Many obituaries in The Times are published online before they appear in the newspaper. Using a simple system called RSS, you can be alerted as soon as they appear.

The address for our obituaries RSS feed is:

http://timesonline.co.uk/
feeds/rss/obituaries.xml

You can use RSS feeds in lots of different ways:

1) Using your browser

If you use a modern browser like Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer 7, you can create a special bookmark to follow an RSS feed. If you see an orange logo - like the one above - on your browser toolbar, then click on it and you'll be invited to make a Live Bookmark. Alternatively, click on this link: Times Obituaries RSS Feed and you should be able to create a bookmark. If you just see a page of code then it's not working, and you'll have to try one of the other methods.

2) Using an RSS reader

If you read a lot of RSS feeds (you can subscribe to feeds from numerous newspapers, blogs and other news services), you might want to start using an RSS reader. Within the Times Online team, we use sites like Bloglines, Google Reader and Netvibes which make it easy to manage and read dozens of feeds.

3) Turn the RSS feed into an email update

RSSFWD is a free service which takes an RSS feed and turns it into an email. It is not connected with Times Online, so we can't take any responsibility for it. If you follow this link: Times Obituaries by email , you will be taken to a page asking for your email address and asking how often you want to get mails.

4) Display Times Obituaries on your Google homepage

If you have a customised iGoogle homepage, you can add a Times Obituaries module by clicking on this button.

Please let me know in the comments how you get along. There are still a few glitches - both in our RSS system and in the way RSS is used by other services. But once you get it up and running, you might wonder how you every got by without it.

Read more about RSS and see all the RSS feeds available from Times Online.