[HN Gopher] Show HN: Write a private diary using good old email
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Show HN: Write a private diary using good old email
Author : kossnocorp
Score : 405 points
Date : 2020-01-14 14:37 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (diaryemail.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (diaryemail.com)
| kissgyorgy wrote:
| I have a big problem with this: You can't seem to edit the post
| after it has been sent. A typo staying there forever would drive
| me crazy :)
| qntty wrote:
| This is a newer feature of Day One (but you have to pay to get
| it).
| samdung wrote:
| Congrats. This is cool. Quick question. Did you pull this off in
| one day (after PG's tweet)? If yes, that is mighty impressive.
| nestorherre wrote:
| This. Pretty well done OP, congrats and good luck.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Sorry to disappoint you, but I did not. I built it some time
| ago, but I was quick to reply, so there's a chance that Paul
| tried the service. I'm such a fanboy, haha.
| jwbaldwin wrote:
| Was wondering the same thing. Either way, a clean and well-
| designed landing page and service. Well done OP.
| Dyaz17 wrote:
| Great job. Here is what I propose to make it more secure and
| prevent you from being able to read anyone diary...
|
| I propose that each day a link/token is sent to your email. The
| link then ask for a password that is handled only with client
| side javascript and does the encryption of the data before
| sending it do the server. Look at what Blockhain.info or
| myetherwallet is doing for client side encryption. Maybe also
| propose provide all the front end as opensource and provide a way
| for people to host their own front (a few HTML, JS files where
| you input the link or token sent to you by email...)
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| My goal wasn't to create a 100% secure diary. If you need that,
| you probably should not store your data in the cloud. That's
| unlikely that I will ever try to make it happen. But even if I
| would, there're so many ways to screw it over anyway, so I
| won't ever try to make this promise.
|
| However, I will consider open-sourcing it.
|
| Also see my comment where I addressed the privacy issue:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22045670
| jlelse wrote:
| Open sourcing it (and allowing to self-host it for personal
| and private use) would be awesome!
| latortuga wrote:
| This used to exist, it was called OhLife. They would email you
| every day and say "What's happening in your life" and "Hey do you
| remember this?" with one random email from your history included.
| I always liked this service and was sad when they shut down.
| Pretty sure I started using it due to a post right here on HN.
| BooneJS wrote:
| I exported OhLife l and imported entries to Day One.
| https://github.com/BooneJS/OhLife2DayOne
| vonnieda wrote:
| I wrote WhoaLife ( https://github.com/vonnieda/WhoaLife ) when
| OhLife shut down. It's self hosted for privacy and designed for
| Heroku Free Tier. Takes about 15 minutes and no code to deploy.
|
| I've been using it since OhLife shut down and it completely
| fills the gap for me.
|
| I recently modernized the code a bit, ported it from Mongo to
| Postgres and improved the selection of the random entry that is
| sent to you, but I haven't pushed those changes yet. They'll go
| out in the next week or so.
| masukomi wrote:
| your readme still mentions needing a mongo for scheduling if
| not on heroku. not sure if that's something that didn't get
| changed or still true.
|
| Also, for those of us who never used OhLife the readme
| doesn't really tell me what it does.
| vonnieda wrote:
| It still uses Mongo on Heroku for now - the Postgres
| changes haven't been pushed yet.
|
| And yes, good point on the README not explaining what it
| does. Thank you. I'll fix that.
| seancsnyder wrote:
| I did the same thing, and even called it by the same
| name...woahlife :-)
| vonnieda wrote:
| That's such a strange coincidence! Do you still use it?
| obiefernandez wrote:
| The OhLife replacement I wrote is called AhhLife and I have
| maintained it as a personal side project for many years now.
| https://ahhlife.com
| j45 wrote:
| Ahhlife seems pretty capable except it doesn't seem to handle
| photo attachments or logins only via gmail.
| obiefernandez wrote:
| Any google mail works. I'm thinking maybe replacing the
| whole login system with email-only authentication like
| DailyDiary uses.
| the_watcher wrote:
| The shutdown of OhLife caused the "hole in [his] life" that
| spurred PG's request.
| Pyrodogg wrote:
| I also used to use Oh Life and loved it. When it shut down I
| started using DailyDiary [0] which launched an Oh Life importer
| on Oct 8th, 2014. That's _before_ Oh Life even shut down on Oct
| 15th, 2014.
|
| I've been continuing to use DailyDiary since.
|
| I have an apps script that automatically adds a draft response
| to these prompts, which still starts with an "Oh Life, ...."
| salutation. The script also adds the day's weather report to
| the bottom of the draft. My todo list has an item to add top
| and random tracks from my scrobbled music listening for the
| day.
|
| In the evening I fill in the body of the response with
| reflections from the day and off it goes.
|
| [0] https://www.dailydiary.com/
| lancer wrote:
| I have a feature in the fast track queue that sounds like the
| "draft response" you're inserting with script. Ping me - I'd
| love to get your input on that. lance at dailydiary.com.
| macleginn wrote:
| A hard limit of 30 friends is a bit annoying.
| aerovistae wrote:
| Why doesn't the guy just write a python script to mail himself
| that prompt everyday? Sometimes I think if Paul Graham tripped he
| would start wondering if there was a start-up aiming to put an
| end to uneven ground.
| the_watcher wrote:
| PG writing a script to email himself every day doesn't create
| value for anyone but himself, someone deciding to build a
| company out of it does.
| gist wrote:
| Exactly my thought. But further I love when some well off VC
| (Fred Wilson does this type of thing often) will ask the
| community for something they could simply pay someone to write
| that fills 100% the need they have and is tailored toward them
| specifically with features that they want. Or just hack it
| together themselves. Much easier generally (for this type of
| thing) than having to trust and use a product with bells and
| whistles that may not matter to you.
|
| I mean I get the trying to push a startup in a direction (so
| they can invest potentially) but somehow I don't think that is
| what is going on.
| moralsupply wrote:
| Do you store the diary in plain text?
