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Title: So we've kept on getting threads like "Would this idea be cool?" on HN, and I've always thought that this wasn't the correct approach in creating a startup. The problem should be recognized first. So HN, what are problems that you face everyday that need to be fixed or remedied?
Upvote: | 69 |
Title: Disclaimer: I'm European. I have never been in the U.S. I am not related to Nokia at all.<p>Reading Hacker news and other U.S-centric news sites, it looks like there is nothing but Apple and Android. Whenever Nokia gets mentioned, there is some disdain. However, Nokia sells about 35% of all mobile devices in the world. I myself own one. I really like the platform. It is open source, it runs Java, it supports Flash and it is very pleasant to write applications using C++ and QT. It is a no-BS platform, just unlike Apple's policy-hell. In short, from my point of view is the ideal platform to build for: huge market, no politics, solid open source platform.<p>Why is it almost always ignored? Did they do something horribly wrong in the U.S. market and never recovered? Is it seen as "unpatriotic" because is foreign? Do you feel it as technically inferior?
Upvote: | 60 |
Title: I plan a deeper dive into text mining this year, and am looking for some suggestions on what resources are best. A friend suggested Text Mining by Weiss, et al http://www.springer.com/computer/database+management+%26+information+retrieval/book/978-0-387-95433-2<p>What would you suggest?
Upvote: | 59 |
Title: Weeeeeee
Upvote: | 114 |
Title: I hear about so many different types of databases and so many similar kinds of databases, which is the one I should start to learn about so that I get a good understanding of how databases work and how it can be used in programming?
Upvote: | 58 |
Title: Hello fellow HNers.<p>I am posting this from a throw-away account. I tried to anonymize most of the details here; I will of course give my full details to serious people who will contact me privately.<p>I'm a Python developer, and I live in a famously aggressive little country. I'm currently being offered to work in a big governmental firm responsible for weapon development for our military. Military power is a very high priority for my country, thus a lot of resources are given to these kind of companies, and thus I'm being offered very good salary and benefits for this job.<p>I don't really want to work there.
Incidentally, I'm not a pacifist, but I would really prefer to avoid working with these kind of people. Also I wouldn't want to do all the security checks and be exposed to secret military information, etc.<p>Will anyone here be interested of hiring me? I'd be interested in working as a telecommuting freelancer.<p>About myself: I'm in my twenties, I've been programming Python for a few years, and I'm the developer of two open-source projects, whose code you could inspect freely when you'll contact me privately. I have some experience with Django and I can maintain a LAMP stack. I am also interested in scientific computing.<p>Here's my anonymous contact email: [email protected]<p>Thanks.
Upvote: | 48 |
Title: not shabby.
Upvote: | 103 |
Title: So I just wrote a stock prediction system... I understand just enough about the market to be dangerous. One thing I simply cannot wrap me head around is selling short. Who are the stocks borrowed from? Are the people lending the shares actually hoping for the stocks success?
Upvote: | 95 |
Title: There's a way for me to make some money, but it requires that I setup a fairly complicated spreadsheet to monitor several variables. All through last week, I've been printing Excel tutorials and ebooks, telling myself that I'll do the spreadsheet over the weekend, so I can start earning immediately. I want to put the money towards a startup.<p>How did I spend my weekend?<p>Friday Night:<p>Listening to rap and channel surfing. I've got all weekend, right?<p>Saturday:<p>Spend half the day browsing, the other half watching about 4 movies. Still got all day Sunday, right?<p>Sunday:<p>Wake up @ 10. Watch a few World Cup matches, while surfing YouTube. I can do it later right?<p>Now I just got to work, and I'm <i>disgusted</i> with myself. I want to leave this job as soon as possible (one's soul can only be sucked so much), but my constant procrastination isn't helping things.<p>The worst part? This isn't the first time something like this has happened. I'll spend the weekday fantasizing about how productive I'm gonna be over the weekend, then spend the weekend watching movies. Then on Sunday night, while ironing my clothes for Monday, the self-flagellation begins.<p>Oddly, while I'm wasting time, I <i>know</i> that I'm wasting time. I'll spend 5 minutes doing the task, and as soon as I encounter any difficulty, I take a break to 'clear my head'. This ends up taking the rest of the day. This has happened several times.<p>I want to be rich. Filthy rich, even. I'm sick of working for others. I'm sick of getting up in the morning knowing my life is ticking away. But I know I'll never get there if I continue like this.<p>I'm 23, above-average intelligence (Dunning-Kruger FTW), and I don't want to waste my life, waking up @ 30 wondering where the years have gone.<p>I've been on HN long enough to know this is something quite a few of us struggle with.<p>Help. Please.
Upvote: | 123 |
Title: First a little background. I'm a developer working for a near-profitable startup. I'm a high level employee and after building out our initial platform I moved on to recruit a team of developers to scale the business. But I'm not a founder and it is time to move on.<p>Which brings me to HN.<p>I think most businesses have a very particular need that I could help meet as a consultant, but I'm unsure how to get started. I'll call the need "data liberation".<p>A recent project at work showed me the value of this idea. After being given a broad mandate to consolidate some reports, I chose to spend some time trying to make the reports actually "good". That is to say fast, fast, fast, and searchable. I looked at options such as SSRS but ended up going with a custom built solution. In short, I channeled my inner Google and did everything I could to make the reporting app provide instant results with very elegant search interface.<p>Everyone was blown away and the four primary analysts reported saving a combined 10 hours a day over their old methods. One of the higher ups came out and asked me if I had opened up some secret high speed connection to the database. Although flattering, it was just good software design.<p>And then it hit me, I like this type of work. I can do this type of work. And I think I'm good at it.<p>This couldn't be a software play. Not only do I not own the code, but it is too specific to the company. But that specific nature is what makes it good. Solutions from SAS, Cognos, and Microsoft already fill this space and they are flawed for one simple reason: too generic. In order to really liberate a company's data I believe you need a very tailored interface that can make using your data feel like using Gmail or Craigslist. It is all there, easy to find, and only a few key strokes or clicks away. And with the power of data warehouses, open source software, and a JavaScript fronted I believe you can make a custom application cheaper than buying the larger generic tools.<p>So, how would someone even go about providing a service like this? More over:<p><pre><code> * Where should I look for my first client?
* Would I have to link up with an existing consulting firm or can individuals find success in this space?
* Is this even a problem that businesses acknowledge?
* Do you have similar experience doing or hiring out this kind of work?
</code></pre>
Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: I'm trying to do more interviews on Mixergy.com with women. Could you help introduce me?<p>Here's what I'm looking for:<p>- Entrepreneur or investor in entrepreneurs<p>- Built a tech company (eg web, ads, iPhone, software, hardware, etc)<p>- With a big business success or big failure<p>http://mixergy.com/contact
Upvote: | 48 |
Title: I got a certificate from GoDaddy, and it only seems to work without throwing user warnings on only a handful of browsers (FF on windows, but not on Linux, not chrome, etc). Shelling
out several hundred bucks for a Verisign certificate seems awfully steep for a shoe string operation. Are there better alternatives?
