Boxcar

Devs: Open-Source Resource Page

journeyscript — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:00:05 -0600

We’d love to help you get started creating your own Boxcar provider.

So we decided to help you out.

Just for you, we’ve collated a great list of useful open-source tools & resources. :)

The link: http://boxcar.io/open-source

The list:

Explore, pass it on, let us know your favorites and feel free to suggest your own!

Wanna Be a Boxcar Provider?

journeyscript — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:07:00 -0600

Have some valuable updates and information you want to push out to a fan base or your client list or maybe your organization?

Even if you’re not a developer, you can now create providers and subscribe Boxcar users online without writing code. You’ll send out messages to your subscribers, sort of like setting up a mailing list, but with push instead of email.

Sound cool? You got that right!

With Boxcar, it’s simple - we’ve made the process SUPER easy. 3 steps. Seriously.

And now, we’ve also added a helpful feature - you can send an update to specific users individually via the web interface (read, again, EASY). Check it out:

Questions? Let us know - we’re here to help. Boxcar aims to be useful AND fun.

What kind of service could *you* share using Boxcar? We’re all ears.

Timely Timestamps

journeyscript — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:10:21 -0600

Your first bit of new Boxcar awesome for 2012 comes via the web and desktop versions.

Timely timestamps.

This means that now your timestamps will update dynamically, even as you view them, not just when you refresh.

Just another way we’re keeping you up to date while you’re on the go this new year.

Our 2011 Holiday Wish

journeyscript — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:05 -0600

You know, we’ve got some pretty awesome fans. Yeah, we’re talking about you.

We’ve got a lot of great things cooking behind-the-scenes here, and every day we make Boxcar even better.

We’ve changed our support system, and are working on responding more promptly to technical concerns.

We’re working on both fun and useful tweaks to the app itself.

And we keep getting awesome shout-outs and feedback from our fans that lets us know we’re on the right track.

So our holiday wish this year is simple. We want even more people to know about Boxcar.

Would you do us a favor? Right now, send a quick email, post a brief Facebook status, or maybe tweet (#boxcarbrilliant is a great hashtag) and let at least one friend know about what we do and what ya like about us. It’d mean a ton.

Happy holidays, and thanks so much for another terrific year - we can’t wait to roll out even more awesome in 2012.

In Case You Hadn't Heard - Facebook Fixed!

journeyscript — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:00:05 -0600

The good news just keeps rolling in…

We just recently found and implemented a fix for those of you who had been having Facebook issues. If that’s not you - good! If it is, we appreciate your patience.

Facebook recently updated its authentication process, so newer users were getting a different token that we weren’t recognizing.

We got back to affected users (who’d contacted us via Twitter or our help portal) yesterday after implementing the fix.

We started hearing all-clear reports come back in steadily even before we’d updated users.

So if you had troubles accessing your Facebook account via Boxcar lately - go check it out! It works! ;)

More great news from Boxcar to brighten your holiday season. Happy New Year!

Brief Maintenance Tonight @ 10 p.m. CST

journeyscript — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:30:16 -0600

Just an fyi. One hour. 10 p.m. CST. You can handle it. ;)

You’ll miss us, we know…

…but hey - it’s so we can add even more awesomeness to Boxcar over the next few weeks. It’s worth it.

We’ll be back shortly! See you then!

End of Year Cleaning (Gowalla)

journeyscript — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:18:56 -0600

By now, you may have heard that Gowalla will be closing down by the end of January. You can read about it in this CNET article.

With this change, we’re also closing down the Boxcar Gowalla update service as of today.

If you’re into location-based stuff or you missed our previous posts, you’ll want to check out our providers for Foursquare, IsSanFranciscoShaking, and Doggy.

And if you’re a developer, we’d love to see what location-based ideas you come up with to integrate with Boxcar for notifications.

We know change takes getting used to - but we want to make sure you know that we’ve got lots of good changes and updates planned for the new year. Out with the old, in with the new! Consider it spring cleaning, and our way of keeping your Boxcar inbox fresh, new, and up-to-date.

Newsflash! Craigslist RSS Feeds Now Work With Boxcar!

journeyscript — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:33:49 -0600

Attention, Craigslist shoppers!

Turns out there was a little bug that meant RSS feeds worked…except in the case of Craigslist.

The good news is, that’s now fixed, and you can get great updates for Craigslist feeds with Boxcar!

Thanks to our fabulous frugal Boxcar fans for your patience.

Happy holidays, and happy armchair shopping!

It's Time to Track Santa!

journeyscript — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:31:05 -0600

Psst…it’s the holiday season…did you know? Yep, sneaked up on us too.

But here we are, and with all the festivities, and the holiday cheer, and the good food, and the shopping, and seeing friends and family…we know you’re also kinda curious (if you’re not, your kids are!) where Santa might be in his travels.

For this important information, we’ve once again got you covered - our NORAD Santa service will keep you updated with Santa’s latest whereabouts. Add it here!

You won’t get an update right away, but rest assured, when there’s new reports, you’ll hear. And oh, by the way, the folks at NORAD have a great list of FAQ’s…check it out. :)

And don’t forget to tell your friends - they’ll want to know too.

