How to Set Up TUAW in the RSS Visualizer

By C.K. Sample, III

There's a nifty little new screen saver in Tiger that you've probably seen mentioned around the web, called the RSS Visualizer.  This screen saver swirls the text from a selected RSS feed around the screen so that you can read snippets from a featured feed and hit a corresponding number on your keyboard to launch a particular post that interests you in your default web browser.

This how-to will walk you through the steps necessary to set up TUAW as your feed of choice in the RSS Visualizer.

Here's the steps, broken down into their most basic form:

  1. Launch Safari and go to TUAW.com.  It should be your homepage. ;-)
  2. In the Address Bar, click on the blue RSS button next to our main page.
  3. Our RSS feed will pop up in Safari.  Bookmark the RSS feed, either by clicking the plus sign next to the Address Window, by choosing
    Bookmarks–>Add Bookmark from the menu, or by simply typing Apple /
    Command + D    . Feel free to put the bookmark wherever you like (although it might be best to organize it under Mac in the RSS feeds folder).
  4. After you have bookmarked our RSS feed, launch the System Preferences and select the Desktop & Screen Saver  control panel.
  5. After you have the Desktop & Screen Saver Control Panel open, select the Screen Saver tab.  Choose the RSS Visualizer as your screen saver in the left hand menu.  Now click on the Options... button.
  6. Scroll through the Safari RSS feeds until you spot The Unofficial Apple Weblog feed.  Click on it and then select Done. 
  7. You're done.  Now any time your screen saver comes up, you'll get a nice dose of TUAW goodness in swirling animated text. Have fun.

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