RSS stands for Rich Site Summary and is a format for delivering regularly changing information. Many news related sites and blogs use RSS. The idea behind it is to give you updated content from a web site through an RSS reader or what is called an aggregator. Aggregators can be web-based or live on your computer desktop. All of the latest versions of browsers have RSS readers built into them, so don’t look for it in your earlier versions of browsers, such as Internet Explorer 6.
Widgets and gadgets are little applications (applets) that run on a website that you can interact with.
So how does this fit in with iGoogle. IGoogle is a place where you can put all kinds of RSS feeds, widgets and gadgets right on your Google homepage.
Go to google.com and search for iGoogle (It may appear in the upper left corner of your Google page). Once you click on iGoogle a window will appear asking you to create your own homepage. You can select your interests, a theme and your location.
Once you have done that, click on See your page. You will now have an iGoogle page with RSS feeds, widgets and gadgets in little boxes.
To change your iGoogle page click on the Add stuff text on the right. There are RSS feeds, widgets and gadgets for more things than you can imagine. Once you have found some things you want to add and selected them, you can go back to your iGoogle home page and organize them. Put your mouse over the title bar, click, hold and drag to move. You can also delete them and resize them.
Creating an iGoogle page is a fun way to utilize RSS feeds, widgets and gadgets. Once you’ve set up your iGoogle page, whenever you come back to Google it will be to your iGoogle page. — Jill
