
Ask HN: Who launched something in December? - amoore
I was impressed by the work done for "Launch an App Month" in November: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1773398<p>and the results: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962465<p>So, I thought it might be time to ask again. What products were launched by HNers in December?
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mbenjaminsmith
<http://www.getvectorpro.com>

It's an iPhone app that does raster to vector conversion similar to Adobe Live
Trace. It started out with a friend saying 'I want an app that does this'. My
response was 'ok, cool' and then 'wow, I have absolutely no idea how'. It was
challenging and lots of fun (what more can you ask for). I used a computer
vision library for some of the image filtering but ended up having to write
the blob extraction algorithm from scratch. The final version (the one that
shipped) came to me in a bout of insomnia.

I actually had it out a few days before Xmas and found a bug that had somehow
made it through my testing (and Apple's) and made the unpleasant decision of
pulling it until it was sorted. Since they lock down over Xmas I missed the
best sales of the year. The fixed version went up just a few hours after iTC
went back online (they were graciously fast approving the fixed version).

~~~
car
Congratulations, great Job!

I once wrote such a program for Atari ST computers, and recall vividly how
challenging and fun it was. It was called Convector, and could tie into a
bitmap/vector drawing program that friends had written (called Arabesque).

This was with 4 MB of RAM :) It also used outlining, which you seem to use
too, judging from the Vectorpro demo video.

Do you convert into Bezier curves?

~~~
mbenjaminsmith
I can't remember the lineup (where the ST fit in) but I learned how to program
on an Atari 400. I'll never forget jamming my fingers into that terrible
'membrane keyboard'. I spent much more of my time playing Star Raiders though.

It does convert the polygons to Bezier curves in the last step, although you
can turn that off by changing the 'Curve' parameter to zero.

Thanks, happy New Year

------
joshkaufman
I launched a business book: "The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business."
Basically, business fundamentals for hackers.

<http://personalmba.com/personal-mba-book-launch/>

------
cheald
<http://1r7.net/>

Not technically inspired by Launch An App Month; when the story about
Delicious broke, I sat down and write a clone that evening. First line of code
to launch was < 24 hours.

------
JamesDB
<http://www.carbuzz.co.uk> \- Not strictly launched in Dec, but v.late
November. A site to make it easier for people to choose which new car to buy.

------
terryjsmith
<http://www.thumbomatic.com/>

An API based website thumbnail service with Amazon like pricing and without
random or account based size restrictions.

------
swax
<http://www.locacha.com> A seamless chat room that connects you to the 30
closest people geographically. No sign up and anonymous.

------
shykes
<http://dotcloud.com>

An application hosting platform for any language, any database. We host a
whole bunch of HN and YC products.

------
Staydecent
I launched <http://www.cookitlocal.com> (serving Metro Vancouver only right
now) Dec 21st.

I've got a couple users, but found it __much __easier to get people to sign up
for a newsletter I ran to promote the site. The newsletter offered seasonal
recipes and links to find the required ingredients locally.

------
stephenou
<http://ohboard.com> \- Basically, a piece of whiteboard, but for Google
Chrome.

It is my attempt to learn more about the business aspect because I've been
developing stuff but barely handles serious business matter. So I am trying to
get better and better on marketing, promotion, customer service, etc.

------
kylebragger
Heh, I barely missed the mark, but just launched Facto.me (<http://facto.me>)

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coffeedrinker
I stand guilty of Fresh Faces app <http://itunes.apple.com/app/id407376811>
for iOS and <http://headthirst.com> as the rally point.

Have the whole suite of Faces apps waiting approval.

------
combiclickwise
I launched <http://www.dealzfull.com> in November and
<http://www.readevery.com> in December HNers had a ton of feedback for
ReadEvery. Now I am implementing them one by one

------
koichirose
I launched <http://www.dinnerdiner.com/> It's my very first Rails project: a
service that helps you find restaurants close to you (using HTML5 Geolocation
API and the very good geokit-rails gem).

Suggestions and reviews appreciated :)

------
Kilimanjaro
<http://boog.me>

Disposable email accounts.

Give any email@boog.me and go check your inbox for the email you need, then
forget about it. We take care of all the spam they will send you. Keep your
real inbox spam free!

~~~
Kilimanjaro
Btw we should do this the first day of every month to give some exposure to
all projects developed by HN members.

------
austinbirch
<http://musicmenu.heroku.com/>

I created and launched MusicMenu in the last few days of December, it's just a
little weekend project.

You design a three course menu of music for others to listen to.

------
railsjedi
<http://www.heroscale.com>

Allows easy autoscaling of heroku dynos and workers. It's in for some major
updates in early jan as well (realtime autoscaling, better pricing model).

------
niles
<http://app.timessquareball.net> Launched and went off without a hitch. Should
be good fun for years to come.. (suggestions for next year welcome!)

------
thinkcomp
<http://www.facecash.com>

We released integrated bill splitting and coupons on the FaceCash iPhone
application, soon to follow on Android and BlackBerry.

------
pontifier
<http://www.ToDoWiki.com>

I hope it will become a place where people can find ready made to do lists for
a wide variety of common events and situations.

------
sep
<http://bitorama.com>

a Hacker News-like site in Hebrew. Did this as a learning excercise and it's
yet to pick up steam. Israeli HNers, where are you?

~~~
quizbiz
There's a good number of Israeli tech/biz guys on Twitter. Spread the word
there.

Be'hatzlacha

~~~
sep
Thanks. I put the feed of the site on twitter, but I haven't found the magic
formula to pull attention to it.

Ideas and paticipation are welcome! My contact details are at the website.

------
ismaelsow
I launched <http://typeroulette.com> : a fun way to practice touch typing
using tweets. Now, I need to spread the word!

------
itay
We launched WikiPanda, what we believe to be the best Wikipedia browser for
the Windows Phone:

<http://wiki.pandabits.com>

~~~
ttrashh
Just downloaded it. Nice work! My only constructive criticism would be to make
the text a little bigger in some areas.

------
audyyy
<http://www.haikuwik.com>

I wouldn't call it a launch but I made it during my break. It's microblogging
for haikus.

------
quickprez
<http://QuickPrez.com> Share and comment documents in real time with your
website visitors.

------
jcfrei
<http://0x01.in> nothing big - just an online sketch pad that looks like an
old terminal.

------
whiskers
<http://flightlite.com> \- live flight tracker with Google Earth integration.

------
iisbum
Not fully launched yet, but it is in private beta: <http://www.mubdo.com/>

------
hugonsantos
<http://mydogbarks.com>

For dog owners: Dogs barking all over the web

------
fezzl
<http://zuupy.com> \- Group deals add-on for retailers

------
ndbw000
<http://vbseed.com/>

Relaunched vBulletin Skins website

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sudhirj
<http://mapfaire.com>

Business map creation app

