vaporwarez :: take one

just like everyone, i'll occasionally come up with something that i think is a pretty good idea. as they come to me, i'll put the idea into a text file called "vaporwarez" so i can file it away for later.

the sad fact of the matter is, i never end up doing anything with the ideas. reguardless of how jazzed i am about something i come up with i end up putting them on the back burner for lack of time or resources. as time goes on the ideas end up atrophying and eventually become irrelevant.

it sucks to pour thru a text file and have all these ideas you were so passionate about stare back at you as partial birth abortions. so i've decided to go ahead and throw some of my favorite concepts and ideas out into the ether for anyone to go ahead and implement. no credit is necessary.

name: deaddrop
description: a simple web/email based app that waits for a user defined [daily or weekly] response to a web interface. sort of an internet dead man's switch, if you will. if no response is recieved, it will send a final warning via email or sms and wait 24 hours. if there is still no response after 24 hours, deaddrop would mail out a blowfish encrypted file [or set of files] to a predetermined party.

as it stands, i already have a script that waits for a weekly ping on one of my servers. if it doesn't hear from in a week it will send me a text message every 6 hours for 24 hours reminding me to check-in. if i don't respond, it's set to e-mail a copy of my will and a master password list to a few trusted third parties. i rigged it up after a friend of mine died and left all of his vital information behind on an encrypted drive that no one could figure out the password to.

name: moogle
description: a mailing list search engine. let it subscribe it to your list and index your posts. there are already pieces of mailing list software that have a web interface. of course google already indexes many of the web enabled archives, still i'd love to be able to go and search just mailing list posts. something that indexes mailing lists in this manner could also provide an rss/atom feed of recent posts.