Marc: I created OnlineHomeBase for the same reason that I originally created Quickbrowse (click here for that story): I wanted it for myself. I wasn't thinking about making money.

The idea for OnlineHomeBase started forming in my head when I came across a Web site that let me set up reminders that would be emailed to my inbox or my cellphone at a certain future time that I could set. My life depends on reminders, so I found that site to be a useful thing. I was using a palm pilot before, but it didn't do me any good when I did not have it around. Sending email reminders to my cellphone and my email inbox turned out to be a much more fool-proof solution. 

The problem was that going to the site, logging on, entering the reminder into certain fields and specifying the delivery time using drop-down menus and pop-up calendars was too much for my limited patience. This ease-of-use problem often discouraged me from creating a reminder in the first place. Of course, I'd end up forgetting about whatever I would have needed the reminder for.

I found this speed problem to be the case with all reminder / calendar systems I looked at, Web-based ones, PC-based ones like Outlook, or systems involving Palm Pilots and other personal digital assistants.

Marc: I thought about what the simplest and fastest possible Web-based system for creating email reminders would have to look like for me.

Marc: First I considered that one would have to go to a Web site to make a reminder entry. To make that step fast, I checked for available, fast-to-type and short domain names. That's how I came up with "OnlineHomeBase.com". It's fast to type because the "1" and "Q" key are neighbors on your keyboard (I now like to say that the "q" stands for "quick" but, to tell you the truth, that only occurred to me after I had registered the domain).

Second, I wanted to make sure that there's no need to log in every time you go to your OnlineHomeBase account to create a reminder. Therefore, going to OnlineHomeBase.com takes you right to your current work sheet (OnlineHomeBase work sheets look like a Word documents -- white space that you can write on).

Third, I thought that, obviously, there's no way to get around entering the reminder text, for instance, "send birthday flowers to mom". But I wanted to make it as easy as possible. So all one has to do with OnlineHomeBase is enter the text anywhere on a OnlineHomeBase work sheet. There's no special format requirement. There're no special input fields.

Fourth, I had to consider how to tell the system at what future time to deliver the reminder to my email inbox or to my cellphone. This is another step where other systems slow down the process with pop-up calendars, drop-down menus and all kinds of idiot-proof but cumbersome graphical interface elements.

Let's say you'd like to receive the email reminder the following Wednesday at 9am in the morning. The quickest way I could think of was telling the system by adding a line to the reminder text that would say ";;Wed 9am" (the two semi-colons enable the system to know that what follows is information for when to email the reminder). It's as easy as that. It certainly didn't take a rocket scientist.

I ended up creating system that let's you set up a reminder like the one describe above in less than 5 seconds, from start to finish, thanks to the simple command line twist described above. I don't know any other system, online or offline, that does it faster.

I'm the first one to admit that OnlineHomeBase is a quixotic thing. A profit-oriented company most likely would have never created it because it won't have mass-appeal. I'm sure there are many users who will faint at the thought of having to remember a command like ";;wed 9am". OnlineHomeBase is not meant for them. OnlineHomeBase is for those who like the speed that comes with using a command line. By the way, I also love keyboard shortcuts (OnlineHomeBase offers them for all important functions), because they're much faster than having to point and click. I guess that makes me old-fashioned.

Marc: Because my solution is a sort of retro, hearking back to the times before we had graphical user interfaces like Windows. Back then, if you wanted to see what files you had inside a directory, you had to enter a command that looked like this: "c:\dir" (actually, you only had to type "dir", remember?). It was too arcane for many users (that's why Apple and then Windows were so successful). There's no doubt that those command line interface were dreadful. OnlineHomeBase, I've revived some of what was good about the old approach, however, without going back all the way. OnlineHomeBase employs a fast-to-use, command-line driven interface component for setting up reminders, within an otherwise modern and easy Web-based user interface. And something like ";;9pm" is pretty intuitive, I would say.

I also have a special theory when it comes to reminder services: Basically, I believe they're useless if it takes more than 10 seconds to create a reminder. I believe that creating reminders inherently requires the ability to do it quickly. I already mentioned the scenario of wanting to jot down a reminder while having little time; everyone can relate to that. There's another typical scenario: I often think of an event I want to remind myself of while I'm very much focussed on some other thing. For instance, I might be working on some programming code when suddenly, out of nowhere, the thought of having to make sure to pay the credit card bill the next day crosses my mind. If setting up the reminder took any longer than 5 seconds I would not do it, because I'm focussed programming and I wouldn't want to interrupt the flow (programmers will know what I'm talking about). I have coined this the "spontaneous action / speed problem". However, OnlineHomeBase is so quick to use that I end up creating the reminder in seconds and, bang, I'm back to programming, without having stopped the flow.

This is what I mean when I say that a reminder system has an inherent necessity for speed, for a quick in and out -- much more so than other Web-based applications like Hotmail.

But hey, maybe it's just me thinking like this. OnlineHomeBase did have a great effect on my own productivity and followup, though.

