Ask HN: Share your projects and the stories behind them (Pt. 2)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335447

by cjbarber • 13 years ago

21 40 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Part 2 of : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6294650

Conditions:

- all posts must include a story explaining why you care about the project

This time, the conditions are enforced! Last time people weren't giving feedback, so I built something to fix that!

http://showhnkarma.meteor.com/

- if you post, you should give feedback to 4-5 other posts

cjbarber3• 13 years ago

I'm working on:

http://showhnkarma.meteor.com/

http://bootstrap3themes.meteor.com/

http://gmailunreplieds.meteor.com/

I built the first because I believe individual efforts of creation should be more highly rewarded on hacker news.

The second, because bootstrap is everywhere - and I think it should be easier for people who build things in bootstrap to make their site look different, and stay with the trends!

The last, because I don't want to miss opportunities in my email :)

bnejad• 13 years ago

Do websites really change their themes often enough to warrant a subscription service? And to be quite honest.. I know its a work in progress, but if your going to sell bootstrap themes under the notion that stock bootstrap is boring, then your site should probably have a really nice design.

crisnoble7• 13 years ago

I like gmailunreplieds, but I wonder, is it going to tell me all emails un-replied, the most recent ones? Ones I flag for watch? I could imagine a long list of consistently unreplied to emails.

kylnew9• 13 years ago

Cool projects.

The bootstrap one I don't quite understand. Who exactly are you targeting with it? Individual websites with bootstrap that want to switch their look up often?

The unreplied project I signed up for. It seems like a good idea and if I'm sending lots of emails in the future for marketing coverage I could see the benefit of a good reminder system for follow ups.

shail8• 13 years ago

The gmail unreplied is definitely a needed one. showhnkarma is a very nice addition to HN.

dangelov2• 13 years ago

Gmail Unreplieds is definitely a good idea.

How does the app "authenticate" though? All I can see at the moment is a Docs form. I'm guessing you're taking the MVP route :)

I wouldn't be too comfortable giving out access to all my email to a 3rd party to be honest. An extension might work better, though even that might be too "risky" for some people.

crisnoble7• 13 years ago

I'm working on http://thejobist.com , a dead simple list of of websites where you can look for a job.

Backstory: I found a bunch of sites a few years ago while looking for a new job, and wanted to share my 'job search sites' bookmark folder. Also, google does not seem to be a good starting point.

If you know of sites I'm missing, be sure to tell me.

Kanbab• 13 years ago

How about craigslist?

crisnoble7• 13 years ago

I'll add it to the list

kylnew9• 13 years ago

That's a great resource. It's been a while since I did a job search but I know last time what a mess it was in comparison to having such a large list at quick disposal. I've bookmarked it for future use.

cjbarber3• 13 years ago

This is very cool - I'd say change the arrow icons next to each site - it makes them seem upvoteable. If they are upvotable, then make sure that you can tell when it successfully voted (the icon should disappear).

kylnew9• 13 years ago

I didn't even notice that functionality and I think it's a really cool benefit of this website. I'd change the icon to something more well understood like maybe the Stack Overflow or Reddit style look for voting

crisnoble7• 13 years ago

Thanks! I made the arrows a "button to nowhere" to see if users would try to vote on them. Now I have 20 emails telling me that people are trying to use the feature, time to build it :)

shail8• 13 years ago

Looks amazing. I think its perfect. I could not find any flaw. Bookmarked. I will definitely be coming back to it.

kylnew9• 13 years ago

I'm working on http://postcardsocial.net/

I'm building this for a couple key reasons: 1. I wanted a better way to directly get social content on my own website as I blogged less and less and used social media more and more. 2. I wanted to develop an open API protocol for social networking communications. The mobile app uses this protocol to communicate with WordPress sites that use the plugin component but ultimately any web server implementing the protocol could work.

