notify
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Instagram will notify you before it disables your account
Instagram is making a few changes to the way it disables accounts. Currently, the platform removes accounts with a certain percentage of violating content. But it's rolling out a new policy that will also allow it to disable accounts with a certain number of violations in a given timeframe.
Facebook kills its little-known Notify app
Remember Facebook's Notify app? No? Well then, it has gone into the ether before you even knew it. The social network is shutting it down after launching it merely seven months ago. Notify was designed to send notifications from a curated list of news sources -- you could pick from its content partners, including Bloomberg Business, CNN and The New York Times -- to your lock screen. You could even follow specific parts of a publication, such as the sports section, instead of the whole thing. In a statement the social network sent out, it said that it'll begin integrating Notify's features into other products like Messenger on Wednesday. It will also pull Notify from the App Store.
Facebook's Notify news app sends headlines to your lock screen
If you're an iPhone user who feels like they don't quite have enough notifications being pushed to your lock screen, fear not -- Facebook has you covered. The company just released a new app called Notify that is focused on bringing you notifications for a curated set of news and events that you mercifully can pick and choose yourself. Content is grouped by expected categories like business, culture, entertainment,food and drink and so on. Once you dig into a category, you're presented with a list of stations that tell you exactly what kind of alerts it'll deliver.
Facebook reportedly launching a standalone news app next week
According to Financial Times, Facebook will be releasing yet another standalone app. The yet-to-be-released Notify app will feature news from media partners like The Washington Post, CBS and Vogue. Users will receive alerts when one of the outlets publishes an article and it becomes available within the app. Unlike Instant Articles -- which embed articles within the main Facebook app -- Notify will be a one-trick pony. Both the app and in-app features are meant to reduce the load time of stories and give the social network the opportunity to become the go-to destination for news from multiple sources. If the app does emerge from the company next week, it'll join a growing number of single-use apps the company has released over the years including, Messenger, Poke, Camera, Rooms, Slingshot, Groups and Pages. [Image credit: Shutterstock]
Notify keeps an eye on your Gmail inbox
I, like many people, am constantly checking my email. No matter where I am, I'm either getting messages pushed to my iPhone or Mail is checking for new ones every minute. A new app is promising to make using Gmail and checking for messages much, much easier. Notify, a new free application by Vibealicious Apps, puts a small button in your menubar of your Mac that keeps track of unread messages. The app, which was released less than 24 hours ago has already received over 3200 downloads and is quickly making a name for itself. Notify's developers consider it "like a menubar app, but better" explaining that the application boasts a much better user interface and much more functionality than traditionally found in menubar apps and buttons. The application has a lot of cool features including: Support for multiple accounts Tabbed interface Growl integration Sleek, simple UI The developer promises that Notify will continue to evolve, adding that the next major release of the app will support any IMAP email client as opposed to just Gmail. They're also working on support for Google Apps, in-app replies and the ability to create and send new messages directly from your menubar. The app is also promised to be "freeware forever", according to the developer's twitter. Some shots of Notify in action: %Gallery-70736%
What to do when a player dies
This AP story is making its way around the community -- Jerald Spangleberg's daughter was faced with a growing problem when he passed a way: figuring out how to notify the guy's in-game friends. As online relationships grow more and more prevalent, relatives of those who pass away are often having trouble notifying some of the deceased closest friends. Even Blizzard can't help in this situation, apparently -- they have no policy or rules to deal with players who have died, and no way for relatives to log in to the game without the password to let guilds know what has happened.You might suggest that these relationships aren't that big a deal, but when you think that guildies are encountered almost nightly, while real-life friends connect only when schedules allow (maybe once or twice a week), you can see why it might be important to let the ingame associates know what has happened. Unfortunately, all of the solutions so far are pretty morbid -- there are sites that will send email for you, or some players have left lists of contacts to reach when they move on.The importance of online relationships is likely to increase in the future if the past few years are any indication. And given that the average player is getting older even as they're making more and stronger friends online, it might not be long until we've got a much better solution to deal with this problem.
Google Reader Notifier for Mac OS X
I posted earlier this month of my love for the recently refreshed Google Reader, though for many users it's still missing one key feature: a notification utility for new headlines. Some newsreader apps and services have all sorts of widgets and menubar apps that can notify users of new content in their favorite feeds, and now the new Google Reader has one as well, the Google Reader Notifier (unofficial, not provided by Google). Based on GROSX (which worked on the previous version of Google Reader), this notifier can check your entire Google Reader account for new headlines, or you can give it a specific label to watch. While the Google Reader Notifier it doesn't provide popup notifications like Google's official notifiers, it can display an unread count. One downside to those who aren't quite as RSS obsessed as others is that it can only be set to check at intervals of 5, 10 or 30 minutes - there are no lengthier options like 1 hour, 3 hours, etc. Still, this is a nice utility that shakes hands well with a Google Labs service.Google Reader Notifier is free and available from the developer's site.
