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Show HN - usernique.com: Generate usernames and check availability
- trevorah 14y agoAny feedback would be really cool...
- conroy 14y agoYou should add more services! I wrote http://handlehelp.com http://handlehelp.com which checks for username availability across multiple sites. It's open source[1], so you can use some of my checks if you'd like. [1]: https://github.com/kyleconroy/handlehelp https://github.com/kyleconroy/handlehelp
- trevorah 14y agoGood idea, thanks!
- citricsquid 14y agoRegarding the reddit check, a username can be unavailable for registration even if there is no profile, after an account is deleted the username is reserved forever. Not sure if there is any way to check if a username is actually available with out trying to register it. For example "citricsquid" is unavailable on reddit but your service reports it is available.
- trevorah 14y agoDamn, I only just added the reddit check. Looks like I might have to revert that...
- jschuur 14y agoShould look up the domain name too. And what's the point in showing the ones that are taken?
- nsp 14y agoCould you include domain names (.com, maybe .io/.ly) and maybe Facebook url? If you had those this could be great for finding pronounceable names. It's be great if you could set it so that it would just keep trying until it found one that was available on all services, but I can see that adding a ton of overhead, so I can see why you haven't done that yet.
- trevorah 14y agoI've just added the .io and i'll add .com in a bit. Adding in the loop might be a bit much if you're not bothered about certain services - e.g constantly updating the page just because a twitter name cant be found.
- nsp 14y agoYeah, I agree. You could do a sortable list of services so the user could rank their importance and then pick the best result from the first X(10?) iterations given their preferences. Obviously, that adds a lot of complexity, you just got me excited.
- trevorah 14y agoFork it and try it out! https://github.com/trevorah/usernique https://github.com/trevorah/usernique
- josephpmay 14y agoYou should include some form of timeouting. I purposely have Reddit blocked on my computer, and the page wouldn't finish loading because of that.
- aoetr 14y agoWell for starters it needs to support many more websites (Facebook, Google/Youtube, Reddit, etc.) and needs to actually do the check automatically. And it must be able to register the usernames in bulk, bypassing registration limits using multiple proxies and bypassing captchas using deathbycaptcha.com or similar. Finally, support for generating realistic-looking activity on the websites would also be really useful. Add an API and it would become a solid service.
- MasterScrat 14y agoIs there a way to have the checks performed for a given username? That would seem a lot more useful to me...
- duvet 14y agoyou should be clearer about what the site does without ruining the simplicity. I was shown the site and didn't notice the title, so it caught me off guard. it appeared to be someone's about page rather than a generator.
- ponyous 14y agoIt seems like every username starts with vowel.
- trevorah 14y agoYeah, it's very basic. If you check out the src, you can see that it is vowel, consonant, vowel... Basic, but it kinda works.
- Avalaxy 14y agoI love, it has some great user name suggestions. It would be great if it would check some more sites.
- bdc 14y agoWhat are you using to determine whether *.io domains are "free" vs "taken"? It seems to be incorrect. http://www.usernique.com/io/x -- "free" http://www.nic.io/cgi-bin/whois?query=x.io -- The domain is unavailable for use.
- trevorah 14y agojust checking the return code on a GET request. src is on github if you're curious. You're right though, looks like the domain lookups need a bit of work.
- rajivm 14y agoYou should do a "whois" lookup for the domain. The return code for a 'get' request on the domain has no bearing on its availability -- many parked domains do not even have DNS configured, let alone HTTP.
- cbhl 14y agoI'd be wary of doing automated whois lookups, which might be considered abusive / against terms of service depending on which server you hit.
- trevorah 14y agoGood point. This doesnt sound like a quick fix.
- trevorah 14y agoVery true. This requires a little more work than my current hack. I'll see if there is a whois package for node...
- nwh 14y agoThe quickest way I've found is to do a DNS lookup, and if that fails, hit the WHOIS.
- 14y ago
- alexvr 14y agoSweet! I love this name: etabocagi Sounds like an indigenous tribe or something
- alexvr 14y agoApparently etune.com is available... cooler than any of my domains, and randomly generated. Nice.
- scrapcode 14y agoIdea is awesome. I like how the usernames are generated in the first place. It doesn't work, however. I've been looking for simple things that I can hack up to help me learn ruby, so I made a little Ruby version using this idea. "UNameGen" https://github.com/scrapcode/ruby-unamegen https://github.com/scrapcode/ruby-unamegen