I'm actually now looking for people interested in beta testing both the WordPress plugin and mobile app so please sign up on that page if interested. I'm also keeping a blog with more information on everything http://blog.postcardsocial.net/

Great idea for a HN thread! I'll visit frequently and comment on others' shares.

cjbarber3• 13 years ago

Wow, very cool. Though I'd suggest refining the homepage h1 a little more - is this a wordpress plugin (I know it is - but the h1 doesn't tell me that)?

Maybe add a h2 that says: 'Get our wordpress plugin that ____'

Where ____ == a very clear description of what this does. Good move on making the key point the value proposition, I'm just not exactly sure how it works.

kylnew9• 13 years ago

Thanks for the feedback, that's a really good point and very relevant to a challenge I see for myself. I think I still need to work on explaining it better and getting the whole point across. It's weak on explaining how it is actually executed.

shail8• 13 years ago

I think you are trying to use full width of the browser. On my 27" iMac it looks a lot more spread out than it should. I would suggest using a limited width.

crisnoble7• 13 years ago

This is sweet. I think if you could extrapolate it one step further and let me sign in to your app, hook up social accounts, and let see a single unified timeline, you would be on to something huge.

shail8• 13 years ago

I am working on http://hmpgr.com (checkout the pronunciation in the "what is hmpgr?" link)

edit: use Invite Code: HN

Click on each app to see more details about it.

Back story: As a hacker, when you build a small application, its either web-based, iOS or android. All alone you cannot build for all the platform. So the first idea which came to me that why not build only web-apps which are responsive and hence can run smoothly on all platforms. But the problem was having a great experience on a web app is difficult. But if you think about it, its not true for all cases, you can have great experience and utility if the app itself is extremely simple and minimal.

And this is true in many many apps. In fact its true for Hacker News itself. So I thought of building a store for apps which are extremely minimal yet useful. The four apps (Running, Pins, Movies and Notes) are all my creation. Some of them you might find useful on a daily basis and some are useful only on specific occasions. The technology used is Ruby on Rails and we will be releasing a developers kit for folks interested in building apps on hmpgr.

Why would you build apps on hmpgr? Because you are guaranteed atleast one user (that's me :). Just kidding. Hopefully its going to be much more than that. The idea is to easily get attention of fellow users who are already on hmpgr platform. The system gives you the option to install/uninstall apps on your choice basis.

Obviously, the system has bugs and am still working on them so use them and give me feedback.

Great idea @cjbarber. I was thinking of doing a separate Show HN but this seems like a great idea. Thanks for building it.

kylnew9• 13 years ago

Interesting idea. I like the design of it overall and it flows nicely in all sizes. I think I would have to sign up and start using it to see how it feels. I'm wondering if there's a way you can sell the key benefits on the homepage better.

When I click any of these little app tiles, a detailed explanation opens but that's not reflective of how the app actually works when logged in, right? Instead of screenshots can you show interactive dummy data anywhere?

shail8• 13 years ago

hey Kylnew.

Thanks a ton. I am actually building a demo account. I was intending to put some demo data before I release it.

But since you asked, here it goes:

username: demo@hmpgr.com

password: password

try it and let me know.

crisnoble7• 13 years ago

I love the idea of showcasing simple web apps (your notes app is really cool). Is the value you provide that you will provide a framework for taking my simple html app, and layering a user system on it so people can buy it from you/me? Just a tad confused on that point, but overall I really like the idea.

shail8• 13 years ago

Actually, its going to be like developing the app from scratch in RoR but obviously you can reuse the code if you built a separate app already.

So no layering. But since the concept is all about very simple apps, I guess that should not be too much of a hassle. I am open to suggestions.

Edit: Thanks for liking the notes app :)

rfunk82• 13 years ago

I been working on this job searching app for federal jobs for about 2 weeks, I'm doing some updates now. I was thinking of looking for API's that include any jobs not just federal. I don't expect money from it, I just wanted to use the API and do some flat design. I guess just for fun and building my skills.

