Key Holder Website

[TakOrb]

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

This may be bad form, because I feel like I've created an account just to pimp something I made, but it's free so I'm going to do it anyway. Just bear with me. I think you'll like it in the end.

Basically what happened was I used to use a great program called TimeLock to keep my keys away from myself. Then, I got a MacBook and the Windows specific program no longer did the job. So... I spent the last four days locked up and coding to build a web site. All it does is let you upload a small file and set some similar parameters to what TimeLock allows. When your time is up, you get your file back.

Ironically since I wrote the code and have full access to the database and the server I can't use the site for myself. I can just peek inside and decrypt my file early. However, it was a fun project and I was hoping one or two of you may find it useful. I guess I'm back to using TimeLock on the Windows box in the garage.

So, having said all that, here is the site. Enjoy! http://keyholder.r307.com

[onestrangeguy]

I'm very much against people spamming or selling stuf on free sites like this.
If they're making money they should help support the site.

In your case, your site is free and even your post doesn't have the typical arogance of the spammers. There's certainly no harm in 'Passing the word' about a good free site.
It looks as thoug you are 'Giving something back to the community' and I applaud that sort of thing.
Thumbs up, and i hope to see you take a more active part with us in the future.

[TakOrb]

Thanks, I appreciate that. I hate spammers as much as anyone, but I had to mention my project somewhere or nobody would ever be able to find it. As I said I've been lurking here for years but just never really had anything worth saying. I'm not looking to make any money from this (if I were, I'd buy a proper ad), and I'm just going to post this one thread about it in this one place this one time. If people try it out and like it, they'll spread the word on their own. If nobody ends up using it, that's cool too. I just keep running across posts here from people who can't use TimeLock for whatever reason. This ought to solve that problem since it'll work on anything that has a web browser.

My biggest hopes are just that people will use it, enjoy it, and send some suggestions for improvements, additional features, or other projects my way. I'm a professional software engineer who owns a web server, and I always enjoy doing a few small side projects to keep my skills sharp and give back to the various online communities that I am a part of.

[Kronopticon]

sir, you have done us a wonderful service, and i hope you have many other successful projects in the future

[ponylady]

about timelock on a macbook:

does "bootcamp" ring a bell ?

or you could run a windows PE from an optical disk with timelock.

hope that helps.

[TakOrb]

does "bootcamp" ring a bell ?

Sure, I actually run Win7 on a boot camp partition on my MacBook. I could also use Parallels or a VMWare virtual machine or any number of other solutions. I have yet to find one that works well enough (I have high standards, I guess). Honestly, I just got bit by a creative bug a few days ago and had to write the code, and now I'm hoping somebody will use it. It's just another option in what I consider to be an area with precious few options available.

[anna]

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you for trying to do something for us all. I wish you good luck and your project a bright future.

But is it not rather "dangerous" to use an online service for such a task. What if your server goes down or I lose my internet access? Also are there not a Java program available called Datum that works the same way as TimeLock but on all computer systems capable of running Java? (Win, Linux, Mac, and so on.) Why is your system better than TimeLock or Datum?

[TakOrb]

But is it not rather "dangerous" to use an online service for such a task. What if your server goes down or I lose my internet access? Also are there not a Java program available called Datum that works the same way as TimeLock but on all computer systems capable of running Java? (Win, Linux, Mac, and so on.) Why is your system better than TimeLock or Datum?

Thanks for the warm welcome.

There is an inherent danger in using any of these systems... what if your hard drive failed and lost your data or your system caught a virus and you had to reinstall your OS? With an online service at least you could access it from a different computer, or your smartphone, etc. Unlike your PC, my server is a rackmount in a datacenter with remote backups and a professional system administrator. I'd say the chances of something going awry with my machine are much lower than with the average joe's PC, but that's my arrogance talking. I try to keep that in check as much as I can, it always gets me in trouble.

I agree there is certainly an added element of trust. Web servers do go down all the time, and web sites appear and disappear without notice. To use the service you have to trust that it will remain online, accessible and bug-free while you use it. You folks don't know me, so I expect some skepticism. That's why inside the site, I recommend that people do a dry run to try it out before just blindly trusting my system.

As for Datum, I only just heard about it a couple of days ago and haven't had a chance to try it out. I certainly will though! If it works as well as TimeLock, I may be convinced to switch (as was mentioned before, these things only work if you don't have the source code). I actually almost wrote mine in Java instead of as a web service since I didn't know about Datum, but I had some jQuery and Blueprint stuff I wanted to try out and it seemed like a good opportunity.

The main benefits of my system are the same as with any web based service: no local installation and it works on anything with a browser. An additional specific benefit is that for this particular application, it's more like actually giving your keys to another person. Hence the trust issues, I suppose. I also intend to respond to any feature requests, so over time the feature set will grow.

[Niels73]

Only problem with registering on your site is that you ask about a 5 digit zip code.
As I'm in the netherlands our zip code exists from 4 digits and 2 letters.

[onestrangeguy]

Only problem with registering on your site is that you ask about a 5 digit zip code.
As I'm in the netherlands our zip code exists from 4 digits and 2 letters.

The canadians have a strange combination of numbers and letters too. If I remember right there may be six digits, although i may be asking for at least a stern look from jenny on that one.

[bound_jenny]

Only problem with registering on your site is that you ask about a 5 digit zip code.
As I'm in the netherlands our zip code exists from 4 digits and 2 letters.

The canadians have a strange combination of numbers and letters too. If I remember right there may be six digits, although i may be asking for at least a stern look from jenny on that one.

Consider yourself sternly looked at.

Its six alternating letters and numbers, as in M5W 1E6 (best remembered as Make 5 Wieners, I'll Eat 6... ).

Jenny.

[ponylady]

Its six alternating letters and numbers, as in M5W 1E6 (best remembered as Make 5 Wieners, I'll Eat 6... ).

LMAO,

that doesn't sound like a zip code, but a generated PW.


so, you need a scorecard for your zip-codes ?

[Kronopticon]

hell, my post code is 7 digits

[Jericho]

At least Santa Claus's Canadian postal code is easy to remember, it's H0H 0H0

[bound_jenny]

If you speak French this one's a hoot: G1Q 1Q9.

Jenny.