| kossnocorp wrote:
| I stored it as sanitized HTML along with the original HTML so I
| can resanitize it after I improve the parser or find an error
| in it.
| Aperocky wrote:
| I uses good old terminal and vim, with a single command to enter
| current diary:
|
| https://github.com/Aperocky/termlife/blob/master/diaryman.sh
|
| Writing diary has been so much easier! (though probably will be
| hard to extend to people who don't know/like terminal editors, or
| command line itself)
| kop316 wrote:
| For a different thought of how to do it, I self-host a Wordpress
| site that is essentially a diary. However, right now the scope is
| to keep track of recipes that I have made, if I liked them, and
| where I found them.
|
| While I could have made a notes app, this allows my fiancee to
| look at it, comments on it, or make her own posts to give her
| thoughts too (though she hasn't used it).
|
| I have thought about expanding it into a more general blog
| (technical or otherwise), I haven't gotten to that step yet.
|
| Thinking about it, I could make a cron service on it to ask me
| "what's going on" with a link to make a new post as well, and
| make it optionally private (so only I or who I choose can see
| it).
| obiefernandez wrote:
| Hey HN I have exactly this and have maintained it for years as a
| replacement for OhLife: https://ahhlife.com
|
| Thousands of active users. Very (very) slowly enhancing and
| monetizing with additional features, but it's far down on my
| priority list.
| the_watcher wrote:
| Have you replied to PG's original tweet? This looks like
| exactly what he was looking for.
| obiefernandez wrote:
| just did, thanks. kicking myself that I didn't think to email
| him about it sooner.
| haxiel wrote:
| I use a service named Penzu for keeping a journal. It's primarily
| web-based, but you can make it email-based if you wish to.
| Basically, you'd set up a daily reminder at a specific time, and
| you can reply directly to that email to make a new entry.
|
| I should point out that Penzu is not a completely free service.
| There is a basic free tier, and then there are paid plans with
| additional features.
| agentofoblivion wrote:
| Amazing speed/execution. Kudos!
| bergie wrote:
| That's a great idea, can write on any device!
|
| In the early 2000s, I had a setup where I could blog by either
| email or SMS. By default emails would become new posts. SMS would
| append to the latest entry, or I could create a new one with a
| keyword (NEWPOST title, I think).
|
| This was a nice way to create and update travel journals before
| mobile internet and smartphones were widespread.
| crtlaltdel wrote:
| honestly, this feels like a great feature for today, especially
| with the prevalence of smartphones and the mobile web! now we
| have devices that are mostly easier to type/compose messages on
| and the fierce rush to build an app for everything has imo
| reduced the "cool factor" of a bespoke native app. i hate
| installing a new app to use a service if the app is buggy and
| the workflow could be done some other way (even responsive
| webapp). personally, i really enjoy sms based UX.
| kper1337 wrote:
| Why do you exactly need to know my age to store my data?
| kossnocorp wrote:
| As I'm based in the EU, I can't store personal data of children
| without the consent of a parent. So to make sure I added the
| form.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| I dogfood handle.sapico.me , I used to email it to myselve
| though.
| tlackemann wrote:
| Alternatively, jrnl.sh. It's tiny, allows you write using your
| favorite editor, and can be backed up or replicated with simple
| git. It's even encrypted.
|
| Maybe I'm not the target demographic for services like these but
| I would _never_ trust my personal thoughts with a service like
| this.
| cbanek wrote:
| I recently converted to jrnl.sh a few months ago and I am
| loving it. I used to run my own private wordpress, and it was
| nothing but headaches, and fear of dataloss.
|
| I use jrnl.sh on mac, and I can easily have it in my documents
| folder and sync it up to iCloud. I also back it up to a few
| other places, and since it's encrypted, I don't worry too much
| about people being able to peek.
|
| The format being very simple has made it easy to hack up python
| scripts which allowed me to bring all my old livejournal
| entries, medium entries, and wordpress entries together into
| one diary.
| tossmeaside1 wrote:
| It is a popular conceit to assume that anyone cares about your
| thoughts or that they carry some significant, intrinsic value.
| This happens to me all the time. It takes reflection to realize
| that most of the crap that people generate is just that, crap.
| Sure, it may be crap that can incriminate you in a court
| proceeding or crap that could be developed into patented
| intellectual property, but it is crap none-the-less. Its that
| tendency people have to assume things like "I got super stoned
| in the late 90's and sketched out designs for Photovoltaic
| Solar Roofing systems, that Musk guy stole my idea". No, odds
| are that Musk guy didn't steal shit from you. Your diary wasn't
| hacked, your sketches were not secretly photographed and your
| phone isn't bugged. Your idea was in some way obvious. In the
| PV example it was obvious and requires money and influence to
| develop, two things that if you had them you wouldn't be making
| claims that "so and so stole this idea" or "I invented that
| first".
| oefrha wrote:
| No one gives a crap about your nude body. Still, you probably
| don't shower in the open.
| johnnyballgame wrote:
| Click "Open Diary". Click back button. Nope.
| rognjen wrote:
| I just email myself -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| e: Also, I used to use https://750words.com which is quite
| similar.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| >>> I just email myself
|
| Sometimes I don't even press "Send". Just keep pages of daily
| notes in the "Draft" folder ;)
| ilammy wrote:
| I used to do this once, then I've lost a couple of days to
| IMAP. Now I keep a bunch of text files.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| This is how I use Sublime Text 3. I use it as my infinite
| clipboard / pastebin. After months of not using them I clear
| them out.
| penagwin wrote:
| Funny I use sublime the same way. It's my go-to tool for
| when I need to manipulate text (ctrl+d is a godsend) for
| copying and pasting.
|
| It's super powerful, but uses few resources compared to
| vscode/intellij. Not to mention it can handle massive text
| files like a champ.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Yeah, I can open my notes up in an instant which is why I
| use it. I dont use it to dev all the time, but I do enjoy
| ST. If ST4 becomes a major improvement (LSP?) I may
| reconsider.
