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Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

monicahq.com

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Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#211

Is anyone else getting a dystopian vibe from the idea of "managing" friends and family? I can definitely see this service being useful, but that branding makes me feel very uncomfortable.

It does feel gross, even if we all implicitly do it. Some things aren't meant to be consciously commodified, I think. It's like the thought experiment of asking a friend (or your mom) how much you owe them if they make you dinner.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#212
post #183
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain how it works? I wonder what 0 0 19 7 * means.

It's a unix/linux crontab, for repetitive task. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron It's minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week In this case, repeat every 19th of july at midnight.

This is why I like HN, and why it continues to be a much-higher-quality place to visit on the web than many other forums: there were no snarky replies, no "I can't believe you don't know cron" - just multiple friendly, helpful replies explaining exactly what this format is.

What a good community.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#213

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

This seems super handy. I am kinda interested in seeing if I can get it to run on Sandstorm.io. Then I don't have to put a lot of effort into managing hosting for it, but it seems like it'd be handy and I'd probably use it if I could host it that way. And if you want to let people use your open source thing without having to manage it as a service, there's some nice perks: https://sandstorm.io/developer

Wow, I'm now a fan of Sandstorm!

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#214

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

1) Does it integrate with my calls from my iOS / emails from gmail? So that I can sort by "least recently connected"? otherwise writing notes each time and looking it up gets tiresome. 2) is there a mobile app? 3) how much will it cost monthly? 4) how are reminder sent?

1) No 2) no 3) nothing 4) by email :-D

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#216

Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…

Please consider creating a 'Deploy to Heroku' button or something similar.

Excellent idea. If only I knew how to do it though :-D

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that I hate Zuckerberg that I find it hard to use Facebook, but that I trust them less than the other super-presences outs there (justified or not), and I dislike how it changes my perceptions of some of my friends. The constant posting of inane shit starts to look less like keeping in touch and more like an addiction to my eyes. I still like those people, and enjoy their company, but being constantly expose…

Yeah, I don't get that. I see some people who like to reflect their interests online but I don't consider it inane or addiction. You have a hobby, why not share it online?

I don't think there's anything wrong with people posting about their hobbies, or what's up in their lives, even multiple times a day.

I have people that post multiple times every hour. Sometimes 8-10 times an hour for short periods. Generally it looks like reposting everything they read. They become a one person news aggregator, if by "news" we mean Facebook posts tailored for meme propagation (which means a good portion of them range from misleading to blatantly false).

I don't really use my feed, so I'm not bothered by the posts being in my feed for my own sake. I'm just a bit worried that they've become obsessed with Facebook attention to an unhealthy degree.

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#218

Quick note to the founders: You need to add more genders. A lot of early adopters in the Bay Area have friends who are non-binary or are non-binary themselves. I don't want to be forced to mis-gender people who don't identify as male or female.

Yes! This! Exactly! tx.

wait, what?

Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family

#219

Is anyone else getting a dystopian vibe from the idea of "managing" friends and family? I can definitely see this service being useful, but that branding makes me feel very uncomfortable.

I did, but I sort of talked myself out of it. I keep a lot of PIM-level info on people in my address book already (which is on my computer and syncs to my phone, etc), so it's not like I don't keep some of this, but I don't go to the level of tracking when I do stuff with people other than placing reminders on my calendar. I think calling it a CRM is what's weird - it's making your friend group something different, when really it's just a fancy rolodex. The trick is for them to never, ever get hacked, should you keep some unsavory stuff in there - I think it feels like a better offline thing to me, not because I like to keep a shit list on people, but because my friends are worth more to me than most of the stuff I do online.
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