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How to spell check HTML pages?
slater: Sorta, kinda: http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/requests (search for bookmarklet)The steps seem to be:1) Install Spellbound2) Hit the bookmarklet to set the whole page to designMode3) Start SpellBound
Deciding between microISV and something bigger
omnivore: I think starting something small, making money and having success is how you decide whether to grow that project bigger or taking the money and pushing it into something else.When you don't have the advantage of resources or time to devote to a home run, it seems hitting lots of singles could have a much bett...
How to promote an API contest?
asmithmd1: The contest looks to be these guys: http://www.dandyid.orgWhat, exactly, are you offering with your API? A quick look around makes me think you are trying a two-sided sale. First side: get users to create a DandyID to use with all the DandyID enabled sites. Second side: get websites to use your API to let...
What's your process for generating startup ideas?
josh_nyc: I am in a heavy brainstorming phase as of late, thinking and mulling over various "idea areas" that pertain to my domain, software I would use, etc. Not really a set process though...But much to my delight a few days ago, I was with a friend and we were talking about a service we both use, and some of the uti...
What's your process for generating startup ideas?
quizbiz: They just come naturally, pop into my head when I identify a problem and corresponding solution.I would be much more interested in learning how those hear take concepts beyond the idea phase and properly begin execution.A collection of great start up ideas is not as good as one original start up idea that is p...
Review my prototype (webnodes)
zxcvb: The 'home' link in the top left corner is hard to read due to the font colour on the background colour. Red on a dark background is bad.When first landing on your site, I have no idea what I'm looking at. It's just random boxes with unrelated text, I guess once you have a userbase this won't matter as people wil...
How do I penetrate the hosting market?
lsc: Try to create something that is more valuable than your competition. Either go cheaper (difficult, in the shared hosting biz.) or provide some service above and beyond your competitors (I know of many successful hosting companies that targeted a certain kind of customer, for example, real-estate agents during t...
What's your process for generating startup ideas?
floozyspeak: Map them out. Grab a black sharpie, a stack of yellow postits, and find a big ass blank wall. Next jot down everything about the idea in bit statements on postits. Dont try to organize them in advance, just get out of your head.Use the voices in your head to dissect the idea, why this idea, why not othe...
Could stackoverflow.com work for other fields?
madcaptenor: Mathematics, perhaps?
Feedback on Age Directory based on Yahoo BOSS
chris11: You may want to filter some of the pics you use. The one you are using for Lance Armstrong has him naked.
how do you process payments?
ehaus: I agree with pretty much everything said here. Just for full disclosure - I work for Zuora, one of the companies listed above.All the above methods have pros and cons. I would echo the sentiment above to look at payment processors and payment methods as separate entities. I would also echo the sentiment about...
Feedback on Age Directory based on Yahoo BOSS
huhtenberg: Does it solve a problem that actually exists ?I am having hard time seeing how "estimating an accurate age of a celebrity" could be worthy of a standalone service.
Feedback on Age Directory based on Yahoo BOSS
raju: Shouldn't it be so that dead celebrities don't have an age? John Lennon shows up at 68 (which I believe to be correct) but that's assuming he was still alive, yes?
Feedback on Age Directory based on Yahoo BOSS
villageidiot: Are you planning on publicizing it on gossip sites & making money from advertising? Or is this just a toy project?
How Can We Make Our iPhone Game More Enjoyable?
cubicle67: I'm not familiar with the original, and so I have no idea what this game is about or how it works. The screenshots and the description don't help at all either. Instead, they make it look like some sort of budgeting app.Suggestion - Make me want to play it. Include a small description of the gameplay and hav...
How Can We Make Our iPhone Game More Enjoyable?
tmadsen: I don't know the game you're trying to remake, so I would like some info on how to play it (in the app). So far I bought some shopping bags, but I can't see how that helps me (I might be stupid though).Otherwise nice interface, I like the travel screen :) Unfortunately I don't know what I gain from travelling.
