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How much do you exercise a day/week? | tsbardella: I bike to work. I ride my bike every weekend. I am thinking of running.. I lift wieghts 4 times a week |
Best User Registration & Password Management Package | wadew: Got something stub-in simple right now. Doing the leg work on the existing library frameworks... but it seems like this problem has been solved atleast 100,000 times already. |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | mahmud: Before you go public, or selling for that matter, make sure your startup is not your life's work. My first project was one I worked on since I was 16 and sold it when I was 24. Granted, it wasn't a startup but a software product, it was to me a combination of high school, college and graduate school. When I sol... |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | medianama: WEB - not sure if its available |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | csomar: I prefer to use the first choice, (Google - GOOG) or (Microsoft - MSFT) as it's unique and represent my company |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | davidw: I don't care. I'll keep using Postgres whatever happens because it's the best thing out there as far as I'm concerned. |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | noodle: maybe not skyrocket, but it will definitely tip some scales into the postgres side. there's going to be some movement. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | vaksel: How did you find the broker? A website or some service?Anyways post up the info and I'll see if I can find him. There is pretty much 10 or so steps to go through to see if there is info about the guy online |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | cmars232: FSCK or ARGH would be funny symbols.Honestly, I wouldn't care much about what it was called at that point. My eyes would be big glazed-over dollar-signs. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | pierrefar: Not sure of the legalities, but hire a private investigator? It's kinda their thing... |
tracking a criminal down electronically | tsally: I helped a friend out with an issue like this recently. If you know his name, get a background check done on him. That should give you plenty to go off of. If you don't know his name, try figuring out which service provider his phone number is from. I assume the email has stripped out the IP address in the ... |
tracking a criminal down electronically | dkokelley: What you would need to do is see who provided phone service to him and then get the information on address and billing through the provider (requires warrant). Also, did he use a public email (yahoo, gmail) or was it through a private site? You could try the whois to see who the host is and contact them too.... |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | icey: The clip art all over the site makes me feel like my email will get sold the second I register. |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | jpcx01: I'll switch. I use mysql only by convenience. Postgres seems better anyways. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | tptacek: I've been involved in criminal cases that had less to go on than a phone number (try IRC /whois and finger) and seen that lead to an indictment within weeks. Why aren't the cops working with the phone number you gave them? Which "authorities" did you contact? |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | hwijaya: My opinion.
1. Most professional investors are overwhelmed by proposals. Not lack of it.
2. Even on seed level, i'm not sure if i want to invest in a company through social network. I would prefer something more personal if i want to pick a company. And, referral often is the key to that. If you can't connect ... |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | evgen: Those who already use Postgres are not going to switch to MySQL based on this. MySQL users who can see themselves hitting a substantial size (e.g. those who fear they may be herded in the direction of "upgrade to Oracle to get that particular feature you think MySQL lacks") will probably start giving Postgres a... |
tracking a criminal down electronically | silencio: I'm not quite sure which part or to what extent "rogue" applies to, but if the guy is a licensed broker/agent, you can go after him via the state or local licensing people - i.e. in California, you could file complaints with the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Real Estate and the National... |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | lsc: I think the installed userbase will be slow to move. In fact, this might strengthen Mysql's position amongst the larger, less technical users, however, I find it quite likely that we may see more activity either in the MySQL forks drizzle or maria, or in PostgreSQL, which may lead to MySQL eventually losing its l... |
Movement to get regulators to force Oracle to spin off / sell MySQL? | spooneybarger: When the code is open and anyone can forkm what does divest even mean? Anyone can pick up MySQL and carry on like drizzle et al have already started to do while Sun was/is the owner. |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | viggity: buy nicer stock photography |
tracking a criminal down electronically | mojonixon: 1. real estate brokers are typically state licensed. State licensing boards often have online databases with good contact info.
2. he probably owns real estate. if you can narrow it down to a county, check that county's property records (also often on the net). Nexis/Lexis or Westlaw also has decent nationwi... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | brk: My guess is that it has not gotten a lot of traction because it appears to be completely vaporware, and it's hard to get excited about something that doesn't exist, and does not seem to be on a path to completion.The Internet, and the VC startup world, is littered with fancy product illustrations, mocked-up demos,... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | webwright: This is one of those ideas that sounds wonderful, just like the touchscreen of the iPhone sounded wonderful... But people are rightly skeptical of things that claim to be game-changing which haven't launched.The instant this exists and a reporter slips it on and can "type" 70 WPM with minimal errors (with n... |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | Alex3917: Advice: Make it do one thing well before you ad a job search and all this other stuff.I don't think I'd use this for a serious business, but I might use it if I needed 10,000 for some little project. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | chris11: You seem to have gotten a lot of good suggestions. It sounds like the easiest is to get the police to subpoena the phone company or the email provider. It seems like the police are working on that.If they won't do that, do it yourself. The easy way is to just do a reverse phone number look up. I found a site t... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | domdelimar: We all know this isn't the first nor the last thing that come before its time. But even in this case I think all that is needed is a single person with enough will and dedication to shake things up and at least move them in the right direction. If that isn't you, and it certainly isn't me ;) (don't get me w... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | noonespecial: I'm just tired of seeing what seems to be first class ideas like this sidelined while streams of clone digital cameras, media players, GPS receivers, cellphones and so on pour into the market as if the world wont be satisfied until there's ten models for every human - and that needs to happen yesterday!)I... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | kqr2: If you are going to carry around a pocket projector, why not use the bluetooth laser virtual keyboard. And best of all, it's not vaporware.http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/keyboards-mice/8193/ |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | lionheart: My biggest question is: does this work? Or are we sure it can be made to work?It seems to me that interpreting your keystrokes from tendon movements would be hard.But if this can be done, I would buy one immediately. |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | hedgehog: Check out Angelsoft and Kiva and figure out how you differentiate yourself from them. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | ashleyw: When you create a patent, are you obligated to follow through with the creation of the product/idea to keep the rights to it, and if so, do you have a limit?Or can the creator of this idea just wait for somebody else to create it, and then sue for patent infringement? (if he has a patent, that is) |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | anigbrowl: There are similar devices and ideas, aggregated here: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6670894.htmlPersonally, I don't see much hope for something that requires you to maintain a mental picture of a qwerty keyboard while you type. I do about 85 wpm with 10 fingers but when I try to type on the surface of my... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | resdirector: Maybe spruce up your pitch? I skim read this Ask HN and went on to the next article. Everything's a pitch in startup. Even this Ask HN. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | jerf: I see two basic possibilities: One, it ran out of money before it could launch, or two, it doesn't actually work.I would put relative probabilities of those two as somewhere around 1:9.I look at this thing as an engineer and I see a signal processing problem that means it's probably pretty easy to build something... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | jmatt: This is interesting. It's definitely a different take than the laser virtual keyboard or the Wii Remote. What sort of advantages does this have over hacking a Wii Remote? Is it more portable? Is it more sensitive? Arguably it's design would work better in a mobile environment. When I look at recent innovations i... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | david927: The frustration is understandable. It's partly the problem of gate keepers. Something like 20 publishers turned down J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book. The people making the decisions on what to fund can be woefully out of touch. What makes me sad is that they often don't try. I'm sick of seeing sill... |
Career path for developers | cmars232: Find some big technical problem to solve that's bigger than yourself, and get people involved. It'll all flow from there. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | cmos: If it got the 'best product of 2001' at CES that pretty much guarantees it's 100% vapor.Awards like that are a scam.. it's all about who you know + how much bs they are willing to absorb. Since that time most high end trade shows require the product to be shipping before getting an award, brought about because o... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | anigbrowl: I don't have direct experience, but on the purely practical level:a. you could do worse than learn to use sketchup. I can't tell from your description how complex or mechanical your 'thing' is. If it's beyond your capabilities, advertise for someone to do it, but have them sign a 'work for hire' agreement wh... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | rgrieselhuber: 0. Figure out if your market is B2B, B2C, etc.1. Find a way to talk to your prospective customers according to their channels. Sometimes this is easier in B2B.2. Talk to them about your ideas (ideally with some mockups) and see if it's something they are interested in.3. If so, do whatever it takes to ge... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | thomanil: You forgot to mention one early step:Research market/niche viability. Are there enough likely customers out there for what you want to build and sell?It's a good idea to do this up-front before sinking hundreds of hours into a project, only to find that A: Few want it or (more infuriatingly) B: Many want it, ... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | Todd: You should check out contract manufacturing. Many of these types of small jobs can be handled by a CM in China. The problem with any physical device is cost--cost in materials, machining, tool building, assembly, etc. This means you'll probably need to get some form of financing. You may be able to do a small run... |
Mammoth Hacking - just do it? | hendler: Via http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/waking-the-bab... |
No more Facebook Apps or Consumer internet | anigbrowl: Twitter seems to me to have much more in common with IRC than Facebook or Myspace; the primary difference is the persistence of identity across the system. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | trapper: 0. Hack together a prototype.1. Go get some users for which your device stops pain. Get them to sign NDA's if necessary, and pay them a small stipend for their time.2. See if your design really works. You can tell this if they do not want to give the device back.3. Iterate.Once you have something that is reall... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | braindead_in: For the drawings, its best to contract it out to a Industrial Designer/Mechanical Designer. Find a freelancer if you can or search through LinkedIn to find a good reference.For production run the best bet is get the PCB's made, source the components yourself (try DigiKey) and then hand assemble and packag... |
No more Facebook Apps or Consumer internet | sgrove: "The first two generation still have to make enough company to be called interesting."I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "make enough company", but a quick google search shows MySpace pulled in revenue of $800 million, with $10 million in profit. Facebook came in somewhere around ~$250 million (admittedly no... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | hop: I can help.Depends on your project, but designing a couple iterations in 3D CAD is usually the first step. Life like renderings, stress testing can be performed on the models.Prototypes can then be made directly from that via 3D printing, CNC machining, low run injection molding, laser cut sheet metal, etc...Do a ... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | flavio87: -2. buy google adwords for the benefit / pain your product is alleviating.
1. measure searches/clicks to see if it's worth building a product.
0. all the steps above |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | mingyeow: 1) can you not do any hardware yourself, and choose to license it to someone else?
2) if you must do hardware yourself, can you have anyway of scoping product, doing google adwords, anything to assess demand and product fit?The hardware business is BRUTAL. It is going to be exceedingly tough to get financing ... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | davidw: This book has some good advice:http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/1/how-to-bring-a-prod...As I said in the comment though, the summary isn't great because the book is not a hand-wavy business book, but has a fair amount of advice. Worth a look at the library to see if you like it. |
No more Facebook Apps or Consumer internet | octane: MySpace has been around for about 10 years, and make large profits consistently.Quite honestly I'm not sure they belong in the same discussion as facebook and twitter. |
Mammoth Hacking - just do it? | stavrianos: Mammoth might be delicious. How can we know unless we try? |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | noodle: innovative.i'd brush up the design usability. you're on the right track, but i'd avoid the float right/left on the form labels/inputs respectively on a flexible layout, because it makes it harder on the eyes.also, perhaps set a cookie or something to allow someone to possibly go back to their last created drop... |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | tsally: Decrease the size of everything. Or if you're set on the size, at least increase the contrast. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | marc28443: I like the concept.. suggestions:- the URL of the dropbox and the admin page should be human-readable- some way to find my dropbox if I have lost the URL (see suggestions by noodle)- some way to integrate it as a widget in my own site |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | nir: I like it a lot, quick and simple. I've been looking for something like this for gathering quick feedback on small sites, instead of forcing users to go through the whole getsatisfaction & co process.If you'd add some JS snippet for including it on a web page (popup etc), it would be very helpful. Also, email inte... |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | endtwist: I like the simplicity of the concept, however, it would be very helpful to provide a Javascript widget (a la UserVoice). As well, having the ability for the user to choose (or change) the given URL to be more readable would be a plus. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | staunch: Show me the user agent and IP address of the user. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | hellweaver666: I like the idea, it's like uservoice, getsatisfaction etc only really really simple.My only complaint is the fact you've called it 'dropbox' most people associate that word with a file storage/sharing device (such as getdropbox.com or the OSX dropbox).Perhaps 'comment box' would be more appropriate?Also,... |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | dan_sim: I really like the design and the logo. Are you a designer? Did you find someone else to work on that? (I'm interested because I'm looking for a way to have a good looking design) |
