Windows Experience Blog : RSS feeds

State of the Blog – A Little Update on Where We Are Today

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:03:59 GMT

We are in an exciting time for Windows. We’re about to launch our best version of Windows yet – Windows 7. In between all the Windows 7 awesomeness, I wanted to take a moment to talk about The Windows Blog and where we are today with the site.

We’ve come a long way since 2006 when we launched as the Windows Vista Team Blog. This last fall we re-launched the site as The Windows Blog. When we re-launched, the focus of the site was to be the ultimate resource for Windows through the use of blogging – and to grow.

In the site’s design, we put an emphasis of multiple blogs existing under The Windows Blog “umbrella” that would cater to different audiences. Our original blog, Windows Vista Team Blog, became one of several blogs under that “umbrella” and we also launched the Windows 7 Team Blog which is where you will find all the latest Windows 7 news and announcements. Also in the fall, we launched the Windows Security Blog featuring blog posts focusing on Windows security from Paul Cooke. Paul blogged live from RSA earlier this year.

And in the last few months, we’ve grown quite a bit to cover a broader array of audiences with several other new blogs joining our site:

Windows for your Business Blog: Launched in February by Gavriella Schuster, this blog focuses on our commercial customers for Windows. Most recently, Rich Reynolds who is a GM on the Windows Commercial Marketing Team posted a blog about how our business customers provided early feedback for Windows 7.

Windows 7 for Developers Blog: At the end of March, we launched the Windows 7 for Developers. This blog is run by Yochay Kiriaty from the Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) Team here at Microsoft. Yochay blogs about all the really cool things developers can do with their applications to take advantage of Windows 7 features like the new Windows Taskbar. If you’re a developer – this blog is a must read.

Springboard Series Blog: This blog launched in early June and is run by Senior Community Manager Stephen Rose. The Springboard Series is a TechNet portal and is the ultimate Windows resource for IT Professionals. The Springboard Series Blog focuses on calling out those resources for IT Pros. Just recently, a Virtual Roundtable (VRT) discussion was help with Mark Russinovich on Application Compatibility – check it out here!

Soon, my friends over on Windows Mobile will be blogging on The Windows Blog too! Their blog can be found here.

And of course I continue to focus on my Windows experiences on the Windows Experience Blog as well.

What’s great about growing the blogs under The Windows Blog “umbrella” is that we have blog posts talking about a variety of Windows topics relevant to a broad set of audiences.

However what if some of the content being blogged about isn’t relevant to me?

All blog posts from all blogs automatically appear in our main RSS feed. Some people want to see and read everything. This is likely how they are doing so or going to our frontpage. But if you only care about content from a specific blog, you can subscribe to the individual RSS feed for that blog. Here are the RSS feeds for each of the blogs here on The Windows Blog:

Tags we use for blog posts also have their own RSS feeds. If all you care about is our announcements, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for the Announcements tag.

If RSS isn’t your thing, you can also follow The Windows Blog on Twitter and get all our latest blog posts too.

So what’s coming up for The Windows Blog? Well – lots more awesome Windows 7 blog posts of course. We’re also going to be introducing a new menu system in the coming weeks and introducing more new blogs – including some localized blogs in a variety of different languages.

I’m very proud of the community of Windows blogs we’ve built up here on The Windows Blog. Thank you to the millions of visitors who read our posts each month and continue to be excited for Windows!

Origami Experience 2.0 Part 2: RSS

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:03:00 GMT

Two weeks ago, I talked about the new Web Browsing capabilities in Origami Central, one of the three apps in the Origami Experience 2.0 software. That was Part 1 of a 4-part series showcasing the new features of the Origami Experience 2.0 software for Ultra Mobile PCs. Here in Part 2, I am going to talk about the new RSS features also in Origami Central.

In browsing the web in Origami Central on my UMPC, I can quickly subscribe to a RSS feed on any website.

Origami Central uses the Windows RSS Platform and the Common Feed List from IE7 for its RSS feeds. Feeds I subscribe to in Origami Central or in IE7 will appear in the Common Feed List. What this means essentially is that Origami Central and IE7 share the same RSS feeds.

