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Ag Products' RSS Services
Accessing RSS Feeds using a web browser
Currently, all
of the major Internet browsers were capable of
providing RSS information to users. They all use the 'Bookmark' or 'Favorites'
feature as the selection and subscription interface. The last browser to offer
RSS
compabilities was Microsoft's Internet Explorer V7 in November 2006.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
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The newest
release of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (Version #7 11/2006) offers excellent
RSS features along with a very easy to use interface. IE7 uses the term
"web feeds" to refer to RSS feeds which are accessed from the
Favorites Center. Adding new RSS feeds is faster and easier in IE7 then
it is in Firefox or Netscape. Here is a short illustration of how you
can subscribe to the BNSF grain tariffs using Microsoft's IE7 browser.
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When viewing
a web page that sponsors an RSS
feed, like the BNSF 4022 above, the little orange RSS icon 
(circled in the illustration above) turns on. To learn more about this
RSS subscription or to subscribe (set up to receive a 'web feed' in the
IE7's Favorites list), click on this orange icon.
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After clicking
on the RSS icon, Internet Explorer #7 will offer this preview of the 'web
feed' information (see the illustration above). After reviewing this information,
if you decide you want to subscribe, you would click on the text (circled
on the illustration above) that says "Subscribe to this feed".
When you subscribe to a feed, it is automatically added to the Favorates
Center and kept up to date. Your computer will periodically check for
updates to subscribed feeds, even when Internet Explorer is not running.
If you ever want to unsubscribe, just delete the feed from your Favorates
Center.
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The subscription
process from this point forward is the same as adding any 'favorite' to
Internet Explorer. In our two step illustration above we decided to create
a new folder for holding all of the feeds from BNSF. Once this process
is completed, the RSS feed is accessed just like any other 'favorite'
on the browser.
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When you open
your browser and want to check if new items are present in a web feed, start
by clicking on the gold star then on Feeds and then on the web feed you
want to check.
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After you
have selected a particular 'web feed', you can begin to look over the
information items listed in the RSS feed. Each listing represents an existing
web page or document. In the case of this 4022 illustration above, when
you click on a link you are transported to the updated tariff item. Two
linking areas are present for each item, one in the item title (in blue)
and another on the green arrow.
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Some feeds,
such as the BNSF 4022, include additional information that makes it easier
for users to filter the available items and only show specific types of
information. In the illustration above, 'Wheat - PNW' has been selected.
Notice the blue dot circled in the bottom right corner. Only two items
are now displayed out of 44 entries in the web feed. There is also a place
for entering a search word, such as 'shuttle' and thus limit the display
to just entities that contain that word in the subject title.
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What news feeds
or Channels can I get from BNSF's Ag Products?
Currently, four channel or feeds are provided.
 Ag
News (ACRES) or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/rss/ag_news/bnsf_agnews.xml
BNSF
4022 or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/rss/bnsf4022/bnsf_trf4022.xml
BNSF
4023 or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/rss/bnsf4023/bnsf_trf4023.xml
BNSF
4024 or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/rss/bnsf4024/bnsf_trf4024.xml
For specifices on loading channels into a feed read, see the instructions
for the feed reader you have chosen to use. The most common way is to cut and
paste the URL (web address) into a entry window on the feed read application.
Another way is to use the OPML file web address (see below) which contains a
number of news channels from a single source.
For any feed readers or aggregators that will use an OPML (Outline Processor
Markup Language) file containing multiple channels, use the link below:
OPML for BNSF Ag Products channels This OPML file contains
the URL address of all four Ag Products' RSS feed channels.
Agricultural related channels of interest
http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/rss/agricultural_news.xml
Chicago Board of Trade
http://weather.gov/alerts/
Link to list of weather channels
http://rss.topix.net/rss/business/agriculture.xml.
Topix coverage of Agricuture
http://rss.topix.net/rss/business/railroads.xml. Topix coverage of Railroads
http://www.nass.usda.gov/rss/news.xml
General USDA RSS links
http://ars.usda.gov/news/rss/rss.htm
Ag Research Service, USDA
http://agnews.tamu.edu/agnews.xml
Texas A&M
For all RSS questions contact Jack Schroeder at 817 867-6723, or email
at jack.schroeder@bnsf.com
Other sources for RSS news.
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