For quite a few years now, I've published regular PhotoTips here at Earthbound Light. Taking advantage of a growing technology called RSS, new tips are now available for syndication.

You may have started noticing this icon on some of the websites you visit. Guess what? RSS feeds are commonly denoted this way. The XML icon here support to the PhotoTips RSS feed, or you can also use the URL: http://www.earthboundlight.com/subscribe/phototips.xml.

Please note that this is not a normal web page, as it is written in XML, not HTML. It will display as a color-coded tree view in many web browsers, but you really need a different application to make use of it. Thankfully, there are a number of good options available out there. Read on to find out more.

What is RSS?

RSS, short for "Really Simple Syndication," is a standard based on XML that provides an easy way to publish and syndicate content in a way that can be read by other applications. There are currently two main versions of RSS that are unfortunately not compatible with each other, but luckily most applications that read RSS understand all of them. For the curious, Earthbound Light is currently published as RSS 1.0.

So, what can you do with RSS?

RSS is everywhere these days, even if you don't actually realize it's RSS. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer provide native support to read RSS feeds. The current version of Microsoft Outlook can read RSS directly too. Widgets in OS X or Windows Vista do RSS. There are countless other programs and services that understand RSS too. Just Google for "RSS Reader" to see what I mean. RSS is the future, and the future is now.

There's no way I can tell you how to add Earthbound Light Photography Tips to your RSS reader simply because there are so many of them. Most at least try to be easy to use though so if yours seems too complicated, it's probably time to get a different one. Hint: Google for "RSS Reader."

Note that there is no charge and you do not need to provide an email address in order to subscribe directly to the RSS feed. Just point your RSS reader at this link and you're done:

You can also use RSS feeds to add content to your weblog ("blog") or other website. Doing so is beyond the scope of what I can cover here though, but there are resources available online that should get you started with syndication.

Want to subscribe to PhotoTips via email?

Google FeedBurner makes it possible to subscribe to RSS feeds including Earthbound Light PhotoTips via email. To subscribe, click here. After submitting the form, you will receive a confirmation email from FeedBurner.

Now on Facebook too

The NetworkedBlogs application on Facebook gives members there one more way to follow my weekly PhotoTip articles. Read them on the Facebook Earthbound Light page or add them to your own Wall.

Want an easy way to add PhotoTips to your site?

If you have a website, you can also add an RSS feed directly to it to share Earthbound Light Photography Tips with your readers. Blogger, TypePad and other services make this easy, but you can roll your own on any website if you have the coding skills to do so.

If you want to add Earthbound Light PhotoTips to your site without the hassle of dealling with XML and RSS directly though, click here for the nifty PhotoTip Feed Generator. Here at Earthbound Light, it's my pleasure to go the extra mile to help out fans of my blog.

What are the terms of use?

While the full text of the PhotoTips (as will all other site contents) on the Earthbound Light site are copyrighted © 2000-2023 by Bob Johnson, Earthbound Light and may not be copied or redistributed in any form, the PhotoTips feed itself is licensed under a Creative Commons License. In short, this license permits you to freely use the XML feed contents for non-commercial purposes so long as full credit is given. Refer to the Creative Commons site for full details. Additionally, we reserve the right to require you to cease distributing this feed at any time for any reason.

Want to add Earthbound Light PhotoTips to your website or blog the easy way? Click here to generate some simple code you can paste on your site.

Mobile version via mofuse

A new photo tip is posted each Sunday, so please check back regularly.

Software error:

Can't locate EBL/Config.pm in @INC (you may need to install the EBL::Config module) (@INC contains: .. /usr/local/lib64/perl5/5.32 /usr/local/share/perl5/5.32 /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/lib64/perl5 /usr/share/perl5) at /services/webpages/e/a/earthboundlight.com/cgi-bin/phototips.pl line 5.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /services/webpages/e/a/earthboundlight.com/cgi-bin/phototips.pl line 5.

For help, please send mail to the webmaster (or webmaster), giving this error message and the time and date of the error.