Hackish SE notifications

README.md

##Note: This requires ruby 1.9.x, Mac OS X ships with 1.8.7. So unless you're really big into it, this won't work.

This one is a little hackish, and I'm going to (eventually, someday) make it a little not so hackish. I promise.

First, install and sign up for [Boxcar][1], if you haven't already. (and if you haven't, I highly recommend it! Works very nicely for notifications of all sorts - Twitter, email, Facebook, etc.)

Next, you'll need to head over here and do two things:

1. Change your user ID to whatever yours is. To find out what it is, take a look at the number in your profile URL: Mine is http://apple.stackexchange.com/users/1739/jrg, so my user ID is 1739.

2. Get an access token. Head over to here and request one like below:

![enter image description here][2]

And then after you've gotten an access token, you can copy it and then paste it into the part where it says "FILL_ME_IN".

Now, you need to install two libraries - serel, and boxcar_api.

Run sudo gem install serel boxcar_api and then wait until they are installed.

Next, copy and paste this file into notify_me.rb (or whatever you want to call it). I'm going to assume its in ~/bin. Before you save, change the "your_email@domain.com" part to whatever you used to sign up for boxcar.

Now, lets go and hop into cron.

Run crontab -e in a terminal, which will edit your crontab.

It should ask you which editor you want to use, I suggest using nano unless you know vim or emacs really well.

I'm going to assume you aren't that busy on the site, so we'll have it run every two hours.

Paste the following into the bottom of your crontab:

0 */2 * * * ~/bin/notify_me.rb

And then you should be good to go.

Enjoy, and if you find bugs, feel free to send me an email:

james@jamesrgifford.com

_{Eventually, someday, somehow, I'll move this into its own proper project, rather than a crazy hax} [1]: http://boxcar.io/ [2]: http://i.stack.imgur.com/jvVXy.png

notify_me.rb

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'serel'
require 'boxcar_api'
provider = BoxcarAPI::Provider.new('c1dQjjKHm0pXIrGQmWEb', 'Oo7gJ18sYVVQOAMzoDahzAmYxo8dfqDJ31cUKdJQ')
Serel::Base.config(:askubuntu, 'kivg66mlKu6WoI05Z5GRwA((')
#you can leave the :askubuntu part alone, it bother anything
token = Serel::AccessToken.new('FILL_ME_IN')
@foobar = token.inbox.request.first
@new_notification = @foobar.item_type
@new_notification_site = @foobar.title
provider.notify("your_email@domain.com", "New " + @new_notification + " on " + @new_notification_site )