instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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When to approach the press for coverage? | swombat: Go to press now, but one important note: go to press with a "Story".A Story is something the press will be able to tell. Something that captures the imagination. Prepare that Story in advance of going to that journalist, so that it comes out naturally while you talk to her. It should be inspiring, positive, hu... |
I just bought a Mac, where do I go to learn Cocoa? | yan: Don't forget #macdev on irc.freenode.orgAlso, this is a great rundown: http://andymatuschak.org/articles/2007/09/09/getting-started... |
Review my newest site | ejs: Clickable: http://dealwaiter.com |
Review my newest site | thomaspaine: You should be able to submit a query without having to enter your email address first. This was a deal breaker for me, because I don't like giving out my email address to websites I know nothing about. At least show me that by giving you my email address and potentially getting spammed I'm going to get som... |
any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup) | moomerman: We've been using dnsmadeeasy for over a year now and have had great service from them. On features vs cost they win hands down. Had a quote from UltraDNS once and it was more than the total cost of our entire hosting infrastructure combined! |
Technical Patents | pclark: what area is your startup focussing on? |
Technical Patents | jacquesm: Did your previous patents bring you enough to make it worth your while ?Personally I'm against all patents, especially software patents. If a competitor would come up with a copy of your service would you sue based on your belief that they must infringe your patent ? Would you consent to being sued in case it... |
Technical Patents | teej: > I have a new startup nearly ready to goHow about spending that time getting your startup from "nearly there" to launched? Your patent won't mean squat if you don't have a good product. |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | patio11: Where do you go to find those non-technology blogs?Google for keywords of interest to you, talk to people in your market, talk to your customers, etc.Where do you go to promote your blog(s)/businesses in non-technology niches?The succinct answer: You use it to promote other people.The longer one: blogging othe... |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | raptrex: I dont know of one, maybe this is a good idea to make one? or start a subreddit |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | edgefield: You might check out http://www.newmogul.com/ for business news... |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | jacquesm: how about off-line ? or google adwords ?Direct mail might make sense, or flyers at builders trade shows, I know that sounds 'weird' for an online business but it would seem to me that your potential customers are all much too busy to be hanging around on forums. |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | ekpyrotic: I concur. I've been keenly searching for sites in HN's vein, but centered around philosophy and the arts. 'HN's vein' is vague, I'll elaborate:1. Keen eyed moderators, stamping down on vandalism; including, bad grammar, and bad spelling.2. A intelligent community of readers dedicated to adding comments of va... |
Technical Patents | dominik: Patent prosecution has its own nuances; a few differences in wording can make or break a case in litigation.You could look at IP law firms and look through their roster of patent attorneys; alternatively, you could look for a small or solo patent attorney (e.g. google machine learning patent attorney).If you'r... |
Should I go back to university? | josefresco: After reading your last paragraph, I'd stick with the professional world and try to craft a job you love, one where you control your own destiny.I would bet that school will still strike you as mostly bullshit from the sounds of your past experience (tech school/self taught) |
Are there enough people viewing (and up-voting) newly posted articles? | mjtokelly: In my experience, at any given time at least one article fromhttp://news.ycombinator.com/newestis on the front page of HN. That seems like a pretty good indication that all submissions are getting adequate attention. |
Should I go back to university? | rsayers: I'm in a bit of an opposite situation, I've been doing web development since high school (i'm 27 now), and am just now going to college for the first time. For a degree in religion of all things.That said, I would never have gone to school for anything related to computers. I'm still not sure if I plan to ... |
