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Show HN: escape from meetings, etc with a prearranged phone call: GetOutCall.com
- Roedou 14y agoThis was my recent 'weekend project'. I have so may half-finished apps & sites, that I really needed to break the seal, and ship something. This was the simplest thing I could make, so here it is; it's definitely a relief to have something else 'in the wild'. It's very simple: a flat HTML page for the front end; the back-end is Python on Google App Engine, using Twilio for the text messages and phone calls. I'm more than open to feedback!
- borplk 14y agoExcellent work. Congratulations on shipping. If I could find a good Twilio alternative for other countries I might do something similar for another another country.
- Roedou 14y agoWhich country are you looking for? They have their international beta program: http://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/twilio-launches-beta-phone-numbers-in-five-new-countries.html http://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/twilio-launches-beta-phon... http://www.twilio.com/international http://www.twilio.com/international and this page seems to include a LOT of countries: http://www.twilio.com/voice/pricing http://www.twilio.com/voice/pricing
- borplk 14y agoWas looking for Australia in particular. I was just searching for it and from the search results I thought they are not providing for Australia just yet but clicked on the link you gave me and seems like they actually do.
- akalsey 14y agoTropo has Australian numbers. And 40 other countries. Has for years. http://tropo.com http://tropo.com (disclosure, I'm the product manager). But really, if all you're doing is dialing out, then you don't actually need a local number. Just use whatever service you want (us, Twilio, Plivo, someone else, etc) and set the caller ID to a local number or make the call as a blocked caller ID.
- rada 14y agoBeautiful design, noticed a bug though, on iPhone: http://imgur.com/2nOJc http://imgur.com/2nOJc (background image doubled).
- Roedou 14y agoInteresting, thanks. Seems like I need a much wider image for the BG on mobile devices; I guess this is down to the very high resolution of iPhone screens? Also, looks like the webfont character in the H! didn't work either.
- notyourwork 14y agoOk - Awesome idea and project. I just tested it out and it worked great but I did have one bit of feedback. To make it more realistic, you should let the call run a bit longer. For example, on my phone with the volume up in a quiet room you can hear the beep when the call ends. With this service the call ends quite abruptly. Perhaps let it run for a few seconds though I am not sure if this would incur any cost on your side?
- toomuchcoffee 14y agoSweet. Now you just need to grab a few more more domains, e.g. "EscapeMyDate.com", etc.
- scottw 14y agoYou can do it with an API call too: http://www.fakecall.net/ http://www.fakecall.net/
- bluetidepro 14y agoThis is also very easy to setup via a ifttt.com recipe. That is how I have done it in the past.
- droob 14y agoAlternate app: be an adult.
- trusko 14y agoGood execution, I like it.
- Roedou 14y agoThanks! There were other ways of achieving this, but I went for a solution that didn't require installing apps, learning APIs, creating accounts, etc.
- phusion 14y agoExcellent site! Very clean looking and I'm sure it will prove useful, even though there are other methods of doing this. I love that you let us text just "1h20m" and the like. I will be showing this to many of my friends.
- Diamons 14y agoHow're you affording this?
- Roedou 14y agoIt 'only' costs four cents per use, thanks to Twilio. (1c per inbound/outbound text message and 2c for the call.) I'm fortunate to be able to put a bit of cash into a slush fund for giving away things like this for free. (I have other free apps that are costing me a LOT more to run, though still in Beta.)
- Roedou 14y agoAlso: there's a great business model here.... I sell advertising space in the outbound phone calls to someone like a dating site. "Hi, here's your excuse to leave if you want. But next time, use SomeOtherDatingSite.com to find a better match!" See, it's a foolproof plan.
- fuzzythinker 14y agonitpick: Background repeats in y, so footer background is the top (hair) when window is long, which doesn't flow and makes the footer unreadable.
- Roedou 14y agoThanks, I'll fix it. I'm not a developer; I knew there'd be mistakes creeping in all over. (Out of interest: what's your screen resolution? The image is 1180px tall.)
- fuzzythinker 14y ago2560x1440
- dohertyjf 14y agodeletes trolling comment here
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- dsrguru 14y agoI love the idea in concept, but I hope people wouldn't actually use it. I'm not sure which I find worse: not being honest with your coworkers or having them judge you for not silencing your phone before a meeting.
- adambard 14y agoI did the same thing with a text message instead of a call a few years back: http://datebreaker.heroku.com/ http://datebreaker.heroku.com/ It's almost ridiculous how easy twilio (and heroku) make setting up a project like this. Edit: That said, I really like your design, and a call is probably a stronger social cue than a text message.
- dave1010uk 14y agoSimpler: you set your alarm tone to sound like your incoming call tone, then just set an alarm. Even simpler: take your phone out your pocket and pretend you have a call and it was on vibrate.
- akldfgj 14y agoThe call helps you perform the deception, though, by getting you "into character" for a phone call.
- steve8918 14y agoI guess I'm old school, but I've always been a bit taken back these days at how some people think it's okay to take phone calls during a meeting. If you're being paid by your employer to attend meetings, what phone call could possibly be so important that you can't let it go to voicemail and you get to it after the meeting? But I'm probably at least 10+ years older than the average person on HN, so maybe that's why. I still remember a time when people who took out a cell phone at a restaurant was considered rude and obnoxious, so I guess times do change.
- michaelt 14y agoIf you're being paid by your employer to attend meetings, what phone call could possibly be so important that you can't let it go to voicemail and you get to it after the meeting? Do you remember a few months ago when Amazon's EC2 had problems and took down Quora, Pintrest, Heroku and that lot? [1] Or when Knight Capital managed to lose $440 million in 45 minutes due to a software glitch? [2] What meeting could possibly be so important that you can't postpone it to deal with a critical production issue? [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/07/01/survey-of-effects-of-cloud-outage-shows-how-much-of-the-web-runs-on-amazon/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/07/01/survey-... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2012/aug/06/knight-capital-computer-glitch-trading http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2...
- steve8918 14y agoSure, there are some people that are important enough to warrant interrupting a meeting, but the vast majority of the people that I've seen that get up to leave a meeting to answer the phone don't fit in that category.
- akldfgj 14y agoMore likely, the problem is that people are dragged into unimportant meetings they don't need to attend.
- antiterra 14y ago
- Tichy 14y agoAnother idea: "helpIamInAMeeting.com" (or something, didn't check domain) where you can post a cry for help from within a meeting and other employers can hire you away on the spot by calling you.
- SeerWS 14y agoGreat work! I'm inspired.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kk3 14y agoyour background image is 1.4 mb. this one is 100 kb, no noticeable pixelation or artifacts: http://i.imgur.com/7bcsJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/7bcsJ.jpg
- Roedou 14y agoFixed; thanks. PS: you wanna be my CTO? I think this things going to blow up. Obviously you'll have to work from my garage with no pay for a few years, but you'll get a huge payout when we exit.