Upvote: | 77 |
Title: I have been using Google Checkout as an option for making payments on my website. For the past two months I have jumped through every hoop they have asked me to, provide tracking numbers, banking details, vendor contacts, emailed back and forth with their customer support all with the understanding that my account was in process and my funds would be released soon. Well my account has grown to $126,000 and Google still won't pay out any of my funds!<p>I came to the end of my string after the 20ith something email when I got the message below. They have over $126,000 of my money and they won't even pick up phone to call me!<p>Hello P----,<p>Thank you for your reply. I understand you've shipped over 700 orders to
your buyers. However, you've not sent us tracking numbers for those
orders. Please send us proof of delivery (tracking numbers) so our
specialists can initiate your payouts.<p>To clarify, we have contacted some of your buyer(s) and expect email
confirmations once the goods are received.<p>In addition, at this time, we don't offer phone support for Google
Checkout. We look forward to providing additional support options in the
future. If you have specific questions, please reply to this email and
we'll be happy to address them.<p>If you need immediate assistance, you can also visit the Merchant Help
Center at https://checkout.google.com/support/sell or the Merchants Forum
at http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/checkout-merchants?hl=en for
frequently asked questions about Google Checkout.<p>Sincerely,<p>A------
The Google Checkout Team
Upvote: | 330 |
Title: They say advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.<p>Well, I'm not looking for hang-in-there-buddy-advice but rather employment ideas or immigration hacks from someone in my situation or who understands it. I'm an Engineer working at a big corp in California - a job I so hate but have been needing to hold on to for green card purposes (I'm a foreign citizen). I'm still at least 2 years away from getting it. Meanwhile, in my spare time, I've been hacking away on my boostrapped startup idea. I released a MVP two months ago and it has been gaining steady traction. I intend to hit ramen profitability by early next year. This is where it gets hard on me. In spite of spending many waking hours working on it, moonlighting often translates to slow progress. At the end of a full 10 hour day working for the man, creativity and productivity are not at their peak when I get to work in the evenings. I fear that when competition gets wind of the opportunity that exists in their blind spot, they will get to work and could outdo me quickly.<p>One option is quitting my job cold turkey but that may mean going back to my home country. I've lived in the US for 8+ yrs now and want to stay here. I want to build my business here. I like it here. Is that so bad? Isn't America the land where you can realize your dream and help others realize theirs too?<p>It gets very frustrating at times and I fear my dream is slipping away. I will turn 30 soon (no, that is not precipitating this :). I'd like to spend the next decade of my life building my own company, not waiting for a green card. I am making progress but at a snail's pace (at least I feel so). Plus from my last venture, I learned the lesson that working with a useless co-founder is worse than going it alone. This time, I am solo-ing until I can find a partner who is as passionate & hard working.<p>I've been bearing this situation for two years now and feel like I'm stuck in this rut for the foreseeable future.<p>Are any of you in similar shoes? How do you deal with it? Are there any immigration hacks that you are aware of? Have you figured out some way to spend a major chunk of your time working on your startup but staying in legal status and maintaing your perm residency petition?<p>tl;dr: Working on startup venture. No green card. Stuck in this situation for 2+ yrs. Slow progress and sometimes feel dream slipping away. Suggestions?<p>Gosh. I hope I don't come across as whiny. I'm not.<p>[EDIT] I've been trying to reply to some of your comments but the post isn't going through. Would you know why? I'm a long time HN user but this is a throwaway account and I'm not sure if it's because this is a new user.
Upvote: | 108 |
Title: Hi,I'm a nineteen year old student who lives in NY and about six months ago my parents, who own an eye care practice, needed a program to help analyze the efficiency of their employees and the different Nursing Homes that they visit. I've never done any programming before and so armed with Google I tackled the program. I ended up with an Access Database written in VBA, that barely functioned, and how I could not have completely said.<p>I loved the process. The problem solving, the designing of the interface, the whole thing was just extremely fun. After that I started learning vb.net and rewrote the whole program. It still needs a lot of work and I am now learning c# and planning on rewriting it again. This whole thing has inspired me to become a developer. Technology and business was something I always enjoyed, I've been reading Gizmodo and TechCrunch for a while now, but now I see the creative process and analytical skills that software developers use, and I really want to do this as a career.<p>I have been reading Hacker News and talking to people who work in the field as to what it is that I should be doing now, and the general consensus is to just go out and do something. While this is something I would love to do, (I have a ton of ideas I would like to work on) and on some level I feel like I need to do it, (i need to make some money, nothing major more like 1000 a month, and I want to keep motivated to keep learning) I run into two main problems:<p>1) I do not have knowledge required to execute my ideas.
I have been programming for only about 6 months, (at most, depending on what you consider programming.), and the languages that I know are limited to vb.net and c#. These are not exactly high level languages themselves, and my knowledge of them is mediocre at best. I don't have the knowledge to execute any of the ideas I have.<p>2) I do not have any friends who share this particular interest. I don't know any code gurus or anyone I can rely on for advice or as a co founder, and I have no way of meeting anyone who would fit into that category. And if I did meet someone, I don't know enough to be able to tell if they where actually good or just better than me.<p>I have the opportunity to switch to Columbia University's engineering program on a 3 - 2 program with my college. Which means I do 3 years at my college, and will major in math and get a degree in mathematics, and then do two years in Columbia and get a CS degree from there. I feel like this would solve both my problems, but it will take 4 more years of school, and I will have to pay Columbia tuition.<p>I really want to start something but I feel like I can't. I've seen other people ask this before on Hacker news and most of the responses are "Just do it anyways." but that is really not helpfu in any way.<p>I was wondering if you can please give me advice on what to do.
Thank you very much
Upvote: | 52 |
Title: It has been far too long since the last Hacker News London meetup. Over the past few months quite a few people mentioned interest in a get together. So here it is.<p>Please join us on Thursday, 24th June from 18:30 at the Lightbar on Shoreditch Highstreet (http://www.thelighte1.com/).<p>Also, since the Seedcamp deadline is coming up, several Seedcamp alumni have agreed to come along and answer your questions about the programme. So if you want the lowdown on what to expect or some advice on applying, then you are in luck.<p>If you are coming please leave a comment below to help us keep track of the numbers.<p>Ben Dowling and Dmitri Grabov
Upvote: | 65 |
Title: So I'm a university student that has been working with recommendation systems recently (netflix challenge etc) and wanted to try my hand at implementing some trading algorithms for the stock market to see if I could at least break even. I'm fully expecting to lose everything I invest, so that's not a problem, but I figure it'd be a good learning experience. Does anyone have some links to good papers about machine learning applied to stock trading (or any trading algorithms in general)? How about API's that could allow my programs to perform trades?<p>Thanks for all your help HN!
Upvote: | 72 |
Title: If you were 20 years old today, what would you be doing?<p>I am 20. My goal is to amass $1m (Australian) by 35 so I can do some substantial things later in life (I've got an idea for a business of maintaining water wells built by various charities in African villages and charging the US government for it.). I could do this by getting a high paying job within 5 years and getting above average returns investing $50,000 a year. I could also do this by building a successful small business and reaping a high income or even <i>gasp</i> selling that business for $1 million.<p>I imagined that if I was 35, and I became 20 again and asked myself what I would be doing... I'd be saving money, learning how to invest in stocks, a girlfriend, learning to drive, finding a part time IT job, building random stuff and trying my hand at making a mini-business.<p>I've saved up several thousand dollars which I've invested into various stocks (and got lucky :] ). I have a girlfriend, and I make stuff in my spare time. All I think I need to do now is learn to drive and get a job. Driving lessons cost money so I'll do that when I get an IT job first or some other form of income.<p>The problem is, I can't find a job.<p>I've been reading lately about how IT-related university degrees are worthless if you want a job in IT... Either you've been putting effort into learning programming so you've become proficient and easily become hired, or you don't.<p>I'm still in university studying software engineering / commerce (3rd of 5 years). I've applied for many (every) programmer job that seems remotely doable for me, but besides a telephone interview for a internship and an email or two I haven't gotten anything back.<p>I am alone.<p>In my software engineering degree year, there are people of various degrees of competency. There are some who are so good they already have jobs in IT companies before they entered university. There are average people who seem to get 60-70% in their assignments... but wouldn't be able to start a proper project for real. Then there are students who copy and paste code instead of using for loops and still managing to pass.<p>The smartest people (ones with jobs already) seem to be stuck ups and they talk about students not in their clique as if they're lower life forms, so I haven't bothered making friends with them. My friends in uni are of the second group... good enough to do the degree but not quite people I'd choose to work with on projects with.<p>I feel like I'm one of a kind... I get full marks for most of my assessments but I know nowhere near as much as the smartest students. They each have slick personal websites and portfolios of past projects and stuff, know the latest version control tools, can solve homework problems in seconds, etc. I have past projects too but not of the type I'd show to people....<p>I spent most of my free time programming things. My latest 'project' is a site for trading used textbooks, (I needed one and IMO the existing ones sucked). This is my most ambitious to date. I keep looking for people in my university to work with me but students seem to either be not good enough, or they're too good for me : /. I did find a acquaintance yesterday who was doing a design degree offering to do a landing page for me, though. Progress is chugging along but I have no one to guide me. I've razed the project and rebuilt it half a dozen times after finding some fatal architectural flaw and recently I've just found out using tables to layout pages is a bad thing : / . Every time this happens I get some what discouraged however I push on because I still need to make an extra $1000 by the end of the year to spend * (It doesn't look like I'll make it). If this site becomes popular enough I was thinking I could charge for extra services like bolding a textbook listing, or sticky-ing it for a short period of time; Ads is also an option.<p>I'm not getting anywhere.<p>I'm learning a lot the past two years but it seems like I'll never quite get good enough to be doing 'real work'. It's like entering the ocean to escape a deserted island; the island becomes smaller and smaller behind you while in front of you is the big blue ocean with nothing but water in sight... I keep learning stuff but there's always more that's "must-know knowledge to become good programmer". The latest one of these this year is "testing".<p>No, I'm not going back to work in McDonalds. I've worked there for three years and frankly I'm sick of dealing with the stress of waking up in wee hours and coming back home past midnight, not to mention the substantially lower academic grades that'll come with spending so much energy making burgers.<p>I guess all I'm looking for is some re-assurance that I'm doing the right things; I feel I'm not making much progress anymore even if I logically believe it'll be fine eventually as long as I keep putting effort in... Let me go back to my original topic: If you were 20 years old today, what would you be doing?<p>* I don't dip into my savings because its my retirement fund - it's for "learning how to invest in stocks" and buying capital goods like houses and computers only.... at least until I'm 35. To spend an extra $1000, I have to earn it, not just sleep waiting for stocks to grow.<p>And that's my life story so far.