| penagwin wrote:
| I tried to develop with it (We use primarily python and
| typescript) but intellij is just so darn good. It's kinda
| clunkly for one-off files and text editing though, which
| is why I prefer sublime for a lot of that stuff.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Yeah I have a JetBrains subscription too, the editors
| powerful and I'm accustomed to it.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| It works well too! Too bad is not easy to fetch history.
| rognjen wrote:
| In Gmail you can search by dates. And for convenience I've a
| filter for from me to me with journal title.
|
| Stats wouldn't be possible (of the top of my head) but I
| don't care about that much.
| brootstrap wrote:
| The app is cool man good work! old school boy here made an vi
| alias to my journal.txt file and have been using it for 5+
| years. alias opens the file in edit mode on a newline at the
| bottom. VI search lets me find whatever i need quickly all
| from the keyboard!
|
| This whole 'email yourself as diary' seems like overkill to
| me when you could just write something yourself. Unless you
| are cool with sharing your diary with 3rd party services.
| Anyways it's still a cool little thing, just throwin my two
| cents.
| mmahemoff wrote:
| I use the Gmail "+" hack to mail myself on different topics.
|
| name+ideas@ for app ideas
|
| name+notes@ for random notes
|
| name+writing@ for article ideas
|
| (edit: formatting)
| reikonomusha wrote:
| Isn't that just an email hack?
| Retr0spectrum wrote:
| No, it's a gmail-specific "feature". Other mail services
| may also implement it, I guess.
| polynomial wrote:
| https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc822
|
| (viz. not a gmail-specific feature)
| projektfu wrote:
| I didn't see where the + had any special significance in
| RFC822 beyond being part of an atom. foo+a and foo+b
| could be two different recipients if the server desired.
| Tomte wrote:
| It is supported by most mail servers, I guess, and at
| some time nerds all over the world were heavily promoting
| this scheme.
|
| I know someone who constantly complained that web site X
| or company Y are stupid, because they don't follow the
| RFCs, don't know the syntax of mail addresses, because
| mail validation in web forms often rejected anything with
| a plus sign.
|
| The correct answer would have been "don't do it then" or
| maybe "how about configuring your Exim so that instead of
| '+' you're using '-' as a separator, but I suppose the
| complaining was a big part of the fun.
| polynomial wrote:
| Companies don't follow RFCs, as a rule, bc the only
| mechanism or means of doing so is if the engineering team
| implementing the product is aware of the relevant RFCs,
| _and_ can make a case for following them to the product
| team. (I.M.Exp.)
|
| There's also a generational memory issue here, and I'm
| not aware of any C.S./C.E. programs that cover RFCs as
| part of the core curriculum.
| capableweb wrote:
| Yeah, seems there is enough other services that a RFC
| (under "Subaddress Extension") has been proposed
| https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5233 Maybe it'll get
| enough steam.
|
| Edit: doesn't mean everyone will use it though! But guess
| the plus sign in addresses would be more "email" than
| just email.
| Spivak wrote:
| It's nice that they're trying to standardize it but it's
| an impossible standard since you can't assume that any
| particular domain adheres to to it so you end up with a
| whitelist either way.
| timlin wrote:
| No, not every email server supports it. For example, I know
| that Office 365 Exchange doesn't support it as I tried it
| yesterday.
| masukomi wrote:
| that just means Office 365 has a bug in it, not that
| using that feature is an "email hack"
|
| the plus syntax is part of the email address
| specification. any server that doesn't support it is by
| definition buggy because some mail won't work as expected
| or designed.
| kper1337 wrote:
| Why exactly do you need to store my age to store my data (in the
| signup process)?
| kossnocorp wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22045902
| eerrt wrote:
| How do you handle the security?
| XnoiVeX wrote:
| Isn't this exactly like https://posthaven.com/?
| haberdasher wrote:
| If anyone wants to give a multi-year journal (5-year Journals are
| popular in print form) chrome extension a try:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/goal-board-vision-...
| F_J_H wrote:
| Thank you for the suggestion. Played around with it a bit an it
| looks interesting. Curious as I am not familiar with Chrome
| Extensions - where is the actual data stored?
| bad_user wrote:
| The service that Paul Graham mentioned is probably this one:
|
| http://ohlife.com
|
| Shutdown announcement:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8345881
|
| I used it and loved it. It was cool while it lasted.
| Unfortunately it's just one more example for why I don't trust
| startups.
|
| Also you probably don't need a service, personally I can just
| send email to yourself, PGP encrypted. The only bit that's
| missing is a periodic reminder, to which you can reply. But I can
| probably set that up as a cron job.
| opencl wrote:
| There are a few other similar sites that are still running:
|
| https://www.dailydiary.com/
|
| https://ahhlife.com/
|
| https://www.trailmix.life/
|
| And an open source self-hostable one that was started right
| around the time ohlife shut down:
| https://github.com/einaregilsson/MyLife
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Funnily enough, I also used and loved it, and it was the
| inspiration to build Diary Email.
|
| > But I can probably set that up as a cron job
|
| Almost every app could be replaced with email, a cron job or a
| spreadsheet ;-)
| bad_user wrote:
| I'm glad to see someone retry building something similar, but
| the problem is that OhLife is a service launched 10 years ago
| [1].
|
| Many of us were not aware of privacy issues then, plus we
| were naive enough to think that the services we adopted would
| survive if cool enough.
|
| I loved OhLife, but now 10 years later I wouldn't subscribe
| to a clone. Fool me once etc.
|
| I wish you succeed though. It's a cool project and your
| landing page looks good.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1613137
| dsaavy wrote:
| Non-technical users could just use something like Zapier or
| Automate.io to email them reminders that they can reply to.
| marta_morena wrote:
| Cool, so people post their diary to an email service?
| Interesting. Why not just post on Facebook? It's about as public
| as it gets.
| mnemonicsloth wrote:
| A lot of people would rather keep their diaries private.
|
| Montaigne wouldn't have been Montaigne if he was writing for
| other people.
