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Show HN: Pocket Puter

pocketputer.com

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Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#31

Post by asimpletune »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #17
gelstudios wrote: post #15

Congrats, that’s a catchy domain name you got there. I noticed it’s setup with a redirect, have you considered blogspot’s CNAME feature? It lets you host your blogspot blog at a custom domain like yours without redirecting to a subdomain. The benefit is if you ever switch where the content/blog is hosted, any links/bookmarks to your site can still work. They have a guide for various registrars (see below), but there’…

Congrats, that’s a catchy domain name you got there. Thanks. It took some effort to come up with it. have you considered blogspot’s CNAME feature? No, I am not planning on using blogspot's CNAME feature. It breaks when you type in yourdomainname.com. You have to include the www for it to work. This is a bug that causes problems. I would rather it just be a redirect for now. That serves my stated purpose in buying a d…

I'm really into https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#32

Post by DoreenMichele »

asimpletune wrote: post #31
DoreenMichele wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats, that’s a catchy domain name you got there. Thanks. It took some effort to come up with it. have you considered blogspot’s CNAME feature? No, I am not planning on using blogspot's CNAME feature. It breaks when you type in yourdomainname.com. You have to include the www for it to work. This is a bug that causes problems. I would rather it just be a redirect for now. That serves my stated purpose in buying a d…

I'm really into https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com

Thanks. Could you tell me a little bit about why?

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#33

Post by DoreenMichele »

stirlo wrote: post #30
vortico wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's about 30%. https://www.productchart.com/smartphones/ vs https://www.productchart.com/smartphones/sets/3

There's 75 on that chart out the "600 currently popular phones" A bunch of them are obsolete windows phones and variants of low end ones. Under 5% by sales seems reasonable to me.

It might be a much larger percentage of "phones used by poor people." This project is aimed at helping homeless people and those at risk of homelessness. My hope is it also has some appeal for others, such as campers and digital nomads. But the central impetus here is to try to start reducing the incidence of homelessness in this country, which is at epidemic levels. This means helping people with minimal tech that may be on the older side and/or super cheap.

I have added both suggestions (USB battery pack and extra batteries) to the battery power management page.

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#34

Post by mschuster91 »

Thanks for the project, might be valuable for people on the streets.

What I'd suggest if you decide to expand it: security. Passcodes, ways to back stuff up - and which prepaid providers will replace your SIM card with one with the same number (e.g. it's hit-and-miss in Germany if you're on pre-paid). People on the streets are often enough easy prey for robbers and other criminals, and electronics tend to not really like influence from the elements..-

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#35

Post by lisper »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

This project wouldn't exist without valuable feedback in conversation on HN and from someone "met" via the HN networking thingy called Kismet, which intros members here via email. Thank you for making this possible. It has been rattling around in my head for years and failing to go anywhere until I got a smidgeon of valuable feedback.

Just out of curiosity, what is the "this" that your kismet contact made possible? It's a little hard to tell from the site, but I get the impression that the pocketputer is just an idea at this point, not even at the point of being a serious proposal (like with a plan and a budget). Is that wrong? Because if it is, you should make that clearer.

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#36

Post by DoreenMichele »

lisper wrote: post #35
DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

This project wouldn't exist without valuable feedback in conversation on HN and from someone "met" via the HN networking thingy called Kismet, which intros members here via email. Thank you for making this possible. It has been rattling around in my head for years and failing to go anywhere until I got a smidgeon of valuable feedback.

Just out of curiosity, what is the "this" that your kismet contact made possible? It's a little hard to tell from the site, but I get the impression that the pocketputer is just an idea at this point, not even at the point of being a serious proposal (like with a plan and a budget). Is that wrong? Because if it is, you should make that clearer.

TLDR The "this" in question is the Pocket Puter website with a good domain name that covers both tablets and phones. This website is a useful resource for people on the street or at risk of homelessness. It can be shared verbally or pre-installed on (used) phones or tablets to be given away to homeless or poor individuals.

I already have several websites relevant to this project, like San Diego Homeless Survival Guide and Write Pay. My initial thought was that I would do something like load up links to those sites on phones or tablets and give them away. The conversation clarified for me that I really need to be able to put a single link on a phone as a bookmark or default homepage that could be updated (rather than trying to put a growing list of links on each device, causing different devices to get different info). Previous discussions on HN were suggesting a custom ROM or app.

