

Show HN: my one-day project, Trnsfr - sahillavingia
http://trns.fr/

======
sahillavingia
There have been many times when I wanted to get something quickly from my
browser to my phone. A Google Map before heading out, or an app someone
messaged me to check out on Facebook.

So I built Trnsfr. It's super-simple: click the bookmarklet and it'll SMS your
phone with whatever URL you're looking at.

That's it. But it's made my life a little better already. Hopefully it'll
improve yours too.

What do you guys think?

~~~
awa
How about an option of email along with sms. Email is free for me, sms costs
$0.20.

~~~
icebraining
If you set your email client as the handler for 'mailto:' links (it's
reasonably easy, at least on Firefox), the following bookmarklet creates an
email ready to be sent (one click in Gmail) with the current page URL:

    
    
        javascript:(function(){var%20url=%22mailto:example@example.com?body=%22+document.URL;window.open(url);})();    
    

Don't forget to replace 'example@example.com' with your own email address.

~~~
Zash
Right click on page, then select 'Send Link...'. (At least in Firefox)

~~~
icebraining
Right, but that doesn't fill out the email address.

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morsch
Haven't tried it (not in the US), but it sounds neat: Having a bookmarklet
makes invoking it painless, and opening an URL from an SMS should be easy from
most phones. I'm assuming the SMS delivery is basically instant. It's also
cross-platform on both ends.

That said, these days I just use Fox To Phone (or Chrome to Phone) to
accomplish this. This platform-specific solution works better than sending an
SMS would. It also does a few things in addition to just transferring URLs.

In the past, I had a browser extension that created a 2d barcode for the
current page. It worked in a pinch, but scanning the barcode with the phone is
relatively time-consuming and, overall, just a nuisance. FWIW, you could do
the barcode thing with a bookmarklet, too, and end up with a solution that's
cross-platform on both ends.

~~~
sahillavingia
I used SMS because it is a) ubiquitous and b) already used by almost everyone.

Scanning barcodes is (at least right now) neither.

~~~
franze
here is a QR bookmarklet thing i built two years ago
<http://miniqr.com/docs/bookmarklet.php> but yeah, i know the usage stats, and
well the short version is: QR codes are doomed.

your sms approach sounds good, let's see if it takes off.

~~~
morsch
They seem to be pretty widespread these days as a means to transmit
information (mostly URLs) from physical reality to smartphones. I rarely if
ever scan them, but that's due to the context: why would I scan the URL on
some kind of ad poster?

I saw a QR code that was printed a few feet tall the other day, letting you
scan it from across the plaza; that's pretty cool. I still think you could
build some pretty neat "worldly" easter eggs by hiding QR codes around cities.

~~~
mseebach
I was passing by a museum last week, and they had some exhibit in the public
space in front, and on the small board describing it, there was a QR code for
a YouTube video of an actor narrating something related to the exhibit. The
fact that the paternalist description of the QR code ("A kind of bar-code for
the future [blah blah] go into the "APP store"[sic] and search for [blah
blah]...") was more prominent than the code itself detracted somewhat from the
feeling of being in the future, but that was the first useful application I've
seen in the wild.

~~~
jonah
I was at a store opening on Friday and they had a small (4x4) QR code in the
window. The caption was simply: Shop Online

I thought that use case was pretty compelling.

------
davux
I really liked the idea of Chrome to Phone on Android, so I built Send to WP7
for Windows Phone. I kind of feel that using SMS is really only a good
fallback solution for phones without a good app (not to mention removing the
need for cell signal, etc.). Cool project though, a great use for Twilio. :)
Nice job!

------
acgourley
I personally don't care if your project took 1 day or 1 year. I feel like by
mentioning it the subtext is:

"Look what can be accomplished in one day, isn't that neat?"

and

"Be nice, it was just one day"

But really only the latter is useful (e.g. we won't be too harsh on missing
pieces) and I think you can convey it by simply saying, "Early version",
"Quick MVP", etc. Those say something more useful, too! They say if you plan
on iterating further or not, or if this is meant as a MVP or just a portfolio
piece or what.

