to Apple Mail - Apple OSX
And, unlike Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail just adds the feed!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Showing that the RSS feed has been added to Apple Mail - Apple OSX
Depending on how you have Apple Mail setup, you can see the feeds, the title and a brief summary of the story. Links are included to forward this on to friends, add to Del.icio.us, Technorati Links, or view the whole article. How is that for setting up the news that you want all in one easy access location!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Screen grab showing the RSS feed added to Apple Mail - Apple OSX

Besides news, finance, and jokes what else is RSS good for? Well MLD Services new online backup service will offer a weekly email recap or an RSS feed of your backups that provide you with all the important information on systems that are being backed up over the Internet. Contact us for more information.

In the next article I will setup Google Reader.

Matthew L. Davidson: MLD Services: Lexington KY

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.