Specto is a desktop application that will watch for events (website updates, emails, file and folder changes) which we covered a long long time ago.
The latest version of Specto* can be used to notify you about events on websites such as Facebook, Google Reader, Twitter, Last.fm and also email accounts including Gmail, any IMAP or POP3 email account, Evolution and even Google Wave and of course, any website you want to watch for changes.
Specto also supports applications such as: music players (Amarok, Banshee and Rhythmbox), Pidgin and even a port, process, folder or BAZAAR branch.
The Facebook notification only tells you how many new messages, status updates and so on you have in a notifyOSD bubble and Indicator Applet, but the Specto dialog also specifies what the updated items are actually about:
But what I like the most about Specto is that you can basically use it for any website - I for one have always searched for a desktop application that can notify you when the content on a website changes.
Also, the Gmail notification module allows you to only check for new mail from a Label you select - something I've been missing in a lot of Gmail notifiers - just make sure you don't have spaces in the label name! (if you find a fix for using spaces in the label names, please let us know in the comments!)
*Specto is available in the official Ubuntu repositories, however the latest BAZAAR branch has some nice new features and tweaks. Even the version in Maverick Meerkat is older than this package.
Here are the improvements in the latest BZR version:
- DBUS watches (including Pidgin, Evolution, Rhythmbox, and a bunch of others)
- Integration with Ubuntu's indicator applet
- Use GStreamer for playing sounds
- Fix the Google Reader watch
- Various other enhancements
To install the latest Specto from BZR in Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid or Maverick, run the following commands in a terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install specto