~~~
sahillavingia
The reason I added "one-day" is that I get tons of emails that recommend I
focus on one thing.

The thing is, I _am_ 100% focused on one thing. So a title like this when I
hack together an idea I had in my downtime prevents the majority of those
emails.

Thanks for your feedback though, I appreciate it.

------
dannyr
My friend and I developed something similar for a hackathon a few years ago.

There's a bookmarklet for the browser and an Android app.

<http://pagestackandroid.appspot.com/>

Ours only work on Android app while Trnsfr could work on any phone with SMS.

------
bjonathan
Hi,

Good idea ( I use Chrome to Phone on my android, to do that kind of think).
FYI : I tried the website and entered a random number I got a blank webpage
with an error:

Traceback (most recent call last): File
"/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/_webapp25.py",
line 703, in __call__ handler.post( _groups) File
"/base/data/home/apps/s~trnsfrapp/1.354335415123281066/main.py", line 388, in
post body=body) File
"/base/data/home/apps/s~trnsfrapp/1.354335415123281066/twilio/rest/resources.py",
line 1018, in create return self.create_instance(params) File
"/base/data/home/apps/s~trnsfrapp/1.354335415123281066/twilio/rest/resources.py",
line 295, in create_instance resp, instance = self.request("POST", self.uri,
data=body) File
"/base/data/home/apps/s~trnsfrapp/1.354335415123281066/twilio/rest/resources.py",
line 195, in request resp = make_twilio_request(method, uri, auth=self.auth,_
*kwargs) File
"/base/data/home/apps/s~trnsfrapp/1.354335415123281066/twilio/rest/resources.py",
line 168, in make_twilio_request raise TwilioRestException(resp.status_code,
resp.url, message) TwilioRestException: HTTP ERROR 400: 21401: +15555557777 is
not a valid phone number
[https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/AC36119600c07b44d...](https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/AC36119600c07b44d3954d611d19f446fc/SMS/Messages.json)

Good continuation

~~~
sahillavingia
Fixed, sorry about that.

------
ricardobeat
For those not in the US, there is <http://airlinkapp.com/>, it's neat. Just
add the bookmarklet to both browser and phone.

------
cgarvey
The War on vowels continues...

~~~
suivix
I think it started with Tumblr.

------
Urgo
This feature is built into android. Just install the chrome to phone app by
google & the plugin for chrome or firefox (fox to phone). Good for non-android
phones I guess though.

------
goshakkk
I use Prowl on my iPhone <http://www.prowlapp.com/> and 2Prowl extension for
Safari <http://extensions.dreamtbyphil.co.uk/> to easily push the page I'm
looking at in Safari to my phone.

There are extensions for Chrome and Firefox as well
<http://www.prowlapp.com/apps.php>

------
windexh8er
OT: The first thing I thought of was the Discover card commercial with Peggy.
"Transfer!"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZXZAlfykpo>

Sorry, couldn't resist. Inspiration or coincidence?

------
DanielRibeiro
I use qr codes for this. A well placed Qr Bookmarlet (such as this[1] one),
and barcode scanner, and I'm done.

[1] <http://code.google.com/p/qrbookmarklet/>

------
Void_
What's wrong with just e-mailing link to yourself?

If your phone can view a website, it's very likely it can read e-mails too.

~~~
joshmlewis
With this you don't have to navigate to your email client every time you want
to send yourself something and you don't get a cluttered inbox. This is pretty
simple and smooth.

------
mikelbring
The page where you enter your credit card probably should be SSL?

~~~
freshfey
Credit Card?

~~~
mikelbring
The account page to buy more transfer credits.

~~~
freshfey
oh, didn't see it since I couldn't register (outside US).

------
wooptoo
So do QRcode extensions.

~~~
sahillavingia
I'm not a fan of QR codes. They're also not supported out-of-the-box by any
phone with a browser.

~~~
davux
I agree with you and I don't feel that QR codes are a good fit for things like
this (it's just awkward), but just a small nit: Windows Phones actually do
support QR codes (and other bar codes) out of the box. I'm sure there are
others, but that is the only know I know of. :)