How Can We Make Our iPhone Game More Enjoyable?
dtap: I played the original game through many classes in middle school. As long as you don't have big dreams, maybe play it as an updated version of the old game. If the old game got 1000s of kids to play when the only way to transfer games was cables, you should be able to get some good traction.
How Can We Make Our iPhone Game More Enjoyable?
teej: Are you familiar with the similiar apps on Facebook (Mob Wars, Mafia Wars, etc)? I'd love to draw a lesson from them, but if you're not too familiar with it, my advice might not be helpful.
how do you process payments?
fastspring: Be sure to evaluate FastSpring.com as well.Before you go with PayPal, you may want to read up on some of the issues people have been having with PayPal: http://www.fastspring.com/blog/2008/...nt-processing/Also, this post explains the difference in a full service e-commerce solution and a basic payment serv...
How Can We Make Our iPhone Game More Enjoyable?
nategraves: So, it sounds like a better description would be very helpful. We are adding some in-game instructions, but would it also be helpful to have some basic instructions in the description?
How should I approach publishing a book?
RobGR: I don't have experience in this, but there are some actual numbers in this article:http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comm...Good Luck !
Why is there a 'Zoom' feature in Flash?
eob: My guess is that it dates back to the Shockwave days when: 1) Flash was used solely for static & animated vector graphics, and 2) Browsers didn't have the zooming features they do nowWe take Cmd+/Cmd- (and whatever the Windows bindings are) for granted nowadays. Browsers didn't always have the ability to scale thi...
Do your users actually use those social bookmarking icons (ShareThis/AddThis)?
patio11: On my non-technical site, I got about 1 add in the last 100,000 page views. Its mostly a waste of screen space and user attention.However, when I publish pillar reference content aimed at geeks, the simple Delicious button which shows number of people who already added it performs VERY well for me. (Incident...
Why is there a 'Zoom' feature in Flash?
jskopek: On a related note, has anyone found the different quality settings for a flash app to have any effect? I used to browse the web on an ancient G4 powerbook that would choke under most flash apps and movies, and lowering back the quality never had any impact for me.
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
bokonist: My high school had amazing math textbooks. The books had been written by the faculty over the course of many years. Each page consisted of 10-12 word problems and nothing else. There would be no explanation, no section introductions, nothing but problems.The problems were designed to be just hard enough th...
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
toisanji: Since as long as I can remember, my work and fun has been programming languages and learning foreign languages. Recently, I am building my ideal language learning site. So its pretty focused on tools for learning foreign languages which I think is fairly different from being a general learning platform. I t...
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
vaksel: It needs to be free. An online "college" is a joke in the eyes of the world, so you shouldn't even try to compete in that segment by trying to charge money.You should instead focus on teaching people the subjects. Think of it as a secondary tool that students could use to learn the material on their own. I'd fo...
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
chaostheory: The Headfirst series has a statistics book now: http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Statistics-Dawn-Griffiths/d...No it doesn't have R in it, but it's an interesting read
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
peregrine: I am in a Prop and Stats course right now would like this just so I can apply it outside of class to something useful.
How-to make solid profits from niche websites?
zaidf: I'd start with http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/I know many people and couple close friends that are making very decent living by learning seo/adwords/copywriting(or getting really really good at one of 'em).The biggest hurdle that holds a lot of us back from this industry is our own intelligence. That is why w...
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
neilk: Books. Even in the USA, classrooms are starved of just books. Not to mention the third world.Okay, if it has to be some gee-whiz techno-thingy, then a Kindle which is about as cheap as an iPod shuffle. Which reads aloud and can automatically adjust to your reading level, suggesting new books as you go.I think we...
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
carterschonwald: http://www.amazon.com/Theoretic-Probability-Statistical-Prob... is a great book if you want to learn advanced probability theory and techniques.
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
jgilliam: http://www.google.com/
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
buugs: Blackboard is awful I have one class that is based almost entirely in it and that class is one of the most annoying because of the website. First it is separated into 20 sections on the side, most of which I do not even use. Another issue if I'm using linux with all the prerequesites I fail the browser check a...
