Release notes for 0.9

A first draft of the release notes for 0.9. Please help me check 

* if I didn't miss anything
* if my (subjective) distinction between new features and improvements is ok
* if there are any backwards incompatabilities that I didn't notice
* my wording

Thanks!
What is get_alarms() ? - I guess it's in alams.py, shouldn't we add an import for it so people know where it is - I have to say, I'm not a fan of these global functions - I would much prefer a method on Alarm for this (maybe static if needed), or a partent object Alarms that contains these methods.