When accessing my subscribed feeds in Origami Central, I'm brought into the All Feeds screen. The UI uses large graphic icons making it better to use the touch features when navigating between feeds and folders with feeds inside them. The black icons are folders with feeds inside them and the white icons are individual feeds. Origami Central comes pre-populated with feeds in the Origami Experience folder. I also get a toolbar similar to the one in the browsing experience except the title bar for the RSS experience does not auto-hide. On the toolbar I get a circular-arrow-type icon I can click on that will refresh my feeds.

When I browse to a specific feed, I am presented with the unread posts within that feed in a UI other than a simple list. Instead of a simple list of unread posts - I'm presented with "squares" for each post. The toolbar at the top lets me know how many unread posts I have for the specific feed. And on the top right-hand side I have a button to mark all as read if needed.

When I read an unread post - the post then becomes grayed out showing me it's been read.

For a specific post - I can read it right in the RSS experience of Origami Central or browse to the post in the browsing experience in Origami Central. But I never have to leave the Origami Central application.

For audio and video podcasts subscribed to - the RSS experience in Origami Central will play both audio and video directly within the Origami Experience software making for a great experience with podcasts. Here I am looking at NBC Nightly News which is a video podcast:

When I am reading feeds - I can flag a specific post I want to read later on.

I then went back to the All Feeds page (via the link in top toolbar) where there is a folder for any post in a RSS feed that I've flagged. Here you can see my flagged posts:

With Origami Central - I get all the great basic RSS feed reading features as well as the ability to view audio and video podcasts and being able to flag posts. But I never have to leave Origami Central application. RSS feed reading is another new aspect of the Origami Experience 2.0 software.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I look at the Media capabilities of Origami Central.

Use Windows Live Mail to read RSS feeds in Windows Vista

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:41:00 GMT

A lot of people ask me what my RSS feed reader is. They are usually shocked when I say Windows Live Mail. That's right. Windows Live Mail is my main RSS feed reader. Let me explain.

Windows Live Mail utilizes the IE7 RSS feed store in Windows Vista. Internet Explorer 7 brings fourth the Windows RSS Platform. The Windows RSS Platform introduces a Common Feed List in which Windows Live Mail takes advantage of. Read about the Windows RSS Platform here from Walter, Program Manager on the IE Team. Nick blogged back in September of Newsgator taking advantage of the Common Feed List just like Windows Live Mail does today. The Windows RSS Platform is designed in such a way that developers can create apps that read, add, and delete from the Common Feed List. Windows Live Mail taps into the Common Feeds List allowing you to read manage and read your RSS feeds. Any feed subscribed to in IE7 automatically appears in Windows Live Mail.

Your RSS feeds are displayed in separate tab in Windows Live Mail. It is easy to bounce between your email and your RSS feeds. They are separate so that your email and RSS feeds aren't jumbled together.

In the current beta of Windows Live Mail, you get a group of Search Folders at the top left-hand corner of the application above your first email account. You can add a variety of Search Folders for quick access to a variety of things like unread email or flagged items.

I have a Search Folder added for "Unread feeds". This will display any unread feeds that come in. I changed the default update schedule for all my RSS feeds from 1 day to 1 hour. Every hour, my RSS feeds are updated and my "Unread feeds" Search Folder displays them for me with the number of unread feeds. This is how I keep track of my news and what everyone is saying out in the community.

When someone posts about something that grabs my attention but I want to look at it again later on, Windows Live Mail lets me quickly "flag" that post (you can flag new posts in RSS, email messages, and newsgroup posts). When I flag a post, it then appears under my "Flagged items" Search Folder I can then look at later on. Anything you flag will appear here which really helps me prioritize emails, updated feeds, and newsgroup posts.

Windows Live Mail gives the user all they need to manage their RSS feeds by utilizing the Common Feed List built in to Windows Vista through the Windows RSS Platform. It works great for me in managing all 450 of my RSS feeds I'm subscribed to (I recently scaled back the amount of feeds I read).

You can download the latest beta of Windows Live Mail here.

If you're interested in what Microsoft is doing with RSS, you can head over to the Microsoft RSS Blog to get the latest from the folks at Microsoft working on RSS technologies such as the Windows RSS Platform.