Upvote: | 70 |
Title: It has been a few months since one of these got attention.<p>Let's try and preface each submission with city or country info, ie SF, NYC, etc.
Upvote: | 158 |
Title: Since the discussion for PG's ycombinator.com/ideas.html seems to have gone stale (and possibly out-dated) lets get a new discussion going.<p>There are also a lot of "What do you want built.." posts, so lets consolidate.<p>Answer any of the following questions:<p>1) What needs in your life do you wish were fulfilled online?<p>2) What online sites do you admire and how could you see a similar concept working in lateral industries?<p>3) What offline sectors do you see as the least represented online?<p>4) And then to go back to the original ycombinator.com/ideas.htm - feel free to elaborate or add to the list. (in the same vein, generally speaking)
Upvote: | 61 |
Title: Sally missed her chance. Instead of watching TV whilst on the bench, she could have gotten a startup running and being paid for it. Now what was the name of that consulting firm?
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: I logged into my outlook, changed my email address to his email address, and sent the email to [email protected].<p>Dustin mentioned in his article that he didn't require a password, and I wanted to see if he had used the confirmation skip.<p>Just wanted to apologise to Dustin about any inconvenience, but I do hope I opened his eyes to security a little!<p>EDIT: A little bit of backstory.<p>Dustin seems to think, that I did this because of a comment he made, on how the headers could be forged. I had not read this comment. Infact, I read his article, and using the knowledge that I picked up years ago, that you could change the outgoing email address in Outlook (Although, it was Outlook Express in them days) I changed my email to his email.<p>I saw his email on his website ([email protected]) and thought, "No, he wouldn't be sending his personal emails from that address, that's silly."<p>I checked the WHOIS on his domain, and saw another email address there. I changed my email, sent a quick "Apparently..." message, and then changed it back to my original email address. I checked his blog, and it didn't seem to work.<p>I then went to sign up for my own posterous, to play a bit more, and I saw that you had to authorise your posts. Then I saw how this could be disabled for convenience. A few minutes later and the post showed up.<p>I am a Web Developer, I have experience with bash scripting, curl, sendmail and everything else you would need to fake headers.<p>I did not fake headers, I changed one field in Outlook. I didn't do this maliciously, and I just did it to prove a point.<p>Posterous should not be using email alone to authorise posts, and they should not let you disable submission checking.
Upvote: | 298 |
Title: I notice there are a lot of insightful, readable blogs from the HN clan.<p>I'm thinking our blogs should join forces into one giant armada. We'll bum rush the other big blog networks.<p>What do you people say about it?
Upvote: | 46 |
Title: Dragdealer, a drag-based JavaScript component that embraces endless front-end solutions
Upvote: | 184 |
Title: Someone commented to Paul Graham last month (original thread: http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320439):<p>"pg, unfortunately for America, in recent years most of the highest paid people (to the tune of hundreds of millions per person) have been financiers. Even fairly successful outcomes in the start-up world, such as Mint.com to take a random example, don't make founders that rich.<p>I suspect if you look at the new inclusions in Forbes 400 list over the past 10 years, that list (of deltas) would be dominated by Finance. This is not a good thing."<p>pg replied:<p>"Instead of assuming this, why don't you check and tell us? It should be pretty easy; historical Forbes 400 data is available online."<p>I decided to go check and tell everyone, and Paul Graham is wrong about the Forbes 400 showing startups having a higher return than Wall Street. According to the Forbes 400 data, between 1999 and 2009:<p>- 211 new people entered the Forbes 400 list during this ten-year period.<p>- Of these, 59 were from finance.<p>- 17 were from technology.<p>I think the record speaks for itself.<p>You can see the raw data at http://www.forbes.com/lists/home.jhtml?passListId=54&passYear=1999&passListType=Person, http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/54/rich-list-09_The-400-Richest-Americans_FinalWorth.html.
Upvote: | 192 |
Title: I was a PHB in a Spanish internet company, now unemployed. I have some cool ideas to implement in the Web but have little programming background and I'm 36. Is too late for me to join the party?
Upvote: | 48 |
Title: Over the past year I have been working for a local startup, in the United States, as the Jack-of-all-trades. We offer a product specialized to a fairly niche industry that is doing fairly well. In the past year we haven gone from 2 to 75 clients, gaining around 3 clients per week in the past two months. The product typically nets $5,000/yr per client. The product itself is web-based running off of an opensource CMS.<p>For the first 10 months I was the only person in the office doing work ~9 hours a day. From client setup, to design, to code and deployment I did it all. Twice a week I would be joined by the other 3 part-time guys who would do what they could in their 4 hours they had. Besides myself and the other team members the founder would do sales two to three days a week part time. Now a year in we have eight full time team members (5 Dev, 1 Sales, 1 CS). My role in the company has now taken on the Jack-Of-All-Trades plus the management of these other team members. Which I consider to be a great accomplishment for myself and I am proud of. However one factor in all of this has not changed in the past twelve months: compensation.<p>I was never a fussy person about money, especially when it came to startups. (I was in two other startups prior to this one.) I understand that you must bootstrap and try to be as frugal and agile as possible in the start. However a year in, and I am still making around $500/week. Which, in the beginning was great. However over the past year I have moved out, bought a car (out of need, the other died), gotten married, and have had a child. (With a second one on the way.) The other two major factors are: no benefits, and the founder seems to refuse to officially employ me (or anyone else in the company.). He still gives all of us a 1099. Yet, he treats us like employees. We have required working times, usually 8AM - 6PM, we only get a half hour lunch with no other breaks, and are on-call 24-7. Honestly, those items don't even bother me <i>that</i> much. However what does is that if I am one minute late from my 30 minute lunch, the founder will immediately call me asking where I am. If I happen to arrive at work a minute or two late I get a lecture. If I don't answer a call, on a weekend, I get a talk about availability. And if I am sick, I am required to work from home for the day. (I was in the hospital and still required to work.) That is what really gets me upset about this situation. I am fairly sure what he is doing is illegal with the 1099 issue. But it really upsets me that for all of the work and dedication that I have put in, that I can't get cut a break once or twice.<p>I am unsure how many of you are in a similar situation or even care. I honestly am not looking for any sympathy on this however I am seeking advice. Two weeks ago a new-hire and I went out for lunch and he asked me about the 1099 situation and asked what he should do. I told him to take some of the money out of his check to save for taxes. He said something to the degree of "But I only make $500/week!". I am not exactly sure why that made me lose my cool. Ever since then I have felt that the founder has not only been using me, but also the rest of the team. And I am letting this issue get to me. I spend each day now hating what I am doing because I have this feeling. I know the easiest answer may be: Well why not just talk to the founder? And I have.<p>The response is always the same: "We can't do that right now."(Benefits/Employ) "Remember I haven't even paid myself yet for any of this!"(Compensation) "It's cheaper for <i>you</i> if we do it this way!" (1099) And he won't budge.<p>I have been doing web work since I was nine. This is my passion in life. I spend all the time I can perfecting my craft and trying the best I can to stay current. I've never cared about money in the past, but the time has come where I have to. I hate myself for letting this job get to me to the point where it makes me burnt out on my passion.<p>This leaves me in the position of asking myself what to do now. My gut, and my wife, is telling me to begin looking for other jobs. Any advice?
(And thank you for taking the time to read this over, I deeply appreciate it.)
Upvote: | 134 |
Title: I work as a freelance web designer and developer.<p>When I first started out I only offered web design services, but soon found out that it is almost impossible to get clients who need design only. Most clients just want a complete functional website not just a design.<p>So I learned HTML, CSS and eventually Javascript, and PHP.<p>The problem is that I dislike coding. I find it to be very boring.<p>I read on HN and on other forums and blogs about how passionate programmers are about coding and how they love nothing more than to code away into the wee hours of the night, but I never understood why.<p>I get the part where its a thrill to solve problems. I love solving problems too, but conceptually not through coding. For example, I like the concept of ranking a page higher based on how other sites link to it (ie Google's Pagerank), and would enjoy conceptualizing further improvements, but I would find it extremely boring to translate that solution into code.<p>For a web application, the code might make the entire thing operate, but it never affects the user the way the design or interface does.<p>Can anyone passionate about coding tell me where the fun is in coding?
