Maybe I should have read the articles first I see their examples are using css now that I am reading them, but the second article has also information about using xsl.  It gives even more possiblilites but css is fine for now if that is easier for you.

The benefit of using xsl would be that additional html markup and text can be added. I was imagining actually putting text in there that descripbes what rss is all about with maybe some links to relevant pages. To me the idea is making it understandable for someone who doesn't know about rss when they click the rss link.

I picture putting something like"

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and allows others to subscribe to your content or include it in their web sites. The following links provide more information about RSS
link
link
maybe a few links to free RSS readers

pretty rss data goes here

I've made the changes to write both a css and an xsl file into the rss.
You can specify the files to use in the web.config using these settings
RSSCSS
RSSXsl

Right now its not pretty but it seems to work.

It will use the Xsl file if the browser supports it otherwise it falls back to using the css file.
If you want to force it to only use css, set RSSXsl = ""

I've committed it to svn.

You mean TortoiseSVN not TortoiseCVS right? They are 2 different things, you need TortoiseSVN not TortoiseCVS.

Once you have TortoiseSVN installed configuring ssh is easy, open windows explorer, then
File>TortoiseSVN >Settings

a dialog box will appear, click the Network tab

in the box for ssh put
C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\TortoisePlink.exe

or browse to that folder and select it

as long as your firewall is not blocking port 22 you are all set.