

Desks Near Me - find great coworking places to work at - pufuwozu
http://desksnear.me/

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_delirium
Price would be useful to have. It looks like the front page asks non-free
spaces to mention that clearly in the description, but browsing through, the
descriptions are pretty vague on that. Clicking through to the sites, it looks
like they range from a person or small company with some spare desks they're
willing to let you use free, to dedicated commercial spaces charging
$20-30/day to rent. Those are pretty different categories, and I doubt I'd
normally be looking for both simultaneously.

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bjeanes
We completely agree. We are currently discussing the best way to do this

~~~
newman314
Also, please show number of desks available at the "at a glance" page.
<http://desksnear.me/workplaces>

Right side can be reformatted to present more information.

So something like "20 @ $30" would be useful.

~~~
keithpitt
Its on the list of things to do in our next release. We cant push any new
features up for 5 days because of the competition were in.

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alexeckermann
Just a note to anyone visiting the site. We are currently having issues with
the mass demand of visits and going over our Google API request limit.

Currently in a team Skype call trying to resolve the issue. You can still see
all the workplaces available via the "Workplaces" link. Search and creating
workplaces are the pages that are affected.

Thanks to everyone for checking us out. We will keep @desksnearme updated with
the progress.

Cheers.

~~~
alexeckermann
We are back online and ready to take your search queries. But dont all geocode
at once ;)

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dannyr
I like it. Actually, I'm looking for a desk to work at in Buenos Aires for the
next 3 weeks. The cafes here are very busy and noisy.

I wonder if AirBnB will enter this category since they are a "marketplace for
space".

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liamk
You beat me to it! I was just going to comment that this was the office
version of AirBnB! Hopefully there will be some Toronto additions.

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prawn
A few weeks ago I was wondering about AirBnB for offices. Wasn't sure if it
would be massively successful, but thought it might make a quality side
project. Good to see someone's built it and their execution is decent.

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bryne
There's one location listed in Hollywood, CA, with an address listing of
'hollywood': <http://desksnear.me/workplaces/7-fortress-of-solitude>

The idea is cute, but I assume there's some kind of QC available for verifying
links? Otherwise you're literally begging to be overwhelmed by griefers at
this stage.

~~~
alexeckermann
Yup, Keith created that. Its a test record. Because we created this for a
coding competition we need people to be able to judge the site and make
bookings without actually making a real life booking.

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bryne
Oops, I probably could have guessed that from reading your footer :]

Makes sense if it's a submission like that. I really like the idea and would
100% use a service like this were it populated well. Best of luck!

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doug11235
The search function does not work for me. I typed in 'Baltimore' and received
zero results. But when I browsed the listings I came upon Beehive Baltimore (
<http://desksnear.me/workplaces/32-beehive-baltimore>).

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alexeckermann
Hey. We are onto this right now. Just having some issues with using a Google
API service and request limits. Team Skype call is underway :)

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mickeyben
Is it an issue with the geocoding limit ? if so why don't you geocode client-
side ?

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keithpitt
We have a fix in the pipeline that does :D But we can't push it up just yet...

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mickeyben
Yeah I imagine it's not that easy to change the flow :)

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riffic
Little known secret: libraries and hotel lobbies are great coworking locations
for little to no cost.

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bjeanes
that's true but a lot of the time you don't care about the location as much as
about being around other people.

~~~
riffic
and sometimes you just want peace and quiet to get work done. it's all about
appropriate context really.

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dqh
Great! As someone who floats from cafe to bedroom to cafe throughout the week,
this is a service i have been looking for. Impressed that you already have a
location in Melbourne, Australia in your database, i'll probably go check them
out.

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warren_s
It's because we're from Australia :)

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bjeanes
We've been getting a lot of really great feedback from this site and twitter
and we've been taking it all under consideration. Feel free to check out
<http://blog.desksnear.me> for some updates.

And guys, if you love the idea and want to see the site around, please vote
for us at <http://railsrumble.com/teams/the-rad-warlike-annex> when public
voting opens on Oct 21! The prizes will keep us alive for a long type!

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kaerast
Would it be beyond the scope of this to list temporary coworking spaces? For
example there's a couple of places in my area that run an open office either
weekly or monthly and it might be good to have a listing of those sorts of
spaces.

It'd also be good to link in with the coworking visa that a number of
coworking spaces are members of. And in fact it'd be good to work more closely
with coworking spaces in general via the coworking wiki.

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kuldeep_kap
Great initiative! AirBnB for desks is really needed. Would be great to choose
one day where I'd like to work :)

I think a lot of works needs to be done on UI. You don't need location from
browser, you can just show desks within my city (get that from ip). And no
facebook connect?

Watch how AirBnB did it. Start slow and from few cities then generalize it to
other.

Good Luck!

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jasonkester
Please please please, let me create an account without having to jump through
silly hoops like OpenID or Twitter. Your little website just isn't compelling
enough for me to do that.

I want to try it though, just to give you some feedback. Please let me create
a simple login so that I can do so.

~~~
tomjen3
OpenID is easier than having to register for each site.

