is the acronym for Extensible Markup Language. An
open standard for exchanging structured documents and data over the
Internet that was introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in
November 1996.
XML
is a popular way for websites to syndicate their content. Lighthouse
Christian Church publishes content (such as the Events Calendar) in an
XML feed. When you subscribe to an XML feed, you can receive that
content as soon as it's published, without the need to visit the
Lighthouse Christian Church website. Subscribing to an XML feed is free.
Is
it like email?
Yes,
XML is similar in many ways to email. Like email, you can subscribe to
the content you want and have it sent directly to you. However, XML has
several advantages over email. You don't have to provide any personal
information (like an email address) when you subscribe to an XML feed,
and you don't have to go through a complicated process to unsubscribe
from a feed--unsubscribing is just a matter of deleting that feed. In
short, XML is safer and easier to manage than email.
How
do I read an XML feed?
To
read an XML feed such as our Events Calendar feed, you'll need to use a
program that can receive and read XML. Some email programs (such as Thunderbird) have the ability
to read XML feeds built-in, and there are programs available to add
XML-reading capability to other email programs like Outlook. However,
many people use programs called XML readers to manage and read their
XML subscriptions. There are many XML readers available for all
computer platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), and many of them are
free. One of the more popular free XML readers is FeedReader;
there are many others available to try out, as a Google search will
reveal.
If
you don't want to use a separate program to read XML feeds, there are
several web-based services that let you read and manage XML feeds
online using your normal web browser. Bloglines
is one such service.
So
how do I subscribe to a Lighthouse Christian Church XML feed?
Subscribing to a Lighthouse Christian Church XML
feed is fairly straightforward:
1. Set
up a program to read XML feeds (see "How do I read an XML
feed?" above for details on doing this).
2. Create a new channel in your XML reader program with the URL of the
feed to which you'd like to subscribe. Each XML reader program has its
own way of subscribing to a feed, so follow the instructions for
whichever program you're using. The URL for the Lighthouse Christian
Church Events Calendar feed is
www.google.com/calendar/feeds/i761tvcvqe7tb16s05a9t8c7mc@group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.
3. That's
it! Once you've created your new channel, you are subscribed to that
feed and will receive new content automatically whenever it is posted.
is a
format that allows you to view the Lighthouse Christian Church Events
Calendar using any product that supports the iCal format (like iCal for
Mac.)