Should I go back to university? | cjenkins: One thing to try might be to put together a portfolio of some kind. This way you can show people that, yes, I can do X, Y and Z and here's the proof. Good recommendations certainly don't hurt either.I'm going to take a guess that just straight resume submitting isn't going to go so well. You'll likely get ... |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | brandnewlow: If you want Chicago-related news/announcements/weirdness my site, The Windy Citizen is (finally) starting to take off. http://www.windycitizen.comThere's not much tech on there yet, but there could be if local guys shared their stuff on there.As far as I know we're the only local, social news site out ther... |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | ilamont: Check out Slinkset (YC Summer 08) - lots of niche sites that are not about technology:http://discover.slinkset.com/(I started my own HN-like site for public corruption, using Slinkset: http://publicdime.slinkset.com/)Also outside of technology, I read Universal Hub (universalhub.com) to get a handle on Boston-... |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | mikewhyley: I've watched this through it's development and various iterations and I can say that some serious dedication and work has gone into this. It's really taking shape - good work guys ! Good Luck ! |
Should I go back to university? | endtime: Going back to school is kind of a reset button, and generally something you can only do once or twice. It sounds like your situation might make it worth it, but only if you actually want a reset. If you just want to weather the economic storm, 1.5-2 years might not be long enough. But if you want to change ... |
Spam Filters | icey: Gmail is likely using a Bayesian classifier for spam detection. So, it adds the characteristics of the spam to the spam filters, not the message itself.http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html |
Should I go back to university? | coolnewtoy: If you go back, get a degree in an industry. Technical aptitude and skills are great and transportable to almost any field. A "proper education" makes you more valuable if you understand the problems to be solved in an industry like biotech, or greentech, etc. (probably not so much financial services thes... |
Should I go back to university? | shimon: It seems like you still want to work in the same field, and are mainly considering school because of the credential it offers. While that addresses one reason employers might be throwing away your resume, it isn't on its own enough to make you stand out.The most effective way to stand out is through a personal... |
Do you know of other good HN-like places to post your articles? | blhack: I run a site called http://www.gibsonandlily.comall the people that post there are nerds, but it is mostly non-tech news...we kindof joke that we're like reddit and digg...but for adults. |
Should I go back to university? | jderick: Yes.We can argue all day about how credentials shouldn't matter. But they do. Put up with a little BS for a few years and it will pay off. |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | antiismist: Works as expected, good job. It took me a while to figure out what the right window does though.Once I figured it out I had some fun with a chatterbloc inside a chatterblock inside a chatterbloc. |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | rokhayakebe: 1. What does freeze/unfreeze do?
2. What does the screen do? (I thought when I open window, participants would see it. Like if I opened Google and ran queries, they would see the same)
3. There is a bit of latency in your messaging. Maybe 1 and a half seconds.Otherwise if this application allows anyone to ... |
Should I go back to university? | biohacker42: I knew a brilliant hacker who also dropped out of college for the same reasons.It's a bit of youthful arrogance, immaturity, but also the kind of spirit youth would not be youth without.Anyway, a recession is probably the best time to be in school.But there are two very important things to keep in mind:1. ... |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | scott_s: What's the benefit of this over email, IM or Skype? I already have communication channels through those mediums for everyone I want to talk to.Addendum: I just now realized you have a shared viewing feature. But I didn't realize that from looking through your app, but from your description. Shared viewing is w... |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | DavidPP: Got a small bug with website that do not "like" to be boxed (ex : http://hardware.fr) Since they force a reload of the page, you can't access the room anymore because you get redirected each time you try to access it. |
Cheapest way to buy hosted bandwidth? | timf: "Is there anywhere cheaper?"I think most colocation/dedicated server centers give you a lot better deals than the more dynamic Linode/EC2 setups. And it matters how much you know you'll use ahead of time. For example, check out http://www.10tb.com10TB at .10/GB is $1000 but you get 10TB plus a 4GB RAM server fo... |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | RK: It would be nice to have a back button for navigation. |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | mtrichardson: This is pretty neat.The UI is pretty, but somewhat distracting. Not enough contrast, I think, and it could be more minimal.Freeze wasn't super intuitive.Having a history of what you've posted with thumbnails of previous things might be neat, but might just end up being distracting.The iframe thing, I go ... |
Cheapest way to buy hosted bandwidth? | wmf: Some hosting companies charge per Mbps, which may be cheaper than paying per GB. |
Should I go back to university? | RobGR: When you thought the university was a load of crap, that no one gave a shit about you, that textbooks were meant for professors to profit, and that professors don't care about teaching you, you were right.It was not "youth angst" or "academic immaturity". It was just a correct assessment of the situation.Most p... |