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
ian01: I took Applied Statistics 550 with all assignments in R. Caught me up on statistics real fast after I hadn't taken it in about 2 years. Concepts in Probability and Stochastic Modeling, Huggins and Keller-Mcnulty. Its good and short. Doesn't have the R assignments though.
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
sjs382: I've had online classes that were (essentially) normal classes, just online. Classes were set for a specific time, Lectures, notes, files were broadcast and shared via Adobe's Breeze software (its name changed.. can't remember what to). Classes were still held on campus, but I was unable to make most of the c...
How to spell check HTML pages?
Pipedreamergrey: If you had read through the top headlines on Hacker News before asking, you would already have the answer: http://spellr.us/
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
eisenkr: The best first book on R I've read is Gelman and Hill's "Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models" (http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/arm/). It's more focused on regression and Bayesian methods than basic probability, but it's a great book that's priced very competitively (only $39....
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
simon_kun: Well written, humorous intro to statistics using R: http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Introduction-Michael-J-Craw...
How Can We Make Our iPhone Game More Enjoyable?
silencio: aww i'm sad. i was working on a dope wars clone for iPhone :( are you guys open source or just free as in beer?
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
mdakin: The MIT probability class targeted at EECS students is 6.041. It is on OCW. It provides a solid foundation in probability with an emphasis on applications (rather than proof). Statistics is but one application of probability and is not heavily emphasized by the class (at least when I took it). That said if ...
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
azharcs: I liked this Lecture "Basics of Probability and Statistics" by Mikaela Keller, IDIAP Research Institute.http://videolectures.net/bootcamp07_keller_bss/ps: She is cute. :)
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
albertcardona: Read the "Cartoon Guide to Statistics". It's no joke. Rather, perhaps the book that explains statistics in the clearest way.http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Statistics-Larry-Gonick/...
Efficiency of StumbleUpon advertising ?
patio11: I spent about $200 on it promoting http://www.christmasbingocards.com last December 1st through December 17th or so. The idea for that site is it pitches exactly ONE thing with laser focus. The idea for the advertising campaign was "Get this in front of technically aware moms, have them blog about it, win".I...
Efficiency of StumbleUpon advertising ?
pierrefar: Whatever advice we give you, you'll need to test it. Your landing page, your target market, your target demographic, etc are all different from our experiences and they interact in unexpected ways.If you believe it cannot not work, then throw a sensible but low amount of $ at it and see what happens.
What technology platform would you use for an Medical Records app?
oscardelben: You should use a platform that you already know well. Starting from scratch with a new framework/language is certainly fun but I don't recommend it for paid projects unless you have a solid experience and expertise and very confident about your abilities.
What technology platform would you use for an Medical Records app?
gstar: Medical records? Ethically your number 1 issue is security now, and it may be legally also depending upon where you're building this.While a web framework is a great place to start for things like this, I do implore you to keep the medical records that it stores as far away from the Internet as possible, if you...
Suggestions for learning statistics (& prob) really fast?
tokenadult: A very good, readable, SHORT article worth rereading about what makes statistics a separate subject from mathematics ishttp://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDFThe article includes a bibliography of recommended readings, and talks about the use of software in statistics education.Another good article ishttp://reposi...
What technology platform would you use for an Medical Records app?
olefoo: Don't try to make Joomla into a medical records app. That way lies heartbreak and a pile of code that does something but that you can never quite trust.Build from the database out. And please use encryption appropriately.In the US at least you are dealing with HIPAA which has a deep set of requirements your sys...
Efficiency of StumbleUpon advertising ?
bemmu: I imagine stumbleupon traffic would be even less likely to stick around on your site than Digg/Reddit traffic, which I wouldn't buy probably even at 10 cents per thousand.
Efficiency of StumbleUpon advertising ?
jreposa: In our experience, we received a high bounce rate of 80+% and about a 20 second time spent on page. This is definitely some of the worst traffic you can get. Some days you'll get much worse results, like 95% bounce and 8 seconds on page.Keep in mind that once you put the money in, you can't get it out. So, eve...
