
Show HN: Use email subject lines to save personal stats and chart them - darrennix
http://www.statlogger.com
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devindotcom
I'm usually among the more skeptical in Show HNs and this is great. Absolutely
dead simple, manages itself, no login etc, easy to see the benefit and all I
do is save the email in case I ever feel like I want to start.

Only thing I can think of is perhaps the option to not receive an email every
time I update the stat? Like perhaps I only receive an email with CSV etc when
I send statname and no numbers? I realize adding features only subtracts from
the merits I mentioned earlier but this might be one worth considering (along
with SMS as someone else mentioned, though that can be a chore). Thanks for
posting.

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PeterWhittaker
OK, this is cool. Dirt simple (well, at least the user), cool concept, obvious
value (or at least obvious intrigue factor), simple clean web site.

Nice job.

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epaga
This is way cool. But how do I know you are not going to catch a severe case
of acquihiritis and die unless you start charging money of some kind?

This way I feel almost certain my data will disappear in a few months from
now, so am much less likely to invest energy in building a new habit.

It's sad how cynical I've become re: cool free services. It didn't use to be
that way. _sniff_

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darrennix
I thought about this and I'm building a safety net: each email will include an
attachment with a CSV of your historical data so in the worst case scenario
that the service shuts down, you'll have a built-in archive ready to go.

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epaga
ok. you got me!

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Carrok
Let me do this via text instead of email, and I'm in.

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darrennix
Hmm. Great suggestion. Will add.

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15characterlimi
You might be able to use Twilio and OpenVBX to just forward SMS to your
existing email address.

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ecastano
Lovely! I would love to be able to track 2 things (or more) in the same email,
like weight and height of my son (usually we have both numbers at the same
time when we visit the pediatrician).

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darrennix
That makes sense; I toyed with the idea of implementing this. For now you can
send two different stats in the same email subject line and you'll get two
separate charts back in the replies.

I'll probably work on combining the two stats in a single chart instead.

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haversine
a simple version to start could be stat1_stat2 (8 7)

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devindotcom
heh although that would work I think sticking with natural language is better,
it's really not that hard to parse "word word number word number"

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roh26it
This is superb. I'm going to use it as a daily logging service for the number
of users who sign up for my service. I get this email everyday telling me the
number of signups and I've been procrastinating adding a line chart to give me
some historical data along with it. Hope you don't mind me linking this to a
server. :-)

Also, +1 for more options to power users. This is dead simple which is why it
works but if I have data for than a month, this might start to get messy for
me.

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cm2012
This is really sweet. I wonder if I'll actually use it past today - only one
way to find out!

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Ended
Very cool. I would like to be able to send 'stats' (or whatever) and get back
all graphs in a single email. In case I forget what I'm tracking.

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tarball
Well, it doesn’t work for me and I am sad. Now you probably know my falling
hair chart and I don’t.

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dareiff
This is amazing. Was planning on doing a run tracker, similar to this, via
twitter. Thanks!

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ortuna
Great work! What are you using for the email handling e.g. service?

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donniezazen
Do you have to make sure that email body is empty?

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darrennix
No. It will read the subject first and only if the subject is empty will it
read the body.

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momentofinertia
I will put a hat just to take it off.

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haversine
i like this idea. add cumulative stats and charge money and you've got a
business

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darrennix
Ah; it supports this already (I call it "relative stats"). Just send subject
line "Stat +2" and "Stat +1" and you'll get 3 as the result.

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haversine
my goodness I am slow today. some combination of my browser and dev
environment mashed your page so i only saw the first kind of stats.

okay, so start charging money :D

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lsdafjklsd
Damn, this is clever. Nice job!

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toadi
excel or google excel is to difficult to use?