Apple sending battery recall emails to registered users
If there was ever a good reason to register a product like a notebook, being warned that it might catch fire, and getting the chance to avoid said fire, is as good as any in our book. We're receiving reports that Apple has begun sending emails to registered owners of iBooks and PowerBooks, announcing the recent recall and offering to get the party (of sorts) started. It would've been nice to hear this tactic being used when such a serious recall was first announced, but this is probably a good way to get the word out to any owners who might not keep up on Apple nerdery.
VersionTracker offers DivX Pro license with subscription purchase
VersionTracker has announced a new bundle offer included with purchases of VersionTracker Pro subscriptions. For the first 350 who purchase, renew or extend a VersionTracker Pro subscription, they will receive a free license to the new DivX Pro (a $19.99 value), which we blogged last month. DivX, as you might remember, is a fairly popular video codec used on the internet and compatible with other devices such as DVD players and PDAs. VersionTracker Pro, if you need a refresher, is "an automated, simple and cost-effective way to inventory and keep all your software current and secure". It is a service and software package (also a widget, of course) that allows you to view new versions of just the software you use, manage the downloading and install of new packages, and more. VersionTracker Pro costs $49.99/year for up to three Macs.If you're interested, we recommend you run (don't walk!) as they only have 350 DivX licenses to hand out on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Widget Watch: eBay Watcher 3.0
If your picture is hanging on eBay's 'Favorite Customers of All Time' award wall, this eBay Watcher widget might be just for you. As a powerhouse eBay monitoring tool, this widget has it all: up to three items can be watched at once, audio feedback for price changes and auction ending, Growl notifications, automatic refreshing at user-specified intervals, localized display labels for German, French, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Italian and even a world clock. Just about the only thing this widget is missing is a kitchen sink, though I'm sure an eBay widget could help you even with that minor setback.One complaint I have about this widget is the explanation as to why you should register it from Hawk Innovations. Discussions about whether one should charge money for a widget aside, check it out: "Our demo version has a 50-50 chance of working. Make sure your widget works 100% of the time by registering now!" Cryptic as that may be, I think it deserves at least a few points for being one of the more... unique demo limitations I've seen.So, a '50-50 chance of working' demo is available, and a license (which includes two machines) will run a mere $5. Hey: nobody said making eBay's 'favorite customers' wall was free.
Hack iCal to present alarms through Growl
If you're a Growl fanatic, or maybe iCal's alarms just aren't cutting it for you, a forum thread at cocoaforge might provide you with some options for getting iCal and Growl to shake hands. Discussion has included various methods of using AppleScript, hacking the innards of iCal and even replacing the GUI option of emailing a reminder with sending it to Growl. Either way, it doesn't sound like any of the methods are for the meek of heart, so if you don't feel like digging around in application bundles and AppleScript, you might want to wait for a prettier solution.[via Hawk Wings]
Gmail-Growl Utility 1.7
The Gmail-Growl Utility that adds some seriously handy features to Google's official Gmail Notifier has been updated with a functionality face-lift and some fixes. It now has an option to toggle on/off Growl notifications for those times when you just need silence, and in Mac OS X Tiger you can now drag and drop notification field elements such as sender, subject and date, to build the actual notification you want to see (Panther users can still copy/paste text blocks to customize this notification).Gmail-Growl Utility has also gone fully universal as long as you're using Google's latest Notifier version (1.8.2). It is also donationware (bonus points: the dev donates 10% to charity) and available from Waffle Software.
Strange app of the day: UnPlugged
I'm still scratching my head on this app, but I figured I'd post it and maybe you guys could help make sense of how an app like this would be useful. UnPlugged is a one-trick pony with the sole purpose of (drum roll please) notifying you when your Mac's power cable is unplugged. It can use Growl to notify you, or a simple alert window in case Growl isn't your cup of tea.Now, how is this useful? To double-check: If a desktop Mac's power cable comes unplugged either from the wall or the Mac itself, it just shuts off, right? As far as I know, Apple hasn't built any whiz-bang UPS technology into their recent desktops. So that leaves iBooks and PowerBooks. Is there some kind of an environment or fairly typical situations people are getting themselves into where they wouldn't know if a power cable became unplugged, given that it attaches right on the side of the machine they're working on? Sound off, if you could, and help make sense of this peculiar little app.UnPlugged is donationware, requires 10.3.9 or higher and is available from brik software.
