

Ask HN: Share your projects and the stories behind them (Pt. 2) - cjbarber

Part 2 of : https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6294650<p>Conditions:<p>- all posts must include a story explaining why you care about the project<p>This time, the conditions are enforced! Last time people weren&#x27;t giving feedback, so I built something to fix that!<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;showhnkarma.meteor.com&#x2F;<p>- if you post, you should give feedback to 4-5 other posts
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shail
I am working on [http://hmpgr.com](http://hmpgr.com) (checkout the
pronunciation in the "what is hmpgr?" link)

edit: use Invite Code: HN

Click on each app to see more details about it.

Back story: As a hacker, when you build a small application, its either web-
based, iOS or android. All alone you cannot build for all the platform. So the
first idea which came to me that why not build only web-apps which are
responsive and hence can run smoothly on all platforms. But the problem was
having a great experience on a web app is difficult. But if you think about
it, its not true for all cases, you can have great experience and utility if
the app itself is extremely simple and minimal.

And this is true in many many apps. In fact its true for Hacker News itself.
So I thought of building a store for apps which are extremely minimal yet
useful. The four apps (Running, Pins, Movies and Notes) are all my creation.
Some of them you might find useful on a daily basis and some are useful only
on specific occasions. The technology used is Ruby on Rails and we will be
releasing a developers kit for folks interested in building apps on hmpgr.

Why would you build apps on hmpgr? Because you are guaranteed atleast one user
(that's me :). Just kidding. Hopefully its going to be much more than that.
The idea is to easily get attention of fellow users who are already on hmpgr
platform. The system gives you the option to install/uninstall apps on your
choice basis.

Obviously, the system has bugs and am still working on them so use them and
give me feedback.

Great idea @cjbarber. I was thinking of doing a separate Show HN but this
seems like a great idea. Thanks for building it.

~~~
kylnew
Interesting idea. I like the design of it overall and it flows nicely in all
sizes. I think I would have to sign up and start using it to see how it feels.
I'm wondering if there's a way you can sell the key benefits on the homepage
better.

When I click any of these little app tiles, a detailed explanation opens but
that's not reflective of how the app actually works when logged in, right?
Instead of screenshots can you show interactive dummy data anywhere?

~~~
shail
hey Kylnew.

Thanks a ton. I am actually building a demo account. I was intending to put
some demo data before I release it.

But since you asked, here it goes:

username: demo@hmpgr.com

password: password

try it and let me know.

~~~
kylnew
I had a look, neat. So what is this build on? How are you expecting other to
contribute and incorporate social aspects like in the movie section?

~~~
shail
Its built on RoR. I will soon be releasing a developers kit which will make it
very easy for any of us to build apps on this platform. The platform will
provide few things such as user logins and events for the apps.

------
cjbarber
I'm working on:

[http://showhnkarma.meteor.com/](http://showhnkarma.meteor.com/)

[http://bootstrap3themes.meteor.com/](http://bootstrap3themes.meteor.com/)

[http://gmailunreplieds.meteor.com/](http://gmailunreplieds.meteor.com/)

I built the first because I believe individual efforts of creation should be
more highly rewarded on hacker news.

The second, because bootstrap is everywhere - and I think it should be easier
for people who build things in bootstrap to make their site look different,
and stay with the trends!

The last, because I don't want to miss opportunities in my email :)

~~~
dangelov
Gmail Unreplieds is definitely a good idea.

How does the app "authenticate" though? All I can see at the moment is a Docs
form. I'm guessing you're taking the MVP route :)

I wouldn't be too comfortable giving out access to all my email to a 3rd party
to be honest. An extension might work better, though even that might be too
"risky" for some people.

------
kylnew
I'm working on [http://postcardsocial.net/](http://postcardsocial.net/)

I'm building this for a couple key reasons: 1\. I wanted a better way to
directly get social content on my own website as I blogged less and less and
used social media more and more. 2\. I wanted to develop an open API protocol
for social networking communications. The mobile app uses this protocol to
communicate with WordPress sites that use the plugin component but ultimately
any web server implementing the protocol could work.

I'm actually now looking for people interested in beta testing both the
WordPress plugin and mobile app so please sign up on that page if interested.
I'm also keeping a blog with more information on everything
[http://blog.postcardsocial.net/](http://blog.postcardsocial.net/)

Great idea for a HN thread! I'll visit frequently and comment on others'
shares.

~~~
cjbarber
Wow, very cool. Though I'd suggest refining the homepage h1 a little more - is
this a wordpress plugin (I know it is - but the h1 doesn't tell me that)?

