Comic Alert! News

September 18th, 2006 - Network Connectivity
We are currently experiencing some network difficulties that are preventing our comics from being updated. We're aware of the problem and are working on a solution.

September 23rd, 2005 - New Feature: Web Based Alerts!
For those of you looking for web based alerts, Comic Alert! now offers them on the My Comic Digest page. We think they're pretty snazzy (links to actual updates, thumbnails, titles, etc) so if you're wanting to go to a webpage to see all of your favorite updated comics (vs. RSS or Email alerts) you'll certainly want to check this out here or by clicking on the My Comic Digest link in your menu on the top left (you must be logged in). As always, comments / suggestions can be sent to admin@comicalert.com.

September 13th, 2005 - New Servers!
Comic Alert! is now running on a brand new server with a dedicated connection in a first class co-location facility. A vast increase in RAM and dual CPUs will hopefully greatly increase the responsiveness of the site and allow us to more accurately find updates and even implement some new features. We've tested everything pretty well, but if you notice any bugs or if the site if performing slowly please let us know via email at admin@comicalert.com. Thank you for being patient with us, this move was a long time coming, and we couldn't be happier at how smoothly it went :-)

August 2nd, 2005 - Scheduled downtime
Over the next few days we'll be moving Comic Alert! to new servers. This is very good news as Comic Alert! has been outgrowing it's current home for awhile, and the move will provide much needed additional CPU and bandwidth. That said, Comic Alert! is a fairly complex system and the move is not a minor undertaking. If you see a "We're Moving" notice when accessing Comic Alert! over the next while, please be patient and try again later. We promise to try and make it as painless as possible :-)

July 10th, 2005 - Single Comic Feeds and You
Greetings all! We're still not dead...
Just a quick note to those of you creating new accounts. We've been noticing several people creating a lot of "single comic accounts" (ie: creating an account named "garfield" and then populating it with only the garfield comic). While technically this is certainly possible, it really limits the power of Comic Alert! So just in case those of you thinking of creating a bunch of seperate users didn't quite realize what Comic Alert! does, here's a quick review: The idea is that you create an account for YOU, and then populate it with the comics YOU like. You get one RSS feed with all YOUR favorites in it. Want to spread the power of Comic Alert!? Great! Tell your friends to signup with their OWN accounts, creating their OWN favorite filled feed. It's a personal thing, ya know? ;-)

January 16th, 2005 - Not dead!
Contrary to some suggestions, we're not dead! But we are really busy with our own (paying) projects. That's a good thing, in the end, because it means Comic Alert! will be alive and well for a long time. It also, however, means there haven't been any manual updates in awhile. Our apologies for that. We WILL add your comics, it's just taking awhile...

In the meantime, Comic Alert! itself is highly automated and requires almost no maintenance from us (other than the occasional add) so if you're reading your comics via Comic Alert! RSS or Email alerts now, fear not! Your service will continue uninterrupted while we make some cash :-)

October 18th, 2004 - New Site!

Those of you who have been here before will probably notice we have a new site (and to the rest, welcome to the site!). More time has been spent on the design for this version, ensuring even more eye-bleeding colors!

Along with the new site we have quite a few really good features - here are a few of the most noticeable:

Fuzzy Search : Find comics even if you're not sure how to spell the name
Multiple Creators : Allows multiple artists per comic
Recommends : Comic Alert! can now recommend new comics to you, based on your current favorites list!
Automatic Request Fulfillment : We can now fulfill requests automatically for some comics - when you submit a request that qualifies we'll begin monitoring immediately.
Browse by Artist : You can now browse by artist as well as by comic name.

As always, if you notice anything odd with the way the site functions, please let us know!

September 29th, 2004 - New Code
A lot of new code has been implemented on the Comic Alert! back end overnight. This should help improve both adding new comics and monitoring existing comic sites. However, due to the amount of changes that were made, it's possible there are bugs. Please keep an eye out and report anything abnormal you see (eg: comics not updating when they should, errors on the web site, etc). We're hoping there aren't any of course, but you never know :-)

September 19th, 2004 - Comic Alert Voting!
We have an excellent new feature that's just been released into beta. Comic Alert! Voting allows you to vote on individual comic strips in a very simply and easy way, while you're reading the strip itself. This feature requires cookies and a frames compatible browser, and is still in beta so we ask you to keep an eye out for any bugs and report them. Read the new Voting FAQ for complete details, or head over to your Preferences page to enable voting now!

September 17th, 2004 - RSS Feed Bugs
Over the past few days (since the most recent RSS changes) we've been getting occasional reports from users about CA! feeds not updating when they should. It took us a while to verify and find the cause, but we think we have it fixed now (it appears to have been related to the ETag headers we were generating). We've also implemented yet another quality control measure to randomly validate the RSS feeds we're generating and report the errors automatically to us. We strive to provide a service that 'just works', and we apologize for the inconvenience over the past few days. If you notice anything odd with your RSS feed, now or at any time in the future, please let us know.