- The Friendly Elves at Boxcar

Welcome aboard, Kevin! We’re going to need a bigger boat!

jdg — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:30:53 -0600

Welcome aboard, Kevin! We’re going to need a bigger boat!

[New Provider] - Dog Lovers, Check this Out!

journeyscript — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:31:05 -0600

Dog-lovers, listen up.

This may be one of the coolest Boxcar providers we’ve featured yet. It’s just that awesome.

The Doggy provider was created by Bernhard Üllenberg, of Germany.

And just so we don’t get your hopes up too much, we’ll go ahead and let our English-speaking users know that, yes, this provider is currently specific to locations in Germany.

In other words, we’re telling you about a really cool *concept* that is applicable to anywhere, and may well show up as a provider you can use someday, even if you don’t speak German. Got it? Ja? Das is gut. So keep reading, already.

Short version: This location-based site for dog owners offers local information and some really cool services, such as allowing you to connect with other dog owners in the area, get notifications about threats like poisoned food, and even track your walks.

We’ll let Bernhard tell you more:

A. B.

A. The service is very much organized around your actual location. So you start with a page with status info (new messages, new friend-requests), news about lost dogs, and alerts about poisoned food (horrible threat to dogs) in your area.

B. Then we have a Radar, where you can see yourself and other users (if allowed by them) doing their dog walks. This helps you to decide where and with whom you’d like to share your dog-walk-time.

It’s also the central page to start to interact with other users: See their public profile, send a message, make a friend request.

C. D.

C. The idea behind the service is to stay in contact with other dog owners without the need to exchange personal information (phone number, name, address, etc.). When you meet somebody new on your walk, you tell him or her about the website and your username. Since registering is a matter of seconds (name, email, password and zip) you can befriend right on the spot. For communication there is a internal post system.

D. On the Android platform* (with Firefox) you can also track your walks. Motivate yourself to walk more and longer. We think about a point system (like other check-in-services) to make it a bit competitive.

E. (to the left)

Statistics about your dog walks in the past. (Tracking and statistics are private data.)

Recently we also added social sharing features, where you have a simple Facebook/Twitter-style diary with a plain privacy model (private, public, for friends).

We have a very high percentage of females (approx. 80%) and some people think about our service as a dating site for dogs. ;)

I started out very much focused on creating a local vibrant community in Düsseldorf (and we were glad to get good press), before we extend it to other cities.

Boxcar allows us to push the internal messages on time between users. As a website, we love having the ability to feature instant communication, which is typically a capability only or primarily of apps.

You can sign up for the service here. Guten tag! - Bernhard Üllenberg

*Android users, we’re making progress on having Boxcar for you guys - stay tuned!

[New Provider] Mint (Web Analytics) & Boxcar-Pepper!

journeyscript — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:30:05 -0600

Want to spice up your web analytics and reporting? Mint is the service for you - simplicity and spice, in the form of a flexible dashboard that allows you to easily view visits, referrers, popular pages and searches, and more.

A single site license is just $30, so go check it out and browse some of the other cool features Mint has to offer!

And we bet you can guess what we’re going to say next…

Mint likes to call its plug-ins “Pepper,” and yep, you guessed it, there’s now a Boxcar-Pepper. In other words, not only can you have a cool and versatile dashboard…you can also get push notifications for those same stats, customizable to your preferences.

Unique visitors? Unique referrals? Page views? Learn when it happens.

Developers & Coders: Boxcar with Hook.io!

journeyscript — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:46:42 -0600

A while back a guy named Russ Bradberry created a node module that implements a node client for Boxcar’s APIs. Per Ejeklint, from Sweden, recently decided to take that functionality one step further and wrap it into a working hook with hook.io.

As he put it, “During my spare time I keep an eye on emerging technologies and quite recently discovered node.js and its impressive ecosystem. One particular node framework of interest is hook.io, an endeavor to develop a small and effective event based framework for just about any kind of I/O. You can see it as an Enterprise Service Bus framework for node. With hook.io it becomes very easy to develop highly modularized applications with excellent decoupling and minimal dependencies between modules.”

Per also wrote an “introduction for dummies” that further explains the idea.

Per decided to write his own hook and make it available, so now it’s drop-dead-easy to incorporate Boxcar notifications to hook.io-based applications. Just get the API keys you need from Boxcar, install hook.io-boxcar, create your configuration file and start it up.

Voilá! You can then send notifications from any node process just by calling, for example:

hook.emit('boxcar::broadcast', 'Service XYZ up and running again!');

A real beauty of hook.io is that one doesn’t even have to stop any processes to deploy it. Just start the hook and it starts listening for the events that triggers it.

You can do all kinds of cool things with the hook.io functionality and Boxcar integration. Per told us his summer house is on the largest island in the Baltic Sea, and will soon be monitored and remote controlled by a hook.io based application. :)

*Please note: hook.io is now at version 0.8.4 and under rapid development so one can still expect small API changes, and the documentation is very basic.