Do you trust Amazon S3 or Mosso Cloudfiles not to lose or corrupt your data?
rs: They are as safe as any other service provider. Ultimately, its always good practice to:1. Do your own backups2. Routinely test that you can recover from these backupsI would argue that point (2) is much more important than point (1). I do try to do that at least once a month to ensure that there aren't any bugs in...
Why is there a 'Zoom' feature in Flash?
gstar: It's because Flash is often vector art, and you can zoom to see details in some cases (without degradation etc).I know of a fashion industry website where this functionality is expected. Makes me shudder!
Efficiency of StumbleUpon advertising ?
AlexTheFounder: If something just "cannot not work" then it will broke unexpectedly and will take you by surprise.
What technology platform would you use for an Medical Records app?
ballpark: I like SQLAlchemy as my DB abstraction. Then you aren't tied to a web app. However, for starting I use pylons, and have been playing with FormAlchemy. It gives you a simple admin interface, but you can customize all you want.
BuySellAds Alternative Idea?
noodle: oh yes. advertising in its current form is severely lacking. find a better way to do it and you've found a goose that lays golden eggs.
BuySellAds Alternative Idea?
digispaghetti: Check out http://www.insightcommunity.com/ run by Floor64. I saw Mike Masnick do a talk in Edinburgh and he explained that rather than do ads, they get companies to sponsor conversations - in return the companies get insights into the thoughts of the community - and it seems to be working for them.
Efficiency of StumbleUpon advertising ?
zealog: While I have never done any advertising on StumbleUpon, I will say that my experience with traffic referred from SU matches with many of the other comments here. They will generate a lot of hits but quality is low. The bounce rate is many times higher than other traffic sources and the return rate of those visi...
What would an ideal online learning platform look like?
tokenadult: Perhaps you should contact me off-forum for the long answer. As president of a statewide parent organization for the families of gifted children, I've had occasion to read reviews of, write reviews of, and recommend a great variety of online learning experiences for parents who want to go beyond what is off...
Efficiency of StumbleUpon advertising ?
jusob: I tried adwords, Facebook Ads, and stumbleupon for http://www.reviews-web-hosting.com/Adword: $0.90 per visitor in average Facebook Ad: $0.45 per visitor Stumbleupon: $0.05 ($25 for 500 users)I haven't see much difference in behavior from these 3 origins, but that may be because nobody spends much time on the we...
Unit testing a ZF MVC application
RossM: Question closed as "exact duplicate" by *Ross 56 secs agoI'm going to be in a similar situation to you soon, but from what I can tell using Zend_Test (http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.test.html) looks to be the easiest way to go about this. The only test framework supported is PHPUnit but I've heard good...
What's the advantage of listing your site as "Creative Commons"?
vorador: I don't think that it really matters. It tarnishes the concept of cc : do you consider your site as a work of art ?
Slashdot rejected my story, what next?
ph0rque: umm... post it on here?
Slashdot rejected my story, what next?
jhancock: If you want thoughtful advice, it would be good to post a link to your story here.
Slashdot rejected my story, what next?
asimjalis: Maybe you could turn your story into an iPhone app, publish it on Apple's App Store, and then submit a story about the app about your story to Slashdot.
Slashdot rejected my story, what next?
firebug: Here's a few places you could try: * reddit * digg * Facebook * MySpace * del.icio.us * StumbleUpon * Buzz Up! * Mixx * Technorati * Google Bookmarks * Yahoo Bookmarks * Yahoo! My Web * Windows Live * Propeller * FriendFeed * newsvine * Xanga ...
Slashdot rejected my story, what next?
ErrantX: Try print computer magazines - especially ones with an online version too. They usually take freelance/unsolicited content and pay fairly well for it if it is good.Some tips (I write on/off for such mags):* Give them a deadline to reply by - otherwise they could take ages to get back to you. Set it for 2 weeks...
Moving buku files from one remote server to another?
gaoshan: In case anyone ever references this post here is the command I used: rsync -avz --progress --exclude-from=exclude username@some.location.com:/files/to/copy/ /place/to/put/them/ The exclude file is a plain list of several items to be ignored and they are just listed by name 1 per line. If you want to do a "...
