I guess someone has to be the idiot!  

I read the Blog last night and came across the mentions of RSS Feeds - I am none the wiser and would appreciate a short non too technical explanation.

We seem to have been troubled by gremlins earlier I got these messages and then the site failed to recognise me.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_FOR in /home/desoft/public_html/pmwiki/cookbook/pmfeed.php on line 990
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/desoft/public_html/pmwiki/cookbook/pmfeed.php on line 1012

Don't worry about messages that look like that, they're down to work being carried out 'Under the Hood' as it were, and will always clear themselves up in a few minutes.

Best to slip away for a tea/coffee break if seen, as repeated attempts to access won't help.

RSS is a bit hard to describe, being one of those things that makes great sense to anyone that knows they need and want it, and as useful as chocolate ashtray if not

From a programmer's point of view, the usefulness is clear - witness the list of Recently Changes pages that appears in the on the Blog and Main Site, both of which are updated and kept up to date automatically with no need for some mug to keep and eye on what's happening, and manually update the lists. The magic is that anyone that interested can copy the RSS link and use it to get the same info if they wish. Witness the Scottish BBC News items we list. (You didn't really think we kept watching the news and just pasted in what we thought was interesting whenever we had a spare moment or two, did you?   )

For the non-programmer or site builder, the links can still be used, and allow the sites, in this case the Blog or Main Site, to be watched for changes, without actually having to go the site itself. Some (sad?) folk have dozens of RSS feeds set up this way.

Used like this, they work the same as shortcuts or bookmarks in your browser...

If you click on the RSS symbol (or link if that's all that's given) then your browser should open a window giving you the option to save the RSS feed in a similar way to a bookmark or shortcut.

When you hover your mouse over the shortcut, it should expand into a list of Recently Changed pages (or it should with these - it varies depending on how it has been setup), and clicking on any of the pages should then take you to that page. You obviously have to remember what the last page changed was, to know if the list itself has changed since you last looked at.

I just see it as 'useful' but some folk seem to be obsessed by RSS.

I think it's one of those things you just have to take the plunge and play with one day, and it either will, or will not, suggest a useful use.

We've got it, it works, move on.

I missed a trick on this one, and should've mentioned that you'll see the symbol at the right hand side of home page for the Forum.

As before, clicking on the symbol open the option to subscribe to whichever board it belongs to, and if you choose to subscribe to the feed, it will appear as a self-updating bookmark in your list of bookmarks. Mouse over the bookmark and it will open with a descending list of the most recent posts made in the board, and you can just click on the one you're interested to open it.

And all done without having to go the Forum, open it up, find the thread, and open the message - it does have its uses, provided it's doing something needed

It is worth giving it a try, even if only to see, and get a feel for what it is and how it works - can't break anything, and when done with it, it can just be deleted like any other bookmark.