Marc: You can use it for recurring events like people's birthdays. Besides reminders, you can use OnlineHomeBase to quickly save any kind of note or text information that you want to be able to quickly access anytime and from anywhere. I use it for to-do lists, notes of all kinds, and similar things that I'd like to access from different places, for instance, from the office and from home. I'm also having one work sheet in my OnlineHomeBase account that contains all the toll free numbers for my credit cards -- which came in really handy when I lost my wallet during a recent stay in Key West. Sensitive information like this can be protected with the OnlineHomeBase encryption feature, so it can't be read even if someone broke into the OnlineHomeBase database. This encryption feature was something I felt was needed for the system in order to make me feel comfortable with storing personal information. It's another feature that I found nowhere else.

Marc: It uses a popular, tried-and-true encryption algorithm called "Blowfish". It's a funny name, but if you search for articles about it on the Web you'll find that it is considered a very strong and safe encryption method that is widely used for all kinds of serious applications. The Blowfish technology is in the public domain which means it is available to developers for free, just like the operating system Linux, the programming language PERL and the database system MySQL -- all of which OnlineHomeBase uses. Anyway, if you encrypt one of your OnlineHomeBase work sheets and forget your pass phrase, not even I will be able to help you, since OnlineHomeBase does not store your pass phrases anywhere and neither I nor anybody I know can crack a Blowfish-generated code. So don't forget your pass phrase if you use the encryption feature. I use the feature only with sheets that contain truly sensitive information, because encrypting a sheet makes the system unable to perform searches on it or recognize email reminders in it.

There are two other cool features: One is the global search feature, enabling users to search all their sheets for a certain expression. It works like the "Search in Files" feature in Windows. But it's better in that it lists the search results the way a search engine does: click on a result, and you're taken to the work sheet containing the phrase, with the expression being high-lighted so you can easily spot it. Not even Windows let's you do that. I find it very useful.

Another unique feature is the ability to share any work sheet in read-only mode with other people. For instance, I'm having work sheets for freelance programmers I work with that list how much money I owe them and what projects they have completed. OnlineHomeBase provides a Web address I can send to these freelancers that displays the work sheet for them, however, without giving them the ability to make changes to it or look at other work sheets in my OnlineHomeBase account. There's also the option to send a link that lets that person make changes to the sheet, however, again without being able to access any of my other sheets. This easy feature makes OnlineHomeBase a very effective collaboration tool for teams. Again, I don't know of any other Web-based service that lets you do something like this in as straight-forward a way.

Well, first of all I'm very grateful for all my experiences with Quickbrowse and not disappointed by the outcome, even though it has not made me a millionaire. It's been a great experience and I'm thankful to all my investors and partners. I am also satisfied that Quickbrowse did not have to go out of business like so many other dotcoms and that my investors, therefore, still stand a chance of getting a return on their money.

With OnlineHomeBase, history will not repeat itself because today is a different time, there's no frenzy. There is a similarity in that when I created Quickbrowse I did not mean it to be a business either. Rather, I wanted to create a utility that would make my work as a correspondent for German newspapers easier. In the sense that creating it was meant to make my own life easier, OnlineHomeBase is Quickbrowse all over again.

This time around, most of the code was written not on the beach but in our yard. There was that one day when I set up a table in our yard, right underneath a bunch of palm trees. I ran an Ethernet cable from inside the house underneath the dirt to the table so I would have high-speed Internet access (I know, I should install a WiFi wireless network). Ever since I created this outside workspace, I've been spending more time than ever under the sky, ten or twelve hours every day. I absolutely love it. [images for media coverage]

I definitely won't add advertising, because that wouldn't jive with the philosophy of making OnlineHomeBase as lean and uncluttered and fast and pleasant to use as possible. If many people start using it, and that's a big if, I might start charging a ridiculously low monthly micropayment, like 99 cents or so, to recoup my costs. I may license the system to people or companies who want to adapt OnlineHomeBase for their own internal use, with their logo, additional admin capabilities and so on. OnlineHomeBase is a simple but effective productivity tool and it makes sense within all kinds of work environments.

OnlineHomeBase is about having an easily accessible place for notes and quick-to-set-up reminders. I think almost every Internet user has a need for that. People like I who drink and sleep and breathe the Net will love OnlineHomeBase. To me it feels like my personal hide-away on the Web, like my nest in cyberspace, a den, a shack, a lair, my online base where I can make a stop-over, quickly unload some information or pick up something I need or set up a reminder, and then take off again to surf on to other shores. I use OnlineHomeBase more often than any other Web site, including Google or Yahoo, in the course of a day. But then, I might just be weird.
;-)

Which takes me back to your initial question about why I would create another Web service after Quickbrowse. As I said, one reason is that I wanted the particular things OnlineHomeBase lets me do. But another big reason is that I'm still very passionate about the Internet and the benefits it can bring into our lives -- even after the Internet bubble has burst. I think that the enabling qualities of the Net are absolutely exciting. Last but not least, I'm afraid that I'm just having too good a time tinkering with code (even though I don't think of myself as a professional programmer). It's like doing crossword puzzles, with the difference being that in the end you have created something that is useful. The Web enables you to share that creation with everybody on the planet. Is that cool or what?

Additional information:

• Images for Media Coverage
• About OnlineHomeBase [short summary]
  
  Marc is vice president of communications for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.