You can subscribe to content on this site via one of the many RSS feeds on this site. There are feeds for almost everything you might want to track, whether you want to follow comments on a particular blog entry or are keeping an eye out for new forum posts.
The technical bit: RSS, often referred to as Really Simple Syndication is a file format that allows you to subscribe to the content on this website – or any website that offers it. RSS describes sequences of entries and becomes a ‘feed’ because the content of the file is updated when the content of the website changes. Your RSS reader will register that there has been a change and will notify you of those changes. For example, when a new post is added to The Ball 2014 blog, your reader will show you the title and a short summary of the entry. You can choose whether to follow a link to the actual blog entry on this website, and your preferred browser should come to the front and load the appropriate page.
You may often see a link on a site that says ‘Syndicate this site’ or a graphic such as this one: These indicate that you can subscribe to the content of the site. Clicking directly on the link will often lead you to a page of code which may not look intelligible. That’s the file in all its raw glory for you. Some browsers have RSS readers built in to them and will be a bit kinder to you – Safari on Mac OSX is particularly friendly in this respect. What you’ll want to do with an RSS link is to copy the link (right-click on the link on a PC, Ctrl-click on a Mac) and paste it into the ‘Subscribe’ box of your RSS reader software (see below for some choices) and voila!