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: That's it. I guess I try to understand node.js as a traditional webserver where you set up files in a folder and you are going.<p>Is this the case? How is node.js different from Apache/Nginx/Lighttpd/Cherooke/etc<p>Thanks.
Upvote: | 69 |
Title: I've been going through the thread from about a year and a half ago that has a myriad of great TED talks, watching one or two of them every few nights. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=442022)<p>I'm starting to run out on that thread, and I'd love to get a good compilation going that includes some from the past 2 conferences.<p>So, HN - what are you favorite TED talks? I'll get it started with these: Sir Ken's Robinson's talk on nurturing creativity in education (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html) and Inspiring Action through leadership (http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html)
Upvote: | 195 |
Title: I'm starting to be intrigued by Finance/Trading/Stock Market, but sadly know nothing about it from a professional perspective. I don't even know what to ask for, the same way a complete luddite wouldn't know how to ask for more than "What are some good resources to learn to start building computer programs?" So with that said, where would one start?
Upvote: | 86 |
Title: As everyone else on the planet I'm sure, I would like to become a millionaire and within a tight time constraint: 3 short years. HN is a constant source of excellent articles, amazing intelligent advice and smart people, so how would you go about it? Saving, Stocks etc etc?<p>And also, please don't ask as to why I want to have a net worth of $1M and why I wouldn't just want to get 200k and live comfortably etc. I'm just interested in hearing people's thoughts about this idea :)<p>Thanks
Upvote: | 313 |
Title: Greetings all!
I was hoping the fine minds here might be able to help me out a little with the quandary I'm in.<p>Some woeful backstory:<p>I'm a (ahem) PHP developer & been doing it for 8 or so years now. I'll be honest, I'm no 'rockstar', 'ninja' or 'action-monk' but I think I'm reasonably good and have always managed to build whatever is required within a decent timescale. Nothing has even blown the heck up on my watch. I've done everything from proper low-end nonsense to working on/building on a few largeish e-commerce sites (nothing enormous but in the $millions taken through site in a year).<p>Right now I'm earning £18,000/yr (approx $26,708.40 - off the top of my head ;) with ZERO chance of pay rise (it's been 2 years since my last one) and while this pays the rent, that's about it. I can't pay every bill that comes through each month as it stands.<p>The problems I have are twofold:<p>1. My current job description looks good on paper (built/manage 8 sites of low-to-high complexity, mailing lists, graphic design, print, server admin, iphone app development..) but if a prospective employer saw half of these sites, I'd be binned instantly. It's the old 'make everything bold and pink' edicts and keyword spam that the bosses love to add.<p>2. As I said, I'm no rockstar. I can't in good conscience apply for one of these jobs knowing I'm not the genius they are looking for. Plus, I'd be out on my arse after a week once they rumbled me. Unfortunately, the next step down seems to be junior dev, for around the same wageas I'm on now!<p>So... am I having delusions of grandeur here? Should I be happy that someone with my skillset is getting paid this amount and I have no right to expect more for being average?<p>Or - am I right to think that I could do a lot better? And it what ruddy way do I go about it? The job market around here is pretty dire unless I make the 200 mile journey to London (not really feasible for several reasons).<p>Sorry for the waffle, just at my wits end right now and unable to see anything clearly. Please don't read this a pity-seeking tale of woe - I'm more interested in getting out and making something decent out of my life. Thanks for reading and any kick-to-the-head advice is much appreciated!
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: My buddy and I are driving across Canada. As we are college students, we have been sleeping in campgrounds or our car to save money. Last night, we accidently spilled gas in our car and decided to spend the night in a hotel. About two hours ago, somebody broke the window of our car and stole his laptop and my camera. I know his mail servers admin and I have two IP addresses that have connected to his mail account since we went to bed last night. I also have access to the hotels wifi router. Any idea what I should do? I have reason to believe that the computer is still on the premises. The police were called over an hour ago and still haven't come yet.
Upvote: | 41 |
Title: I'm kind of an pariah in the CS world as I was unlucky enough to have multiple terrible math teachers as a kid and don't have what I would consider a strong math background. I've never really enjoyed math as much as I think I should, even though I've always loved programming and even 'math puzzles' from time to time.<p>I've noticed in recent years that my math skills are much higher than they should be considering my lack of major education in that area (College Algebra is about it). This has come up working with colleagues or just taking some fun online IQ tests where I scored highest in math even though I've always been led to believe I suck at it.<p>I'm wondering what HN readers would recommend to someone like me as a good avenue to relearn some basics and then move into areas I've only scratch the service of such as geometry and trig?
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: [Note: I'm using a throwaway account for anonymity]<p>I'm currently working at a small development agency and things are looking grim. It looks like the company may have 2 to 3 more months before it goes under (due to circumstances outside of my control. Poor business decisions.)<p>In my off-time I've been working to develop a few freelance connections and have lined up several projects for the next few months. Until now freelancing has been just a way to supplement my (low) income from my development job, but I would like to switch over to freelancing fulltime and eventually work on my own application. While I'm not generating enough freelance income to live yet, I'm confident that if I was focusing full-time I could.<p>I'm sure this has been asked several times in the past, but what should my next steps be? I haven't set up any formal business for myself. Is an LLC the best bet for a freelancer who wants to release an app eventually?
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: Hello everyone,<p>I've seen a lot of articles on HN recently talking about Clojure. I had a quick look at a few pages (Wikipedia, etc...), and I can't help but think that it sounds like the new cool language, pretty much like Ruby in 2007.<p>But to get a better idea, I'd like to hear the feedback from the community: Who is using Clojure (in real-life cases), and what are you doing with it?<p>Bonus points if you can tell what specific features made it a better language for the task.
Upvote: | 106 |
Title: Hi everyone :)<p>My husband introduced me to HN a long time ago and I always enjoy the stuff you all post, but I've never commented on anything before.<p>I decided to start a blog about being a startup spouse and was wondering if I could get your feedback. How many of you are married (or in a relationship, startup spouse is merely a title that sounds nice because of alliteration)? Does your significant other have any funny stories or advice they'd like to share with other startup spouses?<p>Any feedback, constructive criticism, stories, advice, etc. from you or your startup spouse is appreciated :)<p>www.thestartupspouse.com
Upvote: | 48 |
Title: Hi guys,<p>I found one of the most interesting parts of Tim Ferris' 4 Hour Work Week to be the practical advice for finding viable niche business opportunities. In particular, going to the store and looking at the magazine section and making enquiries based on those, using google test ads etc.<p>I was wondering if anyone would be prepared to share any other highly practical methods like these that they have for finding niche problems/opportunities to pursue?<p>Despite what you might think about the rest of the content in that book, I thought the practical advice was very thought provoking, valueable and something we do not see enough of.
Thought it would be worth trying to elicit some more!<p>Thanks!<p>T
Upvote: | 101 |
Title: It seems to me that some google services are not working properly lately.<p>For example I have some problems using safari with gmail (wont open at all) and with google groups (infinte redirects between their login system). The only way I can browse those google services is by using chrome.<p>But except for those browser specific issues, services like feedburner are driving us crazy. Feedburner counter is incorrect every other day, showing google reader subscribers one day and forgetting about it the other. Every blogger I talked with is annoyed by this problem. This specific problem has been bothering us for many weeks now, and I suspect there's nobody working on it.<p>Am I the only one who has noticed issues like these lately (except for feedburner which is not working for everyone)?
Upvote: | 60 |
Title: Derek Sivers recently wrote an excellent article with advice on how to hire a freelance programmer online:<p>http://sivers.org/how2hire<p>I'm a sys admin but I occasionally need a web designer when build sites for others. I currently need a designer so I thought to try Derek's approach. As well as writing a detailed spec I build a html wireframe showing all 3 of the pages required from the site. I also included detailed requirements for a logo. I posted the project to elance, odesk, guru and vworker with an hourly rate of $25 per hour or a maximum budget of $1000. I also added the following magic phrase at the end of the description:<p>VERY IMPORTANT: To separate you from the spammers, please write I AM REAL as the first line of your bid. We will delete all bids that do not start with this phrase, since most bidders never read the requirements. Thank you for being one who does.<p>It has only been 3 days so far but here are the results:<p>Elance: 8 bids. 2 included the magic phrase<p>Guru: 13 bids, 3 included the magic phrase<p>odesk: 19 bids, 2 included the magic phrase<p>vworker: 23 bids, 4 included the magic phrase<p>Of the 11 bids including the magic phrase, 4 were from providers in the US, 3 from Canada, 1 from Romania, 1 from Ireland, 1 from Pakistan and 1 from Great Britain. From the bids that did not include the magic phrase were from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Bulgaria.<p>Out of all the providers portfolios the most looked like standard template monster copies. In every case the bidders who did not use the magic phrase have a poor portfolio. Many portfolios use tables for layout and (or) make strong use of flash. Overall the quality of design is poor and from the 63 I have I have shortlisted only 3.<p>The experiment isn't due to end yet but already I'm feeling averse to hiring this way. The last designer I found was through sortfolio and she charged $2000 for a logo and layout/template with 4 pages but from start to finish it was a friction free process.<p>I will post a follow up after 4 more days if there is interest.