What is the best way to track where and why your visitors disappear?
profgubler: Clicktale.com actually let's you watch users on your site. You see what they see and where their mouse moves. This is different than what Omniture offers, it is more supplemental to what you are asking. I do know that Omniture's number one competitor is probably CoreMetrics.
What's the advantage of listing your site as "Creative Commons"?
mikeryan: It answers the question of "how can I re-use the content of this site legally"The upside is that it means the site creator has put some thought into it, and allows the user to understand their rights clearly.
What's the advantage of listing your site as "Creative Commons"?
BSeward: CC Attribution is a well-recognized way to quickly give permission to people to redistribute and remix your work, publicizing it and increasing its value in the process. Bloggers looking for more color for their posts might grab a relevant CC'd photo.CC Attribution-Share Alike may lead to someone creating some...
Slashdot rejected my story, what next?
jpirkola: Okay, thanks for your comments, I appreciate you took time to answer my question. I got really interested about http://Kuro5hin.org (thanks Thorax!) and may try that at some point, they seem to have editorial feedback system too. If I was planning to sell my article, I would have loved ErrantX comment, thanks...
How do you know what you want?
pg: One trick is to watch what you do. If you keep inexplicably being drawn to something when other people wouldn't be, you probably like it.You can also try standing apart from yourself and just watching what makes you happy. That's a bit complicated because your happiness is usually a function of the "trailing aver...
How do you know what you want?
josh_nyc: All I can offer here is a personal observation:Many times in my life when I've asked people for advice in choosing between several options, I've found myself secretly hoping they'd guide me to a certain option... hmm...When I was a teenager, I'd ask my dad for advice and find myself asking leading questions a...
How do you know what you want?
noodle: i do what i know i enjoy doing until i don't enjoy doing it anymore. lather, rinse, repeat.it usually is just that simple. your list of things you enjoy doing will shift as you grow, experience, and learn. you're wasting your own time and energy worrying about the "what if"s. either give something new a sho...
How do you know what you want?
rokhayakebe: This is a very interesting question with no possible answer. That is due to the fact that every single minute what you think you want is changing.What could help is to make a distinction between the material things we want (house, cars...) and the things and the other things we want (a family...).As an exe...
How do you know what you want?
Tangurena: What appeals to you will change over time. You're sounding like you want to make one decision that will last your whole life. There isn't one. There can't be one. The teachers at your uni have probably pointed out that you'll have 5 or so completely different careers during your working lifetime.I believe th...
What web database(s) do you guys use?
davidw: I've always preferred Postgres because of its stability and solid construction.
Why do Unix groups still require re-logging in to register changes?
davidw: Because no one has hacked together a good solution for it, presumably.
Why do Unix groups still require re-logging in to register changes?
cperciva: Because each process belongs to a set of groups (set via setgroups(2)), and that set of groups isn't necessarily the same as the set of groups to which the process' user belongs.
What web database(s) do you guys use?
andhapp: I have used both Postgres and Mysql and recently found out that Rails postgres adapter is broken for legacy databases. However, here's a good discussion on stack overflow: http://tinyurl.com/c29ftj
Which Bank
whatusername: The Commonwealth Bank.(Sorry -- only Australian's will get that! Basically - their long running marketing slogan was the question: "Which Bank?" Long running to the point that I was once asked it playing an Australian Edition of Trivial Pursuit)
How to deal with SYN FLOOD and extortion
Brushfire: Move yourself into the cloud and let someone else deal with it. Seriously.I'm a big fan of outsourcing anything you arent 'great' at. In this case, its running firewalls. Unless of course your app is something related to server maintenance or firewalls or security, etc.Most software companies really shouldnt...
How to deal with SYN FLOOD and extortion
tptacek: Any large ISP should have a process and gear in house to mitigate DDOS attacks; you should escalate, first to your hosting provider and then to their upstream provider.Every ISP does something a little bit different for large-scale attacks. Some of them off-ramp traffic to scrubbers, some of them have inline d...
What do you use to order airline tickets online?
Nogwater: I just use the airline's website after shopping around.
