iCal and RSS
There are some great technologies that allow you to know what is going on in NaFoF-land. The two really interesting ones are:
- iCal keeps you up to date with calendar information.
- RSS (sometimes referred to as Live Bookmarks in web browsers) informs you of newly added web pages to a website.
iCal - Always keep your calendar up to date!
iCal is a protocol (computer language) to allow computer applications to share calendar information, this can be useful for sharing calendars between people and phones or computers. iCal is used by most modern mobile phones and programs like Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes and Google Calendar.
To add our calendar to your Google (and Android phone, as Android stores your calendars in a personal Google Calendar) simply click here, for others programs, or to understand how to add it manually read on... (exact instructions for each program will vary; if you have instructions to update this
For google calendar (and Google Android based mobile phones); open Google Calendar in your computer web-browser, on the left under "other calendars" select Add then Add by URL then enter http://www.nafof.org.uk/calendar/ical.ics then select Add. The new calendar should now appear on the left and after a few minutes be added in a different colour on your calendar.
The website updates the information as soon as the website has new events added; however programs that use iCal update periodically; typically a couple of times a day. You can usually change the frequency of updates - so you always know what is going on with any last minute additions to the calendar!
The NaFoF iCal includes only future events, so events in the past (even yesterday) may be removed from your calendar by the computer program displaying them.
RSS - News Stories
Really Simple Syndication, RSS, is a simple method of distributing news over the internet, into phone and computer programs such as internet browsers and news programs. Users can read this at their leisure and without having to manually browse to and visit lots of websites.
There are many programs that work with RSS feeds (as they are typically known). Firefox treats RSS feeds in a similar way to bookmarks. You add an RSS feed and it appears as a folder in the bookmarks menu. By going to this menu the top and most recent headlines for the selected page will be shown, clicking on articles of interest will open that page in a new page in your browser.
Periodically the software will check for updates and show up to date changes to the website that the feed is coming from (known as a subscription).