So I started this website with just the links page to gather together existing resources for the project. Then it occurred to me that I should add some pages with useful information about recurring issues, like working offline and managing battery power.

This site stands on its own as the informational piece of the project and can be updated as I see fit, or just left as a few useful pages. It doesn't necessarily have to grow.

Other pieces of the project are still in the works. I have a rough draft update on those bits that stalled in part because this post got unexpected traction on HN, leading me to post here and do some updates on the Pocket Puter site.

There is no plan to create a device called a Pocket Puter. The idea is to put together useful information making existing tech -- phones and tablets -- more useful for a particular problem space and to foster the ability to give away tech with information pre-installed in the form of a link.

Someone on HN asked me what could be done to encourage other homeless people to do what I had done and make use of the internet as a means to problem solve. One of the things I suggested was give away phones or tablets. They said they would take that bet, leading me to try to develop the information piece.

I currently have contacts on the ground and I hope to develop a pilot program locally that can be copied elsewhere for minimal investment and effort.

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#37

Post by peterburkimsher »

I've put a lot of effort into making my life work offline. As a foreigner, it's difficult for me to get 3G/4G data because my life isn't stable enough to have a subscription. Some of my favourite apps (iPhone 4S):

- Wiki2Touch (offline Wikipedia) and PlinyPedia.

- Galileo Offline Maps (with Google Maps tiles from MOBAC)

- Offline StackOverflow (my own project)

https://github.com/peterburk/stackoverflowlocal

- Offline Bible

- MyWi (extend the range of a WiFi signal)

- A lot of other scraped websites (web comics, 9gag, FML, UrbanDictionary, shortjokes).

Regarding removable batteries, I have a Third Rail case which lets me attach a battery only when I need it.

https://www.amazon.com/Third-Rail-Protective-Universal-Recha...

I also have a lot of adaptors so I can plug in anywhere (mains-8 female to kettle cable, light socket to mains, etc).

Although I haven't slept on the streets for more than one night at a time (thanks, CouchSurfing), I expect that I'll end up in a tent one of these years. Before I can get that privilege though, I need to keep trying to work in order to maintain my visa status, or move on to another country that might welcome me.

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#38

Post by DoreenMichele »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #37

I've put a lot of effort into making my life work offline. As a foreigner, it's difficult for me to get 3G/4G data because my life isn't stable enough to have a subscription. Some of my favourite apps (iPhone 4S): - Wiki2Touch (offline Wikipedia) and PlinyPedia. - Galileo Offline Maps (with Google Maps tiles from MOBAC) - Offline StackOverflow (my own project) https://github.com/peterburk/stackoverflowlocal - Offline…

Thank you.

I will work on incorporating your suggestions into the site.

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#39

Post by skeleton »

vortico wrote: post #2

In the "battery" section, perhaps it is useful to mention that if you have a phone with a removable battery, you can buy extra batteries (normally $5 each on eBay) and a battery charger (also $5) to charge two batteries at once. You can carry multiple batteries to extend your battery life to a week if you want.

Just a personal experience: I had bought several ~$20AU iPhone 4S batteries from eBay from different sellers, and while they started off okay their capacity dramatically decreased after a few weeks.

Also I'm unsure on how a device determines battery charge, but I forever had issues with the phone turning off while reporting the battery had ~30% left.

Maybe I didn't treat the batteries correctly, but I can't recall as this was several years ago.

Re: Show HN: Pocket Puter

#40

Post by gelstudios »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #17
gelstudios wrote: post #15

Congrats, that’s a catchy domain name you got there. I noticed it’s setup with a redirect, have you considered blogspot’s CNAME feature? It lets you host your blogspot blog at a custom domain like yours without redirecting to a subdomain. The benefit is if you ever switch where the content/blog is hosted, any links/bookmarks to your site can still work. They have a guide for various registrars (see below), but there’…

Congrats, that’s a catchy domain name you got there. Thanks. It took some effort to come up with it. have you considered blogspot’s CNAME feature? No, I am not planning on using blogspot's CNAME feature. It breaks when you type in yourdomainname.com. You have to include the www for it to work. This is a bug that causes problems. I would rather it just be a redirect for now. That serves my stated purpose in buying a d…

I don’t currently use blogspot so I don’t know about that bug, or if they support multiple CNAME records.

It’s not obvious but, using the same mechanism that allowed you redirect to blogspot will allow you to redirect the bare “@“ record (pocketputer.com) to www.pocketputer.com

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