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Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

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Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#51

Post by Finnucane »

simbolit wrote: post #43
chasd00 wrote: post #29

We all (family of 4) have iPhones and use FindMy to see where everyone is and when they’re going to be home to time dinner. We also have a family chat on iMessage that really comes in handy.

So you are using FM not as an emergency tool, but generally? Does that mean in your family everyone (potentially) always knows where everyone else is? Is there a rule for when/if it's appropriate to turn FM off? Please don't read this as me judging; if that works for you, great, I'd (as far as i understand it) not want that, but it's not my life.

I use it to see when my wife is coming home from work so I can start dinner. She uses it when I am out on long bike rides and wants to know where I've gone.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#53

Post by barbazoo »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #28

Google photos, I have all devices syncing photos to one place and now I don’t need to worry about did in-law A remember to backup their phone when they inevitably lose it at the grocery store. Arguably the only remotely important thing we have on our phones is photos and maybe chat history but it’s not earth shattering to lose that. Despite having more photos of ourselves than any other generation ever, It’s still so…

I've been running Immich alongside G Photos and it's great all things considered.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#54

Post by leonidasv »

Kagi, a paid search engine.

I accepted paying for it after the trial because every other search engine just sucks or isn't customizable enough in comparison. Not to mention ads and tracking.

Kagi results are really, really great. I find it better than Google for technical queries and better than DuckDuckGo for localized queries. Unfortunately, it's not 100% SEO-trash proof, but I can permanently block those domains from results in one click - a refreshing experience. The AI quick answer is on par with Bing's (more accurate than Google's), but the best feature is the possibility of banning/re-ranking websites (such as those SEO-spam ones).

This feature is probably the one any family member will find useful: prioritising websites they like the most and blocking/down-ranking those they dislike. For example, I hate Pinterest and have banned it. My girlfriend, on the other hand, loves it and gave a better ranking. Guess that's what customisation is for...

The lenses are probably also family-worthy, since you can quickly create personalised results pages for good sources for homework research, safe online games for children, trustworthy news for your grandma, etc. But I've never used it extensively yet.

There's also some minor features (auto-login link for anonymous tabs, bangs, news, etc) that you pretty much expect from a search engine nowadays, too. IMO, the most complete and efficient search engine I've used so far.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#55

Post by Finnucane »

Having a family plan for 1Password means I can access my mother's list and help her with some online stuff. And it's not just because she's 83. Some of the services she has to use are actually bad. I'm an old nerd and I was cursing her bank's website; it sucks.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#56

Post by binwiederhier »

leonidasv wrote: post #54

Kagi, a paid search engine. I accepted paying for it after the trial because every other search engine just sucks or isn't customizable enough in comparison. Not to mention ads and tracking. Kagi results are really, really great. I find it better than Google for technical queries and better than DuckDuckGo for localized queries. Unfortunately, it's not 100% SEO-trash proof, but I can permanently block those domains f…

I tried Kagi for the free trial and I do not share your enthusiasm or positive experiences.

I really wanted it to be great, but for the things I search (I am searching mostly extremely technical, and domain specific things), I found myself doing the same search on Google by prefixing !g, and Google nailed it so much more a lot of times. So much so that I didn't even finish the free trial, but went back to Google as my default in the browser.

Maybe I'll give it another go in a few months, but for now it's not for me.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#58

Post by betterprojects »

nytesky wrote: post #8

Family email address? Does that forward to all or both of you? I hobbled together a forwarding list with a gmail account set to forward auto to one of us, and the a filter to forward on a broad flag to the other, but something can skip the filter. A proper mailing list for family would be nice. iCloud storage, Google plus, family setup so I don’t have to clean out inboxes or photo libraries too often for a family of…

Depending on the email service provider, for domain emails, you can create a group email that forwards to all parties added to the group.

So you can create a group email address such as family@smith.com that forwards to both john@smith.com and jane@smith.com and any other family members that’s part of the group. This is how we have it setup.

Re: Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life

#60

Post by julianz »

Notion - I moved from Evernote so for the most part I still use it like Evernote, although I'm adopting the more complex features as I find them useful.

Microsoft Office Family pack - I keep an eye out for discounts on this through the year so I don't think I've ever paid the sticker price. 1TB of storage for 6 users is a good thing, the kids know where to store their stuff, and Office is sometimes handy as well.

Affinity Photo - I'm never going to pay Adobe for a Photoshop subscription, and this competitor gets better over time.

Currently trying to migrate away from our password manager but need to find the time and energy to give 1Password a go.

We also use Keep Notes for general lists and shopping stuff - packing lists for trips away are really useful, as well as lists of jobs around the house.

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