Ask HN: What small software do you wish existed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What small software do you wish existed?

#11

Post by kesslykaes » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #7

kesslykaes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you troubleshoot desktop apps or web apps?

Both. Usually when I'm helping a customer troubleshoot, I need to see their desktop files, so the solutions on the market that allow me to see their current webpage by implementing a snippet into our site's HTML are not sufficient. The problem here is that I'm basically asking for something equivalent to a one click exploit. There are good security and privacy reasons to make screensharing a little difficult, but it…

Makes sense. My mind immediately went to one of those webpage snippet screen controllers, but that won't work for you.

I struggle as well with this, especially since my dad is blind which makes it even harder to use the computer (even with screen reading software).

Re: Ask HN: What small software do you wish existed?

#12

Post by missedthecue » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:22 PM UTC

mod wrote: post #8

missedthecue wrote: post #4

I wish there were a way to screenshare with customers while I troubleshoot that didn't involve more than one click. I currently use GoToAssist which is good software, but I have to screenshare with a lot of elderly users for my company's products, and most of them have no idea what "download" means. God help us if they're on Mac, because then I have to guide them through permissions settings over the phone to let me…

You want to share your screen? Or see theirs? The first is relatively simple. The second will never happen in one-click.

Yep. I need to see theirs.

Re: Ask HN: What small software do you wish existed?

#13

Post by gradschool » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

I'm not the only HN reader who claims to use a different email alias for each recipient, but mail user agents require me to remember to set the return address manually to the right alias on each outgoing message and risk leaking the wrong one if I forget. Some kind of email middleware that maintains a mapping from recipients to aliases and automatically slaps the right alias onto each outgoing message seems like it should be feasible for a single developer, but I can never find the motivation to do it myself. Apologies if I'm overlooking some well known application or service that already does.

Re: Ask HN: What small software do you wish existed?

#14

Post by mod » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 11:35 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #12

mod wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to share your screen? Or see theirs? The first is relatively simple. The second will never happen in one-click.

Yep. I need to see theirs.

In theory, someone could exploit a 0-day and write this software for you.

So, I recant my position that it will never happen. It could happen if you found a really talented developer who was naive enough to do it, or a nihilist or something.

Re: Ask HN: What small software do you wish existed?

#15

Post by bhu1st » Sat, Sep 24, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

paulvorobyev wrote: post #10

bhu1st wrote: post #3

Data Logging App for personal use. Define form fields per line Auto detect data types (date, location etc) Execute - shows a form for logging data. Define as many forms as required Tabular/Chart views of recorded data. I would pay for this app.

Doesn't Google Forms roughly do this? It outputs responses to a spreadsheet

I wanted it more as a fully mobile based end to end solution. Not public facing forms / switching context to sheets but personal ones where I can log anything with a little bit of structure.