News Reader programs are a very popular tool for users to keep up with topics they have an interest in.  LIMSfinder.com is the first news source devoted to LIMS and Laboratory Informatics that is publishing a news feed devoted to this subject area.  In addition to keeping up with news, you will see job postings and bid opportunities.

What Is RSS?

The term RSS refers to a syndication format, sometimes known as Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. Each RSS feed is simply a text document containing a list of content items. The text document contains the headline, description and link for content items available on a web site.

For example, the LIMSfinder.com News RSS feed contains a list of the current top stories containing only the headline, link and description of each article.

Why RSS?

This format may look strange in a web browser, perhaps even unreadable, but there are a range of tools and technologies that leverage this common standard formatting. Similarly, HTML tagging, the code behind a web page, is unreadable unless viewed via a web browser which understands how to present the HTML code. Rather than use a web browser or even a text editor to view a particular RSS feed, you will view RSS feeds through RSS readers.

What are RSS readers?

RSS readers allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds much like web browsers allow you to view web pages. The RSS reader will automatically update on some regular schedule and display the new articles from the feeds you have supplied to the reader. Some RSS readers notify you when a new item has appeared from one of your feeds.

This format for consuming information has a lot of interesting possibilities, including the common perception that information can be consumed in greater volume via RSS than by browsing from web site to web site.

How do I get started?

To get started, you will need a News Reader if you do not have one already.  There are many good News Reader software packages that are free for download and use.  One such package that I use is http://www.rssreader.com/

I have my RSS reader. Now what?

After obtaining your RSS reader, you can then subscribe to RSS feeds. First, select RSS feeds from the content providers that interest you. Or you may identify feeds on web sites, often marked by a small orange XML button.

When you have opened the RSS feed in your browser and see the XML data, then highlight the URL of that feed and copy it to your clipboard. Then, return to your RSS reader and follow the instructions for your particular reader for adding a new feed. The URL you copied to your clipboard will be the location your RSS reader will require to subscribe to that feed.

Where are LIMSfinder.com RSS feeds?

Right Here and throughout the site:

There are now thousands of news sources on the Internet that allow you to subscribe to their news feeds.  LIMSfinder.com is just one of those sources. 

If you see the following symbol:   this indicates that this is a news feed that you can subscribe to with your news reader. For instance, if you want to subscribe to the LIMSfinder.com news feed, you would click on the  symbol and copy the link shown in the web address box in your web browser and then paste that link into your news reader software in the appropriate area.

How can I post LIMSfinder feeds on my web site?

Use the following form and past one of the RSS links from the list below into this form and you can create a set of Java Script code that you can past into your site to display the feed in html: