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Best Way to Learn About User Experience
unalone: A few things that helped me when I was first getting started:-Join every web site you can. If there's an interface to use, use it. Social networks, social news, blogging platforms, commerce apps... everything.-If you don't have a good memory, take notes. Write down the things that stand out to you, even if it'...
Firefox v. Chrome
ashleyw: I was an avid Firefox user for years, but one thing which always annoyed me is it becomes a complete resource hog. So I ended up switching to Safari upon the first beta of 4. I hated it at first, I love it now — nice and light, fast as hell, and has Webkit awesomeness!I can't wait for a decent build of Chrome ...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
vaksel: get whatever you use at home
What virtual-team software do you use?
cglee: skype, campfire, github, redmine, email, yugma (for screensharing)
MAC vs PC for a developer?
makecheck: Mac, most definitely.For one, Mac OS X comes with a Python version installed. It also comes with a whole toolbox of Unix utilities, including a number of text editors. (There are many other 3rd party text editors for the Mac, too. Though I stick with "vim" or Xcode myself, both of which are included.)You ...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
blasdel: The only disadvantage of picking a Mac is that (unless they spring for a Mac Pro) you can't stuff it to the gills with RAM.Until the latest generation of consumer Macs the limit was 4gb, though now if you spend $500 you can get 2x4gb DDR3 for an iMac or Macbook (though the Macbooks can only address 6gb). In th...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
dforbin: linux, duh
MAC vs PC for a developer?
zacharydanger: PC running Linux is your best bet. Take the money they save versus buying a Mac and use it for a second monitor which I find to be one of the most important development tools. Having your code and browser open at the same time will make your life that much easier.
MAC vs PC for a developer?
joshsharp: I have a Mac and a PC and I feel more productive on a PC. I think the main reason for this is that I'm a "maximised windows" kinda guy and switching between windows and tasks feels much more smooth and simple for me in Windows. It may sound like a small thing but because the OS X dock deals with apps, not wi...
What can a hacker do about gun violence?
nickfox: I believe the problem has to do with anger. The kind of deep-seated anger that festers and drives people to do things they would not normally do. So how do you reduce that anger? It's simple. The best way is maintain a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Doing so will allow healing to take place which will less...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
fizx: You need a *NIX system with some sort of port system (i.e. MacPorts, aptitude, etc.) and the ability to open VM's to test a bunch of the configurations that come up. Mac, Ubuntu both qualify. Windows is sorta possible via Cygwin.Particularly since work is buying the computer, I'd get a Mac for the hardware, and...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
warhammerkid: My work just bought me a mac book pro, and coming from a souped up desktop running Linux, there were some upsides and downsides. Personally I would pick Apple hardware if you can get it and run OS X, but if you've never used Linux or OS X, odds are good that unless you really want to rethink how you use y...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
siculars: get a mac pro with gobs of ram. thats what i got a couple years ago. use it to rock vm instances of windows/linux/solaris whatever. mac is, by far, the leading dev tool in this space.going to various computer/dev conferences over the years it was hard to not notice the rise of apple laptops to the point where...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
sirsean: Pick the PC.If you happen to be starting at the place I work, the only way I can get a Mac is if new employees say they want a PC. Otherwise I'm stuck. I don't know if I'm next on the list, but even if not that'd get me one step closer to my Mac.So, yes. That's why you should pick a PC.
MAC vs PC for a developer?
hs: if someone pays for me: macif i have to buy myself: used pc for sale, install openbsd/ubuntu and i'm readybut of course ...no vim ... no work
MAC vs PC for a developer?
ewjordan: Laptop or desktop?If it's a desktop, I won't comment, that's entirely up to you (maybe others have advice) - I haven't used a desktop regularly in at least a year. If it's a laptop, though, unless you work in a totally Windows-centric environment, a MacBook Pro is the only choice (even in a Windows shop, I'd...
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
ashleyw: I'm no expert on marketing, but I think I'd check out StumbleUpon paid ads:http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/
Best Way to Learn About User Experience
sscheper: All (and particularly unalone) --Thanks for the very insightful information. I really appreciate the assistance with this. I'll be sure to check out the reads and, most importantly, view/analyze every site I now come across.
Password managers
silas: Gui (cross platform; thumb drive versions) http://www.keepassx.org/CLI (old; via ssh) http://freshmeat.net/projects/pwsafe/Library (looks promising although not done) http://www.pwsafe.de/
What's the right way to authenticate survey takers?
javert: Send each participant an email which contains a link to the survey. The link contains a hash key. Each hash key is only valid once. So, each link is only valid once. If you're really worried, also have people do a captcha before they take the survey.I'm not sure if this works with your setup, but presumably, if...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
PostOnce: So you're saying you mostly edit text? There are only so many variations on typing things on a keyboard and having them appear in a text editor. You'd probably be fine either way, so you're really just looking at cost.I'd suggest that if you've never used a Mac, the potential lost productivity you'll have usi...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
ideamonk: Don't forget that on OS X you would find Textmate, which has no match yet. On windows the best editor would be Notepad++. But nothing comes closer to Textmate. If you wish to save some money, then better got for a PC.
MAC vs PC for a developer?
dhotson: I find a combination of OSX with an Ubuntu VM (vmware) works really well. That way you can keep your dev environment the same as your production linux machine .. it's pretty hard to beat apt-get.By using VMWare, the OS you use doesn't actually matter that much as long as you have a decent terminal and your per...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
avinashv: Honestly, if work is buying the computer for you, I'd get a Macbook (or Macbook Pro depending on the budget they're giving you) and run OS X and your Linux flavor of choice side-by-side. Develop in Linux--you may find that you never need to go to OS X so you might even opt to get rid of it. The hardware is ...
What's the right way to authenticate survey takers?
ashleyw: How about just identifying via their IP and name, and also log their browser user-agent too, then when getting the results, query the database to find IPs which have taken part more than n times, and manually check for the signs that the entry was done by the same person or a bot?It's not perfect, but unless y...
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
patio11: Develop linkworthy content which is unique to your site.
MAC vs PC for a developer?
dimitar: What do you guys think of Freebsd? Hardware and software availability? And can I run stuff like Skype, VMWare and Flash?
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
adinobro: Personally I would experiment with different sources and different types of adds. The main thing to do is find out if the adds are working.If you are advertising online there is always the big two - Google(Adwords) and Yahoo(Overture). I would also have a look at some online comics. The two bigest ones focusi...
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
albertni: While there are always exceptions, I'm guessing most startups that are around the 10k user mark have plenty of free low hanging fruit left in terms of improving a user's experience or getting more traffic in general. Whatever you end up doing, you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck with a more opti...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
iuguy: I also do a lot of Python development and a bit of HTML/CSS work. I recently had to toss up the pros and cons of an MBP versus a Dell XPSM1530. The 1530 won on the grounds that it was £700 cheaper than the Mac, more powerful and a better screen. The related cons (Vista, being a Dell) aren't so bad and I'll upgra...
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
melvinram: Are the websites/games free or paid?If it's free and you're really after eyeballs, you might considering utilizing methods that give you a higher reach. I'd think about websites with a low CPM/PPC rate that reach your demographic. I'd also consider spending that money on developing a good FaceBook integratio...
Firefox v. Chrome
radu_floricica: I like the simplicity/extra screen space of Chrome. It's like browsing Firefox in full screen (which I never actually did). No toolbars, extra security (even because it's still new and not very popular), and great startup speed.Overall I think it's the bias towards usability in favor of facilities that ...
What Paid Services Do You Use For Your Startup?
cloudberryman01: If you use Amazon S3 or Amazon CloudFront services I suggest that you use CloudBerry Explorer freeware product to manage them. http://cloudberrylab.com/ Don't feel like it is a commercial I am a bootstrapped start-up like you and I just want to spread the word about my product.
MAC vs PC for a developer?
jofell: I'd go for a Mac. If it's too expensive Linux computer would do. Windows use a lot of resources (IMO) which would be very necessary in web-side development.
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
shafqat: What's your site? A link or name would help us understand your product better. It's always easier to give advice when we see the product rather than blind.
MAC vs PC for a developer?
Tichy: Since so many pros and cons have already mentioned, I'll just add that the Mac keyboards are not so super for coding (at least the german ones). It doesn't have "Home", "Page Down", "Page Up" or "Del", other keys like "~" and "\" require weird keyboard combos ("\" = alt+shift+"/"). Probably not an issue if you a...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
amastilovic: As someone who is doing programming nearly 90% of my working hours, and someone who used all three major systems (OS X, Vista, Linux), I would suggest you go with a computer that is giving you highest raw metal power for the buck.If you are really working and not playing around with desktop cpu monitor gad...
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
froo: I've already replied to this thread but I thought I would add another anecdote about using ads. This is just my personal experience, but I think can underline that you really need to be creative.Personally, I think online ads are mostly a waste of money unless you get a good, measurable conversion from those ads....
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
jlees: It seems to me you have to focus on your demographic and spend some time figuring out their top websites, then figure out ways to partner with them. It sounds obvious but if you spend the money on getting Digg frontpaged or an ad on Penny-Arcade the customers presumably won't actually stick, since they're not yo...
What's the right way to authenticate survey takers?
arantius: I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head, but:1. When loading the survey page check for a cookie. If it's not present, set the cookie, record the ip-and-cookie mapping, and redirect back to this page. 2. Now that we're loading the page with the cookie, present the form. 3. Upon submission of the f...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
TweedHeads: For desktop web development all you need is an iMac 24" and Photoshop.Nothing else...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
juliend2: If you need to use Photoshop for your HTML/CSS editing (for taking image from layouts, for example), dont go with Linux. Because you will not have the possibility to install the latest version of Photoshop in any version of Linux. Sure you can use a VM for things like that, but Photoshop requires a lot of mem...
How to spend a marketing budget of $US 2k per month?
vaksel: if you are in the casual gaming space, I'm guessing you are doing flash games. Spend that money to hire some people to develop games for you. Almost any game will spread like wildfire all across every single game aggregator, and will drive a ton of traffic your wayAnd if you are going to ask questions, you shou...
Startup House?
endlessvoid94: http://www.startup-house.com
Hacker News for musicians?
omarish: Absolutely. Would this be focused on music production or discovery?
MAC vs PC for a developer?
xenoterracide: if you don't need gaming, I'd get a linux box ( or a mac ), and run windows in a virtual machine.
Ask HN:What would be the skills required for Developers in the next 10 years?
swolchok: Same as always -- a grounding in fundamentals, strong experience with a couple choice technologies that aren't too out of date, at least vague familiarity with the new new thing, and the ability to assimilate the new new thing quickly when you need to (probably implied by the previous points).EDIT: oh, and bu...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
grinich: You need to have access to and be competent on all systems.My weapon of choice is the MacBook Pro. Pretty fast hardware. Swap in a 500gb hdd and triple (or more) boot os x, windows (xp and vista), ubuntu, bsd, etc.Or you can get a bunch of different machines and use synergy. I found that to be most useful for ...
Startup House?
frisco: "Live the Silicon Valley Startup Experience"Sounds like trouble to me. I'm generally skeptical of anything that tries to polish and make accessible an inherently risky and difficult process. If you're using Startup House as a way to test out working on a startup, be careful that you aren't looking for the "st...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
skwiddor: Linux Box running proxmox virtualisation if you're serious about web developing you'll be wanting to test your sites in multiple versions of I.E, Firefox & Webkit & Opera. That means running Windows at some point, virtualisation is your best way. I run ProxMox virtualisation http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_P...
Hacker News for musicians?
bbgm: What would you want the content to look like? Sites like <a href="http://kvraudio.com">KVR</a> do a good job of covering the world of software synthesizers, modular synthesis and production techniques, albeit in a very different format
Ask HN:What would be the skills required for Developers in the next 10 years?
russell: Java is the 21st century COBOL, a must have for all offshore developers. Stay away from it. Learn Python/Ruby and Django or Rails. They will keep you way ahead on the productivity curve. If you are doing web development, learn the full stack, html and js all the way through to SQL. If not the web, find so...
Ask HN:What would be the skills required for Developers in the next 10 years?
MaysonL: Ability to learn, listen, and imagine.
Flight Simulator in Lisp?
failrate: It's definitely doable (http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=64465&st=...).
Ask HN:What would be the skills required for Developers in the next 10 years?
physcab: Multi-disciplinary.This goes not just for hackers, but any type of engineer. Companies are increasingly looking for people who are not just distinguished in one area, but have multiple areas of expertise. Thus the hacker in the year 2019 (crazy!) will not just have to be good at programming, but knowledgeabl...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
astrodust: While there are a number of long-winded arguments that could be made in favor of X vs. Y, Mac vs. Windows or otherwise, it's hard to argue against the simplicity of the OS X platform.Windows is inherently high maintenance in my experience unless you keep your installed applications to a very specific short l...
How to block links created by URL redirection sites
pclark: How would it be different to them posting the full url?
How to block links created by URL redirection sites
GrandMasterBirt: The fact is if your url is public with no restrictions whatsoever than you god bad securityThe goal should be to ensure people going to your site know what your real address is.
Choosing a college
joshwprinceton: Did you apply to Babson? 2400 SAT = baller, propsMy friend runs a great site for high schoolers going through the college admissions process. I'd suggest checking it out: zinch.comCongrats on your acceptances, McGill is a great school, too
Choosing a college
hko: I'd try to negotiate with Cornell. Might be worth going there in person. If not, your scheme of starting at Tufts and transferring seems reasonable. If you worry about lame peers, take upper-level courses as a freshman. Audit them if they won't let you register because of prerequisites. I suspect most profs w...
Choosing a college
tokenadult: I’m still curious as to what might have sunk me at those places.How did you describe your plans for the future in your application?placed in top ~50 of my grade nationwide in math competitionsI follow a lot of math competitions, as a math coach. Which competitions were the ones you participated in most avid...
How to block links created by URL redirection sites
mikeyur: Why not just password protect the staging site? Would that not help?Anything publicly accessible is fair game. It's your responsibility to protect it.
Choosing a college
rdouble: My theory on higher ed in the USA is that you should make an effort to attend a school with a great brand name reputation like Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford or Berkeley.If that doesn't work you should go to the best place that costs you the least amount of money.I'll probably offend the alumni of the schools I ...
Choosing a college
s_baar: Sorry for trying to hijack, but I was going to create a similar thread for myself too, and I don't think it would be a good idea to create two. (I got waitlisted at Rice too!) Right now I'm trying to decide between UCLA, UCSD, and Univeristy of Washington. Which one would be best for a CS major?
Choosing a college
falsestprophet: Programmers tend to value tangible evidence of technical expertise. Your best bet if you want to operate in software is to build impressive things and go to school wherever you feel most comfortable.Engineers tend have a more limited idea of how technical expertise ought to be acquired: at a top 10 (may...
Choosing a college
quizbiz: First of all big congrats on Cornell. I was crushed when they rejected me, luckily it was my one rejection.I am currently having to choose between Georgia Tech (nearly free) and Emory (50k/year). I'm not a math/engineering person, while that background would be nice I see myself as an Econ major. I hate to hij...
Choosing a college
danhak: I really feel for you...going through the college admissions process three years ago was one of the most daunting experiences of my life.As a Yale student, let me give you some advice should you get the opportunity to come here. First off, it's truly an amazing place. Kids here are brilliant and Yale will giv...
Choosing a college
HalcyonMuse: Tuition-free tufts? I'd jump at it.Anything close to Boston would be pretty cool. I hear there's a pretty strong hacker scene there... but I've never been there myself.
Choosing a college
blackguardx: As a college grad who is now employed at a "top" tech company (although unhappily), I would say that it probably doesn't matter where you go. Choose a place that makes you feel comfortable. Don't choose a place based on any perceived benefit after graduation. Your happiness while there is paramount.I was f...
Why have a "Terms and Conditions" on your site?
johns: I have one for my service in case I need to remove content or close an account for some legal reason (copyright infringement, illegal activity, etc). As far as proving someone agreed to it, you can't sign up for my service unless you check the box saying you agree which should be proof enough. I am not a lawyer ...
Why have a "Terms and Conditions" on your site?
cvinson: Just because there isn't a paper contract doesn't mean it isn't binding. Make sure a lawyer looks at your terms page in addition to writing the draft. I know that I am indemnified completely with my TOS.Also, IMO just the presence of a clear TOS is a deterrent for all but the dedicated abusers who don't care...
Choosing a college
nostrademons: > I’m still curious as to what might have sunk me at those places.I'm guessing that you seem too one-dimensional. Admissions committees look for someone that'll add diversity to the campus - not just racial diversity, but diversity of interests too.I went to Amherst (College, not UMass). Something like ...
Why have a "Terms and Conditions" on your site?
dkokelley: The TOS isn't meant to protect the users. It's the user's job to protect the users. The TOS is to protect the site.Say someone uses your site which provides a free service. For whatever reason, the service is disabled for a day. Now let's say a user decides that they were harmed by the service being down and...
Choosing a college
tsally: Meh. I was similarly crushed when I was rejected from the Ivy league schools I thought I would be going to. The most important thing to do is realize that most of it is ultimately irrelevant. If your department is top 10, the school wont make much of an impact past that point. Once you're in a decent depar...
Choosing a college
krschultz: I was in your shoes as well, 2350 SATs, 40+ college credits, 4.0 GPA + all the standard extra curricular leadership/community service stuff + a few unique things like being on national radio & tv.I didn't apply to any Ivy. I thought about MIT but decided not to apply because my brother went to a *IT and for ...
Choosing a college
GeneralMaximus: I'm a freshman IT student, but I'm currently in India so I might not be able to give you useful advice about which college to join, but I can tell you this - for Pete's sake, choose wisely. I could have taken an year off to prepare for the college entrance exams (college is a big deal in India, so we ha...
Choosing a college
kirse: My best advice to you is to take none of our specific "go here" advice...Take a good week off to just step back from the college admissions process and recollect your thoughts so you can look at it objectively. I'm sure right now it's a bit stressful and probably overwhelming, not to mention getting spanked by ...
Choosing a college
bryanalves: Just my opinion. I went to some random school that nobody here is going to know of or care about, and I had a blast at school. College should be a place to have fun at. Realistically, 3+ years out of college nobody cares about your education anymore anyway.If you really want to go to MIT/etc. or somethin...
Choosing a college
maggie: I don't have much to say that other people haven't said already. But: It's unrealistic and silly in my opinion to plan on graduating from college in 3 years. If you really want that atmosphere of smart, driven people you're going to want to be around those people /as long as possible/. I don't advocate 'taking ...
Choosing a college
ruddzw: Congratulations on getting Cornell -- I'm graduating from there this May. Though I'm clearly biased, I'd recommend Cornell all the way. Definitely speak with the financial aid office to see what they can do for you; they're trying to get better about offering students everything they can. If you have to take so...
MAC vs PC for a developer?
godDLL: 1) You just did.2) Intel/Mac or Intel/Linux, so you can run IE6/7 in a VM/Wine. Macs are lower maintenance.3) TextMate/Coda or Xcode (or Scribes in Gnome) will be your definite friends, as well as Terminal and Firefox/Safari's debugging features. Python and the relevant libraries come with both system...
Choosing a college
w1ntermute: Make a call to the Cornell's financial aid office and make a personal case for a better financial aid package. Be sure to mention you have a full ride to UMass and Tufts. They may be willing to help you out, and it definitely can't hurt at this point.
Choosing a college
cia_plant: I went to MIT. At the time I was sure that it was what I wanted - I felt very ready to "take a drink from the firehose" or whatever.Since actually going there, my feelings about college have changed a lot. It seems to me that I have a whole lifetime ahead of me to work like a dog, if I want to. I would have ...
Why have a "Terms and Conditions" on your site?
quizbiz: Protect yourself.... by registering to and continuing to use your site users agree to x,y,z.Establish trust... if your terms are reasonable then they show you are serious. The lack of a privacy statement and terms looks suspicious to me.
