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Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

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201–210 of 535 posts

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#201
I want more apps for http://apps.sandstorm.io:

Accounting like Gnucash but multi-user

Issue tracker (maybe just port Bugzilla or something)

Spaced repetition like Anki but for lecture/class room use

Meeting management (prepare Agenda, live minute writing)

Hosting roleplaying sessions like roll20.net

Virtual money prediction market

Q&A Hosting like Stackoverflow

Somewhat meta for Sandstorm: Sell hosting in Europe, so european privacy laws apply.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#202
post #75

A fully open source business workflow engine, pre-built with a great UI for the users to execute the workflow. Mobile friendly is a definite plus. Almost all government software are essentially workflow engines. This would instantaneously solve loads of problems.

"Workflow" is synonymous for: crappy defined human powered process which should do thing but not always do.

IMO the challenge to organize people for arbitrary tasks in arbitrary structures is something that will be discovered by blockchains. DAO and smart contracts leading the way.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you suggest that all billion dollar companies have been already founded and there's nothing new which can be done? I find such way of thinking harmful.

No, I suggest that all billion dollar messaging companies that don't lock their users in have already been founded. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#204
post #174

A paid Linux. To get stunning UX design, upstream bugfixing and excellent marketing. Let me explain myself. I love the levels of ergonomy and polish of Mac OS X. But it's closed-source software. If I use (and pay) Ubuntu, then great patches are sent upstream, which I can use in Debian on my servers and Arduinos. It becomes useful to everyone. With Mac OS X, we're not advancing the world. But when I used Ubuntu for wo…

Apple is not really paid for the OS, but for the hardware. Selling an OS seems nearly impossible today.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#205

I would like a vi for spreadsheets. It should run in the terminal, and be able to read/save csv/xls/xlsx/ods files. It should understand formulas. I should let me navigate with vi-style keys, and have a separate mode for editing a cell's contents (with escape to go back to navigation mode). It should perform well even for very large documents (many rows or many columns, but especially many rows). I propose that it be…

https://github.com/andmarti1424/sc-im

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#207
post #174

A paid Linux. To get stunning UX design, upstream bugfixing and excellent marketing. Let me explain myself. I love the levels of ergonomy and polish of Mac OS X. But it's closed-source software. If I use (and pay) Ubuntu, then great patches are sent upstream, which I can use in Debian on my servers and Arduinos. It becomes useful to everyone. With Mac OS X, we're not advancing the world. But when I used Ubuntu for wo…

Would something like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or SuSE fit what you're looking for (both are paid, commercial Linux distributions), or am I misunderstanding?

I remember RedHat as ugly. It would be closer to elementary.io, but paid. Well, the installation process of elementary.io displays unfriendly information too... At the extreme, choosing Mac OS X requires very few decisions, so I don't want to compare Linux distributions either. One distrib should stand out for my usecase, be clearly differentiated from the rest of the market and be the obvious choice for me. (that's where good marketing proves useful).

I know, it takes 1000 customers at 200€/yr to hire the first developer... Too much, too little.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#208
post #129

A slim, networked, pocked sized computer with a physical keyboard, running android or Linux. These used to exist - albeit disguised as phones - but the marketing department decided we don't need no friggin keyboards, and remove everything but the touchscreen and call it a tablet. The result is a consume-only device, on which it is all but impossible to input large amounts of text. Nokia N900, Motorola Droid 3/4, HTC…

You can plug a usb keyboard into any Android device and it works fairly well for input. I can use an ssh program like ConnectBot as if it were a regular terminal with an attached keyboard.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish someone would build?

#210
post #129

A slim, networked, pocked sized computer with a physical keyboard, running android or Linux. These used to exist - albeit disguised as phones - but the marketing department decided we don't need no friggin keyboards, and remove everything but the touchscreen and call it a tablet. The result is a consume-only device, on which it is all but impossible to input large amounts of text. Nokia N900, Motorola Droid 3/4, HTC…

The market, not the marketing department. >> Nokia N900, Motorola Droid 3/4, HTC Desire-Z. These were the last of their species. Yes, but not the pinnacle of keyboard - Nokia 9300i for me...

  >> Nokia 9300i for me...
Yes! Yes! That thing was THE best phone I have ever had.
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