Introduction

This website provides two different types of newsfeed:

• simple extracts from the News column and Events page which can be displayed on most modern mobile phones – any phone with a web browser.
• extracts from the News column and (in future) other parts of the website which can be downloaded and then displayed on many of the latest 'smart' phones. Such phones must support a mechanism called RSS (check your user guide). These downloaded extracts are kept up to date automatically by the phone.

The main difference between the two is as follows. When using a simple extract, the mobile phone user must instruct the phone to connect to the website (probably using a pre-stored 'Favourites' item or 'Bookmark') to obtain the latest news and event items. Otherwise the phone will display either nothing or the version which the user last displayed. When using RSS, the version stored on the mobile phone is kept up to date automatically.
Either extract can also be displayed on a PC's web browser, and this might be a useful alternative to simply browsing for the Home page (which contains quite a lot of slow-to-display graphical information) when on a slow dialup connection.

Simple extract

Copy or paste the bookmark addresses (URLs) below into the browser in your mobile phone or your PC:

http://www.melton-hunt-club.org.uk/mhcnewsmob.html
http://www.melton-hunt-club.org.uk/mhceventsmob.html

Either go to one of the addresses then add the address to your Favourite websites list (i.e. 'bookmark' it), or type in the bookmark and then go the the address (some phones work one way, some the other). Depending upon how your browser is set up, you may need to click 'refresh', 'reload' or similar to obtain the most recent news or events list. For subsequent access, simply select the bookmark and possibly also select refresh or reload.

RSS extract

If you already use an RSS newsfeed or know what one is, either press the orange RSS button or paste the address (URL) below it into your feed reader or browser:

http://www.melton-hunt-club.org.uk/mhcnewsfeed.xml

(Internet Explorer 7 users should visit the URL above and then press the 'Subscribe to this feed' prompt which is shown in the yellow box at the head of the page or in the Tools / Subscribe to this feed menu item.
Firefox 2 and 3 users should visit the URL above and then press the Subscribe Now button which is shown in the yellow box at the head of the page, or select Bookmarks / Organize Bookmarks... / File / New Live Bookmark... and then add the URL to Feed Location box.)

How to use the RSS feed

The RSS newsfeed feature allows you to obtain an extract from the MHC website News column on any device which supports RSS. Such devices are described below.
You could of course simply display the website's Home page which contains the News column, but this may not be convenient or feasible for several reasons:

• the Home page contains pictures and a lot of information which must be transmitted and displayed even if you only want to read the latest MHC news. This is true particularly if you access the Internet via a mobile phone where the small screen size may make finding your way around the page difficult when the page being displayed is as complex as the Home page
• you may not want to query the Home page regularly just to see if any news items have been added
• users of 'smart' mobile phones may find the automatic download particularly useful since the phone will contain the latest news without the user needing to initiate a connection to the Internet
• you may, when using your PC, spend most of the time working with your PC-based email system (Microsoft Outlook, for example) and would like notification of MHC news changes to appear there

Devices and systems which support RSS include:

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7, and Firefox 1, 2 and 3
• Microsoft Outlook 2007 (which supports RSS feeds in somewhat basic way)
• Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007 with the addition of an RSS feed reader. Feed readers are available free and are easy to install. Newsgator Inbox V3 and Attensa feed reader for Outlook (V2.6 or later) are recommended. Depending upon your PC's version of Windows, installing Attensa may need an additional free very minor upgrade from Microsoft (search Google for 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package' and download it)
• Microsoft Outlook Express with the addition of an RSS feed reader. Several are available: try RSS Popper for Outlook Express. You could alternatively install free Windows Live Mail which supports RSS providing you have Internet Explorer 7 also installed
• Windows Mail (part of Windows Vista) does not support RSS. You should instead install free Windows Live Mail which does.
• smart mobile phones, e.g. Nokia N96, N71, N93, N770, N800 and similar 'intelligent' phones from other manufacturers. Many smart-phones such as RIM Blackberries which do not themselves provide RSS support have add-on RSS feed readers readily available.
• for Apple Mac PCs, try NetNewsWire 3.1 or above
• For an extensive list of RSS newsfeed readers ('aggregators'), see News on Feeds

A few points...

• An RSS newsfeed does not send SMS text messages to your mobile phone and there is no need to pay anything or to register centrally to have the newsfeed sent to you. Instead, your (smart) mobile phone uses the RSS feature built (usually) into its Internet browser to check at intervals for new news items. Note that old mobile phones do not have Internet browsers, and newer but 'less intelligent' mobile phones do not have RSS built in.
• Apart from Microsoft Outlook 2007, it is unusual for PC email systems ('clients') to receive RSS newsfeeds direct to their email Inboxes. Instead, RSS users normally install an adjunct RSS feed reader as described above or, if they have lots of feeds from several sources, use one of the many websites which provide a feed 'aggregator' service. This will change as new email clients provide built-in support for RSS.

If you subscribe to the MHC newsfeed, your newsfeed reader will check every hour to see if there are any new items and it will display them automatically.

The current newsfeed includes just the contents of the news column, but future feeds may include other items.