What would you want to see in a new programming language? | bcheung: Good documentation. There are a lot of really great new languages out there. Clojure is probably one of my favorites but it is very hard for the average developer to put the time in to read source code to figure out how things work. PHP has excellent documentation despite lack a lot in features and I think ... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | HeyLaughingBoy: Go straight from 0 -> 4. Get feedback before spending more money. If you can't find customers with just your prototype, you either won't be able to sell it later, or maybe just no-one wants it.I've found that most of my product ideas fail in the "marketing" step (which you omitted): either I can't clear... |
How much do you exercise a day/week? | jamesbritt: I've been trying to make a point of walking every day, though it works out more to every 2nd or 3rd day.I used to listen to music, but found it too easy/tempting to skip around to find a better piece, and my mind kept focusing on all sorts of "must do" shit that made me want to go back in and work.So I star... |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | vorador: Could you replace your image buttons by text buttons (or at least better image buttons). The buttons I see on my 15-inch monitor running ff3/ubuntu are really ugly) |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | stuff4ben: If anything, exposing your business plan will allow others to give you feedback on it. You'll get to hear wonderful things like "your plan sucks, you need to x and y or you'll never succeed, etc...". Hope you have a tough skin and can take criticism.Seriously though, unless it is a really innovative idea t... |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | vaksel: Don't worry about it. Most #s in the business plan are usually made up so noone really takes them that seriously.The business plan is mostly there for you, to think through things |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | mjfern: Many entrepreneurs have a fear of sharing their new venture ideas with others and I think this is a big mistake. First, it's very unlikely that someone will take your idea and implement. Other people rarely share the same passion for the idea as the originator of the idea. Second, even if someone does take the ... |
Good outsourced XHTML/CSS development companies? | tony584: yeah i've used Atlas Software before ... http://www.atlassoft.com they are pretty good - and they have an office in Chicago so you don't have to deal directly with the outsourced team - give them a call at 312.419.1945 |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | zackattack: What does MVP stand for? |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | wooster: Good idea. It would be nice to have a JS widget ala Get Satisfaction that could be used to provide feedback without leaving a site. |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | webwright: If I described Google to you before they launched, could you have built it? Would you have? How about Digg? The iPhone? WordPress? Facebook? Amazon? Name 10 amazing startups and try to imagine how it could have hurt them if their biz plans were public.Almost anyone who could possibly be a threat to yo... |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | medianama: I don't think you should participate in a business plan contest if you are really serious about that start up.The whole process is a distraction and doesn't bring any value. The downside is that you'll waste a lot of time filling templates and doing stuff that doesn't matter at this stage. You may also get d... |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | mixmax: Let me tell you an interesting true story.Last weekend I was at a friends place, and there were a few people there. One of them asked me what I did, and I told him about an idea I had for a new way of doing business online. It's pretty revolutionary, I've thought long and hard about it for a long time, and it c... |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | utsmokingaces: You did a good job communicating what this app does.
Add to the front page, "Why do people need this?" |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | icey: I'm using a wildcard ssl cert from them on some of our sites now. It works fine. Their logos are ridiculous, so we don't use those.They are so cheap because GoDaddy does everything with a metric fuckton of volume. |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | quoderat: I've used them with no problems. Generating a certificate isn't very expensive, really, and I am surprised the prices didn't come down sooner than they actually did.It's about time, though. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | anc2020: Common Lisp changed the way I program because the macros open your eyes to a whole lot of code duplication that you can't avoid in other languages - this encouraged me to really work at those bits of code until they actually contain the bare minimum of boilerplate code possible.Haskell changed the way I progra... |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | grandalf: Here's how I think it works:Cert issuing companies are in business because they somehow got Firefox, IE, Opera, etc., to include their authority certificate by default in the browser.You could start your own competing service but you'd somehow have to overcome that obstacle.Second, many of those companies off... |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | thomanil: Check out the book 'The Little Schemer'. Good way to ease your mind into functional programming.Also consider learning a dynamic 'scripting' language like Ruby or Python. They have some functional aspects, and will teach you programming style and idioms that you probably haven't picked up from Java and C. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | FalconNL: I can't comment on Lisp, but I've been working with Haskell for about a year or so now, so I'll cover that instead.My personal history goes something like QBasic -> Visual Basic -> PHP -> Java -> C# -> Haskell.Since Haskell is a purely functional language there's no cheating like you could in, say, OCaml. Thi... |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | hs: in pcl ch3, the author demonstrates using cl instead of sql for databaseafaik hn doesn't use sql/rdbms either, i guess it's because threaded forum is better suited using a tree-like data structure instead of simple tablei stopped using sql (after reading pcl and seeing the fact of hn) and just having a lisp process... |
