Figure 1: Adding a Feed link -- Copy and paste the link behind "Feed" to add this Feed link to an RSS Reader.

Figure 2: RSS feeds -- In this case, all you have to do is right-click on the XML icon to copy the Feed link to an RSS reader.

Figure 3: Default RSS feeds -- You can add, edit, or delete these RSS feeds as you like.

Figure 4: Status window -- Here you can check the operation of the GroupWise RSS Reader when it reads the RSS feeds.

Figure 5: Folders for all RSS feeds -- The counter next to each folder shows you how many unread messages it contains.

To receive RSS feed messages, you need an RSS Reader. An RSS Reader reads RSS feeds at a certain interval and copies RSS feed messages to its database or some kind of file structure. There are many RSS Readers available for almost any operating system. Some of them are free, and some are shareware. You can find a list at http://www.lights.com/weblogs/rss.html. I like FeedDemon RSS Reader for Windows. It costs US$29.95. You can download a trial version version from http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/index.asp.

If you want to search for RSS feeds of interest, visit http://www.feedster.com. Just type in a keyword -- for example, Groupwise -- and the results come up.

If you copy the link behind Feed in the line that reads "From: Novell's Newest TIDs - Hide - Show: All Links Feed," you can add this RSS Feed link to an RSS Reader using the clipboard and the copy and paste functions in Windows (figure 1).

Sometimes you don't have to search for an RSS Feed link. Web sites that support RSS show a little orange icon on their Web page(s) with the word "XML"or "RSS" in it (figure 2). Just copy the link behind it by putting your mouse arrow on the icon, right-clicking, and selecting "copy" to copy the link to the clipboard. If you look at http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/collector/feeds_xml.html you'll find a good example of this. The Cool Solutions Web page summarizes all RSS feeds published by Novell. On the Web page, you'll also find RSS feeds for the new Cool Tools, Product Updates (Patches & Files), and the newest Technical Information Documents (TIDs). Now you don't have to check GroupWise Cool Solutions for new articles, just watch your RSS Reader.

Because we're all attached to our GroupWise client, I decided to write a little application that reads in preconfigured RSS feeds and stores its RSS messages into GroupWise rather than into a separate database system. By doing this, a GroupWise user can use all great GroupWise features such as searching, filtering, and even "Notify" to check out new RSS feed messages.

This application is called the GroupWise RSS Reader Lite. It installs itself into C:\ Program Files\ GroupWise RSS Reader by default as GWRSS.exe. Start your GroupWise client, then start the GroupWise RSS Reader. For those who use Formativ, I've written a little applet that does this automatically. When you launch the reader for the first time, you'll be presented with this question: "Do you want to activate reading for this account?"

Because the GroupWise RSS Reader creates a set of folders in your GroupWise cabinet, you must make sure you're running your GroupWise client against the appropriate GroupWise mailbox. Click on "Yes"to move on. Then a dialog pops up that says, "You can edit your RSS feed in the 'General settings' menu."

Click on OK, then click on the RSS Feeds tab. I've included seven RSS feeds by default that I think are interesting (figure 3). Just delete them if you don't want them, then add, edit, or delete the RSS feeds as you wish. Don't use a tilde (~) in the description.

Click on General settings to verify the name of the folder in your GroupWise mailbox for storing RSS feeds. If "RSS-feeds" isn't the name you want, just change it. The RSS read interval is related to how many times the GroupWise RSS reader checks the preconfigured RSS feeds for new messages. GroupWise RSS reader puts itself into the system, and every 30 minutes, by default, it checks the RSS feeds that have been added to the database.

If you click on the Status window (figure 4), you can check the operation of the GroupWise RSS Reader when it reads the preconfigured RSS feeds.

In the Cabinet, a new folder called RSS-feeds is created. Underneath is a folder for every RSS feed that has been defined (figure 5). You'll also see a counter that shows how many unread messages are in these folders. Don't forget to sort these folders if appropriate.

If you open the Novell GroupWise folder, you'll see the GroupWise RSS reader created an e-mail message for every news item. If you open one of these messages, you'll find a short summary of the message (normally only two or three lines) and a clickable link to the Web site to read the full article.