JFitzDela

Thanks! I'll give oDesk another look.

I'd just always heard about the difficulty finding an actually talented contractor, but I like your approach.

Not entirely helpful, but I'll bite.

I'm more than willing to pay higher than "standard" rates, I just can't afford to do so here. The numbers I hard from the Philippines, for instance, meant that I could pay a yearly salary of between $5000 and $10000 (USD) and that would be an amazing wage (I haven't verified that, however).

The issue is not necessarily how MUCH to pay, but how to find the developers in a place I can afford to begin with.

Grow up.

Not exactly a tech announcement, but my work is in technology and it addresses a problem I believe many of us deal with -- time management, focus, lack of structure, lack of measurable goals. Take it or leave it -- I apologize (sincerely) if I wasted your time!

Changing the name would certainly help, but if I'm honest, I couldn't reasonably ask for a "can't afford it license..." My business could certainly absorb the cost, I just don't wanna. :-D

Thanks for the suggestion, though!

Definitely looks fantastic (assuming, of course, everything works as roadmapped).

Gotta say that the price is a bit of a turnoff (can't see paying double my yearly server cost for a text editor...), but I know you guys need to make money, so I can only say, "best of luck!"

I think you'd see a lot more traction with a much lower itch point (I'd pay $99 for the unlimited license, for instance). And what's with the users and developers thing? I'm not even sure how you'd track it, assuming it's a non-hosted script, and even then I can't see a justification for jacking the price up. Again, I know you need to make money, but c'mon....

Just my thoughts. The product itself looks fantastic. Just hope I can afford it....

Thanks, all! Excellent suggestions.

Just wanted to let you guys know, in case you see this, that I've added a standard e-mail/password sign up/sign in option to the service -- I hope you'll take a look!

Clickable: http://msgme.at

You pick it from the list and I use it to calculate the difference between the current time in your zone and the time you want the message, then add the difference to GMT time on my server. It was simple once I got the dots connected and figured out PHPs DateTime class. :)

I appreciate it. I'll look at adding a standard login mechanism this weekend.

Bottom line is I want this thing dead-simple, but this shouldn't add too much overhead, I suppose.

For you, or is this a broadly-observed view for customers in general? There are lots of Facebook-only apps out there, and I only selected it because it makes it incredibly easy to get folks into the system.

Speaking honestly, it also offers fantastic demographic data for those that opt-in to receive sponsored offers...

Thanks for your thoughts, regardless!

I realize there are a hundred solutions that do the same thing, but I wanted one that was ultra clean, ultra easy, and just got the damn job done.

I'd love any feedback or suggestions you guys might have on this little two-day project. Thanks!

I don't know if I agree with the notion that the service model itself (or at least it's pricing model) isn't viable....

People ARE using services like these (see UptimeRobot and Pingdom as the examples mentioned above). Some of the services are free, some cost $10 a month, some $40.

That said, MY implementation may not be viable, but it's not costing me much of anything to find out, so I'm still going to give it a go.

As to what the service offers, there is obviously more that needs to be done for critical infrastructure monitoring, but for the average Joe running a website or three, keeping an eye on the web server is a good, basic start.

I'm also thinking of people like affiliate marketers (which I'm also attempting to get into) that use their servers to host landing pages and ads (and their tracking) for which they may get charged without a result if the server is down. THESE guys just want to know immediately, I should think, that they may be losing a lot of money with no chance of ROI.

In any case, I certainly appreciate your feedback!

- John

Thanks for the feedback. Obviously most of us in the highly technical crowd could very easily throw a script like this together, but I'm targeting a somewhat less technical crowd (still guys that know they need it, but don't program).

The other benefit is that I offer (rather, will offer -- don't have it replicated yet) geographically distributed, redundant checking for up to 10 sites. This is a bit harder (and more expensive) to accomplish for the general developer.

Regarding the method of detection, I actually use a standard "fopen," to the hostname and port you specify, rather than a straight ping. In this way you could test specifically for your webserver (port 80) or SMTP server (25) rather than a generic ping. I even use it to test custom socket server platforms I have running.

Does that answer your questions? Change your mind about the value of the service?

Thanks!

Clickable: http://monitorfor.me

Invite code: HNFTW (on the registration page)

Well, for anyone still following, not quite sure what to think.

HN sent about 2000 uniques (between direct clicks and shares) with about 10000 page views on day 1. Then it died.... :)

I've reached out to a number of blogs to share the site and its initial success, reached out to folks on Twitter, etc., and -- for whatever reason -- it just ain't happening.

It's that whatever reason part that I'm interested in now -- I think there was ample opportunity built into the site for sharing, and a number of people actually did use these tools. I'm at a complete loss, then, as to where it went wrong.

Any thoughts on where I could have improved the social aspects? Or the site itself?

Guess we'll see. It could still "go," but I don't have a lot of time and resources at the moment to spend pushing it. It was fun to build and play with, anyway. :)

- John

Thanks for the comments all! I'll take a closer look and reply ASAP (got the "real job" thing distracting me at the moment).

For those who noticed: multivoting has been fixed (or at least mitigated).

This is fun! :)

The site is now live at http://sheenme.me -- would love feedback!

Will gladly accept any tips for features, monetization, etc.! Thanks guys!

No question I'm late to the game, but I suppose I'm just banking on the, "it's a big internet," notion -- thanks for pointing this out, though!

I agree. I've got it built (6 hours from conception...) -- gonna let it stew over night, see how I feel in the morning, and start pushing it.

Thanks for the advice!