mheap

I recently read https://julienrenaux.fr/2019/12/20/github-actions-security-r... which reminds us that depending on external GitHub Actions is risky as branch and tag refs are mutable

> Using GitHub actions with branch names or tags is unsafe. Use commit hash instead.

Instead of updating to use a SHA everywhere, I wrote a tool to do it for you, making a note of the original version (e.g. @master).

This allows you to run the tool in the future and have the sha updated to the most recent version whilst still pinning to a specific commit.

There's a bit of an introduction at http://michaelheap.com/introducing-happy-clients/ if you're not sure what it's for. The site's pretty basic at the minute, but I think the idea has potential.

Por Favor's more than a phone call or a text though, it's also a set of reminders with an alarm to remind you to act on a task at a a specific point in time.

I'm obviously rubbish at the explaining what we do thing (though in my defence we're still working out the details)

I wasn't expecting to see many people on Hacker News saying that they'd adopt the system themselves, but I was hoping that some people would see the merit in it.

You hit the nail on the head about less optimised communication methods. Por Favor is primarily about asking people to do things, then reminding them when the time is right automatically. The time might be a specific time (e.g. 6pm), or when they're next in a certain area (geofencing) (or something else that we haven't thought of yet).

Based on feedback from HN, we're thinking about selling a "Family plan" or something like that, where it's a slightly higher fee, but you can share the service with X people. It's definitely about getting lots of people invested in the system, otherwise it's just another app on your home screen (or, hopefully on your home screen)

Sorry you feel that way :( Awesome that you were willing to give us a try though, thanks!

As for the data, it really is worth it for me. I don't have an iOS dev license, or know anything about mobile development particularly. If I'm going to dedicate weeks of my life to this, there needs to be at least enough interest for us to break even, or it's not worth it.

Can your partner get the hang of your Google doc? How about your mum? Por Favor is about making things easy for everyone. Your partner types in 'pick up some eggs when you go to the shop' and chooses you as the recipient. When you get to the shop, your phone buzzes to remind you (using geofencing).

It is another communication channel, but it's one that's reserved only for the most important people, and only when they need something. If you get a message on it, you know it needs acting on, right now.

The £1.99 pricing is a work in process. It shows a different price randomly. We're trying to use click through data to find the optimal price.

Everyone needing the app is an issue that we know about, and we're trying to work out a way to solve the issue so people can try it out and see how it's beneficial before having to cough up some cash.

Per family pricing is a decent idea. We'll have to take a look at that!

Someone else mentioned integrating with apps that they use every day, so we might take a look into the various other to do products and see of we can build on top of them

Thanks! :)

It takes away the hassle of remembering to do things. If you call me at 3pm asking me to put the oven on at 4pm, either I 'm busy working and forget or you have to call me at 3:50pm to remind me again. Por Favor automates the reminder step.

Thanks for the feedback. You actually landed on the most expensive price! There's a few different prices, displayed at random. We're trying to see what people will pay for the app.

69p is a little low, as we need to at least cover our costs and everything so far is pointing to the fact that it's a niche app, not widely adopted. If we could change that, 69p might work.

> Outdated in what sense?

Outdated in that it's not targeted. I get all kinds of things into my inbox (I use filters too, but filtered things generally get forgotten about), emails from family, friends, newsletters, alerts when people reply to me on HN. My inbox is like my in tray, a list of things to work on

> Why doesn't it get seen for 6 hours?

Email's distracting, I try and keep it closed as much as possible whilst I'm working.

> How are you reducing the noise?

We're not reducing the noise, we're just turning it into a very specific sound that you recognise. The idea is that if Por Favor pings, you should probably look at it. If a gaming app pings, you can ignore it and look at it later. We're trying to make sure you see things that you need to see, when you need to see them.

> ps - Hopefully, I'm not detracting you from your hard work. Trying to provide some honest feedback here that I'm hoping will help you.

Not at all! It's all very useful. We literally had the idea, threw a site online and posted it on here for feedback. We don't even know if the idea's gonna work yet. We (my partner and I) have a use case for it, but we were wondering if anyone else did too.

Ah, my mistake. I have no idea how that managed to sneak onto the site. I'll get it changed soon.

@ollysb, @nodata: Sorry about that. I was honestly confused why people thought it was about keeping track and kept bringing it up when I'd said it wasn't. Now it all makes much more sense

I explicitly said that it's not about keeping track of who's done whom a favour. I'd even say that each day, any old favours get reset and hidden from view.

Isn't email an outdated medium though? I get a lot of email, and messages from family and friends might not get seen for 6 hours (or more). The better comparison here is a text message, but they can still get lost in the noise too.

Por Favor is about making things easy. You say 'yes I can do that' and it reminds you when it's time to act. Nothing more, nothing less.

We're still working on the app idea. Maybe it'll just be a website to start and you pay to send favours. We're in the ideas stage at the minute, and nothing's set in stone.

Do you think it's worth following up on the idea (ignoring implementation details)? Or does the implementation make the idea?

For me, it depends how big the favour is. If it's to pick someone up from the airport, it should definitely be a phonecall.

Por Favor aims to fill the space where it's a small favour, like turning on the oven at a certain time or taking out the bins. Things that aren't too much of an inconvenience but are also easily forgotten.

You mention tracking favours, that's definitely not what it's about. It's about remembering to do things you said you would, not about keeping score.

The idea is that you get a notification when they ask you to do something, then again when it's time to do it. You can load the app and see everything you've agreed to do, but you don't need to open it to use the app.

Adding a layer to your current ecosystem's definitely an option. Making sure people see any incoming alerts no matter what they're doing is what we're aiming for.

Por Favor's a to do app with a bit of a difference. Instead of you adding tasks to it, it's populated by your friends + family.

A lot of the time, people ask for favours and I say "Yeah sure" and forget about it instantly. With Por Favor, I can say yes when they ask me, and it'll automatically remind me when the task needs doing.

You're well within your rights to send tweets to a folder but never read them :)

Things do happen! Unfortunately most of what we do is technical, and our (perceived) target market doesn't really care about that side of things. I'm sure we can find one thing a week to say though.

We don't filter anything out, as that's against Twitter's ToS. We do however facilitate sending all tweets from a user into a folder you define. You can of course decide not to read that folder :)

The UX on creating filters needs work, I agree. You can make filters as complicated as you like! e.g. "Any links tweeted by @tweetdigapp with the hashtag #opensource".

We have metric tracking for most user actions. Home rolled though, and I've not heard of Mixtab. Will take a look at them, thanks.

We have. My co-founder emailed each person individually and a large majority of them simply ignored the email. :(