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Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

fjunkmail.com

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Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#21

Post by scottmotte »

DigitalSea wrote: post #19

Really nice idea, nice work man. There's just one thing though that worries me unless I misunderstand how it's all setup. But I noticed your popup where you enter credit card details is being displayed on a non-https encrypted page. Are credit card details safe to enter, are they encrypted in any way? I could be wrong and you could be using something like Stripe or a 3rd party payment API, I wanted to enter my credit…

Yes, I am using stripe via its stripe.js api so it is secure. (but if the little app proves popular I will invest in using https or at the very least piggy back on heroku's https)

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#22

Post by biot »

scottmotte wrote: post #8
milesokeefe wrote: post #3

"I think this is a fair price for the joy of retaliating against junk mail. Plus, it costs me time and money to deliver these postcards." What work is on your end? It appears that Sincerely prints/ships it, and the $2 charge is to pay for that.

Fair question. That sentence is geared towards non-programmers (which is of course an audience outside of Hacker News) Think of it this way: Sincerely is an extension of me because I have to pay them 99 cents per postcard so it is costing me 'time' (but in this case I am paying for that 'time' with money). Then on top of that I need to pay Stripe 36 cents to collect. Same principle. But maybe I need to come up with a…

I'd take out the link to Sincerely. People don't need to know who the wizard is behind the curtain, only that it's magic to them. Say something like "Postcards cost time and money to ship. To save you the hassle of buying a postcard, looking up the address of the offending junk mailer, filling it out, and going to a mailbox to drop it off, we handle all that for you. That frees you up to focus your time and energy where it's best spent: crafting the perfect rant."

Well done though and great use of both Sincerely and Stripe... not to mention actually launching!

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#23

Post by ChuckMcM »

I think this is a fabulous idea. Can you do me a favor? Can you make it so that I can enter my name and address and then it will send a postcard to my choice of 'congressional representative (state or federal)', senate representative (state or federal), governor or president ? My experience is that getting paper mail from people is more effective at communicating than email, and knowing that someone paid $2 to send this comment is a clear sign to a representative that the person really really means it. I would love you long time if you could do that.

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#24

Post by melvinram »

scottmotte wrote: post #21
DigitalSea wrote: post #19

Really nice idea, nice work man. There's just one thing though that worries me unless I misunderstand how it's all setup. But I noticed your popup where you enter credit card details is being displayed on a non-https encrypted page. Are credit card details safe to enter, are they encrypted in any way? I could be wrong and you could be using something like Stripe or a 3rd party payment API, I wanted to enter my credit…

Yes, I am using stripe via its stripe.js api so it is secure. (but if the little app proves popular I will invest in using https or at the very least piggy back on heroku's https)

Even with Stripe, you should use SSL as per their info page: https://stripe.com/help/ssl

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#25

Post by scottmotte »

melvinram wrote: post #24
scottmotte wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am using stripe via its stripe.js api so it is secure. (but if the little app proves popular I will invest in using https or at the very least piggy back on heroku's https)

Even with Stripe, you should use SSL as per their info page: https://stripe.com/help/ssl

Definitely agreed, but PCI-compliance wise I 'pass' with the current setup going through stripe.js. But nonetheless, I agree it is a must have for any legitimate site.

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#26

Post by prasincs »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #23

I think this is a fabulous idea. Can you do me a favor? Can you make it so that I can enter my name and address and then it will send a postcard to my choice of 'congressional representative (state or federal)', senate representative (state or federal), governor or president ? My experience is that getting paper mail from people is more effective at communicating than email, and knowing that someone paid $2 to send t…

That's a great idea. I think the act of sending paper mail feels rather tedious to those accustomed to using emails, IMs often. People are more likely to use a tool like this if it meant attention to issues. From the perspective of the senators, seeing a stack of 10,000 paper letters is much more tangible than say, 10,000 emails or petitions on a webpage. Now someone needs to make it :)

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#27

Post by scottmotte »

prasincs wrote: post #26
ChuckMcM wrote: post #23

I think this is a fabulous idea. Can you do me a favor? Can you make it so that I can enter my name and address and then it will send a postcard to my choice of 'congressional representative (state or federal)', senate representative (state or federal), governor or president ? My experience is that getting paper mail from people is more effective at communicating than email, and knowing that someone paid $2 to send t…

That's a great idea. I think the act of sending paper mail feels rather tedious to those accustomed to using emails, IMs often. People are more likely to use a tool like this if it meant attention to issues. From the perspective of the senators, seeing a stack of 10,000 paper letters is much more tangible than say, 10,000 emails or petitions on a webpage. Now someone needs to make it :)

This is an excellent idea. I am adding this RIGHT NOW as a show for how it 'could' be, but should probably become a separate site. I'll reply back when it is live.

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#28

Post by fatalerrorx3 »

scottmotte wrote: post #25
melvinram wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with Stripe, you should use SSL as per their info page: https://stripe.com/help/ssl

Definitely agreed, but PCI-compliance wise I 'pass' with the current setup going through stripe.js. But nonetheless, I agree it is a must have for any legitimate site.

I think most non-tech people wouldn't know that you were using stripe, and would abandon the site at the point of sale (but I could be wrong). Me being a tech person, I would still abandon the site after not seeing an SSL connection, in my opinion it's not worth it to not have one

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#29

Post by scottmotte »

prasincs wrote: post #26
ChuckMcM wrote: post #23

I think this is a fabulous idea. Can you do me a favor? Can you make it so that I can enter my name and address and then it will send a postcard to my choice of 'congressional representative (state or federal)', senate representative (state or federal), governor or president ? My experience is that getting paper mail from people is more effective at communicating than email, and knowing that someone paid $2 to send t…

That's a great idea. I think the act of sending paper mail feels rather tedious to those accustomed to using emails, IMs often. People are more likely to use a tool like this if it meant attention to issues. From the perspective of the senators, seeing a stack of 10,000 paper letters is much more tangible than say, 10,000 emails or petitions on a webpage. Now someone needs to make it :)

Ok, to show how this might look, I've done the following:

http://fjunkmail.com/?senators=true

(it's hidden away unless you pass senators=true)

What do you think? Should something like this be on its own mini site? Ideas for a name?

Re: Show HN: my friday night project - F Junk Mail

#30

Post by ChuckMcM »

scottmotte wrote: post #29
prasincs wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great idea. I think the act of sending paper mail feels rather tedious to those accustomed to using emails, IMs often. People are more likely to use a tool like this if it meant attention to issues. From the perspective of the senators, seeing a stack of 10,000 paper letters is much more tangible than say, 10,000 emails or petitions on a webpage. Now someone needs to make it :)

Ok, to show how this might look, I've done the following: http://fjunkmail.com/?senators=true (it's hidden away unless you pass senators=true) What do you think? Should something like this be on its own mini site? Ideas for a name?

That is great! Probably put the name on the same line as the hello.

Possible site names could be 'stopbadpolicy.' or 'tell-your-congress-critter.com' or LetWashingtonKnow.com or even VoiceOfThePeople.com

Clearly .com or .org or most tlds would work.

As soon as its up I'll send another letter to my senators to ask them to force the TSA to follow the law.

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