[New Provider] - Plug Spy: MacBook Protection

journeyscript — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:53:00 -0600

One of the things we love to do is tell you about cool providers that do awesome things AND integrate with Boxcar to give you real-time push notifications when they do!

Today’s topic of choice is Plug-Spy. This useful service is designed to give you instant warnings if someone tries to steal your MacBook or even enter a wrong password in the standard OS X login panel. That way, you’ll get a notification on your phone right away, and can decide what next steps to take.

Plug-Spy integrates seamlessly with Mac OS X and Apple iCloud “Find my Mac,” and will work with the newest generation of MacBooks. No Kensington Lock or Sudden Motion Sensor is required and you don’t have to remember an additional password or shortcut. You can read Plug-Spy’s blog post on the update here.

Plug Spy auto-activates when your screen is locked and starts an annoying high volume alert sound and sends a Growl (and now, Boxcar!) notification when your MacBook gets unplugged from the MagSafe power adapter.

With access protection enabled, you will also get notified when someone enters a wrong password in the login panel, tries to access your MacBook with a different user account, or restarts your Mac in Safari Guest mode.

Purchase PlugSpy for just $2.99 from the Apple Mac store or download a free 3-day trial here. Then, while logged into your PlugSpy account, go to the “Access” tab to set up Boxcar notifications.

Type in the email address you use to log into Boxcar with, and click “Test.” Done!

[New Provider] InvestorPA - Australia & New Zealand Stock Exchange Updates!

journeyscript — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:32:06 -0600

Boxcar fans in New Zealand and Australia, or anyone interested in the stock exchanges for both countries (ASX & NZX), now have a new tool at their fingertips through InvestorPA’s integration with Boxcar. Read their blog post here.

It’s simple to sign up for the free service. You can have up to 50 stocks on your watchlist, receive push notifications and email updates, or access updates online.

Once you’re registered, go to your account settings and select “push notifications” to enter the email address associated with your Boxcar account, as shown below!

[New Provider] LeafPing: Track Envato Sales, Referrals, and Comments!

journeyscript — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:56:23 -0600

Envato is a group of online marketplaces that allows freelancers and other creatives to have a place to sell their digital goods (WordPress themes, background music, Flash templates and more).

And Envato fans will be glad to hear that through the hard work and efforts of Justin Scheetz, creator of LeafPing (currently in beta), they can now get notifications of their Envato sales, referrals, and comments through either SMS or Boxcar updates.

To get started, sign in at LeafPing with your Envato credentials. And spread the word!

Goodbye, Google Buzz

jdg — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:48:22 -0600

Today we say goodbye to our friend Google Buzz. As of a few minutes ago, you will no longer be able to add the Google Buzz service to Boxcar, nor will you receive notifications for it.

We hope to add support for Google Plus soon and are patiently waiting on API access for it. As always, stay tuned here for updates.

[New Provider] WhoReadMe - Email Tracking!

journeyscript — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:56:40 -0600

Sometimes, you send an email off…and you have no idea if it’s been read. And where. And when. So you wait.

But you don’t have to sit around waiting for replies.

Now you can get alerts not only when you get important emails (via our Mail Service), but when other people have read your sent emails.

Which is more efficient, more fun, more awesome. And we’re all about awesome.

The trick is appending “.whoreadme.com” to email addresses when you send emails.

You’ll get a notification when your email is opened or forwarded. But guess what?

There’s more coolness on top of that.

More than just giving you a read receipt, WhoReadMe allows you to ALSO learn things like the browser and operating system of the recipient, an estimate of their location and distance from you, duration of read time, and much, much more, including advance scheduling of sending emails out and allowing you to set an expiration date for when emails will be destroyed.

You’ll probably come up with your own uses for this cool service, but some of the ones we can think of include giving yourself a good reason to make a follow-up call (if you haven’t gotten a notification saying an important email’s been opened), subtly checking in on progress of a project, or just plain having fun with the data.

Sound cool? But definitely. Here’s how you can get such coolness:

Sign up at WhoReadMe.com (you’ll get a confirmation email to…confirm!).
Click “Account.” Scroll ALL the way down on the settings page and enter your Boxcar email address (the one you use to log-in to Boxcar) and hit Save!

Yup, we know it’s Wednesday. Hump day. We feel it...

journeyscript — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:49:09 -0600

Yup, we know it’s Wednesday. Hump day. We feel it too.

Here at Boxcar we’re staying nice and busy working on improving our services, adding new ones, and fixing anything that breaks, as usual. Twitter should be back online for all of our users, and we’ve made some great improvements to RSS functionality. Twittelator Neue service is on its way too. Y’all are patient, and we appreciate that.

But it’s still Wednesday. And sometimes, like you, we wish we had a robot to handle the hump days…or maybe several. Or a dog. Or all of the above. So check out Wallace & Gromit (you’ll have to click through to YouTube, but it won’t take you long) and enjoy a laugh with us. You need it. Happy Hump Day!

Coming soon: Boxcat! =)

jdg — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:53:17 -0600

Coming soon: Boxcat! =)