RSS-pect

OK, so I'm pretty slow on the uptake with recent spurts in technology. But I should really know my way around the web and it's functionality better than I apparently do.

Like many of my 30-something generation, I can't be expected to be quite so tech-savvy as those in their teens and very early 20's of course, who have had access to modern PCs and the Internet since a young age. The web only really started to be widely available when I was at University, after all.

I remember well my first forays into the Internet & email back in 1997 - The black & green DOS screen for typing out emails, and the little red postbox you had to click on to retrieve your post, such that there was any.. It was a revelation at the time, but of course would seem as clunky and un-user friendly now as loading a game by cassette on a Spectrum 16k would seem to a spotty teen now used to killing heavily-pixeled orcs online in World of Warcraft. Good analogy, that.

Today, I found out what an 'RSS Feed' was for the first time. I'd heard people talk about it quite often. I'd seen the lovely little orange box with the white lines in it on my browser. But I honestly hadn't known what it was for, so I just ignored it and assumed it was some pointless thing only programmers would find useful. But it's actually quite useful.

So if you are similarly ignorant, I can tell you that it stands for Really Simple Syndication and if you click on the orange thingummy on either a web page or on your web browser, it lets you know the next time content has been updated on that website. Of course that's great news for those who wanted to know the next time my blog was updated but got bored returning for 4 months with no new posts. Now, all 8 of you can just wait to be told i've updated it via your RSS Feed update. WOW, CUTTING EDGE!

I'm sure some of you are guffawing that I'm finding such excitement in something so simple and of which there is already widespread knowledge. Well, don't be so quick to get on your high-horse, boffins! We all have areas we are stronger in than others, knowledge-wise. Do you know what the capital of Montenegro is, for example?

Oh, you do. Fair enough. You probably googled it, you techno-geek. Or had it come through on your RSS Feed when they seceded from Serbia. Get you.

My techno-ignorance is all a far cry from being an inquisitive child of the 80's, when computer technology first encroached upon the home. In between mastering Yie Ar Kung Fu* on my Amstrad, I would often dis-assemble VHS players just to see how it all worked, before putting it back together before my Dad found out what I was up to. Technology was a lot more simple back then- you can't do the same with DVD players nowadays. I've tried it - when you take the cover off there is a great big red sign there saying you'll get cancer from radiation if you open up the player any further. Have a look if you don't believe me. Go on.

*I loved the way these old games would just return back to the first level once you'd completed the game. I think on this particular game, I ended up 'lapping' the same levels 6 or 7 times until I got bored.