Spam Filters | RobGR: I don't know what gmail does, but what you describe can be done with spamassassin. The Horde webmail program has a way for users to submit false positives and false negatives to the spamassassin training command. |
Should I go back to university? | comster: Did you say WHY you want to go back to school? It is a very personal decision to make. Many make it to the top just fine (maybe not easy) without the paper in their hands. I have to agree with you on the BS that schools deal out. ASU made it clear during my time there, that they were a business in it for t... |
The best way to convert paper drawings to digital images ? | poppysan: A scanner? If you want it vector then use illustrator to vector-trace it...There are far too many options... |
That AJAX-based SQL editor... | nreece: Was it WWW SQL Designer: http://ondras.zarovi.cz/sql/demo/?keyword=defaultAlso: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=476028 |
The best way to convert paper drawings to digital images ? | patio11: Scan it, ship it off to your outsourced art talent, tell them what sort of deliverable you need, and let them worry about how they accomplish it. They're the professionals, after all.(Outsourced artistic talent is very, very cheap. Find somebody you like on one of the sites, develop a working relationship, b... |
US users, or Global? | jasonlbaptiste: Profits = Revenue - CostsIf you can't make money there, and with the business you're probably in, the costs are significant when it comes to bandwidth, then you should not be there.We're also not talking about a gain lots of users and monetize later type of plan like Twitter. There's no money to be mad... |
The best way to convert paper drawings to digital images ? | pasbesoin: If you want vector graphics, my meager experience fwiw:Some months ago, I used potrace to convert drawings to SVG. Specifically, on a Windows box, if I recall correctly, I used it via the front end Rasterbater (needs .NET 2). I was quite satisfied with the result.This was for some simple black on white ima... |
What's the best way to do due diligence on an Angel Investor? | rms: Talk to the entrepreneurs they have invested in. |
The best way to convert paper drawings to digital images ? | nreece: Scan, and Vectorize with Vector Magic - http://vectormagic.com/home |
What's the best way to do due diligence on an Angel Investor? | ekhjehcjkerch: sleep with their wife.sorry ;) |
What's the best way to do due diligence on an Angel Investor? | officiallyrad: Plant a 9mm and a bag of hash somewhere in their belongings that will easily be discovered while meeting with them, then see how they respond... |
The best way to convert paper drawings to digital images ? | NonEUCitizen: recently, i:1. used my camera to take photo of an illustrated page from a very old book (copyright expired). i borrowed the book via LINK+, and it was delivered to my local library for free.2. used Vector Magic to vectorize (within 2 free "credits" limit) the image.3. edited result of #2 with Inkscape... |
What's the best way to do due diligence on an Angel Investor? | cperciva: Make it clear that you're not committing to anything until it's in writing and you've had a lawyer look at it. That way even if the "angel" is less than angelic, he can't cause too much damage.Deals fall through; that's a fact of life. Deals with inexperienced angels fall through in particularly screwy ways... |
That AJAX-based SQL editor... | GrandMasterBirt: What is funny about sql designer is that it is better than any other er diagram tool I've ever used till this date. And those were native applications, this is web-based. Just goes to show you that the idea and skill is what counts, not the platform, framework, or anything else. |
US users, or Global? | medianama: I would say it depends on marginal cost of growing in other markets. If you need to localize the site/content and/or need offline presence (sales team, etc), it might not be such a good idea.
If all you need to do is strike a couple of content partnerships or PR exercise in those regions and can be handled b... |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | sam_in_nyc: In no order as they come out...Title attributes or tooltips for all buttons. I don't know what they do.Fade the modal in/out faster, make hitting ESC or clicking the faded are close the modal (the X is rather small)More importantly, the whole way you manage going to URLs (and "freezing") is very unintuitiv... |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | sam_in_nyc: More stuff:What is the point of "Reminder"? How about "share this room" instead. Reminding typically means sending me something that is time sensitive.Second, pop-up blocker comes up. Unless you're offering something extremely compelling, I'd be so annoyed as to leave. Pop-up blocker shouldn't come up f... |
Please review our online collaboration chat tool - chatterbloc.com | whyleyc: Great stuff Steve - my one big "want" would be permanent chat room names.A bit like you can claim a userid or brandname on Twitter or email e.g. http://www.chatterbloc.com/manchesterunited :-) |
Should I go back to university? | sqnz: I'm doing that right now!
Got a small thecnical degree, worked for 3.5 years..But my job sucked! So I decided to go to university!Why? It's a transition!