And you have Gmail right? Then you have an openid account.

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jasonkester
In what respect? Because you have to type your password twice the first time
you use a particular site with your standard throwaway user/pass combo?

In exchange for that single extra input box, OpenID forces a longer login
process every time you use a site. The breakeven point where user/pass starts
beating OpenID in terms of convenience happens at visit number two.

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sp332
I type "stackoverflow.com", and click "login" then "Google", done. This is the
same number of clicks as having my browser save my username and password.

What am I missing?

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bugsy
OK, this web site has a terrible terrible interface. It uses these nonstandard
recessed ovaloids and SOME of them are text fields and others are buttons that
take you to other pages. It also tries to establish a HTML5 database without
letting me know why.

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bjeanes
what buttons/links are you talking about exactly?

Nothing sets up an HTML5 database, but it does ask use geolocation if your
browser supports it

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bugsy
"The website “<http://desksnear.me”> is requesting 1 MB of disk space to store
“html5 test db” as a database on your disk."

WORKPLACES, SIGN IN and Search By city or address all use novel UI elements of
thinly recessed semi-transparent ovaloids, or let's call them extreme rounded
rectangles. One is a text field and others are buttons.

~~~
bjeanes
Interesting. I wonder if that is Modernizer.js doing that without us realising
it. What browser/OS are you using? I'll see if I can replicate it. On
Chrome/OS X I never get asked.

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bugsy
Safari/OS X. You have to set "None allowed before asking" in Security if you
want to be informed before a db is established. The issue is not that there is
a message, it's that it's alarming to have a db set up without an obvious
reason for it.

I guess I don't really care though. I am right about the user interface
problems, but since your folks are slamming the downvote button as fast as
they can in response to useful feedback when you've obviously not done user
testing, I don't really care any more about giving good usability feedback.
"Someone says our interface has problems! Punish him! He must die!" That's a
stupid attitude and your company will fail if it retains it.

~~~
bjeanes
We didn't down vote you. I've only had an account for a day and don't even
have the ability to down vote. There are only 4 of us so the down votes are
coming from OTHER people.

I don't appreciate your attitude and assumptions about how we are responding
to your criticism. I'm legitimately trying to understand why the HTML5
database is being created (it is the Modernizer.js script) and I'll be trying
to stop it from doing so.

As to the interface issues, I didn't respond to that because I didn't
understand your criticism. The other replies to your message have explained it
better and I agree, that's a bit confusing. We WILL be looking into that so
back off.

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jamesbritt
It's almost unusable on my G1, I think because of this:

    
    
        <meta name="viewport" 
           content="width=device-width; 
           initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0;">
    

I can't zoom out to properly see the page.

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alexeckermann
Dude Im sorry about that, my bad. Used the HTML5 Boilerplate and didn't remove
it before going live. I feel your pain. Iw anted to do a full mobile skin but
time ran out.

~~~
jamesbritt
NP. It seems something like this would be especially handy on phone if you're
out and about and looking for a place to work.

Now I just need coworking places in north Scottsdale :).

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Entlin
There's already a pretty good directory here:
<http://wiki.coworking.info/Directory>

It has none of the comfort features that desknear.me is attempting, though.

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SudarshanP
Free Co Working Space for Bangalore Hackers

[http://www.getr.co/free-co-working-space-for-bangalore-
hacke...](http://www.getr.co/free-co-working-space-for-bangalore-hackers)

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DamonOehlman
Nice work guys - this is excellent. Site feels awesome, and I will definitely
be using it rather than having to put a shoutout on Twitter to find coworking
spaces.

Great idea. Excellent execution.

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gridspy
I've added Gridspy (be fun to have a companion)
<http://desksnear.me/workplaces/87-gridspy-office>

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keithpitt
Like the application? Head on over to <http://railsrumble.com/entries> and
vote for us!

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aaronbrethorst
Nice site, and I'd like to add the coworking space I work at, but...I don't
own it. It looks like adding it presupposes ownership of the space.

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warren_s
Currently, it does, but we are discussing/planning the ability to add
locations you don't own in a later release.

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jessriedel
I was confused by the button "workplaces". Maybe something more explicit like
"completely workplace listing" or "all workplaces"?

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bjeanes
good idea. I've added it to the list

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ojbyrne
I don't think the Rails Rumble is actually in Earth, Texas (as the map shows)
;-)

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warren_s
I blame Google!

~~~
alexeckermann
I blame it on the boogie.

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DannyCooper
Great idea and nice execution! I can't wait til there is some desks in my
area.

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taelor_rb
one thing, it did take me a second to figure out where i could upload a
picture.

i kept naturally thinking it would be someone in the workplace edit page.
Maybe a link from that page would be nice.

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keithpitt
Good idea! It's on the list.

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niallsmart
Also see loosecubes.com.

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DamonOehlman
Looks good too, but I think the guys have captured some of the social elements
better with @desksnearme - additionally the availability rollover in desks is
awesome.

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taelor_rb
great idea for a site. good luck in the rumble!