| wtetzner wrote:
| I don't think it's supposed to be public. The idea is that you
| get an email each day asking about what's going on, you reply,
| and the service tracks your replies in a way that you can
| retrieve them.
| Swtrz wrote:
| I do this with my own mail account using a filter that drops
| messages with an @NoteToSelf tag in the body into a particular
| folder. I hate to be that guy, I think Paul thought too hard
| about this one.
| kldavis4 wrote:
| I used http://ohlife.com/ until they shut down. After that I just
| switched to using a Google Doc. The service mostly just provided
| me a daily reminder, but after you get into the habit it isn't
| hard to keep it up without that.
| obiefernandez wrote:
| I wrote and maintain AhhLife as a replacement for OhLife. Been
| going for many years now. Thousands of active users.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| I also did. The memory of it inspired me to build Diary Email.
| [deleted]
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Yesterday Paul Graham asked for an email diary service
| (https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1216714155731890176):
|
| > Is there an easy way to build, or a startup that offers,
| something that will email you once a day asking "What's
| happening?" and then accumulate the replies?
|
| I did just that! Let me know what you think.
| alfonsodev wrote:
| He also wrote
|
| > Unfortunately, though, in this one case I can't promise that
| if you build it, I'll use it. Unless I know you, I can't trust
| that you won't read my emails. (I trusted the previous startup
| that did it because we'd funded them.)
|
| How do you solve the "won't read my emails" problem ?
|
| I've seen the statement in your website:
|
| > Your data stored and transferred securely. No one will ever
| read or process your notes even the staff. Your data belongs to
| you and can be easily exported in preferable format by request.
|
| But once the data leaves the browser there is no way to know,
| wouldn't you consider to partner with Gmail(or others) and
| appear as an addon to an already trusted company in order to
| start off the business ?
| maccaw wrote:
| I've written an open-source version you can host yourself on
| Heroku:
|
| https://github.com/maccman/oped
| masukomi wrote:
| very nice @maccaw
|
| unlike "Diary Email" your readme makes it very clear where
| the emails go, and since I'd host it I know no-one would
| read it.
| slim wrote:
| err.. You know that emails transit un clear text, right?
| franga2000 wrote:
| Not if the server admins of both sides are even remotely
| competent. A good "email server" will at least allow, if
| not enforce encryption client<->server and (if supported
| by the other party) server<->recipients_server.
| desireco42 wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| Once for making this.
|
| Second time for making it genuinely easy to use and setup
| myself.
| davchana wrote:
| I too scripted a Google Script to run daily, with sending
| me a reminder or question; & Gmail tags that outgoing mail
| as a specific label; script pulls that labeled mail every
| day, archives it, appends the contents to a Google Doc.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| > _How do you solve the "won't read my emails" problem?_
|
| Have the user generate a device-local SMIME certificate for
| <diary@wherever.com>, register their certificate's public key
| with the server, have the server generate a mobileconfig that
| enforces SMIME when emailing anyone, and then in Mail.app
| change the From: address to <diary@wherever.com> when
| emailing the diary address. iOS will remember that From
| change and use SMIME to encrypt all diary messages to the
| public key in your keychain (which the server can't decrypt),
| the server can reroute the incoming mail back to you using
| your private key, and your device-local key is the only one
| capable of decrypting.
|
| Since you're using SMIME, you'll need to use IMAP for your
| data store, which provides perfect compatibility to any
| platform that can do SMIME key generation. I'm very curious
| if SMIME-encrypted emails can be used as encrypted Notes on
| iOS, now that Notes supports IMAP accounts :)
| kossnocorp wrote:
| I addressed it in a comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22045670
|
| > But once the data leaves the browser there is no way to
| know, wouldn't you consider to partner with Gmail(or others)
| and appear as an addon to an already trusted company in order
| to start off the business ?
|
| Also, I understand the concern and that Paul most likely will
| not trust their secrets to anyone. The problem is that's not
| a business, but a beautiful hobby project that I honestly
| love, so it's unlikely that I will ever spend time rewriting
| it and then paying Google $15K
| (https://www.gmass.co/blog/google-oauth-verification-
| security...) so they could vet me.
| alfonsodev wrote:
| thanks for sharing that article about the verification
| process, I wasn't aware of that situation.
| j45 wrote:
| This service could run just fine on one or two VPS' on
| DigialOcean, etc. Zero knowledge encryption could help
| secure the content too, it there is ultimately trust
| needed.
| mirimir wrote:
| > I addressed it in a comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22045670
|
| As I read that, users must trust you. There's nothing that
| would actually prevent you from accessing the data.
|
| So it's arguably misleading to call it a "private diary".
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| I disagree. I believe that it's more common for "private"
| to mean "between you and the company". Eg. Private
| accounts on other services, or private information
| associated with your account.
| mirimir wrote:
| You certainly have a point about "private". As you say,
| with a service provider. Or with family, friends and
| associates.
|
| But none of that is relevant for "private diary". There,
| it's privacy between you and your diary.
| newzombie wrote:
| An idea would be to open source it and make it simple to
| run an instance.
| bob1122 wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| I respect if it's not what you're looking for but you may
| be able leverage yourself into a good position (with the
| community and with PG) as a result of the publicity +
| traction combo.
|
| Great work getting that ball rolling so quickly!
| j45 wrote:
| There's several ways to encrypt he content for the owner,
| including zero knowledge. Complications and risks as a
| result.
| b5n wrote:
| > How do you solve the "won't read my emails" problem ?
|
| Just encrypt locally before sending.
| giarc wrote:
| Remember KISS. He wants a Gmail add-on? Keep it even simpler.
|
| Create a filter that applies a "Journal" label to emails from
| your own address. Then create a filter to have it skip your
| inbox. Whenever you want to view your journal, just search
| for archived mail with that label.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > How do you solve the "won't read my emails" problem ?
|
| 99% of the people who tell you they wouldn't use the product
| unless it can't read your email wouldn't actually use it
| regardless, and are just asking for things they don't really
| have any intention of using.
