What is RSS?

   Some people say that RSS stands for "Rich Site Summary". Some say it stands for "Really Simple Syndication". Neither of those versions is very informative, and neither is particularly accurate. Maybe it would be best to just say that RSS stands for "Geeks Love Acronyms".

   In any case, the basics of RSS are simple and straightforward: RSS is a type of index webpage that lists the latest articles or headlines on a website. The RSS indexing format is not easily readable because it's encoded, but it can be easily processed by automated software. An RSS webpage, used especially by news and weblog websites, could be thought of as a website's latest menu. By using software that reads RSS pages, you can automatically collect and organize the most recent headline links from any number of news or weblog sites, without needing to visit any of them.

   Using RSS has been likened to creating your own personalized newspaper because it allows you to collect headlines from numerous sites and consolidate them, without needing to actually go browsing. That is what RSS news reader programs do. RSS readers, or "feed readers", collect headline links from numerous websites, so that you can browse easily without needing to visit each site separately. You can read all of the headlines from a selection of websites, compiled into a single collection. Then you can use the links to visit only the webpages with articles that you want to read.

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Why Roll-Your-Own StartPage?

   When you get the gist of how RSS works, it's clear that using some kind of RSS reader software could be a handy way to read the latest news from a number of websites that you like to visit on a regular basis. But upon surveying the available RSS "feed reader" programs, most seem to be a bit excessive: In general, these are fairly large, complex programs. One popular program costs $29 and requires using Internet Explorer 6. Another requires that the gigantic (20+ MB) Microsoft .Net Runtime platform be installed in order for the program to work. Many newsreaders are designed to download RSS pages from dozens or even hundreds of websites, on an hourly basis!
   One is left to wonder, "What sort of information maniac would want to read so much stuff?...and why are people getting so worked up about something so simple as RSS?"

   So the "why" of Roll-Your-Own StartPage is just to provide a simple way for the average person to take advantage of the benefits of RSS. No big deal. No big software program. No cost. Just an easy way to collect headlines from several sites into one webpage.

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What is Roll-Your-Own StartPage?

   Roll-Your-Own StartPage, or "RYO StartPage", is a small utility that creates an up-to-date start page or headline page, using the latest headlines from websites that you have selected. It downloads the selected RSS webpages all at once, extracts the listings, and creates a single, clearly laid out webpage of linked headlines (with brief descriptions) from that data. The new page is then opened in your browser.

   RYO StartPage is like setting your homepage to Yahoo or MSN, except that you design the page. It has no ads and only includes the headlines that you're interested in. You pick which websites the headlines come from, and you decide how many headlines to get from each site. You can also customize the appearance of the page. Each time you use RYO StartPage, your browser opens with a new, custom, updated list of headlines.

   Extra feature: RSS started out as a convenient way to check headlines remotely, but in many cases images and ads may be sent in the RSS feed, slowing it down and defeating the purpose. So RYO StartPage removes ads, images and superfluous links from the RSS feed by stripping out HTML.

View picture of sample start page

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Using Roll-Your-Own StartPage

   RYO StartPage is fairly easy to set up but you will need to collect the RSS links that you want to use by getting them from your favorite websites. (RYO StartPage comes with a short list of RSS links.)
   (There are complete setup directions included with the download.)

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Download

There are two options for download:

Convenient installer version:

   The installer is an EXE package that performs most of the RYO StartPage setup. Just double-click the download to run it. The installer will copy and register necessary files, and it will put a shortcut to "RYO StartPage" on the Desktop. There is just one thing that you will still need to do: Add the RSS links for the websites that you want to include. The installer will create the RSS links file as C:\RYOwn\RSSLinks.txt. That is the file that you will need to edit. There are directions in the file and also a help file (C:\RYOwn\RYO Directions.html) that explains the details. The RYO Directions file also has a troubleshooting guide, in case you run into problems.

Download RYO StartPage installer - ryosetup.exe (66 KB)

   (Installer note: The installer and RYO StartPage both use VBScript. If you use Windows XP and/or a recent version of anti-virus software, you may receive a security warning when running VBScript. That does not signal a problem. It is just due to increased security monitoring that has become commonplace. In the case of anti-virus warnings, select the option to make an exception for only this script. That will allow RYO StartPage to work without reducing your security settings.)

Do-It-Yourself version:

   The Do-It-Yourself version is a zip file that contains all the necessary files for RYO StartPage, with directions for installation and use. The ZIP download version is for anyone who would like to do their own setup of RYO StartPage.
   You should also select this download if you want it for scripting or programming purposes, or if you expect to customize the HTML/CSS in the headline page that RYO StartPage creates. The ZIP download includes a help file for scripters that explains the use of the jsTP.exe component for downloading files. It also includes an extra version of the main script, which creates a graphically different headline page.
   After download, open the ZIP, extract the contents (the "RYO Files" folder) to someplace like the Desktop, and then open the "RYO Directions.html" file. That file contains a step-by-step explanation of how to set up RYO StartPage.

Download ZIP version of RYO StartPage - ryopack.zip (45 KB)

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Information for Scripters

   The RYO StartPage download contains an ActiveX EXE component that can be used to download files from the Internet and write them to disk. The download is designed to be usable by people with no scripting experience, but it also contains a help file provided for use by scripters, which details the methods, properties and events provided by the component, jsTP.exe.

   The RollPage.vbs file in the download, which is the script that makes the whole thing work, also serves as a sample script, demonstrating how jsTP.exe can be used to download multiple files and write them to disk, return them as strings, or format them (in the case of RSS) as HTML.
   The RollPage.vbs script also contains comments to explain its operation and provides CSS settings that can be altered to customize the graphical layout of the headline page created by RYO StartPage.

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Information for Programmers

   The RYO StartPage download contains an ActiveX EXE component that can be used to download files from the Internet and write them to disk. The component, jsTP.exe, is written in VB6. jsTP.exe is made with a file download UserControl that wraps Winsock functionality, enables downloading of text or binary files, and returns server information such as server response code and redirect information. jsTP.exe consists of a simple interface class, a module with routines to format RSS pages as HTML, and the UserControl. The source code for the entire jsTP.exe is not being made available, in order to avoid the possible problem of multiple, incompatible compilations. However, the UserControl, which contains all the code that might be of interest, is available in the form of a sample project from the VB Code page.

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