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: As far as i know, a successful startup is supposed to make you rich or well off, but what about a web app that brings enough profit to replace your day job? I've been programming for about 6 months and i don't have nearly enough experience to venture into the real startup world. Is the failure rate still really high for web apps that make, let's say, $1000-$2000 profit a month or are there tons of these, but we just never hear about it because it's so common? Can web app revenue stay stable or are web apps that make at least $1000 profit/month "doomed" to eventually grow substantially?
Upvote: | 84 |
Title: It seems like everyone is doing native apps now. Many people I know ponder about whether to learn Objective-C on the one hand or dive into the Android platform on the other hand.<p>A tough choice as both of them already gained a significant smartphone market share and are growing fast. Clients actually demand native apps even while most of them could easily be implemented using html5.
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: It would be useful to see the level of success HN'ers have had with iPhone apps. Several articles mention general statistics, but what is the level of success for a population with the background of people who read HN?<p>So, if you have published iPhone apps, can you tell us<p>a) How many apps have you published?<p>b) How many are paid vs free?<p>c) How much effort have you put into marketing them?<p>d) What is the level of income you get from them?You can simply use one of the following levels: negligible, small, decent, large, or huge, or you can provide more details or actual numbers if you'd like<p>Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Upvote: | 73 |
Title: That's pretty big news. Some healthy competition in this space will probably be benefitial.<p>Although if Amazon and Google didn't manage to dethrone Paypal in this space, I wonder how Visa will approach the challenge.
Upvote: | 58 |
Title: The power of an Amazon EC2 small instance has remained the same for years http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types<p>With EC2 there is no steady increase each year in computing power. It's like Moore's law has been frozen in time. EC2 server instances are looking decidedly old and underpowered.<p>Amazon gets all the benefit of hardware costs decreasing and computing power increasing over time, but no increase in power gets passed through to EC2 users.<p>Very sad. Slow old cloud computing servers are starting to make running your own powerful modern, cheap, fast servers look attractive.<p>Will cloud computing vendors start to seriously compete on computing power?
Upvote: | 46 |
Title: It's been a blockbuster year and I'm looking forward to 100K EUR in my checking account very soon.<p>How do I turn that into 1 million?<p>I'm a self-employed contractor, have been at it for over 10 years.<p>My strong point is learning complex things from scratch, on my own and quickly. I'm an autodidact and a college dropout. Judging by the amount of money I made from programming over the years, I'd say I'm a pretty good programmer. I'm driven by a quest for knowledge and I'm a voracious reader.<p>I'm quite tenacious and often seek perfection. I once rewrote a compiler from a trading language to C# in Haskell, OCaml and Lisp.<p>My weak point is that I get bored quickly, otherwise I would have developed an app and sold it already. My other weak point is that I love to work alone and hate lots of people around. Last but not least, I take a hedonist approach to programming and only take on projects that please me. I'm fine on the Mac, for example, and wouldn't go to Windows even if it made me money.<p>Trading is fun and interests me. I would also love to learn electronics, with an eye towards low-power gadgets on sailboats. I love sailing and will take August off to sail and get a RYA coastal skipper qualification. I'm also interested in robotics and embedded bits, although that's related to electronics.<p>I live in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) and would love to flip real estate but I'm afraid 100K won't carry me far. I'm married and have two daughters. I rent but paid cash for a recent BMW last year.<p>I'm thinking that trading may be my best bet. My first trade was back in 1996 when I was working at Bear Stearns and AOL announced unlimited dialup. I drew about 700 bucks from my credit card and bought two AOL calls (different months). My bet was that AOL will dominate the competition in the short term and I was up to over 2K in a month or so. Then AOL ran out of capacity and I was back to my 700 bucks after paying about 200 in commission to Bear.<p>I also bought 5K worth of APPL calls before Apple announced the iPhone. I had 12.5K less than two weeks later. Unfortunately, I rolled the profits into more calls to speculate on the following APPL earnings announcement. The iPhone bit was the big news, though, earnings did not matter and volatility dropped off. I got out with the same 5K I started with.<p>I tried small scale straddling and strangling (options) around earnings announcement but lost a bit of money. I also lost around 1.5K day-trading trading S&P 500 and Russell 2000 e-mini futures.<p>I think there are plenty of opportunities for careful market speculation, particularly around events (BP oil spill?). I'm going through dozens of trading books and certainly won't repeat my amateur mistakes above.<p>I'm pretty content with what I have and use. I can't find a pressing need to develop something for myself and I can usually put up with my tools (Emacs, Erlang from the command-line).<p>I work alone at home and thus have a hard time spotting inefficient business processes. It was much better when I worked on Wall St, for example. I tried to launch a Securities Lending platform in 1997 but I guess I was way ahead of my time.<p>I also sold trading software full-time for a year, on a 30% commission. I found that existing trading software imposes the need to program on people who don't want it. Think making a non-programmer develop trading models in C#!<p>A wise friend, an experienced businessman, suggested that the only way to have a chance in hell to grow those 100k in to "bet on yourself" one way or the other.<p>Any other suggestions?<p>http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelreymont
Upvote: | 84 |
Title: I am a python hacker. I want to give a gmail-like interface to my web app. What tools are the best to consider??
Upvote: | 83 |
Title: I don't like Python.<p>I love C. I like C++ too. I used to write a lot of Java when I was a kid (as in high-school kid) but now that I've written quite a bit of C and C++, Java seems more like a toy language. I did enjoy Java back then, however. I yet to do any major work in C#, but it seems to be a powerful language, especially when handling certain kinds of complexity.<p>I've been learning LISP on weekends for two weekends now, and I find it interesting. I know little bits of Haskell (am planning to learn it later this year) and seem to like it too. Maybe I like the idea of liking Haskell, I'll know for sure once I actually start writing Haskell.<p>Coming back to the point - I don't like Python. I've never liked it. I've tried working on various Python projects but have always found some or the other excuse to prematurely back out. And mind you, I love coding - I spend most of my time writing code or learning new stuff about code.<p>My question to the hardcore python lovers is this (and mind you, by hardcore I mean the kind of people who wrote Exaile, not the kind who hack up a Python script every now and then to organize their iPod): No doubt many of you have come from C / C++ / LISP backgrounds. What is the paradigm shift you experienced? I look at a piece of C code in a certain way - how do I look at a piece of Python code? How do I think about Python? How do I think <i>in</i> Python (copied that one from Bruce Eckel)?
Upvote: | 151 |
Title: I need some advice:<p>I really want to start a startup but I don't know what to do.<p>I worked at friend's startup for over a year but it wasn't my startup, and it wasn't my dream. I feel I'm capable of learning or using any technology I might need - that's not my barrier.<p>My barrier is that I'm just not exactly sure what I would do. Sometimes the options seem so numerous that it's overwhelming. I have many interests which makes it hard to narrow my focus.<p>Ideally, I will be building a product or service that I can charge for, e.g. not an ad-based service.<p>Any ideas on how I can overcome this hump?<p>Thanks,
~Henry
Upvote: | 42 |
Title: I'd love to make the switch over to Python 3 before I get tons of code written on my startup. Anyone using it in production?
Upvote: | 44 |
Title: Like a lot of HN hackers, I've been living and working in a big metropolitan area for a while (S.F. in my case). This certainly has its upsides, but also some serious downsides. It's expensive so being unemployed for even a short time can be risky. It's also crowded and noisy and distracting.<p>So, I've been considering selling everything, quitting the 9-5 and moving somewhere cheap, where I can live for $1,500 a month or less total. I've got savings to tide me over for a couple of years and I think this might give me the time and quiet I'd need to do some more serious hacking on my own projects and also to just disengage from all the urban energy for a while. I <i>think</i> I could do enough freelance work to at least break even and probably do better and I could charge less than people that need to pay S.F. or New York rents.<p>There are a lot of places in the West, for instance, where you can rent a big apartment or even a house for ~ $500 a month and live next to some really beautiful national parks, forests etc.<p>Anybody else had similar thoughts? Are there pitfalls I'm overlooking? Anybody else had dreams of a hacker Walden Pond?
Upvote: | 46 |
Title: Given the current climate, I feel a little behind when it comes to broader economic themes. Anyone have any recommendations for texts that can help non-economists grok the subject?
Upvote: | 61 |
Title: What software do you use to create beautiful charts?<p>As for example: Google Analytics charts, how would you do that? What other web apps do you know that have beautiful charts?
