Showoff • Hacker News Board

Re: Showoff

#21

Post by crikli » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #19

crikli wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same question as we do mostly PHP; I'm guessing it just uses Ruby as the host software. I installed the Gem and was able to acquire a URL but kept getting an error: An error has occurred: {"stack":"Error: socket hang up\n at Socket. (http.js:1271:45)\n at Socket.emit (events.js:64:17)\n at Array.0 (net.js:825:12)\n at EventEmitter._tickCallback (node.js:126:26)","message":"socket hang up"}

You need to have some server listening on your local machine at whatever port you are creating the tunnel for. If you just wanted to test it out you could start something like "python -m SimpleHTTPServer" and then "show 8000", which will serve files from your local machine at your showoff url (I might recommend running the server in an empty directory).

Right you are; I did that and was able to see a bunch of stuff I'd not want to share over the web. :)

Sheesh. Ruby runs over 3000, if you're not running the ruby server on 3000 there's not going to be anything listening.

Facepalm.

Re: Showoff

#22

Post by Travis » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:40 PM UTC

Text is hard to read. I'm still not exactly sure why I would use this over a VPS (maybe it's for devs who don't use VPS/EC2 as their dev machine?)

Is this for live demos or for sharing documents? If the former, why wouldn't I just turn on apache and give them my IP?

Re: Showoff

#23

Post by jsdalton » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:41 PM UTC

Awesome. I'm definitely a potential paying customer.

Two suggestions and a question:

* How about a free trial for unlimited access or some other kind of cancellation guarantee?

* Minor one, but the dark contrast on your website UI is about equivalent to the background on a typical lightbox...i.e. it reads "disabled" to me on first glance.

One question:

I assume I could map a CNAME record to the showoff URL? (So cookies work, etc.)

Re: Showoff

#24

Post by cmelbye » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:41 PM UTC

Travis wrote: post #22

Text is hard to read. I'm still not exactly sure why I would use this over a VPS (maybe it's for devs who don't use VPS/EC2 as their dev machine?) Is this for live demos or for sharing documents? If the former, why wouldn't I just turn on apache and give them my IP?

Because "show 3000" is much easier than setting up apache, turning on apache, forwarding ports, and giving them your IP.

Re: Showoff

#25

Post by nikcub » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:42 PM UTC

I just use dyndns.org. free and easy to use and update

Re: Showoff

#26

Post by chapel » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:43 PM UTC

At first I thought this was Ruby based since it was installed via gem, but at the footer it says it is built using Node.js. This is a fine example of the power of Node.js as well as the versatility.

On a side note, this reminds me that isaacs (creator of npm) has pushed npm to be for development and not for deploying to end users. Hence using gem instead of npm.

Re: Showoff

#27

Post by senex » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:43 PM UTC

jsdalton wrote: post #23

Awesome. I'm definitely a potential paying customer. Two suggestions and a question: * How about a free trial for unlimited access or some other kind of cancellation guarantee? * Minor one, but the dark contrast on your website UI is about equivalent to the background on a typical lightbox...i.e. it reads "disabled" to me on first glance. One question: I assume I could map a CNAME record to the showoff URL? (So cooki…

We're going to add CNAME support soon. Thanks for the feedback about the color scheme.

If you sign up for an unlimited account and you're _really_ unhappy, send an email to support@showoff.io and we can talk about a refund :)

Re: Showoff

#28

Post by Travis » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:45 PM UTC

cmelbye wrote: post #24

Travis wrote: post #22

Text is hard to read. I'm still not exactly sure why I would use this over a VPS (maybe it's for devs who don't use VPS/EC2 as their dev machine?) Is this for live demos or for sharing documents? If the former, why wouldn't I just turn on apache and give them my IP?

Because "show 3000" is much easier than setting up apache, turning on apache, forwarding ports, and giving them your IP.

Ah, gotcha. So the product that is being sold is simplicity. Are you the creator? If so, I would suggest:

- more contrast between text and background

- explain who the intended user is (web dev w/o strong LAMP background. I would find it easier to turn all that stuff on than to try to use a new product, and it's not worth even $1 to me to do that... so I'm clearly not your target customer)

- explain what your value prop is (it's not "Now You Can Share!", it's, "Now You Can Share With One Click"). The way it's explained, it feels like a new capability...

edit, formatting.

Re: Showoff

#29

Post by senex » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:45 PM UTC

chapel wrote: post #26

At first I thought this was Ruby based since it was installed via gem, but at the footer it says it is built using Node.js. This is a fine example of the power of Node.js as well as the versatility. On a side note, this reminds me that isaacs (creator of npm) has pushed npm to be for development and not for deploying to end users. Hence using gem instead of npm.

We're planning to make more "normal" installation scenarios if we see good interest. Using gem was a quick way for us to get the idea out.

Re: Showoff

#30

Post by PanosJee » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 4:45 PM UTC

chapel wrote: post #26

At first I thought this was Ruby based since it was installed via gem, but at the footer it says it is built using Node.js. This is a fine example of the power of Node.js as well as the versatility. On a side note, this reminds me that isaacs (creator of npm) has pushed npm to be for development and not for deploying to end users. Hence using gem instead of npm.

Node is a network library and you can easily create a TCP server. That s all. On the other hand ruby is great for writing scripts and nice DSLs so the whole concept is implemented very nicely.