At university yes you get shit to do (in computer science the classes are horrible and disconnected from realty!!)But, there is no place like university to buil... |
How do you find a cofounder if you want to start a company | brk: I would encourage you to discuss your idea(s) somewhat openly, in the right audience. IE if you have some club or organization at your school that your idea would be relevant to (either a CIS type group, or a group in whatever "market" the idea applies to) go there and get involved and discuss your idea.Mention t... |
How do you find a cofounder if you want to start a company | rogercosseboom: I was actually in the same situation as you- unfortunately I'm out of school and seperated from the most important source of feedback/support/cofounders: the people in your program.Anyone can be a cofounder. Most often its friends, or friends of friends, but sometimes its an interested professor(MIT ha... |
How do you find a cofounder if you want to start a company | mindaugas: This may help a little:http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/11/03/how-to-meet-your-ne... |
What does everyone think of Charlie Rose? | coglethorpe: Maybe I'll have to watch more, as I've always considered him Ambien in human form. |
How do you find a cofounder if you want to start a company | tstegart: How to find a cofounder with talent and drive is the hard part. I know a bunch of people who say "sweet idea" when I mention starting a company, but most of them are not at the top of their game or ready to take the process seriously. The people who are already enjoy what they're doing. :( |
What does everyone think of Charlie Rose? | pasbesoin: Was it a new interview (Buffet was on a couple of months ago)?Rose does some really good interviews. Can be content heavy. And he also is friends to varying degree with quite a few people. He doesn't appear to deliberately skew interviews on this basis, but one should be aware that his personal connection... |
Load testing for flash swf files? | triplefox: Unless the SWF you are hosting also creates a new network connection, the only load you take on is from the file transfer. |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | cperciva: I wrote my own shell script -- given my minimalist needs that was much easier than figuring out how to use someone else's blog code. |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | rsayers: I used my own simply because I had already written it and polished it for release before needing it for a business site.If I was starting from scratch and needed something, I would use wordpress and spend my time elsewhere. |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | jncraton: I personally use Django with disqus for comments. It takes less than an hour to create a decent blog engine in Django if you know the framework, although it took me significantly more than that the first time I did it. With disqus, you can easily add a comment system in seconds.For me, Django was the best cho... |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | pg: Yahoo Store! Bet I'm the only one. |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | pclark: Posterous. Easy to blog, they host it, pity you cannot theme it (yet) |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | Mistone: wordpress and posterous, both rock. wp for general day to day blogging, posterous for mobile blogging, sneak peaks, and other little bits of content I capture on iphone and want to post. twitter as well if that counts. |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | hbien: I rolled my own with Django, which I kind of regret now. A blog is really about the content (in this case, news about your product) and not the technology you use.If you're going to host your own, I'd recommend WordPress. If you don't mind someone else hosting it, try out Tumblr + Disqus. |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | unalone: We'll probably be designing our own. If we don't, it'll be Tumblr-based. |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | ejs: I usually roll my own, I dont care for most of the features that come with... and its easier to add my own features (like this one: http://codeachrome.com/blog/post/2-add-ruby-code-to-blog-com...)My problem is that the blog tends to be the afterthought for me, so building a site around the blog is not a features I... |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | jacquesm: drupal.Though I have to say that their policy towards upgrades leaves me underwhelmed. |
FairSoftware--Good way to find a cofounder? | alain94040: I am one of the founders of http://fairsoftware.net (sorry for the late answer, you had to post this question just on President's weekend).The processing fee we charge is irrelevant to whether we are a good place to find co-founders. Actually, you could use FairSoftware, find people, use our Software Bill o... |
Should I go back to university? | herval: Speaking as a former enterpreneur, I don't think having a BS represents anything at all.Speaking as an employee, one thing I came to notice was that the BEST people I worked with did not even attend an IT course (they had graduations on other areas, like math or physics - one in english literature!). Of course ... |
What blogging engine do you use at your startup? | spoiledtechie: BLOGENGINE.NET OR Tumblr.comTumblr is damn easy, but blogengine.net is damn fun.For Example blog.drinkingfor.com |
Managing Two Contracts | edgefield: I respect you for carefully considering this ethical dilemma and not just jumping for the higher pay. I have several questions about your situation:1. What are the terms of the original written contract (e.g., hours per week, hours total, deliverables due, date for completion, etc)?2. Are there verbal expect... |
Why are some of the older developers afraid of javascript? | noodle: a lot of older developers still view javascript as the unstable, insecure language.as an example, steve gibson (of grc.com) won't use it, iirc.and they're right, really. you can't put bulky business logic in javascript if you have any need for security. |
Why are some of the older developers afraid of javascript? | icey: If I had to guess, it'd probably be roughly related to things like this: var x = 1;
var y = 1;
function methodA()
{
return
{
javascript: x + y
};
}
function methodB()
{
return{
javascript: x + y
};
}
(Hint: They don't do the same thing) |
Why are some of the older developers afraid of javascript? | joe_bleau: I only turn javascript on when I need it for a site that I trust (easy with Opera). If I forget and leave it on, it seems like far too many sites bog down my machine with crappy eye-candy and advertising. (Maybe I won't care so much when/if I upgrade to a faster PC.)I find it terribly annoying when a site ... |
Managing Two Contracts | dkokelley: Would the second (higher paying) contract understand if you wrapped up the first contract before offering more hours? Bailing on a contract is certainly bad for business, but more importantly, you could be on the hook for the amount paid to you depending on how the contract is written. |
Why are some of the older developers afraid of javascript? | amichail: I would not use javascript much in the same way as I would not use assembler. But using javascript as the target of a more stable platform with extensive tool support (e.g., Java with GWT) is fine. |
Managing Two Contracts | scorpioxy: Tough situation to be in. But it's great that you're stopping to think about it.I would say why do you have to stop the low paying project? Isn't it possible to cut down on the hours? Also, if you explain why you need to cut down on the hours, i am sure they would understand.(You can say "I need the money", ... |
Why haven't the industries embraced open platforms | aristus: I don't think it's solely politics or technical merit.Put it this way: I'll bet your personal computer is well-maintained, well-researched, and generally works better than the average civilian's. The same probably goes for people in your immediate family.Now imagine a lawyer who does not know anyone who is a p... |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | spydez: I tried a sentence at PolishMyWriting.com. The sentence was: "Onec upon at time, there was a potato." It found my misspell, but it: 1) Didn't capitalize the correction suggestions.