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: I've had a long love/hate relationship with RSS. For something with 'simple' as part of its name, I feel like it really hasn't lived to its each potential.<p>I've used Google Reader (horrible) and NetNewsWire and a plethora of mobile RSS-readers. I read a lot of news from a lot of sources (68 total sources in my NNW?) and as much as I do want to go in and read EVERY single article some days, other days I'm just tired by the 2500+ articles that pop up.<p>Pulse seems to be on the right track to do something. Anything else going down that path?<p>What's wrong with RSS Readers today? Why do they suck?<p>Is the solution to a better RSS Reader something more visually appealing (ie: Pulse) or something that simply filters the news (diggv4 or HN)?
Upvote: | 63 |
Title: Is the Nexus One from Google the best choice? Or, should I consider another device from Verizon, etc. instead?<p>Ideally, I'd like to have a simple pay-go plan, as opposed to a fixed cost per month.
Upvote: | 44 |
Title: Our startup is looking to use banner advertising to help increase sales. So I have a few questions for the HN community:<p>1) We have ideas of what the theme of some of these banner ads will be, but we don't know the best wording that should be used. Should we get a copywriter? If so, where? How much should we expect to pay?<p>2) We can do the ads ourselves from a creative (art) perspective, but it may make more sense to have someone else do them for us if they are better. Where can we find a good designer for banner ads? Again, how much should we expect to pay?<p>3) Is there a resource online where we can gauge the potential success of these ads? We're interested in knowing what we can expect for CTR rates and/or CPC.<p>4) Any additional information that we should consider?<p>Thank you for responses ahead of time!
Upvote: | 87 |
Title: Hi, I'm new to this board.<p>I have a question about motivation. I'm running a mobile start-up and we just moved into our new offices. We started working on our spare time putting in time whenever it was available. Now, my co-founder and I are dedicated full time to the business and we've hired a couple of interns.<p>The problem however is that while I show up daily at 9 AM, my co-founder (the engineer, I'm the business guy) shows up every morning in the PM. We've had several discussions about inappropriate this is and how he's degrading office morale (mine and the intern's) by showing up so late every day. He stays late hours to try and compensate this tardiness, but it's still really poor presentation and incredibly unprofessional.<p>I have no recourse because we split the venture 50/50 (no vesting). If I want to continue on the project without him, he can block it. I've tried buying him out and he insists he's committed and will not sell under any circumstance. My only recourse is to quit and block him from taking the idea and running with it. Neither of these are admirable outcomes and I'd rather run the business as far as it can go with a lazy co-founder than end it in such an ugly fashion.<p>What I really want is a decent fucking co-founder who can show up at 9 (or 10 AM if he absolutely needs an extra hour of sleep) and be a profesional. Does any one have an idea on how to motivate him to do this?<p>Thanks,
Vignesh
Upvote: | 107 |
Title: HNers,<p>Excuse the fake account but I didn't want to use my normal one for the sake of privacy.<p>I'm currently looking for programming or development work. I'm highly productive in Django, Python and jQuery.<p>I've also worked extensively on App Engine and know its pros and cons (and possible workarounds) well if you happen to be on that platform.<p>I'm more comfortable with back-end work but I've recently shipped several complete development packages for teams that I've been working on.<p>I'm located outside of the US right now and am 12 hours off US time give or take. If you're looking for an extra set of hands and someone who works autonomously and quickly I'd probably be a good fit for your team.<p>I can be reached at remotely.hn [at] gmail if you're interested in discussing further.<p>Thanks!
Upvote: | 58 |
Title: I've been developing a Web application for the past three weeks or so, and as I near launch I find myself wondering whether this needs to take up all of my time in order for it to be successful. My number one priority is building this Web app into a viable startup, but I'm wondering if there's any room for a "hobby" in startup-life. One school of thought is that hobbies prevent you from burning out, but the other espouses the idea that the only startups that are successful are ones in which the founders are 100% committed.<p>I've been playing the piano for ten or eleven years now, and would like to keep practicing for 45 minutes - 1 hour each day. It's obviously doable at this stage, but if this start-up gets any traction, do I necessarily have to adopt an all-or-nothing approach?
Upvote: | 51 |
Title: Oh the wise elders of Hack News,<p>I'd like to cheat in life and instead of learning my life lessons the hard way, I'd like to skip ahead and read the ending of the current chapter that I'm currently on.<p>When I was in middle school, my biggest worry was getting the latest Abercrombie & Fitch cargo pants to fit in on the school hallway, whether this girl on my school bus liked me, and if the size of my gentalia was on par with my peers back then.<p>When I was in high school, my biggest worry was doing well in school so that I could get into an ivy league school; tacking on a bunch of AP courses and extracurricular activities, not necessarily because I enjoyed AP Chemistry or the track team, but I had to, to get into a ivy league school; and trying to look "cool," "edgy," & "artsy" while caring to stay within the boundaries of MTV's and my high school's social conventions.<p>When I was in college, my biggest worry was doing well in school so I could go onto a top graduate/medical school or grab a six-figure salary at an i-bank upon graduation. Befriended certain people, chased certain girls (and botched things up royally after the chasing phase is over), got involved in some unsavory debauchery not necessarily because I wanted to live out the lives that "burn, burn, burn" but rather out of my fear of missing out on the "college experience."<p>Of course, it didn't all seem that way when I was in the moment - and certainly I don't regret the things I did in the past (because I can't change the past) and I'll be certain to make lots of mistakes in the future too. And even if an older version of me, traveled back in time to my middle school, told me how stupid of me it was to spend $70 of my parents' money on a pair of Abercrombie & Fitch cargo pants, I know that my middle school self would respond, "are you crazy, I need to get these pants to impress this chick on my school bus!"<p>I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes I'll incur in my twenties, oh the elders of the Hacker News, so that when I realize later how right you were after my twenties, I could slap myself silly and say to myself, in the place of your absence, "see? I told you so!"<p>Best,
noname123
Upvote: | 391 |
Title: While for larger projects it makes most sense to partner with a designer, I would like to be able to make my own hobby projects/sites look a bit better (http://vowsjs.org/ is a fantastic example - I wouldn't even know where to begin). The problem is, I'm not terribly artistic. I understand HTML/CSS fine, and I can tell what (I think) looks good, but I wouldn't have a clue how to do it myself. Is this something I can improve at, and if so, how? Thanks.
Upvote: | 163 |
Title: I had the pleasure of attending Agile Coach Camp Canada this year. It was an amazing experience. I’ll be writing about that experience in a future post, but in this post, I would like to address what I had to go through just to get to the conference...
Upvote: | 120 |
Title: (Focusing on the US) So, how do you deal with tax (and on a side note, accounting?) If I remember correctly, YC companies are incorporated as C corps (which means both double taxation and a bit of hassle with IRS forms and such.)<p>More specifically, what does your company do with the profits at your company that are distributed to the founders? In other words, do you keep all the cash inside the company accounts and pay out a small living salary? Do you pay dividends based on the equity table of the startup (and thus dividend tax comes in?) Do you have an accounting firm or just do it all yourself and throw it in EFTPS?<p>PG, if you're reading this: what do the YC companies do in terms of tax? Does YC have accounting firm connections, or do YC companies manage it by themselves?<p>Why am I asking this? Albeit being really important for startups that are incorporated to consider, I don't hear much about tax talked about here, for something that takes a minimum of 15% of your cash to the FDA^W IRS.
Upvote: | 41 |
Title: It seems like every time I check HN someone is bitching and moaning about how difficult it is to find competent programmers. Newsflash: competent programmers apparently have a skill that is extremely rare. Rare commodities are expensive.<p>It strikes me as senseless to complain endlessly about how 199 out of 200 candidates who are interviewed for a programming position are literally incompetent. No competent hiring manager should put out more than one ad posting which attracts a horde of unqualified candidates. Why not? Because the second time around he will offer a much more attractive salary.<p>And that's really the end of it. Enough of this nonsense.
Upvote: | 227 |
Title: Knuth's mysterious announcement at the TeX user group gathered some interest on here, but even several hours later no specifics about it seem to be anywhere online. Can someone who was there or found out about it share what it was about?
Upvote: | 61 |
Title: I'm feeling frustrated by having, yet again, read an article posted here whose content turned out to be only mildly correlated with its egregiously misleading title.<p>When people post (and upvote) articles with highly misleading titles, they are wasting everyone's time. As an intelligent human being, it is not difficult to ascertain whether the title of an article is a truly accurate description of its content. If you post it anyway, you're doing other people a disservice.<p>No one is so needy of karma, and no article is so worthy of attention, that a post requires a misleading or dishonest title.