Maybe add a h2 that says: 'Get our wordpress plugin that ____'

Where ____ == a very clear description of what this does. Good move on making
the key point the value proposition, I'm just not exactly sure how it works.

~~~
kylnew
Thanks for the feedback, that's a really good point and very relevant to a
challenge I see for myself. I think I still need to work on explaining it
better and getting the whole point across. It's weak on explaining how it is
actually executed.

------
rfunk82
I been working on this job searching app for federal jobs for about 2 weeks,
I'm doing some updates now. I was thinking of looking for API's that include
any jobs not just federal. I don't expect money from it, I just wanted to use
the API and do some flat design. I guess just for fun and building my skills.

Jobsy:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jobsy/id687059035?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jobsy/id687059035?mt=8)

~~~
crisnoble
Looks pretty cool, if you like I'll add it to my mini project,
[http://thejobist.com](http://thejobist.com)

------
amac
[http://octopus.org](http://octopus.org)

Firstly, I'm a Marketer. I think whilst many other jobs and functions in
business are becoming commoditized, you can't commoditize creativity.
Marketing I also believe separates the best businesses - it's the 'moat'.

Octopus is my vision of how the role of the Marketer and software in general
might take shape. It's clear that with SAAS and the ever expanding role of the
CMO, there's going to be lots of choices and lots of scope in Marketing. This
brings problems too, like how to select the right applications and vendors.

Hopefully with Octopus, Marketers will be able rely on a service that helps
them choose and buy the right Marketing software and services for them/their
company.

------
goyalpulkit
We are working on Shyahi - Your Social Resume
([http://shyahi.com](http://shyahi.com)).

It all started as a discussion with my co-founder Sapan. We wanted a way to
highlight our activity on StackOverflow, Github, Twitter and our blog posts
while looking for jobs but couldn't find a good way to list them on our
resumes or on our LinkedIn profiles. Even if we list them there, there is no
way I could update it every time I do something on these sites. That's when we
decided to build Shyahi.

Shyahi is a new way to build a profile to showcase your developer
contributions and social activity. Its free, easy to set up and pulls in stats
directly from Dribbble, Github, Stackoverflow, Twitter and your blog feed
which means that the Shyahi profile is always up to date.

~~~
dangelov
Hope you don't mind me saying, but just a small note: when I first saw the
Recent Members section, I thought all those users are the same, and it's just
a website you've filled with dummy accounts. Only on hover do i see that these
are all different users.

On some of the websites I've built, I've set the recent list to show only
members who've set their profile pic. May help you make it more active looking
(and real).

Screenshot to explain:
[http://dew.dangelov.com/dewdrops/DEW-522b5376830556.79273656...](http://dew.dangelov.com/dewdrops/DEW-522b5376830556.79273656.png)

~~~
goyalpulkit
Thanks for the tip. I also added a check now to show only the users with a
custom profile image in recent members list and it indeed looks much better
now. Thanks again.

------
kushti
During free time I'm working on
[http://forexnotions.com/](http://forexnotions.com/) \- free forex signals
aggregator and [http://cryptrading.com/](http://cryptrading.com/) \-
cryptocurrencies trading data aggregator. I want to improve those sites &
implement more realtime financial service further. Why I made this? I love
realtime data gathering and analysis as developer

------
crisnoble
I'm working on [http://thejobist.com](http://thejobist.com) , a dead simple
list of of websites where you can look for a job.

Backstory: I found a bunch of sites a few years ago while looking for a new
job, and wanted to share my 'job search sites' bookmark folder. Also, google
does not seem to be a good starting point.

If you know of sites I'm missing, be sure to tell me.

~~~
cjbarber
This is very cool - I'd say change the arrow icons next to each site - it
makes them seem upvoteable. If they are upvotable, then make sure that you can
tell when it successfully voted (the icon should disappear).

~~~
kylnew
I didn't even notice that functionality and I think it's a really cool benefit
of this website. I'd change the icon to something more well understood like
maybe the Stack Overflow or Reddit style look for voting

------
wsieroci
I am working on [http://contactsanalytics.com/](http://contactsanalytics.com/)
I call it "Google for email" why? You can build your email list depending on
niche you want to target. Check it out. Why I made this? I think that
marketing field is really challanging and I think that "big data" thing is
really exciting nowadays.

~~~
kylnew
Neat project. I poked around a bit and had a few pieces of feedback.

\- I like the full disclosure aspect. If I weren't comfortable in a whole
copy-paste, being able to get an easy list to evaluate sources myself would
still be handy.

\- I think your algorithm is scanning too deeply including comments sections.
It found an email address from a username of a commenter in a Disqus thread on
my own personal blog site

\- It seems that if you were to search by company name you can get a lot of
results of people who just mention that company on their own blog

\- Tiny typo I saw in the last sentence of "how it works": "this way you can
check if this is _a_ good contact or not."

~~~
wsieroci
Thanks for feedback. Algorithm is still not ideal, we are working on it. You
are sure that "a" should not be placed before "good contact" phrase?

