

Ask HN: Please review my weekend side-project. - abstractbill
http://whatkindoffileisthis.com/

======
abstractbill
This is essentially an online version of the unix 'file' utility that I hacked
together quickly over the weekend (it actually _uses_ 'file' on the backend).

There are many obvious directions I could potentially take this - for example
improving recognition accuracy, suggesting more programs and websites for
working with each file type, providing in-page previews of files, etc, etc.

But before I do any of that, I thought I'd just get version 0.1 up and ask for
some feedback. Any questions or comments are very welcome. By the way, you
need Flash (at least version 10) to make it work.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
I tried it with an epub file before I read your comment about its mimicking
the unix 'file' command, and was disappointed at the output.

I'm in the process of writing a routine for checking the validity of epub
files (i.e., to unzip the archive, make sure the required directory structure
and xml is there, etc.), and at first glance, that's what I thought your app
would be able to do.

~~~
abstractbill
Yup, that's what I meant by improving accuracy. Unix's 'file' is a good start,
but it could definitely be improved on.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
Well, in addition to epub, it would nice if it could validate other complex
file structures, e.g. docx or any of the other OpenXML formats:
<http://openxmldeveloper.org/default.aspx>

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ShabbyDoo
Perhaps you could make money through affiliate marketing. Let's say someone
asks what a svg file is. You could provide links to svg->pdf utilities.

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jacktasia
I gave it a .js~ to see what would happen. And it said: "That file contains
ASCII C++ program text"

It should probably say it's a javascript file. Or maybe:"The extension of the
file is javascript the content appears to have ASCII C-style syntax...so it
probably is indeed javascript." Although worded better. Like someone else said
a lot depends on the market you're trying to reach.

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jsm386
Have you considered adding a statement about privacy, ie what you do with the
file once it has been uploaded? When/how it is discarded.

~~~
abstractbill
That's a good point (the files are immediately deleted btw).

~~~
ableal
(quoting what you said in another answer):

 _I'm uploading the first 10KB of the file_

Mentioning this upfront would probably help.

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erikwiffin
I can't see a lot of use for this as a webapp.

If I were going to use this, I'd want it where my unrecognized files are. If
you could connect this to a right-click in my filesystem, or have it as a
browser extension that intercepts downloaded files and tells me what they are
(ie: built into firefox's download manager, or the download bar at the bottom
of chrome). Or get it to interact with my email somehow. Next to attachments,
have a link saying "what is this?".

Not sure if any of those are actually possible, but that would upgrade your
side-project from a "cool idea" to something that I would actually use.

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petervandijck
If it's gonna be aimed at techies, it'll have to be geekier, if it's gonna be
aimed at regular humans, it's gonna have to be friendlier (ie. "It's a Visio
Doc..." vs "It's a microsoft office OLE doc"). I guess that's the main choice
to make as to direction right now.

~~~
proexploit
My thoughts exactly. Perhaps it could do both based on extension though, e.g.
I doubt you'll find a "techie" not knowing what a .docx is so that info could
be something like "This is a Document for Microsoft Word 2007+" Etc, while a
rarer or more technical file e.g. .torrent (yes, I know that's not the most
technical file extension) would have more specific info.

~~~
jayliew
Yup, and thinking in terms of "customer development", perhaps you can share
some hypothesis use-case of how a non-techie would use this.

Meaning, in what situations would the non-techie say, "gosh I need to know
exactly what file this is?"

~~~
proexploit
Well the first thing that come to mind, would be an extension they didn't
recognize and couldn't open? Like .ppt but they don't have PowerPoint
installed. Of course, this somewhat refutes my earlier comment as well,
because most of the unrecognized extensions might be more technical in nature.

Perhaps there should be a top sections with something like: "I like it dumbed
down for me: .abc is a abc application file" and a section below that for "I'm
1337, give it to me straight: this .abc file is a windows me executable with
blah blah blah..."

Aside from choosing better titles for the sections, that might be more helpful
to everyone. All of the file detection only needs to be done once.

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synnik
It needs to have a significant differentiator from just googling the file
extension.

~~~
abstractbill
Maybe that just implies I should aim it at people who don't know what "google
the file extension" means? ;)

~~~
proexploit
Maybe you hit the SEO hard enough and you are on the receiving end of "google
the file extension".

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lmkg
If I give it an Office 2007 file, it identifies it as a zipped XML file. While
this is technically correct, it's probably not the most useful answer. This
can probably be corrected with just file extensions, but looking up XML
namespaces would be an interesting idea.

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awa
Was wondering: Why do you need to use flash for this?

~~~
mattmanser
Was wondering: Why not use flash for this?

Jeezus, Flash bashing is getting real old.

~~~
awa
I am not trying to bash flash here... the site seemed simple enough to me to
be implemented without requiring flash, and I was curious as I had to click an
extra time because of flashblock.

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aik
i'm not able to have it successfully recognize a file. i sent it a txt file
and about 2 minutes later (finally) it returned with "Sorry, couldn't identify
that file." ?

~~~
abstractbill
What version of Flash do you have? Right-click on the button and choose "About
Flash".

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d0m
Maybe something useful could be "Fix this 'corrupted' file".

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faramarz
hehe I like the commentary. very friendly and responsive.

Whats next on the agenda?