Jobsy: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jobsy/id687059035?mt=8

crisnoble7• 13 years ago

Looks pretty cool, if you like I'll add it to my mini project, http://thejobist.com

shail8• 13 years ago

I am not sure about federal jobs but do they have age limits (maximum)? If yes, then I am guessing it must be in the settings.

kylnew9• 13 years ago

Cool, I like the flat look. Why not more screenshots though explaining what it is and showcasing more features?

kushti• 13 years ago

During free time I'm working on http://forexnotions.com/ - free forex signals aggregator and http://cryptrading.com/ - cryptocurrencies trading data aggregator. I want to improve those sites & implement more realtime financial service further. Why I made this? I love realtime data gathering and analysis as developer

wsieroci2• 13 years ago

I am working on http://contactsanalytics.com/ I call it "Google for email" why? You can build your email list depending on niche you want to target. Check it out. Why I made this? I think that marketing field is really challanging and I think that "big data" thing is really exciting nowadays.

kylnew9• 13 years ago

Neat project. I poked around a bit and had a few pieces of feedback.

- I like the full disclosure aspect. If I weren't comfortable in a whole copy-paste, being able to get an easy list to evaluate sources myself would still be handy.

- I think your algorithm is scanning too deeply including comments sections. It found an email address from a username of a commenter in a Disqus thread on my own personal blog site

- It seems that if you were to search by company name you can get a lot of results of people who just mention that company on their own blog

- Tiny typo I saw in the last sentence of "how it works": "this way you can check if this is a good contact or not."

wsieroci2• 13 years ago

Thanks for feedback. Algorithm is still not ideal, we are working on it. You are sure that "a" should not be placed before "good contact" phrase?

goyalpulkit3• 13 years ago

We are working on Shyahi - Your Social Resume (http://shyahi.com).

It all started as a discussion with my co-founder Sapan. We wanted a way to highlight our activity on StackOverflow, Github, Twitter and our blog posts while looking for jobs but couldn't find a good way to list them on our resumes or on our LinkedIn profiles. Even if we list them there, there is no way I could update it every time I do something on these sites. That's when we decided to build Shyahi.

Shyahi is a new way to build a profile to showcase your developer contributions and social activity. Its free, easy to set up and pulls in stats directly from Dribbble, Github, Stackoverflow, Twitter and your blog feed which means that the Shyahi profile is always up to date.

dangelov2• 13 years ago

Hope you don't mind me saying, but just a small note: when I first saw the Recent Members section, I thought all those users are the same, and it's just a website you've filled with dummy accounts. Only on hover do i see that these are all different users.

On some of the websites I've built, I've set the recent list to show only members who've set their profile pic. May help you make it more active looking (and real).

Screenshot to explain: http://dew.dangelov.com/dewdrops/DEW-522b5376830556.79273656...

goyalpulkit3• 13 years ago

Thanks for the tip. I also added a check now to show only the users with a custom profile image in recent members list and it indeed looks much better now. Thanks again.

webvet• 13 years ago

Nice idea - nice project. IMO, it could really thrive once it gets good traction - congrats.

One (small) suggestion: Change your tag line from: 'Build a Shyahi profile to showcase your developer contributions and social activity.' to: 'Showcase your developer contributions and social activity' and make it visible somewhere in the first screen-fold. HTH

goyalpulkit3• 13 years ago

Thanks for your suggestion. We will try to make it more visible in the first screen fold.

amac• 13 years ago

http://octopus.org

Firstly, I'm a Marketer. I think whilst many other jobs and functions in business are becoming commoditized, you can't commoditize creativity. Marketing I also believe separates the best businesses - it's the 'moat'.

Octopus is my vision of how the role of the Marketer and software in general might take shape. It's clear that with SAAS and the ever expanding role of the CMO, there's going to be lots of choices and lots of scope in Marketing. This brings problems too, like how to select the right applications and vendors.

Hopefully with Octopus, Marketers will be able rely on a service that helps them choose and buy the right Marketing software and services for them/their company.

Ask HN: Share your projects and the stories behind them (Pt. 2)

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