>How do you determine if a host (like a free one) can use rss
>or not?

Hi Ed,

I'm planning on you reporting back on the ones that offer RSS and not.

On this thread Top Hat lists social bookmarking sites that offer RSS.
http://www.dombom.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=64&forum=DCForumID42

We know blogger offers RSS, as does wordpress and most blog hosts will.

I think both Squidoo and Hubpages do.

Any self hosted sites that can be FTPed to can use ZZ Tuel to add RSS.

As you come across resources, you'll need to check on their RSS capabilities.