Recently as a pet project, for getting in bed with Windows Phone and Windows 8 development, I built a simple app for receiving custom push notifications from external sources that could satisfy needs of the geek crowd (WARNING: have in mind app does nothing on it's own, unless you can integrate with API).
Project page:
https://pushalot.com
API documentation:
https://pushalot.com/api
Windows Phone app:
Pushalot | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store
Windows 8 app:
Pushalot | Windows Store
Or read more here as quoted from about page:
What is Pushalot?
Pushalot is a platform for receiving custom push notifications to connected devices running Windows Phone or Windows 8. Custom means that those push notifications can be sent from virtually any source, as long as that source can interact with our open REST API.
But doesn't email get the job done?
Yes it does and for most people there is no reason to actually use external app in place of simple mail service, since after all all mobile platforms already support fancy push notifications for newly received mail messages. Yet for some people email is for work, while texting is for play. Various notifications and status updates fit in neither category and therefore comes the need for other tool to receive and manage them. For those kind of situations we provided SMTP gateway API, so that you could instantly integrate email notification source with our platform. For example you could use Pushalot to set up IFTTT email channel or receive NAS disk health email alerts.
How does it work?
Pushalot works by utilizing authorization tokens. Those tokens represent authorizations for sending messages to your account made for specific app notification source. By default there is one authorization made for built in api app, but you can create more custom app sources that will give you more authorization tokens and in turn allow for finer control of access, since every token is different and can be configured to make messages silent or mark them as important.
How do I set it up?
It may be explained in few steps:
- Register on our site to create account.
- Download client apps from appropriate stores.
- Sign in into apps to link devices.
- From account management panel on this site in authorizations section get your authentication token.
- Pass that token to compatible 3rd party apps or use token email address to connect via SMTP gateway.
- Receive notifications on devices!
I don't get it, why should I use it?
Let's make something clear, our platform is not for everyone. If the source of the push notification you wish to receive is not integrated with us via web API or does not support sending emails that you could route through our SMTP gateway then, it's up to you to integrate with us. If you don't know how to do it, then tough luck, it just won't work on it's own. In time we may integrate more notification sources, but until then there is not much to be done.
