Announcements Alien Soup alerts now available with Pushover!

Alien Soup

Head Chef
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Last year we rebooted Alien Soup with all new software. One of the big advantages we gained was that our site theme is now responsive on mobile devices like iPads and smart phones (most of the staff are Android fans but we do our best to accommodate iPhone users as well) without having to use a dedicated app. The good thing about responsive styles is that you don't need a dedicated app. One of the bad things about responsive styles is that it is not easy to support alerts being pushed to your mobile device.

To help with mobile device users who would like push alerts, services like Pushover are becoming popular. These services work by offering an app for mobile devices that sites like ours can use to push alerts to your mobile device. Pushover currently offers apps for both iOS and Android; the cost is currently $4.99 for the application (EDIT: The Android app now offers a 5 day free trial). You only need to purchase the app once to use it with all sites and applications that support Pushover. Please note that Cool Sci-Fi is not associated with Pushover other than offering their service so the cost of the app does not come to us -- we are still ad free and free to use. ;)

So, if you are a mobile device user and are interested in getting push alerts on your devices from Alien Soup and other sites that support Pushover, it is easy to get up & running.

First head over to Pushover: Simple Notifications for Android, iOS, and Desktop to read more about their service and to see some of the other uses you can use their apps with. While there create your new account. After that download their application for your Android or iOS device.

Now you're ready to start getting alerts from Alien Soup! Click on your user name in the upper right corner and click on external accounts. The External Accounts page lets you associate your Alien Soup account to Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and now Pushover.

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While viewing your Pushover account on their web site you will see a section labeled "Your User Key" with a unique value. That is your unique personal key that you will use to start getting alerts on your mobile devices.

On your Alien Soup External Accounts page scoll down to the Pushover section and copy & paste your user key to the "User / Group Identifier" text input box. If you have multiple devices you can assign a name to your device or leave it blank. You can also select which sound to use on your mobile device when you get an alert or you can leave it blank to use the default sound.

That's it, you're all done! Now whenever you get an alert here at Alien Soup and you aren't online to read it then you will receive a copy of the alert on your mobile device.

What's that you ask? What happens if you start getting too many alerts on your mobile device? Now problem you can decide what alerts you want to receive and what priority you want to receive them. :cool:

In your Alien Soup External Accounts page scroll down to the Pushover section and click on the "Pushover Alert Types" tab. On the screen you can decide on an individual basis what alerts to get.

We have been testing the Pushover alerts for a few weeks now and have not come across any problems. One of the concerns we had, of not needing to get an alert on our mobile device if we have already seen the alert while visiting Alien Soup, was taken care of by the developer.

Please let us know if you run into any problems or have any questions!
 
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The developers of Pushover have changed their mobile applications a bit. Now instead of having to purchase the application immediately you can install it and use it for five days before having to purchase it. This is to allow people the change to check it out and see if they look it or not. :cool:

The Android app has already been updated and is available immediately for people to try before purchasing.

Pushover - Apps on Google Play

The iOS app is still being worked on.
 
If you ever wanted to know how many places a URL might be embedded, just change your sites domain name. :cautious:

If you're using Pushover to receive mobile alerts you may have to re-associate your account in your user settings.
 
We have updated our Pushover integration and now it is much easier to get up & running. If you already have a Pushover account it'll only take a few mouse clicks to enable integration in your "External Accounts" user accounts settings or you can signup for a Pushover account on the fly.

Reminder, if you were subscribing to alerts before the name change to Alien Soup than you will need to reset your subscriptions.
 
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