Upvote: | 68 |
Title: After doing a small launch last night for adsreloaded.com I received a few hits but no sign-ups. You often hear on HN that you need to focus on the first 10 users... then maybe you can reach for the first 100 etc. So my question is whats the best way to get those first 10 users? (Or even better the first 10 power users).<p>In my particular case I would like to target iPhone developers first to get a few on board before I start hitting the gas on attracting regular users so its an odd situation, but any general advice on getting users is appreciated.<p>Do people find discounts, direct email, a paid search campaign, or something else entirely the most beneficial for early stage signups?
Upvote: | 73 |
Title: Some HN users might be operating under the impression that it was killed for being highly critical of a YC company. Just wanted to give the responsible mods a chance to clarify.<p>The link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1479028
Upvote: | 69 |
Title: Recently got my own VPS from prgmr.com which offers a do-it-yourself sort of support package (great for a beginner who wants to learn more). I've gotten pretty far by using <i>man</i> and <i>apropos</i>. What's the most efficient way for me to learn to manage my own server?
Upvote: | 61 |
Title: I finally decided to dive deeper in JavaScript.<p>Move away from simple JS and Firebug debugging. To large and more complex software for the front-end and explore the new opportunities in the back-end (Node.js and such)<p>What I need is not just an editor (vim will do) but rather a full environement where I can edit, run, test and debug JavaScript.<p>All recommendations are welcome.
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: I've been using VIM for the past 15 months or so. However, I've noticed that I've reached a level of comfort that is far below VIM's capabilities and I'm in awe of those who know how to wield it much better than I. I know I can be much more efficient, but I don't know where to start. Thoughts?
Upvote: | 70 |
Title: I am a 21-year-old web developer who operates a company (incorporated) with a couple unique web apps relating to website management and ecommerce. The software is downloaded and hosted by customers (not SaaS) but uses licensing and encoding technology so that sharing the code has not been a problem.<p>Licenses for the software bring in around $35,000 per year, while related custom development by myself brings in around $110,000 a year at a $150-$250 per hour rate. I work part-time, take vacations, etc. Bottom line: It's a great job with great clients and I couldn't ask for much more at 21-years-old.<p>However, I have just graduated with a degree in a field of research that I want to pursue with grad school. My plan is to sell the business in a year and move on to graduate school.<p>But is there any value in this business? Will other web development companies see value in acquiring my clients, products, and websites? There's little money to be made without work: I would predict $25,000 per year could be made without answering any emails or doing anything. However, if a company or person kept up with sales/support and doing custom development, they could easily make $200,000 in a year.<p>What do you think? Am I just trying to sell a full-time job or is there value in this business?
Upvote: | 69 |
Title: There is no good place to ask this, since there are loyalists on both sides. I can only hope that Hacker News has enough sane-minded people who will answer this properly (if it gets upvoted enough to show up on the front-page, of course).<p>After watching the complete Google I/O keynote and WWDC '10 keynote, even I have to admit that Android (Froyo) has left iOS behind on features. Articles like [these][1] might say that Apple has given a solid reply, but I don't think they have. When I see features like Android's cloud-to-phone messaging APIs, I long for them to be in iOS. But then iOS 4 has nothing of this sort. Froyo also has APIs to make app data searchable, which iOS 4 doesn't for non-Apple apps. And these are just a few things that looking back at it now makes iOS 4 just seem so much weaker. Gingerbread will be out in October if I believe Engadget, and that will pull Android further away from iOS. People can talk about fragmentation — which will become less of an issue with Gingerbread, and the fact that users don't care about such features. But developers do. If Apple falls behind on features that developers want, the App Store numbers they like to tout to loudly will stop growing so rapidly.<p>To be honest, as a user, iOS 4 adds nothing that truly stands out as "THIS is why I must have the iPhone" except for Facetime and the Retina Display. Being a long time Apple loyalist and enthusiast, it both worries and saddens me to see Apple so blatantly miss the boat. So my question is, has Apple dropped the ball after a solid start and fallen behind so much that the trickle of developers will slowly become a full flow which they won't be able to stop?<p>[1]: www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/06/08/apples-ios-wwdc-strikes-back-after-googles-android-io/
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: I am working at Brighten Labs, a startup founded by a couple of my college friends.<p>We first built CashCurve in February 2009 to be our own cash flow management tool. To me, it seems simple and effective, but we would like feedback. Thanks!
Upvote: | 42 |
Title: I've heard so many people highly recommend Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, and say that it changed their complete view on programming, that I've decided to dive into it for the first time. I've been looking into the MIT OpenCourseWare to use a basis, and I've heard good things about the video lectures as well. I have a time frame of about two months to work through it, although I hope that it won't that long; there are other things that I want to work on during my break.<p>So my question is fellow HNers is do you have any suggestions for how I can get the most out of this book? Are there any concepts or sections that I should pay particular attention to? Are there resources that would help me understand it better? Thank you.
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: I am not satisfied with the effort I put in. I was wondering about the working style of other programmers.<p>How many days in a week do you write code, and, how many hours in a day?<p>What else do you do with your time?<p>Are you working on your startup?
Upvote: | 42 |
Title: Dear Hacker News,<p>I am a longtime member here. I would never think I would be one of those writing this but here it goes.<p>I have a terrible problem with focus and discipline. I simply cannot manage to achieve both for any prolonged period of times. For the last five years, I have tried very conciously to become disciplined and no matter what, after a few days or weeks at best, the pattern breaks and I am back to my unproductive, terrible self.<p>I also cannot really enjoy or focus on anything or anyone for too long. This is the most scary part. I cannot be in a relationship for more than a week or two before becoming very ambivalent after the initial high. I cannot continue working on projects--all of them I would say I enjoy--for more than a few weeks at most.<p>I am 23 and finishing up school(took some time off to do failed startup). Much of this could be accepted during my teen years and 20s. People close to me respect me for my passion, for my entprenreurial spirit and all of those things. They barely know this miserable side of me and those that do don't know much else to help me.<p>I always thought I knew what I loved(startups). At this point though, anything I love seems to have become very irrelavant. I make new friends and before I know it, I am avoiding them. I want to socialize but before I know it, I'm avoiding it. I want to work on my startup but before I know it, my mind is just in a confused weird daze. I have no idea what is wrong with me. I have so many things to be greatful about. I am 100% confident that I am holding myself back. And yet, I don't know how to get out of this shitless pattern of life.<p>After a million self-help programs and motivation books that haven't been of much help, I thought I'd post this on HN.<p>More recently I have started reading up more on suicides. I am too weak to ever attempt it. But I also never thought I'd ever be so tired and hopeless in life to be googling something so sick.<p>Thanks!<p>-A dude
Upvote: | 132 |
Title: True story: my wife majored in Musical Theatre in college, and had the privilege of studying with Rocco Dal Vera (http://www.ccm.uc.edu/faculty/facultyProfile.aspx?facultyid=32/), a world-renowned dialect expert.<p>To put in context how freaking awesome this guy is: name a country in the world, and he can perform every dialect in the region <i>flawlessly</i>, as well as tell you how it originated and developed over time.<p>Awesomeness indicator #2: Rocco did the dialect work on the "Indiana Jones" movies. 'Nuff said.<p>Yesterday, my wife e-mailed the "Did Americans in 1776 have British Accents" post (http://www.nicholasjohnpatrick.com/post/767354896/did-americans-in-1776-have-british-accents) to Rocco. Here's his reply, posted here with his permission:<p>====================<p>That is very cool, and I found most of the post accurate, except at the end when he speculates on why New York and New England may be non-rhotic.<p>There's a small contradiction: if their connections were British and British was itself rhotic, then that doesn’t explain how they lost their Rs. (Except that it could have happened 100 years after the Revolutionary War.)<p>England’s journey toward a non-rhotic prestige accent followed the Revolutionary War, a time when we were pretty cut off from them. We were in a state of almost continual war with them through the war of 1812 and even through the Civil War when they supported the South more than the North.<p>Much later, in Victorian times, wealthy residents of Boston, Philadelphia and New York sent their children to England to be educated and their prestige accents became reflective of those schools’ emphasis on RP. That persisted well through the 1950s (and shows up in accents we call Boston Brahmin, Philadelphia Mainline and New York 400). It may well be that until then New York wasn’t terribly non-rhotic, but I would love to read a real study on this.<p>Immigration also had a huge effect on New York and New England speech. How much that accounts for the rhoticity question is hard to say. But is has to be a factor. Still, the result is surprising because notice how Boston, famously the center of Irish immigration (a heavily rhotic accent, then and today) somehow ended up with a non-rhotic accent in a country that is mostly rhotic.<p>Incidentally, the author doesn’t comment on US Southern prestige accents that were non-rhotic almost from the start. The reason for that? They were raised by their black nannies and African languages are non-rhotic. Southerners hate to hear this, but their prestige non-rhotic plantation accents are the product of slave speech! A lovely topic for the 4th of July as we contemplate liberty...