|
| edit: I just wanted to add I think it's kind of a dick move
| on pg's part to ask someone to build this when there are like
| four different versions that already exist. If you like those
| products then you should promote them, and if you don't like
| them then you should email the creators with feedback. Asking
| folks to build additional competing products without doing
| that first is poor form, as is asking people to build stuff
| that you don't actually care enough about to Google to see if
| it already exists. I don't mean to pick on pg specifically, I
| just see this kind of behavior on Twitter (and HN) all the
| time, often from startup investors, and I think it deserves
| to be called out.
| nemosaltat wrote:
| Working for a manufacturing company this is of my biggest
| pet peeves. Our Salesforce (and customers) insist that they
| _would/could_ sell (or buy) our product if only it had
| feature x. In my experience, most of those people aren't
| really interested to sell (or buy) the product regardless
| of feature set.
| keanzu wrote:
| Contingent Purchase Order : You put in a purchase order
| and we'll build feature x.
|
| Separate the wheat from the chaff.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Are you going to build it instantly?
|
| If not, what happens if someone else releases a superior
| product in the interim? Or my business needs change?
| throwaway_tech wrote:
| Yeah nothing like a VC stating the only way he would/could
| trust and use a product is if they were an investor in the
| product.
| Angostura wrote:
| According to PG's Tweet, it seems quite simple - just fund
| them.
| netsharc wrote:
| Haha, clever way to get PGs funding...
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Almost like VC extracts rent from their investments while
| minimizing any risk they are exposed to.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Do you do anything different in your own 401k?
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Put the servers in Europe so the company gets to comply with
| the GDPR.
| kingnothing wrote:
| > How do you solve the "won't read my emails" problem ?
|
| Encrypt it before sending.
| ekianjo wrote:
| How do your friends read it then?
| mvanbaak wrote:
| This has been solved for a very long time already. It's
| called PGP.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| PGP and friends are, in practice, mutually exclusive.
| akoncius wrote:
| if you want to let friends know what is going on you just
| simply send email/IM/SMS
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Encrypt it with a symmetric key, and then encrypt the
| symmetric key separately with each of your friends'
| public keys.
| dunefox wrote:
| By giving them the key?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _How do your friends read it then?_
|
| Isn't the point of a diary that nobody can read it but
| you? That's why they have locks on them.
|
| If you want a diary that other people can read, that's
| called a blog.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| It looks classy as hell and I think the verbiage on the front
| page is very strong. There is a back button issue on iOS that
| needs to be resolved. When you visit the Open Diary link, you
| can't get out using the back button. It might be just me. My
| iPad has been acting wonky lately.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Thanks! I'll take care of the back button. It must be my
| buggy router code!
| johnwheeler wrote:
| Yeah, this thing feels right on so many levels. Use your
| email client which is optimized for writing. Sign up by
| sending an email.
| gpickett00 wrote:
| I love that someone followed through and got it done. I bet a
| lot of people thought about it. I bet that there's even someone
| seeing this right now pissed off that they didn't finish first.
|
| Great design. Where'd you get your little illustrations?
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Thank you a lot, I got the illustrations on
| https://craftwork.design
| internadvice wrote:
| alternatively https://undraw.co/illustrations for free
| workthrowaway wrote:
| thanks!!
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I have never heard of that service (looks pretty
| interesting actually), but at the bottom it says trust by
| Uber, Pinterest, Google, etc.
|
| Does this mean these companies are outsourcing their
| graphics, mock ups, etc.?
| kossnocorp wrote:
| I don't know that, but I would assume that just someone
| with @google.com or @uber.com signed up at the service
| ;-)
| ska wrote:
| Usually it has to be a little bit more than that (but not
| much) and part of a contract. If you just start adding
| corporate logos to your site you'll end up talking to
| lawyers eventually - at least if you have any sort of
| traction.
|
| On the other hand "Used by X" can mean anything from "X
| uses us as a core part of their workflows" and "A small
| team at X uses this sometimes". So don't give it much
| weight.
| projektfu wrote:
| An intern at Google used it in a slideshow once... Used
| by Google!
| the_watcher wrote:
| Yes. When building an internal mock-up, it's often not
| the best use of FTE designer time, but internal work
| benefits from professional polish as well. Outsourcing
| solves this problem.
| jkaptur wrote:
| It's common for companies to outsource work that's more
| of a one-off "project" with a discrete deliverable than a
| continuously developed "product", whether that work is
| coding, graphics, or anything else.
|
| For example, even though Salesforce obviously has a lot
| of talented programmers on the payroll, I wouldn't be at
| all surprised if the Dreamforce conference website is
| built by a separate firm.
| applecrazy wrote:
| Likely not. All these companies have dedicated design
| teams. I believe it means that they use the asset library
| within their projects.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| that is what i thought also.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| It (maybe) means someone with one of those email
| addresses signed up once, or might have used an asset on
| an internal blog or something. It can mean more but
| that's typical for SaaS bragging.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| I was thinking -- this morning -- about this type of proactive
| system that asks questions to stakeholders in a project;
| especially about their expectations. This is a killer feature
| that I have never seen in my 18 years as a PM. PM tools still
| pose high barriers for adoption, in general, since you have to
| login, navigate, find elements you are related to, analyze them
| and then feedback. That's a long path if you are not fully
| allocated into the project. I think there is a lot of room for
| "feedback automation" via email in Pm tools.
| entrep91 wrote:
| I've spent 3 years iterating on this idea and it was inspired
| by the product PG mentioned in his tweet.
|
| Any feedback is appreciated!
|
| https://www.friday.app
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| This is it! Thank you! =)
| reaperducer wrote:
| Why does this need to be a "service?"
|
| Why not just write the e-mail in your current e-mail client and
| then store the draft in its own folder?
|
| People have been doing that for centuries. They'd write a letter
| to themselves and then store it in a box somewhere instead of
| sending it.