hiring coders from developing countries | bgnm2000: I've outsourced to programmers from india, egypt, pakistan, ukraine, and right now I'm working with a Romanian. Its a great experience, the one thing I would consider to be the most important is to ensure their communication skills are good, and also, that they have a good rating/reputation.I use scriptlance.... |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | asciilifeform: >the 10 year (or 10,000 hours) road to expertiseWhy is this figure being bandied about as though it were an actual scientific fact? |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | DougWebb: I also recommend "Javascript: The Good Parts". It and the jQuery library can teach you a lot about how Javascript is really a functional language with more in common with Lisp than with C++ or Java.A second excellent book is "Higher Order Perl", which shows how Perl, also, shares a lot more in common with Lis... |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | Xichekolas: I found SICP was better for learning to "think functionally". PCL and On Lisp were both great in their own right, but idiomatic CL isn't as strictly functional as idiomatic Scheme tends to be (and neither enforces it like Haskell and Erlang do).As for improving my skills, that's an unequivocal yes. I think ... |
hiring coders from developing countries | russell: If you are not an experienced developer yourself, I recommend against it. It is too easy to get dragged down by someone who is not good. Just like here, some are very good and a lot more are terrible. I have worked with programmers from the Ukraine, India, and China. The Ukrainians were the best and the Ch... |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | mdonahoe: How are you protecting against spam? How do any of these no-signup services protect against spam without resorting to captchas? |
At Google, are you able to read every online scientific journal for free? | Travis: I suspect the paywall protected articles that Google runs across aren't protected by IP address, but by User-Agent string. I've seen a few hacks for this (look at the NYT User Agent hack), and the FF plugin that allows you to alter your UA string indicates this similarly.Put another way, I don't know if Google... |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | Travis: Second the posts here. It's computationally cheap to issue a certificate. Godaddy figured, hey, why not try to take some business away from the other players? Minimal cost to them, once they got the issuing authority credentials from FF/IE/Safari/etc. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | tydok: ""I started "thinking in sets" and found that I was much more effective.""Actually that is the power of Lisp. In Lisp, batch or stream data processing is not only straightforward, but the way to think and program. |
Cost of 1 Person LLC | icey: I don't know that it's necessarily easier to form an LLC in Delaware than anywhere else. Companies usually prefer to incorporate in Delaware because it has the longest history of corporate law, so that more precedents have been set than in other states. By forming an LLC, it kind of removes the benefit of having ... |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | marcusbooster: I got into Lisp through Emacs, but more recently I've been understanding it using Clojure.For me, I need to be able to create something tangible. Having access to all the Java libraries gives me a lot of cool things to import, then play around with in functional ways. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | iamelgringo: It sounds like you are trying to do two separate things: 1. Learn Lisp, and 2. create a web app startup.Both are very worthy goals, but I don't know if using Lisp, Haskell or erlang to write a web app is really a great idea right now. (Sorry PG). I think that is was true that writing web apps in Lisp prob... |
At Google, are you able to read every online scientific journal for free? | ivank: This practice is explicitly allowed. Google wants paywall-protected content to be "discoverable". |
Cost of 1 Person LLC | gojomo: The case for Delaware isn't costs so much as corporate law, if professional investment or mergers/acquisitions are expected later. I doubt those are relevant for your one-person LLC.By operating in California you'll essentially still owe the same franchise and other taxes, so you might as well form in Californi... |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | silentbicycle: For Lisp, I found using Scheme and reading The Little Schemer and SICP more helpful than PCL. I've also been using and heavily customizing Emacs, but Emacs Lisp is kind of a crappy Lisp, and keeping track of its idiosyncrasies while also learning Scheme or Common Lisp's will probably be really confusing ... |
Could you limit all or most emails to five sentences? | tvon: Most business emails I receive are under five sentences, easy (and by 'most' I mean 'probably 95%'). People generally don't like typing, so the ones that are long are usually long for a reason.I also don't see screen size being an issue, at least I read a lot of multi-page content with the iPhone and it hasn't b... |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | triplefox: To answer in sort of a roundabout way, I think the problem domain matters a lot for how much you relatively learn when switching languages.With web app backends, for example, most of the problems somehow relate to difficulty maintaining state over widespread, always-on networked systems - things like authent... |
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