In addition to the Calendar, this site has two pages that will see frequent updates. They are the Premiums page and the News page. These pages are structured as RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication) or a BLOG. RSS allows applications to detect new content on web sites. The application allows you to know when there is new content on a site without going to the web site on a regular basis.
I have RSS robots that check for new content and automatically publish links to the pages on Facebook and Twitter. Another robot generates an email to subscribers if there is new content. You can also get the updates by a news reader. You can also visit this web site on a regular basis. The choice is yours.
Email is relatively private and my personal favorite. You do have to give up your email address but that is it. The information will be formatted into an email and delivered to your email inbox. The emails will be generated at 6am Eastern if there is any activity. The emails will have my "george at floridaagility dot com" address so make sure it is not spam blocked. Your name is included in the TO field of the address to make the email less spammy. If you do not supply a name, it defaults to "Agility Enthusiast”.
The emails will also have clickable links included. This is not necessarily the case with the social media. Also, you don’t have to worry about what Facebook decides to show you in your News Feed. NOTE: The link to the premium can break or become obsolete if the club updates the premium. In this case, click on the title link to take you to the Floridaagility.com premium page and try the download it from there.
Email subscription process
- Click here or on the link in the sidebar.
- You will be taken to a form to fill in. Enter your email address and optionally your name and select the mailings you want to receive (Premiums, News).
- Click on subscribe.
- Receive email to confirm your email address (Check your spam folder if you do not receive it in a few minutes) Click on the link to confirm your email address.
- Receive an email confirming your subscription
- Daily at 6am, if there is new content, an email will be generated for you.
All emails contain a unsubscribe link and an update preferences link at the bottom of the email. You can also use the contact webmaster link below and ask me to unsubscribe you.
Social Media
If you Like or Follow us on Facebook or Twitter you will get the updates to these pages on Facebook or Twitter. There are links in the footer of all pages. Just click on the appropriate link and then do what ever you have to do to like or follow the page when you get to the destination.
The robots that post to the social media sites generally operate within a few minutes of the update.
Text Message
If you follow on Twitter, you can set up @Floridaagility for notification by text message.
News reader (RSS - Really Simple Syndication)
This is the most anonymous of the various options. This means that I will not know that you have subscribed. It is slightly more hassle to set up and if at some point in time I need to change the feed for some reason, you may have to adapt (be sure to follow the news).
A news reader is an application (web or device resident) that just checks for new content on your selected sites. The reader will organize and format the news articles for you. You will normally just see the article title with some text to give you a sense of the content. You can then click on it for more text or take you the the web page.
Synchronization services remember the sites that you are subscribed to and allow you to stop reading on one device and pick up reading where you left off on another device. There are a number of synchronization services and if the applications you choose for your various devices support the same synchronization service you can move seamlessly between devices with different applications.
There are a lot of news readers available. There are web based readers and device resident readers for Mac, PC, tablet and phones. If a particular reader is available on both desktop and mobile devices, it will likely have synchronization services between the devices. I currently use News Explorer on my Mac and i-devices which synchronizes via iCloud.
If you click on the "Subscribe to RSS feed" links a number of different things may happen depending on your system. If you have a news reader on your device and your web browser knows to open it for RSS feeds, it may open the application and start the subscription process. Otherwise, it may open a page with a bunch of nasty looking XML code. If this happens, just copy the address in the address bar and go to your news reader application and paste it in the appropriate place.
If you want to use a web based reader or have a problem clicking on the link, just "right click" on the appropriate "subscribe to RSS feed" and select "copy link". Then go to your web based reader or device application and paste the address where required.
You will need to subscribe to each feed individually.
On the Agility Blogs page, there are links to a number of agility blogs. Most of these will have RSS feeds and maybe email or social media options. You will find the AKC judges blog there which often has some interesting information.