Show HN: My first web app – PDF memo creator
createamemo.com
createamemo.com
"Email us a programming task and we'll finish it in 48 hours"
I would say most HN'ers (me included) thought this was done by a beginner web developer and looking for feedback from the community. And based on the comments provided, many of them are quite positive and constructive.
First off, congrats to Adam for getting his idea launched and hitting the top of HN with his first project.
Adam came to us with idea, designs, domain, and coding as much as he could. We helped him finish the coding portion, explaining the changes and tools we were making to get the site ready to go. He was involved in every step and learned a lot from the process. I think most coders got some (or a lot) of help when they just start out.
CodeGophers helps people make MVP's as fast as 48 hours over email, and we get all sorts of people writing in. Some are like Adam who are just starting out learning coding, some are designers/marketers who don't know any coding at all and others are more experienced people who just don't have time to build the MVP.
Part of running a business is effectively and efficiently allocating capital. Depending on their goal with this project and how much it cost, this could be an excellent approach for getting low tech MVPs built.
My guess is this dude literally said "make a web form with these inputs that will produce a PDF formatted like this".
2) He does say "...helping with" - perhaps it was indeed help
What would be the point of showing people your first $THING if you didn’t make it?
I am all about reusing components, but what's original in here to make it a Show HN?
Edit: after thinking about it and trying it I think the main point is about simplicity to generate a PDF with decent default styles, which is a good point. So I retract my previous opinion; it's about a good experience and nice output using pre-made tools. Well done (:
Feedback:
Consider replacing "We take privacy seriously" with "I take privacy seriously".
Better yet, consider removing that sentence so you don't make people second guess it. It's even easier then because there's less information that needs mental processing. You might just say, "Once you generate your memo, your information is deleted forever" or you might not say anything at all.
There's some tension between wanting to be taken seriously ("we" makes it sound like there is a team supporting the product) and using the correct pronoun number for a single author. I see the appeal of using the royal "we" everywhere, even when there is only one person behind the project, because at least then the pronouns don't need to be updated once a second team member joins.
Is it better to us "I" or "We" when running a site yourself? And does the answer change depending on the type of site?
Even if you're the sole author of the app/site, the voice of any text should be abstracted away from your identity at least to this small degree. Use "I" only in testimonials, quotes, or in a "message from our founder".
This discipline helps keeps the voice/tone of the text consistent throughout the app, which inspires trust and confidence. It's more polished and professional, especially if you ever contemplate expanding your team.
So it comes down to how much you want your site associated with you personally, versus having its own identity (and associated "team", even if it's just you on the team).
For hobby projects, I generally go with 'I'; for anything I'm asking for money in exchange for a service, I go with 'we'.
If you feel uncomfortable using 'we' instead of 'I', just file a C-corp and get a registered agent. Now there's two of you, and when you're speaking as the corporation, it's a 'we'. (I'd argue it's always a 'we' for the C-corp, though, because again, it's a team, and teams are always plural.)
Of course, I've been known to use language strangely, so make up your own style rules and go with them.
Pretigious Technologies takes privacy seriously.
Sounds professional and is "future proof."
I agree, either "I" or a proactive statement of intent: "We guarantee your data is deleted" or along similar lines ...
I would use "I" as long as it is correct.
Gooogle takes your privacy seriously.
"I, Sergei, takes you privacy seriously." Not as convincing.
- you have to open a new tab.
- then remember the name of the stuff and type it.
- then make sure you are online (not in a plane).
- then type it without all the LO tools such as good spell check and typography fixes.
- then you wait for the generation, download the file and the go to the download directory, and then copy it where you want.
All in all, I'd say it's the same, except you can change stuff in the LO version, work offline, and refer to the one tool that does all the other stuff as well instead of having to manage 1000 of tools to tools such a simple task.
Like Microsoft signing data protection agreements with the European Union, before any serious company would consider using their cloud type legal documentation.
These are the kinds of posts that made me fall in love with HN over 2535 day ago.
And are sadly relatively rare these days :(
Here are some comments: * Make a title of your webpage using <title> tag in <head> * I was not sure the "organization" was meant to be a input field. Please make it more obvious.
It's great! The first web app I made printed "hello, world" in HTML :-). One thing I would recommend is releasing some part of your code so that people can give feedback on that as well.