|
| Some people took it a step farther and would write the letter,
| and then burn it if they were angry. Very cathartic.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Great job, very fast. One more person delivered this on Twitter
| thread...https://nom.blue/
| disiplus wrote:
| I stumbled on a "lets call it a bug". If i register with a plus
| sign using my gmail something+diaryemail@gmail.com
|
| i cannot send emails from that email address and so it wont work
| for me.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Right! But I'm afraid I can't fix that. When I receive an
| email, I associate it with the address that GMail reports to
| me,, and when you sign in as something+something@gmail.com, the
| email address differs (as you might already guess). I know that
| I can safely remove +something but I can't be sure that it will
| work the same for every email service and ensure security.
| Please use something@gmail.com, I won't send you anything
| unless you explicitly ask for it.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| What do you use for sending and reading emails?
|
| I'm looking to build a simple script that can send out some
| emails and respond to simple replies.
| tossmeaside1 wrote:
| News Flash:
|
| - Rich person muses about things they want
|
| - Some number of people, reading of said musings assume it is a
| viable business because "PG wants this..."
|
| - Someone rushes it to market
|
| - Turns out the rich guy wanted something that is largely already
| available (if not exactly to "spec") in a myriad of offerings
| from a companies large and small
|
| - Rich guy goes on, unconcerned that his whims just wasted
| several hours of several people's lives
|
| - Several people who did not ship this "solution" watch, waiting
| for the next kernel of greatness the rich guy will drop for the
| peasants race towards
|
| note:
|
| - I don't know PG
|
| - I don't know (many) Rich Guys
|
| - I do understand why people hang on the words of people like PG
| and Musk, it's just not something that I do myself
|
| - I have nothing but admiration for someone who can hear a
| suggestion and execute on it with any degree of precision and
| quality this is not a skill I possess
| nif2ee wrote:
| It's pointless to say the least to claim "Private and secure"
| without at least having client-side AEAD of some sort.
| davnicwil wrote:
| On seeing this tweet I wondered who would be the first to do it,
| and how long it would take.
|
| Congratulations, from a fellow hacker - what's it been, 2 days?
| That's _really_ impressive speed, especially considering it 's
| nice looking.
|
| A lot of people would confidently assume they could knock this
| out in a couple of days no problem, but it'd actually take them a
| few weeks at minimum. I had a post on the front page a few weeks
| ago on the topic [0], perhaps you saw it - I could learn a lot
| from you :-)
|
| [0] https://boxci.dev/blog/why-it-took-12-weeks-to-ship-an-
| mvp-I...
| mtlynch wrote:
| OP mentioned in a comment that this tool existed before the
| tweet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22045528
| davnicwil wrote:
| Ah, good spot.
|
| Well, I'm still pretty excited for the OP at the right place
| right time nature of this. I mean, imagine browsing twitter
| and noticing that Paul Graham asks for someone to build the
| very product you're sitting on fully formed :-)
|
| Kind of a perfect case study of the adage that you need to
| work really hard to prepare in order to be lucky!
| komali2 wrote:
| I really like the layout of the page and your manner of speaking.
| Both are web design ideals I strive for. I also want people to
| write more :)
|
| Little nitpick - try out your signup page on Firefox mobile and
| you will see a one character width input field for the email
| input box :)
| juandazapata wrote:
| What's the difference between this and using...your email? I'm
| genuinely confused.
| kazinator wrote:
| private@diaryemail.com is an oxymoron. Why would I write an
| e-mail to some random address at a domain I don't own, and
| pretend that it's private, when I could send it to
| <myalias>@<mydomain>, where it ends up on a server under my desk?
| drharby wrote:
| _shut up and ship it_
|
| I love the simple sourcing of requirements. Good job!
| lancer wrote:
| A friend and I had the same need for an email diary service in
| 1998. DailyDiary [0] has been online ever since :)
|
| [0] https://dailydiary.com
| nicklovescode wrote:
| A few days ago a weekly letter I wrote myself called Dear Nick
| that I BCC a few close friends. I love doing it now
|
| Please steal the idea if you like!
|
| http://nickcammarata.com/writing/two-experiments-2019
| moona3k wrote:
| I loved the Dear Nick idea, the weekly script, and sharing the
| most intimate notes with your closest friends. Good work.
| _august wrote:
| I 100% read "Dairy Email" until the page loaded. I thought you
| figured out how to email me milk.
| saalweachter wrote:
| For some reason, when I read it aloud too many times, it begins
| to sound like something less desirable to be mailed.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Haha, I actually figured it out. You just ship plant-based milk
| lol.
| esjeon wrote:
| TBH, I don't think this is anything practical, but I love the
| design.
| Freegile wrote:
| Why does this need a service? Isn't the only thing that needs to
| be accomplished to auto-mail you every day "Whats up?" from
| you+diary@youremaildomain.com?
|
| Then you just reply and have your diary in that inbox?
| foobarrrrrr wrote:
| kiss ass much?
| dang wrote:
| Submitted title was "Show HN: Paul Graham requested an email
| diary service, so I shipped it", which isn't a bad thing, but
| given that the post is now high on the front page I think we
| should do the usual edit and take out the celebrity name.
| foobarrrrrr wrote:
| Kiss ass much?
| matt_the_bass wrote:
| Nice work. FYI pricing tables are not readable on my iPhone 8 in
| safari
| racuna wrote:
| also: https://www.maildiary.net/v2/
| artfulhippo wrote:
| >Private and Secure
|
| It's as private as your email...which probably means not private.
|
| Like most people, I depend on an advertising company to host my
| emails. But I wouldn't share my private diary with them.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Right, I didn't think of users' email servers spying on people.
| But to be fair, there're privacy-focused services, so it's
| possible.
| 1stcity3rdcoast wrote:
| Gmail has an autocomplete function which means it's
| inherently reading everyone's email (for training).
| bad_user wrote:
| You can encrypt those emails with PGP, the best encryption
| there is.
|
| A good email client can also learn to automatically encrypt
| when you send to a specific email, so you can send to a
| specific alias (with a plus or subdomain aliasing scheme).