Upvote: | 170 |
Title: Folks, I have seen too many HN posts on the fact that PHP is not a good language to develop a robust web application, despite of the fact few of the biggest web sites are running on PHP. We(my team and me) started debating on the issue of choice of the technology for the next project. I am still in some ways not convinced that python may be a better approach.<p>PHP and Python<p>* Both have good framework web.py | codeigniter<p>* Both have good helpful community and support<p>* Both large set of plugins<p>How will it impact my webapp if it is written in Python and not PHP
Upvote: | 51 |
Title: A question to web-application providers: what percentage of your clients quit your service every month? is the rate different for free accounts compared to paying accounts?<p>p.s. Any links to some stats?
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: I think the last time this came up we agreed on the 1st tuesday of every month - so here we are!<p>I'm specifically interested in Python jobs in London, but as always, everything is welcome.
Upvote: | 43 |
Title: Also curious to know the probable reasons for the failure.
Upvote: | 59 |
Title: A year or two ago somebody posted a list of open/free/accessible datasources for hackers to download and play around with. I thought this was a great resource, so I saved it, but heck if I can find it now.<p>Does anybody have such a list? Things like zip-codes for the US, locations of Starbucks stores, current weather forecasts, list of major newspapers, list of publicly-traded stocks, etc. I know there are tons of open/free databases waiting for us to mashup, just can't seem to find a list of them.<p>EDIT: The goal is a downloadable chunk of data to mashup, reformat, and use. That means CSV/XML/etc format and a public/anonymous FTP or something.
Upvote: | 64 |
Title: Common knowledge here on HN and among many startup folks is that ideas are worthless, and only execution counts.<p>If that's the case, why are some startups in stealth mode? If they have a great team that can execute, why should they care if anyone else knows what they are working on? If something is worthless, I shouldn't mind giving it to someone else. If I do mind someone else sharing what I have, it means I place some value on it.<p>Are some startups correct in wanting to be in stealth mode, or is it always a stupid idea?<p>If it makes sense that some startups should be in stealth mode, doesn't that imply that the knowledge of what they are working on has some value, which would mean that ideas sometimes do have value?<p>Maybe I'm missing something, either in what people mean by "ideas are worthless, execution is the only thing that counts", or in what people mean when they say that a startup is in stealth mode, or something else.<p>What do you guys think?
Upvote: | 73 |
Title: Bonus points: What's some roadblocks or bottlenecks you've identified in the process?<p>Even more bonus points: Try to help someone else in the thread with their goals, especially clearing out those roadblocks and bottlenecks.
Upvote: | 150 |
Title: I noticed yesterday that HN is now blocked by Etisalat, one of the United Arab Emirates' two telecom companies. Their proxy server displays a page like this instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Block_etisalat_3.jpg<p>Sites usually get blocked because a customer complained to Etisalat about their content, or because they were arbitrarily added to the SmartFilter database. I think it's the latter in this case.<p>I will follow up with Etisalat and let you know if I make any progress...
Upvote: | 47 |
Title: Link to try it out: http://kosmosnimki.ru/3d/index.html?x=5123012&y=5207341<p>Flash Player 10 required. Allow for some delays in loading because our servers are in Russia.<p>Controls: drag to move, mousewheel to tilt. Secret tips for fellow hackers here: i toggles stats, m toggles mesh, t shows textures, s shows strips.<p>The location is Russian Caucasus, images are from IRS satellite, heightmaps are SRTM.<p>Actually we (my employer http://kosmosnimki.ru, a Russian online map) have covered the whole land area of the world below the 60th parallel. Changing the x and y parameters in the URL bar allows you to go elsewhere. Numbers are in meters, Mercator projection, WGS84 datum. I especially recommend the Himalayas, the Andes and Kilimanjaro, if you're smart enough to figure out the right numbers :-)<p>The code was written by me alone from scratch during this week. Two days of scribbling in a notebook until it got clear, then two days of frantic coding. No existing 3D engines like Papervision were used, it's all pure AS3 (well, haXe). About 1000 lines in total.<p>Any questions are welcome, especially questions about algorithms!
Upvote: | 43 |
Title: Or what did you work on this week? Screenshots of your development environment (or the equivalent for your type of work) would be cool.
Upvote: | 86 |
Title: Hi All. This is just a thought. Many a times we run into discussions which are not useful to the HN community in general, and sometimes we run into people of networking/general interest. Maybe we can carry on the conservations & networking in private and keep HN clean!<p>Please mention your contact info in the "about" section of the profile. The email field is not visible in public. Be sure to be smart when entering email id to prevent spams!
Upvote: | 78 |
Title: Our startup can't afford designers at this point, and we decided to buy a Web Template so that we can use that design before we launch. However, we ran into several pitfalls:<p>1. A lot of "Website template" sites are, frankly, crap. A majority of it are just cleverly Search Engine Optimized and offer poor quality content.
2. Most of the templates are for companies who just want to plug in information. We don't want any fancy graphics or stock pictures demonstrating racial diversity. We just need a blank page with a sidebar and a top navigation bar which is well documented.<p>The best we found after hours of searching were the "Admin Templates" at ThemeForest:
http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-skins<p>I'm sure there are many well designed, well priced options out there. Any suggestions on where to find them will be greatly appreciated.
Upvote: | 46 |
Title: I was wondering if there would be any interest in a HN meetup in the East Bay (Berkeley-Emeryville-Oakland area)<p>Please upvote and/or comment if you are interested.<p>Not quite sure where it could take place, but feel free to offer suggestions as well. (I'm thinking more of a happy-hour kind of thing)
Upvote: | 41 |
Title: Hello HN!<p>I was wondering, what are the best books which have been eye-opening or incredibly interesting about philosophy that you all have read?<p>Two examples of books:
Common Sense (I'm reading it for school)
&
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (I've been wanting to read this)
Upvote: | 80 |
Title: What are some modern web design sites/resources?<p>It appears nettuts has some good stuff, as does themeforest... most of my searching led to crappy, outdated resources, worlds inferior to these. (I'm looking at you, SitePoint...) Where do I go for the good stuff?
Upvote: | 111 |
Title: There is a lot of interesting people on this website who are nothing short of my idols (and I can imagine that I am not the only one who feels that way). Without a doubt, one way to mimic the successes of these people is to do what they do. So I was just wondering if some of you guys cared to share what does your normal day schedule look like.<p>Sorry if this is a repost, I tried to find if a similar topic had been done before but I did not find anything.
Upvote: | 52 |
Title: I would like to get some opinions on the value of taking a basic Ruby programming class.<p>About me: Recent Eng/Biz grad, want to eventually start my own company. I am much more of a business person than an engineer, yet having graduated from a top ten engineering school, I realize the value of understanding tech no matter what part of a startup you work on.<p>Because I am interested in the web tech space, I think it would be a valuable experience for me to take 6 week online crash course in Ruby in order for me to 1) be conversant in a very popular language in this space and 2) have the ability to do very rough mockups of product ideas, or at least understand what goes into building them, and 3) become more generally aware of peripheral issues in web tech and what goes into the development process.<p>I have taken C++ classes in the past (no HTML or CSS experience though), so programming itself is not new to me and I have no illusions about becoming some mad awesome programmer in a couple of weeks. I’m simply looking for a new perspective in seeking out and solving entrepreneurial problems.<p>I’d love to get some perspective from actual programmers and startup people on wisdom or tomfoolery of this idea. I am leaning towards going for it at this point, but might be dissuaded if the reasons are strong, or if better uses of my free time are proposed.<p>For the record, the class is cheap (<$100) and is geared to beginners.<p>I’m all ears.
Upvote: | 44 |
Title: Personally I have a self-built AMD dual-core, 4gb ram, archlinux & gnome/openbox (looking into using awesome wm, any suggestions?), a 17" and a 19" monitor.<p>What do you hack on?
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: What's one thing you did purely for the enjoyment, that later made you money?
Upvote: | 86 |
Title: I'm interested in learning the backend systems of Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, Loopt or any other startups. I'm mainly interested in design/architecture and scaling.
Upvote: | 58 |
Title: Here are some questions that I find myself pondering from time to time as I code. To those who have achieved "FU money" (I use this term loosely):<p>* Has your life changed in unexpected ways?<p>* Has there been any change in the way you interact with strangers?<p>* Has the number of things you <i>have</i> to endure increased or decreased?<p>* And is "FU money" all its cracked up to be? e.g., is your life an order of magnitude more enjoyable now, or is it pretty much the same etc?
Upvote: | 277 |
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