Ag Products' RSS Services

What is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows you to keep informed of "news" type information from thousands of different sources on the web. At BNSF that currently includes four price authority publications and Ag Products customer updates. RSS news readers allow you to track and view all of the web sites you want to follow in one place and, by automatically retrieving updates, you stay current with new content soon after it is published. Google RRS 2,600,000 hits for RSS on Google search.

What news feeds or Channels can I get from BNSF's Ag Products?

Currently, six channels 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/bnsf4022/rss/bnsf_trf4022.xml

    BNSF 4023 or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/bnsf4023/rss/bnsf_trf4023.xml

    BNSF 4024 or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/bnsf4024/rss/bnsf_trf4024.xml

     BNSF 4025 or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/bnsf4025/rss/bnsf_trf4025.xml

     BNSF 4026 or http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/bnsf4026/rss/bnsf_trf4026.xml

    Ag Mileage Download file or
http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural /rss/BNSF_6003/BNSF_6003_Mileages_AgFile.xml

For any BNSF RSS questions contact Jack Schroeder at 817 867-6723, or email
at jack.schroeder@bnsf.com

OPML File Support
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 five Ag Products' RSS feed channels.

Who else offers RSS feeds?
RSS is available from thousands of sources covering all types of web content such as world news, legislative/government/law, business, politics, education, health/medicine, entertainment, sports, job postings, science/technology and real estate.

Other sample sources for RSS news.

Agricultural related RSS feeds 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

What do I need to get RSS feeds on my computer?
There are many different ways you can receive RSS feeds on your computer. RSS feeds work with a number of different kinds of Internet based programs on your computer. They include web browsers, email programs, and programs that are totally dedicated to RSS feed reading. There are also web based sites that will subscribe to your choice of RSS feeds for you. Below are a list of several of the common programs that you can use to subscribe to an RSS feed. Here are two web sites that list some of the more popular news reader products: 1) www.rssfeeds.com/readers.php
2) RSS at Harvard Law.

Below is an overview of four different types of RSS tools you can use with your computer.

1. Internet Browers
   • Internet Explorer 7
   • Firefox
   • Netscape
   • Opera
2. Email Programs
3. RSS dedicated applications
• Feeddemond
• Owl
• Wticker
• Feed Explorer
4. Web based RSS services

1. Internet Browsers - With RSS support

• Microsoft Internet Explorer
    Visit Full Section on Internet Explorer 7

The newest release of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (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 renered in bookmarks/favorates while Firefox and Netscape use the term 'live bookmarks'. Adding feeds to IE7 is fast and easy. For more details and illustrations on using IE7 go HERE.

Download a free copy of IE7 here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx

• Mozilla Firefox
  

Firefox has offered RSS support since it's introduction in November of 2004. Firefox's way of orgainizing RSS feeds is with a special type of bookmark they called 'Live Bookmarks'. You create Live Bookmarks by visiting a site with a feed, clicking on the Live Bookmark icon in the Location Bar, and selecting the feed you wish to use. Once added to Firefox, viewing feeds is easy as accessing any regular bookmark. Live Bookmarks are stored in the same menu areas as regular bookmarks. In the Illustration below, a Live Bookmark for the 4022 is displayed on the personal toolbar.

Download a free copy of Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

• Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/) is a free email program that does a nice, but basic job of supporting RSS feeds. The interface is very similar to the stand alone packages. On the left side of the screen is a list of feeds or channels. On the right top is a list of items in that feed, and below on the right is a 'preview' window of the web page for the selected item. Between the item list and the preview window on the right is the metadata for that item: subject, from, data, and URL of web page. Thunderbird is easy to set up and flexable enough to let you create your own gouping for feeds or chanels.

To get started with RSS you can also use something called a feed reader. Feed readers, sometimes called news readers or aggregator's, are a new type of web application that look and function very similar to an e-mail application such as Outlook. They gather, filter, classify, sort and list in menus, your choice web pages much as if they were incoming e-mail, complete with icons showing if the page has been read. They can be configured to work in various visual and functional ways. See screen shots below.

Feed Readers can be either a stand alone application running on your desktop computer or a plug-in for an existing application like Outlook email, or Firefox browser. You may also use your favorite search engine and look up "RSS reader aggregator" for a list of other feed reader products available. News readers are available both commercially and for free. Note: We do not support or recommend any specific news reader.

There are also web sites that will perform a news reader function for you such as MY Yahoo/RSS.