RSS is commonly known to stand for 'Really Simple Syndication'. RSS feeds are designed to be read by a special program on your PC. It might help to think of them as a free, internet version of the old-fashioned ticker-tape news wire machines.

RSS allows you to view new content on sites over the internet. You can get the latest headlines and articles in one place, as soon as they are published, without having to visit several sites a day.

With Vansunited, you can keep up to date with our news, reviews and best van deals as well viewing Vansunited's own documents as they are added to the site.

Not all websites currently provide RSS, but it is growing rapidly in popularity and many others, including the Guardian, the BBC and CNN provide it.

You will need a piece of software called a news reader that checks RSS feeds from your selected websites and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them.


There are 2 ways to do it:

1. www.rssreader.com. Easy to use, easy to set up. Unread items appear in bold; when you have read them, the titles go to normal weight text. You can set it up to check for jobs every hour for example. You can also set up a pop up box to appear on your PC when a new job arrives.

2. Browser-based : Mozilla Firefox

Download the FREE application RSS Reader, from www.rssreader.com

Click on "download". Click on "download rssreader.exe" and follow the instructions on your screen. There will be a folder in your C Drive under "applications" called "RssReader". Launch the reader by clicking on the icon that look like this: Now you will always see a small icon at the bottom right of your screen which looks like this: Now open your reader and you are ready to go.

The next step is to decide what content you want to receive in your news reader, by finding and subscribing to the relevant RSS feeds. For example, if you would like to Vansunited RSS feed, simply place your mouse arrow on the RSS icon at the bottom of the left menu, click the right mouse button, and choose "Copy Shortcut."

Start your RssReader and go to add(+) channel/feed and then paste (click right mouse button) the url and click 'next',' next' and finally 'ok'. You can also add RRS feeds from news sites such as the BBC by following the same instructions.

There are other news readers. If you would like to try another one, or if you are using a Mac, you can search for "rss reader" on Google and you will find many choices. Please follow the instructions on your reader as they may vary between types of readers.

Another way to check for RSS news feeds is to use the Mozilla Firefox web browser. You can download this from www.getfirefox.com.

Go to http://www.vansunited.co.uk in Firefox. A small orange icon appears in the address field. A small box will appear saying "add live bookmark". Click on this.

A box will come up in the middle of your screen. Give the RSS feed a name that you will remember. Select to save the bookmark to your 'bookmarks toolbar folder'.

There will now be an icon and the saved search in your toolbar. You can check this any time and new stories will automatically appear there.

The new version of Internet Explorer (a beta version of which can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com) can also make use of RSS feeds. In IE7, simply click on the RSS button in your saved searches and the feed will open in a browser window. Then click on the 'Plus' sign to subscribe to this feed and add it to your Favorites Center.