How to deal with SYN FLOOD and extortion
lsc: your provider (or your network guy, possibly you) needs to blackhole the source of these attacks (preferably notifying the ISPs in question.) most of the better co-location providers will give you a way to blackhole traffic from certain IPs. Really, you should be able to do that from your OpenBSD firewalls with...
How to deal with SYN FLOOD and extortion
axod: I've had a few DDOS attacks in the past, first when hosting with slicehost, and then when at linode. Running IRC related stuff, these attacks are pretty much expected from time to time.Both dealt with them fantastically, keeping me updated on progress etc.As far as I remember, there was only one instance when the...
How to deal with SYN FLOOD and extortion
patrickg-zill: If they are never connecting, then why not set up a SYN "honeypot"? As soon as a valid user connects, redirect them to a different site or IP address that you do not advertise, that actually hosts your app and db servers.Thus you could rent or colo a small system on a different network, maybe even in a ...
How to deal with SYN FLOOD and extortion
mpk: The big boys seem to be a little reluctant to publish information on their DDoS strategies. (If anyone has information that says otherwise, it's much appreciated).I spent some time googling around and in case anyone's interested, these links seem to cover most of the mitigation patterns.A slideshow covering common...
What do you use to order airline tickets online?
mahmud: Don't forget to keep an eye on browser cookies when you surf travel sites. Delete them often, or use a browser that lets you surf in secure "zones".For me it's Attitude Travel and Asia Room for hotels. Shoe string baby.
How to deal with SYN FLOOD and extortion
datums: If they have already attempted to extort $$. You should keep the mitigation device in place. There are a few devices that do packet inspection and can handle multi gigabyte size attacks.But like many have mentioned contact the upstream provider
Where's the best place to find Python or Rails programmers in SV?
mahmud: "We are microfinancing platform, like Kiva.org."Complete the sentence. "We are an X platform like Y, but with/without ..". If you can't differentiate your service from a competitor yourself how do you expect others to? Also, name dropping your competition without naming your business is not a good idea.Regardin...
Best way to get freelance work without being treated like a commodity code monkey?
mahmud: 1) Escrow based freelance sites are a scam. Rentacoder is an outright scam. Odesk will have a little nice timer on the desk and the project owner will be able to track your progress as 1second precision. Too micromanaged.2) There is nothing inherently precious about an "American Programmer", Yourdon's 15 year o...
Best way to get freelance work without being treated like a commodity code monkey?
mattmcknight: For me it's been pretty simple- work with people who know your work, or show people your work. If you can establish some basis of trust, you'll be more than a rate. If you want to sell yourself, you have to network. Using those sites as the salesmen...well, let's just say they're the pimps.
How do you know what you want?
hwijaya: My own experience and as i've seen with others, is asking a question of "what are you reading for fun / what magazines are you buying?". An example, i used to have a flatmate that work day-job as software tester, but, the funny thing is, he never read anything about technology. All he read is poker. News, tric...
How do you reach women 18-25?
asnyder: If you're serious about targeting this demographic then Hacker News might not be the best place to get your answer. If you're spending significant amount of time and resources in this demographic you should already know this information about them. If you don't know where they go for information, or what sites...
Where should I move to maximize my career potential?
vaksel: If you want to work with the web, SF Bay Area hands down. + its the shortest move for you
Where should I move to maximize my career potential?
tokenadult: http://paulgraham.com/startuphubs.htmlYes, I think the SF Bay Area is the credited response here.
Where should I move to maximize my career potential?
earl: I've lived and worked at startups in both NYC and SF. It isn't even a contest. The amount of startup activity, the character of the companies (ie are the founders left in charge or do you have to have a Harvard MBA to pass muster with the VCs), the ecosystem surrounding the companies, cheaper housing, the abili...
Hacking ability related to teaching language?
tokenadult: Every programmer I know who has learned Lisp (that is, some Lisp dialect) thinks that was very helpful for learning how to think better about approaching programs. It's especially the functional approach to programming that my son misses when, for example, he has to write code for a numerical computing clas...