2) Ate the space between 'once' and 'upon' upon correction.
And now that I've given it this reply to proof, it doesn't find the... |
Managing Two Contracts | lv_: Dude - just finish it up, if you want to be a luxurious entrepreneur you must finish all assignment.s |
Why are some of the older developers afraid of javascript? | RobGR: I don't write javascript, because I don't run javascript (with a few exceptions). I associate javascript with crap websites. It is slow and it causes the browser to use up a lot of memory. The functionality gained by it is usually pointless fru-fru, the doilies and tailfins of the internet. I fully realize th... |
Why haven't the industries embraced open platforms | Tangurena: I think a lot of businessmen don't get it. They don't understand why one would write open source and/or free software, and many get hung up on the "you get what you pay for" thing (alternative: "anything free is worth what you pay for it"). |
Why haven't the industries embraced open platforms | Logic-Shop: In the Health Care industry, when technology doesn't work the way it's supposed to people can die, or at least be seriously negatively effected.Without at least the illusion of support from a big official distributor, that responsibility stays entirely on the shoulders of the person who selected the technol... |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | dimitry: This is a startup? How? |
Managing Two Contracts | dkubb: As a freelancer myself I think it's really important to finish what you start, and keep your promises.Sure, there are times when you have to walk away from a project, such as when there are personality conflicts, or unreasonable expectations. It doesn't sound like that's the case here.Keep in mind that most so... |
Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | jakestein: I just went through the trademark process with my business. If you use the abbreviated form the filing fee is $275. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2009january01_...Costs beyond that are lawyer's time for doing a trademark search and filing the paperwork. I used a lawyer (and ended up spendin... |
Why are you proud of your species? | Mystalic: Creation of the printing press, invention of irrigation, nearly every physics discovery. |
Why are you proud of your species? | troytabor: I'm proud that we can debate without physical confrontation; higher-reasoning I guess. Think about it, if all debates where a physical confrontation it wouldn't be the best ideas that would win, but just those who are stronger would win.Ok... So that's out there a bit. More on the lines of what you're asking... |
Why are you proud of your species? | Allocator2008: The library of Alexandria was perhaps the noblest human achievement ever, compounding the greatest of our knowledge, historical, scientific, etc. into one location. |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | snewe: I added it to a WP blog, but don't have anywhere in the admin area to add the API key (except hard-coded). I tried "plugins.php?page=atd-key-config", but got "Cannot load atd-key-config." |
Why are you proud of your species? | gaius: All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embar... |
Do you trademark your brand / app name / business? | vaksel: Just slap a tm on it and be done with it.Once your business becomes mega profitable where the cost is peanuts...THEN you can go and get it registered. |
Why are you proud of your species? | jacquesm: unified field theory*general relativitybig bangthe theory of mindthe discovery of evolutionEinsteinRosalind FranklinDarwinGalileoMichelangeloNewtonAlan TuringDa VinciGhandiMLKThe list is endless... And who knows, maybe one of you will be on a list like this at some point in the future...* getting closer... |
Review my startup, After the Deadline - Proofreading Plugin for Wordpress, TinyMCE, etc. | anotherjesse: Interesting!A few days ago I blogged how I wished that my readers could copy edit my posts: http://overstimulate.com/articles/readers-as-copy-editors
I'll try this out. (I was debating prototyping a "copy edit" feature by hacking my Disqus widget to post changes as comments to a hidden thread) |
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