Choosing a college
garply: I got a CS degree from Stanford and looking back I have to say I really regret going to college. If you're interested in building your own business, that time and money is a hell of a lot of opportunity cost.So my advice to you is: Screw college. Start your business now.
Choosing a college
lleger: An important thing to note is that college admissions is really a terrible, fairly unscientific process. You're clearly qualified, so getting rejected shouldn't be a terrible thing for you.To answer your first apprehension: being around like-minded people is incredibly important. Graduating from one of the be...
Choosing a college
noaharc: I think you shouldn't be too sure that Yale et al. will have many "smart, like-minded students". I go to UPenn, studying business and CS and I've found that there are very few people interested in technology startups (they like finance, of course).I also have found that though students are capable of getting ...
Ask HN:What would be the skills required for Developers in the next 10 years?
bayareaguy: As always, demand for developers will be greatest in those markets experiencing the most vigorous growth. Much of the growth in the past decade has been in new markets for advertising and online stuff "as a service".This will probably continue for another decade or two until the next "big thing", which is ...
Choosing a college
jmtame: Check out Olin College. They are built specifically for engineers who also want to get into creativity and design. They emphasize teams with a project-based curriculum. Oh, and there's no cost. They've been cited as one of the next Ivy League schools and have what I've heard to be a very strong engineering ...
Choosing a college
abii: I'm a high school senior too and I only recently got accepted at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford (didn't apply to Ivys or MIT). First, you should get over the rejections. Last December, I applied for Cornell ED (36% acceptance rate) and I got rejected! I couldn't quite figure out why but now, five months later, I'm ...
Why have a "Terms and Conditions" on your site?
gojomo: IANAL, but I think the most important aspect is to give you cover for the kinds of self-protective measures you might need to take -- like disabling/blocking certain users or IPs, deleting certain user content, etc.In the absence of any TOS, a litigious disgruntled user might portray your actions as unfair acco...
What Paid Services Do You Use For Your Startup?
vivekamn: github.com speedyrails(rails VPS)
Choosing a college
dspeyer: From my experience, Cornell Alumni have a much greater presence in high-end cs industry than any of those other schools. It's probably worth trying to squeeze more money out of them (what do you have to lose by trying?).Tufts has a generally good reputation, though not particularly technical. Free is good an...
Choosing a college
aaronsw: I'm not sure this directly applies to you, but the one thing I wish people had told me when I was applying to college was that if you want to be a Master of the Universe, there's still a significant advantage to going to an east coast Ivy League school. My friends at Harvard and Yale and so on have a valuable ...
Choosing a college
endlessvoid94: University of Illinois (Urbana/Champaign). World-class CS education at public school costs. ACM is an active place for outside class projects and getting to know some geeks. There's also a newly started IEN - Illini Entrepreneurship Network.I highly taking a serious look.
Choosing a college
gilesgoatboy: Tufts. The differences between colleges don't make as much difference as people think. Being debt-free is awesome. If you get into Yale, go, maybe. Other than that, Tufts. Most of college admissions and college-choosing is just utter bullshit. You've already given it too much thought. People who do anythi...
Choosing a college
sown: Here's my take: I went to Shit Hole State University, well outside of cali and SV. In the cubicle next to me was a Stanford Master's grad. He and I made similar salary, did similar work. He got to be in more debt, though, and as a bit of a bonus he bragged about stanford and software quality, etc blah blah. I tol...
How to block links created by URL redirection sites
skwiddor: I call shenanegins and this talk of a staging site is bullshit
which OS (win, OSX, linux) works best on 64-bit edition?
alnayyir: From experience: OS X by far.I used to debug Ubuntu 64.Windows 64 is getting really close to perfect though, most hardware have the necessary drivers (do NOT use no-name hardware on Win64), fallback 32-bit seems to function fine, but there are corner cases that don't exist on OS X.
Who is the Laughing Man IRL?
ram1024: if he existed in real life you wouldn't be able to find out who he was. and if you did, then that wouldn't be him...