
Tell HN:Launched Cloudomatic(start): all your startup's web apps. one place. - jasonlbaptiste
http://start.cloudomatic.com/
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papaf
One of the things I like about google apps is that I can set up a DNS entry to
point mail.mydomain.com at google's servers and it puts me straight at the
login prompt. It feels good to use it.

Would it be possible to do this with Cloudmatic(start), so that I could set up
basecamp.mydomain.com to point to cloudmatic which would then redirect to the
correct url?

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
We're looking at more advanced features / customization. Maybe this is one to
add? that's what I do for my personal domain. Also thinking about: custom
skinning/css and logo changes.

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jasonlbaptiste
Hey guys! This is pretty much an organic product we made and think you'd find
useful. Some backstory on why we created it /how here:
[http://blog.cloudomatic.com/company-news/new-product-
launch-...](http://blog.cloudomatic.com/company-news/new-product-launch-
cloudomaticstart-all-of-your-companys-web-apps-one-place/) Feedback is
definitely welcomed. We spent a lot of time polishing some loose ends, but
there's always a ton to improve on. So yeah, rip it apart.

~~~
mdolon
In the video I noticed the password to your demo account was 4 characters, so
naturally I tried out demo for kicks and it worked. I guess it doesn't matter
now since you've already made the video but just thought I'd let you know (in
case accounts are deletable or something).

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
im pretty much a trainwreck of no sleep, comcast outages, host upgrade
downtimes, random bits of code being written, and random meet and greets+press
events through today. so yeah, the password is demo. username:
demo@cloudomatic.com / password: demo. Nothing is deletable from there. Add
some cool apps at least :).

~~~
andreshb
I love launch days. What could go wrong, does.

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almost
I'm not sure I get what this does that a folder of bookmarks doesn't? Or one
of the online bookmark services if you don't want to be tied to a specific
machine. I assume it does something more but I just can't figure out what...

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alexsolo
I found it a little confusing at first (couldn't figure out what it does at
first glance), but once I searched for an app and added it, I got the idea
right away.

One gripe: lots of webapps, such as the 37signals suite of apps, or the app
offered by my startup (PagerDuty), use subdomains in the URL. So if I wanted
to quickly access my Highrise account, I'd go to something like
acme.highrisehq.com instead of highrisehq.com. Maybe you can add an option to
customize/override the default URL?

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
you can do that already :D. Just save the page to customize URLs.

// Updated style.css to make #form_register be 670px and the button text to
be: "Save to customize URLs"

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asmosoinio
Bug report:

customize URL => copy paste in an URL from browser with <https://xyz> => the
link becomes <http://https://xyz> and does not work.

Seems to fail at <http://> at start of URLs also. For me the natural thing was
to copy&paste it in from a browser window.

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deppp
Heh, you probably should put some description on your front page and a video
after that description might be nice. I opened an url and immediately closed
it because i could not understand anything and don't want to spend time random
clicking. You can't do Google style design, no one knows _yet_ what you're
after ;) The idea is nice though.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
that's my assumption: quick "how-to" text with short video that explains it.
thinking it goes away after you add an app, BUT then if you misclick like
before then the help goes away.

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maxklein
This is very confusing! By default add 6 apps on the first page, which the
user can then customize and change afterwards. Only after I had an app on the
first page did I understand what the service was about.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Agreed. We think we're going to add 6 apps by default since there's 4 per row.
Thanks Max, most of our goal was to test that hypothesis: is this confusing at
first glance with no idea what to do? and is having default apps / better copy
the way to fix it?

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olegp
It would be useful if you could add apps which aren't in your database. For
example, I have a self hosted instance of Sugar CRM - why can't I add that to
the page?

Overall I really like the service. Nice, simple and something that a lot of
companies really need. A number of businesses I know (including some very big
ones) simply do not have a single master list of all the web apps they use.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
That's coming next for the exact reason you mentioned: intranet / self hosted
apps / custom built apps.

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terpua
Might want to fix your misspelling.

~~~
apsurd
heh, also some grammatical weirdness possibly?

    
    
      Clodomatic(Start) lets you keep all your company's web apps in one place
    

Should be either:

    
    
      Cloudomatic(Start) lets you keep all your companies' web apps in one place
    

Or for better understandability (imo)

    
    
      Cloudomatic(Start) lets you keep your company's web apps in one place

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
agreed. went with the second one. thank you :).

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duck
Hmmm.... Basecamp points to Highrise.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
the caching should refresh the url stored (may have already, just not my
machine). If you save the page, you can edit the url's to point to your
subdomains/login urls anyway. thank you for pointing that out.

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bmelton
I'm not sure that I get it. Is it a directory? By the introduction, I was
expecting it to be a hosting service -- or a way to consolidate the management
of various cloud services through APIs. Upon looking at the page for the first
time, I thought perhaps it was an inventorying utility. After stumbling on
some good searches, I guess it's a directory I can search for business-ready
applications?

Are these services hosted on cloudomatic? Are they one-click installs? Wait --
nevermind, it looks like I can set up services with a variety of different
services, and this acts as the directory for me -- like a PageFlakes for my
services.

(Sorry, the format of this might seem like I'm being a douche, but I typically
start typing in these posts so you can see my thought process.)

Okay, now that I know what it is, I'll say that the design is pretty, but the
UI is VERY non-intuitive. Also, some searches return nothing -- this would be
okay, if it actually SAID it returned zero results, but all I see is the ajax-
loader image disappear.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
no no this is what we WANT. Point is this: You or your startup uses 5-10 web
apps, you want a central place to access these apps from with the url pre-
configured. No more: "yo, whats the login url for basecamp or google apps?"
and clicking around.

Yeah, so my hypothesis was that some of the ui wont be intuitive enough, so we
left it blank in areas to just get raw feedback:

\- how do people know what to do out the gate? should we have some apps there
from the start? a demo video on the homepage?

\- for no results, were planning on adding: submit an app along with "no
results found".

Hope this helps, but youre feedback was actually really helpful. thank you!

~~~
jallmann
You should put that description on there. The copy on the page is not too
clear about what the service does -- keeping my webapps in one place? Oh, my
webapp LOGINS in one place.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
okay reworked the copy: Cloudomatic(start) makes forgetting login URLs a thing
of the past by keeping your company's web apps in one place .

I like that a LOT better. also <b> some key phrases.

thank you, that suggestion was helpful. Will iterate on it more tomorrow.

~~~
asimjalis
What do you mean by login URL? How is that different from a regular URL? Is
this a site fir remembering passwords?

