austraLasia 1675

Some helpful surprises for you on www.sdb.org

ROME: 30th October 2006 --  Every reader would be aware that www.sdb.org is THE website of the Congregation.  It does not belong to the so-called Pisana (though it is managed from there); it belongs to the entire Congregation.  In the interests of balance, an effort is made to see that its various parts recognise each of the regions and all of the various elements in the Congregation.  Not always an easy task.  Fr Peter Gonsalves, who up until recently masterminded the entire redevelopment of the Congregation's website, did an outstanding job and gave the Congregation, with the help of confreres from all over the world, a website which truly stands out amongst websites of similar institutions.  This fact has been recognised in studies made of such websites.
    As of today, a quick visit to www.sdb.org will show a simple helpful addition by way of two separate RSS possibilities.  If you visit www.bosconet.aust.com you are already familiar with RSS (or XML) which offers you a chance to pull in news automatically.  Now www.sdb.org has RSS-enabled ANS news and any changes that take place to the website.  It means you can keep an eye on all this with a single click on your browser.
    This week seemed the right time to make this move. Last week both Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox unveiled new browsers - version 7 for IE and version 2.0 for Firefox.  It has to be said that the latter, Firefox, is by far the better browser for a number of different reasons (apart from being free) but for the moment the issue is this: both browsers now show a little orange icon in the address bar when you visit www.sdb.org (as also when you visit www.bosconet.aust.com). Clicking on the icon offers you ANSnews and sdb.org updates. Click on either (or both) and you are taken to a page where you see the items concerned and are offered a choice of putting them on your toolbar as a bookmark or elsewhere.  Once there, they automatically call in any changes no matter what site you happen to be viewing at the time.
    For people with older browsers, especially those which do not see the little orange icon in the address bar, all is not lost! Right click the RSS orange icon next to the word 'ANS' on the home page itself or under Mamma Maragaret's photo on the LHS of the page, and click 'copy link location' to a separate Feed Reader (RSS Feed Reader is free and can be quickly downloaded from the web), drop that link into the feed reader address bar and you get the correct result - an RSS feed which updates itself automatically. People who use Opera, Safari, Konqueror or other browser will already know what to do, I think.
    Availing oneself of this facility makes eminent sense. It saves time, and changes the way one uses the internet for the better. Why not download Firefox 2 today (or make use of your automatically upgraded IE7) and benefit?
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