Notificant by Carmel Cloud is a cloud-based notification application for your Mac. What makes it especially noteworthy is that it can send notifications across all your Macs and/or via email. Even better, an iOS version is coming soon.
After you download and launch Notificant, the app will ask you to create a free account with Carmel Cloud. Once that’s completed, you can send yourself notifications either through the app on your Mac or from the web-based service.
Adding a notification is simple. Click on the menubar icon and tap “New Notification.” A pop-up window appears with a large box in which you write your reminder (though you are limited to 160 words). Then you can schedule the notification using the date and time picker, and you can decide which devices you want the reminder sent to, including your email address. If you want to include a URL in your notification, click on the gear icon to shorten it. That’s it. When you’re done hit “Notify,” and your reminder is in the system.
When your notification arrives, you’ll hear a sound and a small rectangular window will pop up on the top right of your screen. Simply tap the “X” to dismiss it. If you sent the notification via email, it will appear just like any other email message. Keep in mind that the email notification may not arrive exactly at the specified time. It will depend on how quickly your server updates your messages.
From the menubar, you can set your sound preferences and determine whether or not you want the app’s icon in your dock. You can also launch the website from the menubar icon.
Carmel Cloud’s website is simple and beautiful. There you can update your profile, see upcoming notifications, archive notifications, and send notifications to yourself.
What’s Macgasmic
Simple and effective, Notificant helps you remember things you might otherwise forget. It’s unobtrusive and much handier than scheduling alarms via iCal or other calendar programs.
What’s Not
Since I only have one Mac (poor me), the feature allowing me to send notifications to all my Macs isn’t all that helpful. However, once Carmel Cloud makes it possible to send notifications to your iOS devices as well, Notificant could become a must-have application.
Although I know it’s unavoidable, I hate signing up for cloud-based services. If you don’t want to sign up for another cloud service, you might take a look at Alarms by Stefan Fürst ($15). It’s not available in the App Store, and it doesn’t send notifications to all your devices, but like Notificant it is simple, fast, and unobtrusive and, unlike Notificant, it syncs with iCal.
Summary
If you need a reminder now and then, and if you want your reminders to appear across all your Macs and (soon) your iOS devices, then give Notificant a try. It’s like a digital string around your finger.