Keep it up!
* There seems to be no <title> tag on the page, or at least I don't see a title for the page.
* When the browser downloads the output, it is served to it as a "binary file" (Firefox on Mac), not PDF, meaning I have no other option than to download it. I think (though I'm not sure) that if you set the content type correctly it could open straight in a new tab, or at least let me open it straight in a PDF viewer.
* The paper format looks a bit off to me, I guess it's because it's letter? In that case, not everyone uses that (we use A4), though lettings users set it would increase UI complexity.
Any chance you can share some information on what you used to build this?
One piece of feedback though: The "contact" placeholder didn't seem like a text field to me. It took me a while to figure that it's editable. The same goes for the "Organization" placeholder.
Came here to say exactly the same thing. Other than that, 5 stars. =)
And while I don't have any use for this app, I have to admit that it looks awesome and simple. Good job.
I'm not saying it should not be here...just asking what exactly the "show HN" in about. If it's about showing of the skills of codegophers...should they have not worked on something more complex?
just confused.
Just curious, apart from some programming related subreddits, where else would one share something like this?
Plus this would allow the author to host this service on an cheap and robust s3+cloudfront setup!
The link takes you, without clicking on anything, to the inbox of a disposable email address that perishes if you don't visit it for 24 hours or if you close the session.
It's surprisingly fun when you get into it, and Prawn is very powerful.
I've been thinking of making a Resume generator using Prawn in my spare time, but I haven't really found the time.
A few questions:
- Where are you hosting this site?
- What is your tech stack?
- Do have any plan to build on this web app?
>Where are you hosting this site?
$ dig +short a www.createamemo.com
memo-gen.herokuapp.com.
us-east-1-a.route.herokuapp.com.
23.23.225.163
$ curl -I www.createamemo.com
...
Server: WEBrick/1.3.1 (Ruby/2.2.4/2015-12-16)
...
Here's my review -
1. Add -
<meta charset="utf-8">
in the head section of the page.
2. Try to avoid jumping from h1 directly to h3. Heading progression should be from h1 to h2 to h3 and so on.
3. Towards the end I see you've added some <br> tags to space out content. I'd use CSS margin top and bottom to do that.
Is the date going to pre-fill with the current date in future revisions? On my red. It was 06/15/2016 I think.
More constructive feedback: If it is to be used in Europe the date must be either configurable or default to a format that isn't totally confusing like month/day/year is.
Agree with the others, you probably want to mention what you're saving on the server and a privacy statement.
With an unencrypted service, without any way for others to audit your code, without even basic contact info and with a misleading company name...
Who are you kidding? Is that some sort of social science experiment?
I mean unless someone personally know the author how can you tell this isn't a guy phishing for personnal data and posing as a newbie? Here more than everywhere else we should not take privacy statement at face value. And even if he's honestly wrong, lake of encryption mean this really isn't as secure as claimed.
I find it confusing, especially in the middle of the Hilary e-mail stuff that so much HN commenters are so forgiving about a serious flaw.
Of course I understood that there is a lots of irony in some comments. So sorry to be captain obvious. But I'm not sure given the context that irony is more serving than a plain and brutal reminder.
However the current top comment is basically saying that the OP is a poser and that it might have been a viral campaign for codegophers this don't qualify as not harsh... When reality is harsh how are we supposed to soften it without lying?
Here's the URL I used. Hope this helps.
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/5246/how-george-hotzs-999-auton...
typo?
Thanks.
Also tried in Desktop Mode, and received a server error.
Still interested in trying it out, will wait for a bit.
Great work, btw.
Feedback: I think you're missing your web app title. It only shows your default URI.
Nice project, well done!
EDIT: Upvoted OP too. Well done!
What part of create-a-memo is newsworthy exactly? /agree with GP.
Strange as it may seem even Musk/Jobs etc. didn't create their masterpieces the very first time out of thin air. They would have started on a project that would be considered plain/pointless/boring/embarrassing, but they built upon that experience and platform. Something to remember when talking to the young creators who will be continuing their work in the future.
I really don't think this is (or should be) a place where everyone gets a participation medal, but from what I have seen, the success and failures of posts by people announcing new products here seems to mirror the success rate (and seemingly random stickiness) of real world product launches, so perhaps that might help creators to get used to it and build up some resilience.