Skip to main content

Specto – Growl like system notification for Linux

If you remember, just days ago I wrote about a software called Snarl inspired by the much famous Growl application for Mac OSX. Growl allowed users to receive alerts from installed software and other system alerts through a universal notification system. Specto is a similar tool but for Linux.

Specto is a desktop application that watches events and alerts and then trigger notifications. But Specto does more than just display alerts from other application. It’s completely configurable allowing the users to create new watches such as website updates, emails, file and folder changes, system processes, etc. For example, Specto can watch a website for updates like RSS feed, or an image, etc, and notify you when there is activity. For most part, Specto stays out of your way and only shows up when there are new events or alerts.

specto2 

specto1 

Specto can watch the following type of events:

  • Email: checks any POP email account for unread mail
  • Facebook: notifies you of private messages, wall posts, notifications and requests in your Facebook account
  • Google Reader: checks for unread items in your Google Reader account
  • Website or RSS feed: watch a web page or web feed, and notify you when it has been updated
  • Folders: notifies when the contents inside the watched folders are changed
  • File: notifies when the file is modified
  • Port: notifies when an application starts/stop using a socket
  • Process: notifies when the process with a matching name starts or stop

Users can adjust the refresh interval which can be as small as a few seconds and as far apart as days.

Specto requires the Python libraries to compile and run.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Record CPU and Memory Usage Over Time in Windows?

Whenever the computer is lagging or some application is taking too long to respond, we usually fire up task manager and look under the Performance tab or under Processes to check on processor utilization or the amount of free memory available. The task manager is ideal for real-time analysis of CPU and memory utilization. It even displays a short history of CPU utilization in the form of a graph. You get a small time-window, about 30 seconds or so, depending on how large the viewing area is.

How to Schedule Changes to Your Facebook Page Cover Photo

Facebook’s current layout, the so called Timeline, features a prominent, large cover photo that some people are using in a lot of different creative ways. Timeline is also available for Facebook Pages that people can use to promote their website or business or event. Although you can change the cover photo as often as you like, it’s meant to be static – something which you design and leave it for at least a few weeks or months like a redesigned website. However, there are times when you may want to change the cover photo frequently and periodically to match event dates or some special promotion that you are running or plan to run. So, here is how you can do that.

Diagram 101: Different Types of Diagrams and When To Use Them

Diagrams are a great way to visualize information and convey meaning. The problem is that there’s too many different types of diagrams, so it can be hard to know which ones you should use in any given situation. To help you out, we’ve created this diagram that lays out the 7 most common types of diagrams and when they’re best used: