> At this time, Consol supports encryption only of certain content types, viz. notes, code blocks, and images, for users who have subscribed to the E2EE component. The other content types available in Consol are not yet encryptable.
> Notably, Consol E2EE does not yet support encryption of the titles of any content types. For example, if you create a Consol note and encrypt it, the text you add to the note’s body will be encrypted but its title will not be encrypted. For now, you should operate accordingly. We plan to improve this in the future.
> You acknowledge that if you encrypt an item after you create and add content to it, there may be a period of time in which your item’s body content is not encrypted while being stored in our database. To ensure the greatest security currently available in Consol’s system, you should, where possible, encrypt an item in its pageview before you begin adding content to it. It is better practice in Consol to encrypt an item first and only then begin work by adding content.
> This means that for certain content types that require creation and upload before the pageview is visible, such as uploadable or linkable images, Consol does not yet provide a way to encrypt such body data beforehand. You acknowledge and consent to the attendant risk that you must manually designate certain content for encryption after it has been uploaded.
I don't appreciate having to dig through your FAQ to find the holes and caveats. There is literally no technical reason for this.
If you are going to make security promises like this you need to:
> You acknowledge that if you encrypt an item after you create and add content to it, there may be a period of time in which your item’s body content is not encrypted while being stored in our database
So.... the data goes across the wire in clear-text, and is encrypted later? Ummm, sorry, no.
First off, I'm not interested in anything that stores data that I might want to encrypt "in the cloud". It goes on my own server. Full. Stop. And sending data across the wire in the clear and encrypting later? ? I mean.... ???
Well... I loved the video. It actually doesn't have to show what it's actually for... you just have to make people interested enough so they will give it a try and then make sure that they learn about all the great new stuff as they use it.
But again, you are going to hear all type of comments, positive or negative, just try to not take all of them for granted. Keep doing your stuff based on your guts and metrics. Good luck.
We're bootstrapped.
The primary reason I started Consol was because I wanted to use it. One day at work I finally had it with existing tools and I started designing what had been in my head for a long time. Soon after I recruited my brothers.
Many of you will immediately notice some missing features, such as the ability to import/export data. Take a look at our first blog post for some insight on what's missing and what's in the pipeline.
Thanks in advance for your positive and constructive feedback.
I'm definitely intrigued. We've used everything under the sun and always end up falling back to Asana (we're a small design agency).
Looking forward to trying this out!
Edit: You guys might want to be a bit more clear that you're requiring a credit card to signup for beta access, even if you're not charging for 30 days.
The video is really hard to follow. Memes and electronica don't really show what it's actually good for.
The actual app looks really cluttered (with multiple left hand panes for navigation). The "beautiful" statement seems more directed at the rainbow UI, which seems more distracting than anything else.
I think you've made a mistake in how you're marketing this. Who is your target customer? Someone who already uses a smorgasbord of tools? I suspect that they're going to find something to complain about every single feature of yours. "I like the way A does B. You should do that too otherwise I can't use it". You're setting yourself up for a huge support pain as well as possibly demoralizing complaints.
So what are your killer features?
0. All this stuff
1. E2E encryption
2. Cloud sync (presumably I could just store the DB on Dropbox)
3. Ad-hoc organization via hashtags
You're going to have to market yourself as a project management system like all the other project management systems.
Consol is very very slick. It's definitely a UI for "power-users" /s and I would prefer this over my current productivity stack, which is just gMail, gCalendar, gTasks, etc. It's much more streamlined and very well thought out. But I can't afford to be locked into these tools, especially not for 9 bucks a month. Consol really is just a reimplementation of many of google's tools, with tighter integration and less baggage.
I'd be jazzed if my boss bought a license for the whole company, instead of a company google account. But until that happens, Consol will be, IMHO, a very shiny ghetto. Because of the break with traditional tools, it will be hard to build a user base because of a reverse network effect- I can't use Consol effectively until other user's signup as well. IMHO that hurdle can only be cleared by signing up whole teams, not individual users.
I would recommend tighter integration with existing services but that does not seem to be compatible with end-to-end encryption. Perhaps it would be helpful to introduce a migration tool for acclimating new users.
TL;DR A nice tool IFF you whole team migrates at once and you can make a clean break with the past.
I know most people don't care, but your sign-up email is broken: there's no plain-text part -- just some crummy html. I'm not sure if the fault is with sendgrid or your system -- either way it's not that hard to have a proper plaintext/ReST/Markdown part, and a html part... (which also encourages testing across the myriad of email clients and webmail providers to see if you manage to generate html that none of them botch up...).
The video you've done / pointing out the current status on this crowded space -- really nice.
I don't love the onboarding (too many barriers to getting started) but you guys seem like smart guys. I'm sure there's a reason for it and/or you'll figure it out.
3. A Shared "Library" is something we are actively working on delpoying. It's very very high on our roadmap.
4. Stripe handles the CC, so we don't store it. That may not answer your question, but I know that's true. We are also working on longer subscription pricing. Expect that very soon.
I like the look of this, and have attempted to sign up to the beta. However, I get this cryptic message about my (valid) credit card: "You must supply either a card, customer, pii data, or bank account to create a token."
[+] [-] fweespeech|10 years ago|reply
> At this time, Consol supports encryption only of certain content types, viz. notes, code blocks, and images, for users who have subscribed to the E2EE component. The other content types available in Consol are not yet encryptable.
> Notably, Consol E2EE does not yet support encryption of the titles of any content types. For example, if you create a Consol note and encrypt it, the text you add to the note’s body will be encrypted but its title will not be encrypted. For now, you should operate accordingly. We plan to improve this in the future.
> You acknowledge that if you encrypt an item after you create and add content to it, there may be a period of time in which your item’s body content is not encrypted while being stored in our database. To ensure the greatest security currently available in Consol’s system, you should, where possible, encrypt an item in its pageview before you begin adding content to it. It is better practice in Consol to encrypt an item first and only then begin work by adding content.
> This means that for certain content types that require creation and upload before the pageview is visible, such as uploadable or linkable images, Consol does not yet provide a way to encrypt such body data beforehand. You acknowledge and consent to the attendant risk that you must manually designate certain content for encryption after it has been uploaded.
I don't appreciate having to dig through your FAQ to find the holes and caveats. There is literally no technical reason for this.
If you are going to make security promises like this you need to:
1) Actually have them implemented.
2) Have them secure by default.
[+] [-] dbcurtis|10 years ago|reply
So.... the data goes across the wire in clear-text, and is encrypted later? Ummm, sorry, no.
First off, I'm not interested in anything that stores data that I might want to encrypt "in the cloud". It goes on my own server. Full. Stop. And sending data across the wire in the clear and encrypting later? ? I mean.... ???
[+] [-] afswashere|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwilson|10 years ago|reply
Looking forward to trying this out!
Edit: You guys might want to be a bit more clear that you're requiring a credit card to signup for beta access, even if you're not charging for 30 days.
[+] [-] newman314|10 years ago|reply
The caveats surrounding E2E capabilities as listed fweespeech are concerning. Security should be enabled out the box if that's a key selling point.
[+] [-] Shank|10 years ago|reply
The actual app looks really cluttered (with multiple left hand panes for navigation). The "beautiful" statement seems more directed at the rainbow UI, which seems more distracting than anything else.
[+] [-] deftnerd|10 years ago|reply
And since I'm not making an account now, I can't delete my submitted information. Should I expect newsletters or spam now?
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ponytech|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|10 years ago|reply
And I hate companies that take this insane approach.
[+] [-] philfrasty|10 years ago|reply
- (not a native speaker) but the english-text in the video seems weird: „much tools“, „very hassle“.
- the landing page is too bloated in my eyes (colors, text), really hard to get a quick grasp of what it is about
Good luck!!
EDIT: - text-color on the signup form is black with a black background. Not sure if intended? Nearly impossible to read what I type. (FF 44.0.2)
[+] [-] joshmanders|10 years ago|reply
This is a play on doge speak[0]
[0]: http://the-toast.net/2014/02/06/linguist-explains-grammar-do...
[+] [-] cheez|10 years ago|reply
So what are your killer features?
You're going to have to market yourself as a project management system like all the other project management systems.[+] [-] pknight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jaepa|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamwong246|10 years ago|reply
Consol is very very slick. It's definitely a UI for "power-users" /s and I would prefer this over my current productivity stack, which is just gMail, gCalendar, gTasks, etc. It's much more streamlined and very well thought out. But I can't afford to be locked into these tools, especially not for 9 bucks a month. Consol really is just a reimplementation of many of google's tools, with tighter integration and less baggage.
I'd be jazzed if my boss bought a license for the whole company, instead of a company google account. But until that happens, Consol will be, IMHO, a very shiny ghetto. Because of the break with traditional tools, it will be hard to build a user base because of a reverse network effect- I can't use Consol effectively until other user's signup as well. IMHO that hurdle can only be cleared by signing up whole teams, not individual users.
I would recommend tighter integration with existing services but that does not seem to be compatible with end-to-end encryption. Perhaps it would be helpful to introduce a migration tool for acclimating new users.
TL;DR A nice tool IFF you whole team migrates at once and you can make a clean break with the past.
[+] [-] adamwong246|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheez|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e12e|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomchuk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptoglyph|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vlokshin|10 years ago|reply
I don't love the onboarding (too many barriers to getting started) but you guys seem like smart guys. I'm sure there's a reason for it and/or you'll figure it out.
Good luck!
[+] [-] staticautomatic|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samstave|10 years ago|reply
How get.
The fact that HN isnt an option on "how did you hear about consul" is an oversight
[+] [-] c54|10 years ago|reply
gw devs / nice turnover / etc etc
[+] [-] Gmo|10 years ago|reply
I think I could definitely be a user of this app as I am searching for a similar solution.
Also, you say in your video you can save code, does it include syntax highlighting ?
Can you have a shared "library" of stuff with other people ?
Edit: Can you pay for instance 1 year in advance and not leave your CC details on the server ?
I always prefer to renew manually than leaving ma credit card details all over the place.
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
2. The code does include Syntax highlighting
3. A Shared "Library" is something we are actively working on delpoying. It's very very high on our roadmap.
4. Stripe handles the CC, so we don't store it. That may not answer your question, but I know that's true. We are also working on longer subscription pricing. Expect that very soon.
[+] [-] Gmo|10 years ago|reply
Please, keep updating it like you already did to track what you released !
https://www.consol.io/top-10-missing-features-you-need-in-co...
[+] [-] drcongo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NeckBeardPrince|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kup0|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r3bl|10 years ago|reply
* Is it open source? (My assumption by skimming through the ToS is no, but I still haven't found a definitive answer.)
* Does it work on Linux? Or is it web-based maybe? How about Android?
* Is it going to be free? If not, what's the price of it?
[+] [-] chevas|10 years ago|reply