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| But then will your diary service work right with it?
| Honestly, you should use a mail server that isn't from an ad
| company. And then if you also want to layer encryption on
| top, feel free.
|
| (Also, calling PGP "the best encryption there is" might be a
| bit of hyperbole.)
| bad_user wrote:
| I don't use a mail server from an ad company.
|
| And the company's business model is absolutely irrelevant
| actually. You still need end to end encryption.
|
| > " _But then will your diary service work right with it?_
| "
|
| Yes, it's called an email archive. It's searchable too. All
| you need is an email client that supports PGP. I personally
| use Mailmate.
|
| And I've got email going back to 2004, while I no longer
| use any apps or online services from 2004 (most died).
| Legogris wrote:
| Feature suggestions: PGP Self-hosting
| cosmojg wrote:
| Solution: use one of the hundreds of alternatives to Gmail.
| eerrt wrote:
| like Protonmail
| opmac wrote:
| Which has its own problems but that's another story.
| groovybits wrote:
| I would wager any email provider would suffice for a
| simply diary, if thats how you want to keep it.
|
| I'm assuming you're speaking to higher-level issues, such
| as privacy or security?
| nravic wrote:
| What are Protonmail's problems?
| thepete2 wrote:
| Please don't break the back button. I like my back button.
| timvisee wrote:
| Yes! For reference, when clicking "Open Diary" linking to
| https://diaryemail.com/diary and redirecting when not
| authenticated breaks my back button.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I love that you took the programmer equivalent of a writing cue
| and ran with it. And I think this is a really cool idea to
| explore.
|
| I know it's largely a one person experiment and not a real
| business, but some feedback
|
| > I won't sell your data and will be very personal with you.
|
| This isn't good enough anymore. You need to promise that my data
| won't ever _ever_ be sold. Especially since you're asking me to
| share my diary with you. I'm not sure if this kind of promise can
| be made though. Maybe we need some legal apparatus you can
| declare that gives me peace of mind that no future owner of your
| company can change their mind.
| oefrha wrote:
| No "promise" will make me share my diary with a stranger, not
| even a legally enforceable one, unless I self-censor my diary.
| Honestly not sure why anyone would entrust their diary to some
| web service, unless they take a nothing-to-hide approach with
| their diaries.
|
| Although, a web service to share notes with friends is probably
| okay.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "Diary" usually means personal and private. But it can mean a
| lot of things. I can imagine cases where people are okay with
| that. I've managed a personal "diary" that's on Github
| publically. It's really just a reference of tech stuff I've
| learned.
| oefrha wrote:
| > I've managed a personal "diary" that's on Github
| publically.
|
| Well that's more of a journal. But yeah, a "diary" service
| can be used for less private stuff too.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Fair. I've always considered the two to be synonyms.
| oefrha wrote:
| I was referring to a non-diary journal (in the general
| logbook sense), but the difference is murky at best.
| basch wrote:
| Selling the company should count as selling the data unless the
| data gets scrubbed on company sale.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Thank you for your feedback and I understand your concern, but
| I'm not sure how to pull it off. I don't have a fancy lawyer
| that could customize such thing to me, nor I have a budget for
| it.
|
| Here're some facts that could help you to find peace of mind.
| First of all, I operate in the EU, so I can't simply sell your
| data. Also, it costs me virtually $0 to maintain the service
| (thanks to Firebase and Mailgun), so I won't be forced to sell
| out to keep it afloat. At last but not least I use it myself
| with my close friends so we're in the same boat.
| mariocesar wrote:
| How do I update my Full Name? or change the newsletter
| subscription options? [?]?
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Sorry, there are no settings for that yet. Please mail me to
| koss@nocorp.me, and I'll do it for you.
| josephwegner wrote:
| This is a real "Dropbox is just rsync" sort of comment, but I
| personally use a small CLI util for this[1]. It automatically
| creates a new text file for each day that I use it and stores it
| in a dated folder/file. I can look at notes by day, or grep
| around in that directory fairly easily. And it syncs to wherever,
| so I can also just search within my file storage service.
|
| I use this for both regular "diary" sort of journaling as well as
| notes around what I was doing on a particular day. It's wildly
| useful keeping daily notes on things, for questions like "Hey, do
| you remember that bug we dealt with last year...?"
|
| [1]
| https://gist.github.com/josephwegner/677ce82556fcbde6ae626a8...
| sandeeps_ wrote:
| @kossnocorp How long did it take for you to build this?
| rahuldottech wrote:
| Honestly, I love it!
|
| A very related project, that focuses on being a "social network"
| through email: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21853667
|
| Edit: I'm getting errors with the login functionality. Please
| check it out.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Thanks! What browser do you use?
| k_ wrote:
| Got the issue too, it was not related to my browser but more
| likely to my email client that replaced more & with &
| than needed and broke the link. Edited the link manually and
| it worked.
| kossnocorp wrote:
| Ouch! Firebase generates links for me but I'll take a look
| at what I can do.
| deadmetheny wrote:
| Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul Graham. Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul
| Graham Paul Graham? Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul Graham Paul
| Graham!
|
| Paul Graham.
| austenallred wrote:
| You're literally typing those words on a website that Paul
| Graham created.
| deadmetheny wrote:
| Paul Graham.
| vallas wrote:
| this guy is making art by the way
| ngngngng wrote:
| Paul Graham?
| groovybits wrote:
| Context? And why is this rated second in this thread?
| nausher81 wrote:
| I use an App called Daylio [https://daylio.webflow.io/] as a
| personal diary and mood tracker.
|
| It has a single notification per day which is directly actionable
| (Asks for your mood for the day).
|
| Data is stored locally on the phone and can be backed up to your
| iCloud/Google Drive.
|
| I have found this app to be more habit forming in terms of
| creating a micro-diary, rather than sitting down and jotting
| thoughts.
| athenot wrote:
| The very humble Notes app on macOS/iOS fulfills this for me. I
| just start typing, the minimalistic interface gets out of the
| way. Timestamping is on last modification instead of creation
| date but I add one manually. That's about my only drawback. Some
| features I find compelling:
|
| - I can start a train of thought on the mac, continue it on the
| phone and complete it on my mac.
