Alameda Power & Telecom RSS

Keep up to date with the Alameda Power & Telecom News and with the meetings of Alameda's Public Utilities Board. Our RSS feeds will inform you when fresh content appears in these areas of the site.

What is RSS?

RSS allows you to see when sites from all over the internet have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and articles (or even audio files, photographs or video) in one place, as soon as they are published, without having to remember to visit each site every day.

It takes the hassle out of staying up-to-date, by showing you the very latest information that you are interested in.

There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but the popular vote is going for 'Really Simple Syndication'. RSS feeds are just a special kind of web page, designed to be read by computers rather than people.

Not all websites currently provide RSS feeds, but it is growing rapidly in popularity and many others, including such news sites as the New York Times, BBC News and SFGate.com, do provide it.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want to receive in your news reader, by finding and subscribing to the relevant RSS feeds. For example, if you want Alameda P&T News, look for the orange "RSS" button in the left navigation column. If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by copying and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most other sites that offer RSS feeds use a similar orange RSS button, but some may just have a normal web link to the feed.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for RSS feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to RSS feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.

Where do I get an RSS News Reader?

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time. Windows-based news readers include:

Macintosh-based news readers include:

Web-based options include:

Choose your reader and then copy and paste the URL of any news feed into the application's "subscribe" dialogue.

Some browsers (such as Firefox and Opera for all platforms and Safari 2.0 for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger) natively read RSS feeds.

Alameda P&T offers RSS as a free service to any individual user or non-profit organization subject to the following terms and conditions:

Use will be for non-commercial purposes.

Use is limited to platforms in which a functional link is made available allowing immediate display of the full article at Alameda Power & Telecom as specified in the code.

Use is accompanied by proper attribution to Alameda Power & Telecom as the source.

By accessing our RSS service you are indicating your understanding and agreement that you will not use Alameda P&T RSS in contravention of the above conditions. Alameda Power & Telecom reserves the right to discontinue this service at any time and further reserves the right to request the immediate cessation of any specific use of its RSS service.