Washburn University Finance Office

RSS Information and Basic Instructions

• Washburn Home

• Finance Office
  • Organization Chart
  • Accounting
  • Accounts Payable
  • Business Office
  • Payroll

• Taxation

  • Disclaimer
  • WU Tax Handbook
    • 100 - Introduction
    • 200 - Employee or Independent Contractor
    • 300 - Honoraria
    • 400 - Employee Fringe Benefits
    • 500 - Expense Reimbursements
    • 600 - Private Benefit Activity
    • 700 - Other Compensation
    • 800 - Scholarships and Fellowships
    • 900 - Student FICA Exemption
    • 1000 - Foreign Nationals
    • 1100 - Tax Exempt Status
    • 1200 - Unrelated Business Income Tax
    • 1300 - Information Reporting
    • 1400 - Other IRS Reporting
    • 1500 - Sales Tax

• Forms
  • Accounts Payable
  • Accounting
  • Payroll
  • Bursar/Business Office
  • Tax Matters
  • Capital Assets
  • Banner Finance
  • Audited Financial Statements
  • Miscellaneous

• Other

  • FAQ
  • News

OK, knucklehead, you gave us an RSS feed link. Now what?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" -- it's a format for distributing and gathering content from sources across the Web, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs. News aggregators (also called news readers) will download and display RSS feeds for you. A number of free and commercial news aggregators are available for download. Popular news readers include AmphetaDesk, Feedreader, Newz Crawler, and NewsGator. In addition, many e-mail programs, including Mozilla Thunderbird, have the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds.

Each program has its own interface and method of subscribing to and aggregating RSS feeds, so I won't try to go through the instructions individually. Instead, I'll give instructions on how to subscribe to an RSS feed using Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail program. Before I do, one little clarification. To subscribe to an RSS feed, you don't left-click on the icon and wait for your web browser to open up the page. Instead, when you are setting up a feed in your news reader, you will have to specify a URL. To get the URL for a feed, right-click on the icon and select "Copy Link Location" (if you're using Mozilla Firefox) or "Copy Shortcut" (if you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer). You will then be able to paste the URL into the appropriate field in your news reader's feed setup screen.

Now, the instructions to subscribe to an RSS feed using Thunderbird. (Your Thunderbird screen probably looks different from mine, but the instructions below should work regardless.)

1. Open Thunderbird and highlight the "News & Blogs" heading.

2. Click on the "Manage Subscriptions" link.

3. Click on the "Add" button.

4. Press Ctrl-V or select Edit/Paste from the menu to enter the URL you copied earlier (see 2nd paragraph above). You can also manually type in the URL.

5. Click on the "OK" button, then close the "RSS Subscriptions" window.

6. Select "Washburn University - Finance Office News". The available feed items can now be read just like e-mail messages.