|
| - It's not mined by some advertising company, no subject to the
| viability of some business.
|
| - Being so simple, the contents can be exported to some other
| format very easily.
|
| - Works offline (only background sync requires connection).
|
| - And search is near instant since everything is stored locally.
| charlus wrote:
| I agree - after trying many notes and lists apps, I settled on
| the simplicity of Notes. It's also very fast.
| the_watcher wrote:
| Agreed that this works well for some workflows. That said, part
| of pg's "design brief" was the workflow: receive an email and
| reply to it, his reason for replying being "to get it out of my
| inbox".
| graeme wrote:
| If a phone or ipad notification would be acceptable, I
| figured out that part in a comment here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22046379
| thanatropism wrote:
| An alternative is the voice recording app. It doesn't have
| search but you can use the recording titles for tags.
| biztos wrote:
| I have gotten really into using it on my Mac (writing) and my
| iPhone (reading/updating) but unfortunately it is insanely
| buggy on iPad when using a keyboard, or at least when using the
| Magic Keyboard.
|
| Buggy enough that I have to use something else for taking notes
| with iPad+Keyboard. I've found Bear[0] to be pretty good but
| not better for my use-case than a less-buggy Notes would be.
|
| Since "ubiquity" and "simplicity" are the two main selling
| points for standard Notes, this is proving to be pretty
| annoying: I sometimes write in Bear then copy-paste back into
| Notes.
|
| [0]: https://bear.app
| crtlaltdel wrote:
| i've never used bear.app, but i do a lot of writing in
| Ulysses[0] and selectively copy/paste back into Notes if
| needed.
|
| [0]: https://ulysses.app
| biztos wrote:
| I tried out Ulysses and felt like I'd probably use it if I
| were writing a lot and doing it more seriously. Might give
| it another try, thanks for reminding me.
| crtlaltdel wrote:
| tbh i got it on a whim, thinking that i'd revive my love
| of writing fiction, stage plays and poetry. sort of a
| "recapture the heady days of my youth" thing lol. since
| then i've found that any editor with a minimal interface
| and markdown support makes me feel better about writing,
| in general.
| valbaca wrote:
| It's good to hear I'm not the only one having frustrations
| with the Magic Keyboard and Notes.
|
| Otherwise, I'm also a fan of how perfectly minimal and
| focused Notes is for journaling.
| DeusExMachina wrote:
| Since macOS Catalina, you can also sort notes by creation date.
| So the information is there, even though it's kept hidden.
| ryanjm33 wrote:
| On the Mac, if you click the date, it will flip between
| creation/updated dates.
| j45 wrote:
| The email workflow is slightly different.
|
| It prompts you in email not having to change applications. This
| is good for people who like inbox zero and are in their emails
| all day anyways.
| gglitch wrote:
| Can you say more about "Being so simple, the contents can be
| exported to some other format very easily"? That has been a
| sticking point for me, only having the export of individual
| notes to PDF as a built-in option.
| nickloewen wrote:
| If you copy-paste from the notes app, it tends to do a
| reasonable job transforming it's formatting into a plain-text
| representation.(Or rich-text, if you paste into an app that
| supports it, like Pages or Mail.)
|
| There are a few apps around that can do this in bulk. I have
| one called Notes Exporter. Apparently Note2Txt is also good:
| https://www.macsparky.com/blog/2016/5/exporting-apple-
| notes-...
|
| I am a little worried that some day these tools will
| disappear, but iirc the notes are just kept in an sqlite
| database so it shouldn't be too hard to hack your data out
| manually, either.
| graeme wrote:
| My first thought when reading this was "how do you automate
| it?" as that was part of the spec.
|
| But you can actually do that with Shortcuts, which is build
| into the system.
|
| 1. Make a note with a title like "journal" or "daily log"
|
| 2. Open shortcuts, go to automations. Make a new one with a
| time of day trigger. (Or an alternate if you prefer)
|
| 3. Actions: "find all notes where" --> filter for notes name.
| "ask for input" ---> ask the question you want + put "current
| date" as default entry. "Append to note" --> use magic
| variables. Select ask for input as the text to append, and note
| as the note to append to. (Specifically, the note your filter
| found)
|
| 4. Duplicate this for as many times of day as you want to be
| asked
|
| 5. At the appropriate time, click the notification and enter
| text to log it. Also add a trailing newline for note
| formatting. If anyone knows how to automate this on shortcuts,
| let me know: newlines seem tricky and I haven't figured it out.
|
| This automates the asking, and also the timestamp. Thanks for
| posting your idea, it prompted me to setup alerts for 11:00 and
| 5:00 pm.
|
| Edit: this doesn't transfer bullets to notes. If anyone knows
| how to append bulleted text via shortcut, let me know.
| dpeck wrote:
| Thats a nice little hack. Shortcuts is really powerful for
| little workflows like this.
|
| I've done similar for reminders of things that I want to take
| measurement of in a simple way throughout a day. Like taking
| a childs temperature when they're sick and running a fever.
| graeme wrote:
| How do I make this list be a list without double spacing or
| making it a code block....there must be a way?
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Double spacing is your only option. Don't make it a code
| block, as that is unreadable on mobile.
| graeme wrote:
| Thanks for confirming! Thought I was missing a method for
| years. Oh well.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Hacker News markup does not include lists. To my knowledge,
| there is not. https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
| rahuldottech wrote:
| Line 1 (leave blank line) Line 2
|
| Renders as:
|
| Line 1
|
| Line 2
| mcculley wrote:
| I built a little app for myself just because I wanted
| timestamps and geostamps:
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chronible/id1397942944
| vi-mode wrote:
| PG is a smart mind with a long track record of achievements.
| Still people shouldn't follow him in a cult-like manner or turn
| him into a voodoo-kind role model, 'PG tweeted he needs a pink
| phone, I made him one'.
|
| While the initial email idea is tempting, it's nonsense from a
| security perspective especially with this use case.
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