September 13th, 2004 - RSS Changes
Some changes to the RSS feeds provided by Comic Alert! today. The first is that RSS items are now collated (Comic1, Comic2, Comic3, Comic1, Comic2, etc) vs before where all of Comic1 was displayed, then all of Comic2, etc. This won't affect viewing for most of you, however it should greatly improve usability for those of you using clients which limit the number of items they will display (rumors suggest Live Journal is among those).

The second change is a new feature which allows you to specify how many historical items to provide for each comic. This is a feature requested by users in order to reduce screen clutter with certain RSS clients. You can modify this setting in your Preferences page under the new RSS Settings section.

July 27th, 2004 - Bad Links Fixed
We've implemented another quality control step and in the process of doing so discovered that four of the comic filters in our system were producing bad links. Namely GU Comics, 2214, 9th Elsewhere and Li'l Abner. All have been fixed so that future updates will include the correct URLs. We also encourage you to report any bad links you may find to our admin.

July 13th, 2004 - New features
Several new features at Comic Alert! this week:
- "Remember me" has been added to the login forms, now you don't need to enter your username and password everytime you visit the site.
- A new "Similar Comics" feature has been added to the comic pages. If you know of comics that should be marked as similar, please do so!
- And the biggest change: Comic Alert! now offers daily email alerts for all users! This is a great way to keep up to date with your favorite comics if you don't use RSS, or even for use with secondary non-RSS system (PDA/phone/etc). To start using this new feature, click on the "Preferences" link on the right after joining or logging in. Enjoy! :-)

July 7th, 2004 - comics.com tweeks
The comics.com filter has been a little flakey lately, seeming to 'miss' days and providing bad links every so often. We've spent some time tweeking it and it should be more stable now. Please let us know if you notice any problems with comics.com strips (or, for that matter, any bad/incorrect links you encounter via your Comic Alert! feed).

July 7th, 2004 - New features
Added the ability for all users to edit their profiles (password, comments, etc - look for the "Preferences" link in the top right sidebar after you log in), and the ability for artists / authors to edit the details of the comics they own (look for the "Comic/Artist Settings" right below your new "Preferences" link). Also implemented a web comic classification system (G,PG,etc) - comic authors/artists have the ability to edit this value for their own comics.

July 5th, 2004 - 24 new comics added...
Added Jen, Spells & Whistles, The Repository of Dangerous Things, Diesel Sweeties, Scary Go Round, achewood, TimeScapes, Return to Sender, Kevin & Kell, Konsekai: Swordwaltzer, Catharsis, Under Power, Dub This!, Fragile Gravity, Grand Blue Door, Terinu, Spare Parts, Roomies, Tails from the Mynarski Forest, Eversummer Eve, Faux Pas, Namir Deiter, WIGU and Crap Rares

June 29th, 2004 - 6 new comics added...
Added Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki, 8-bit Theatre, You Say it First, Applegeeks, Little Gamers, and Literary Device

June 24th, 2004 - Click tracker alteration...
Altered the click tracker so it more properly tracks the same IP reading multiple strips from the same comic in a single day. <phew> In doing so we had to wipe out most of the old click records, so the popularity field has been reset. The good news is it should be much more accurate from now on.

June 24th, 2004 - Keenspot broken / fixed
Thanks to a hasty (and untested) patch to the Keenspot filters, some of you may have noticed odd titles and broken links for many Keenspot and Keenspace comics yesterday. That was our bad. It's been fixed (and retroactivly too!). We'll test properly next time... Really...

June 23rd, 2004 - 9 new comics added...
Added Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD), Tween: A Spire's Tale, One Shots, Eternal Juxtaposition, Fans The Webcomic, Angst Technology, The Joy of Tech, Bigger Than Cheeses, and Little Monster

June 22nd, 2004 - 4 New comics...
Added Nowhere Girl, Intershadows, Ledgermain, and Venus Envy

June 20th, 2004 - New strip "Something Positive" added
Added Something Positive by r*k*milholland

June 20th, 2004 - New strip "Malakhim" added
Added Malakhim...

June 19th, 2004 - 47 new strips from the Washington Post
47 strips from the Washington Post's comic page, including the likes of Dennis the Menace and Hagar the Horrible, are now available to add to your personalized RSS feeds.

June 19th, 2004 - New Comic: Real Life
Added Real Life by Greg Dean

June 18th, 2004 - 954 new strips from Drunk Duck
We're now providing feeds for all 954 comics over at Drunk Duck!, which bumps our total number of syndicated comics up to 7120!

June 18th, 2004 - 5 new strips from Pens and Tales
Added the 5 strips available from Pens and Tales: stangekith, Treasure Hunters, Firefly Cross, Those Destined and Evilish.