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What are some (good) hacker movies? | chriseidhof: I like The Lawnmower Man a lot too. Stunning graphics and it really captures the spirit of a computer enabling you to do much more cooler things than Real Life. |
Is Content Management a solved problem? | known: AFAIK a good CMS for e-Governance domain is not solved. |
Do we need to have payroll in C-Corp ? | kfb: I agree with most of the advice given so far, but be careful that you do not interpret it too liberally. You can't get around payroll by just calling your workers contractors and sending them a 1099. The IRS has pretty stringent rules about who is a contractor and who isn't. Furthermore, you can't get around paying payroll taxes by not taking a salary yourself. The IRS presumes no one would work for free so expects everyone working for the company is getting compensated somehow. If you are a valid contractor, it is fine to get paid as such. But if you are working full time long term for the company I can't imagine there is an accountant or lawyer who will tell you it is ok to call yourself a contractor and skip doing payroll. |
Is Content Management a solved problem? | h34t: Before I was overcome with a hell-bent desire to actually learn how to program, ExpressionEngine (EE) let me build relatively powerful custom database-driven applications without using any code except its template tags in addition to the obligatory HTML/CSS/Javascript. If that's the definition of what a CMS is supposed to do, then I think EE nails it.I haven't used it since 2005, but it looks like they've been steadily improving (their dev team was really responsive) and I believe EE was used to run Change.gov.It has a powerful templating engine. My inner designer is obsessive about fine-grained control over the end result of any project I do, and I don't remember a time when EE prevented me from achieving the design I wanted.I also liked its custom fields and 'weblogs'. EE 'weblogs' can be thought of as custom database tables, which are easily created and modified by the EE graphical interface. You can then create as many custom fields as you want, and relationships between fields, and then insert your data however you want into your website using simple template tags.So, for example, I made a personal website in which I could keep track of books I'd read, the authors, quotes that I liked, and my book reviews. Each kind of item was stored in its own table and I could insert all the relevant information for any book into a blog post by using a custom tag. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | mixmax: This sounds like a classical techies/non-techies problem. The techies are trying to implement something, in this case a wiki, that is an unknown concept to everyone else. And since the techies "get it" they expect everyone else to get it too.The thing is that to the rest of the organisation there are probably the following problems:- they don't know what a wiki is, and they don't much care. Even though they use wikipedia they don't necessarily grasp the concept behind it: They just see a single entry, happily oblivious to how it got there.- they don't want to learn what a wiki is, unless it directly helps them in the short term.- They have ingrained ways of doing things. Changing people's behaviour is like changing direction of a supertanker: It takes a lot of time and effort.The solution is to keep pushing it, paying attention to the following:- Make it worth people's while in the short term. Reading your post it sounds like you may already be well on the way here.- Make it easy. Usability should be top-notch, and there should be help available everywhere. If it's as simple as a mac it will be much easier to turn people around.- Make sure that some things can only be done in the wiki, forcing people to do it. Don't put people's e-mails in the wiki, force them to do so themself. |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | hugs: I can't believe no one's mentioned Back to the Future!
Favorite scene: opening scene with the robotic arm automation
Favorite quote: "You'll have to forgive the crudeness of this model, I didn't have time to paint it or build it to scale." |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | Tichy: To edit a wiki usually requires understanding a markup language. Maybe some people simply go to a blank state of mind whenever they see markup.Have you trained the non-techies in using the markup language? |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | geuis: The problem isn't the idea of the wiki. It's the implementation. Any non-techie gets how to write a blog post in Wordpress. Spacing, make things bold, etc. I've been editing with various wiki software for years and I still find it cumbersome. If you can have a system that is a wiki under the hood but has a normal-person level interface, you would see more usage. Regular folks have better things to do than learn our odd syntaxes for doing things. It's not something that saves them time because instead of being easy and automatic, they have to break their trains of thought to do this "wiki" thing. It's no different than when your coding in the zone and your manager interrupts you about something marketing wants. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | zepolen: "What the fuck is a Wiki?"Is probably what goes through the non-techie's mind.Use terminology they are familiar with; "the online notice whiteboard" or something. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | brusqe: I was heavily involved with a university project of designing and building an open wheel racecar. We tried to do the exact same thing, that is, reduce our paperwork while increase knowledge dissemination (as well as knowledge retention and accountability for work).At first we implemented a wiki. The techie guys on the team saw the long-term value of it and filled it in dutifully, however, many people simply didn't "get" the idea. The wiki ended up stagnating, as only a handful of people used it. The non-techie guys would inevitably ask about what was currently happening, of which the answer was already posted on the wiki. People just never warmed to it. Knowledge management and communication should not be a struggle, or else it will fall by the way side.The solution was to step away from a wiki system (MediaWiki) and towards something else (Basecamp). Basecamp fitted in with how everyone used the net. Message threads that were relevant to people were sent to their inbox, they could reply to from their own mail account. Milestones are clear - tasks are clear. It's just usable and seamless.A wiki has a perceived barrier of entry. It's a lot to take on at once for a non-techie. Using the systems which are currently in place, (eg email, a homepage/dashboard setup) to disseminate info will go a long way, rather than fighting an uphill battle of getting people to understand #REDIRECT [[pagename]] |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | ovi256: Primer - hackers doing a startup. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | c1sc0: Cognitive load: it takes effort to learn a new way of doing things, especially if the 'old way' is deeply ingrained in the organization. You'll be amazed at the lengths people will go in order not to have to memorize things. If the perceived efficiency gain is not immediately clear people will not learn something new. |
Is Content Management a solved problem? | ninjaa: has anyone on HN tried Alfresco? Usually I just roll my own PHP CMS or battle with Wordpress, but if I was to go with an enterprise ready open source solution this would likely be it. Anyone have testimonials? |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | jodrellblank: In our case the answer was to move from a technically good wiki with lots of features to a Microsoft solution (Sharepoint) severely lacking in features but looking prettier. |
Is Content Management a solved problem? | mellis: What's missing are CMS's with well-designed user interfaces. From what I've seen, Wordpress has one, and that's it (at least of the open-source options). There's room for a CMS that focuses on non-blog content but provides good and separate interfaces for configuration by a programmer and content management by an end-user.My experience with CMS has been that of doing the initial configuration / development / programming of a CMS which someone else (usually non-technical) will enter content into. My requirements are two: the system needs to be flexible enough for me (a developer) to configure the way I want, and easy for the other person to use without my help.I would focus on making a great interface for the end-user, and a flexible API / plugin system for developers. This is more-or-less what Wordpress does. Most CMS's seem to take the middle route of trying to make the system easy for an end-user (non-programmer) to configure. This is extremely difficult and unnecessary. Better to make it easy for someone to hire a programmer to set up the system and for them to maintain it themselves. Even Wordpress does a poor job of documenting its API, making plugin development more difficult than it should be.But really, the key is a great user-interface. Do that, and you should do well. |
Why would anyone go for ASP.NET ? | ideamonk: You know guys! Thanks a lot, I love HN for it helps me broaden my scope of thinking :)Its logical to build upon framework already tested and tried, so coming up with something new would've been a waste of time n resources, whereas the current .net scenario provides nice integration as i notice..another point that comes to my mind is that -- Things couldn't be kept more simpler than that, as you can't sell simplicity at high price. |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | emson: An excellent movie I enjoyed was: Dark City
It was kind of like a precursor to The Matrix.http://www.scifimoviepage.com/darkcity.html |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | gaius: A lot of management types don't really grok that an email can be written by a machine, let alone that a web page can be generated as opposed to written by hand. I am certain half the automated reports I send out, many of the recipients think I am drawing the graphs and tables in Excel, cutting and pasting them into Outlook and sending them (ermm, at midnight every night). |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | slater: Try and get them in to a "gotcha" moment: The next time they ask some question already answered on the wiki, point them to it, instead of giving them the answer (unless it's critical that they need the answer RIGHT NOW).Nudge 'em to explore, and then go to the next step by telling them they can edit all and everything, and add new pages. |
Is Content Management a solved problem? | kailashbadu: Ruby on Rails is not a CMS. It’s a framework. While it’s true that the line of demarcation between a framework and a CMS continues to blur, it’s still important to be able to tell one from the other. Conceptually, the two are discrete entities.A framework is unified set of tools that make it easier to implement repetitive tasks. It’s not intended to be an end-product. Instead, it’s meant to be a foundation upon which you build your application. A framework, by definition, is a generic system. CMS, on the other hand is, an application that is supposed to solve a specific problem: managing the content. The problem with Drupal is that it tries to be the both a framework and a CMS and introduces a maze of abstractions.The content itself as well as the kind of content management practiced tend to vary from one organization to the other. The whole concept of an ‘definitive CMS’, therefore, is ridiculously delusory.A CMS, in my opinion, can approach this problem in either of two ways. Since a core set of common features could still be identified in each kind of CMS, a CMS can be generic system which different category of users can build upon to meet their respective requirements. Secondly, a CMS can zero in on a particular niche and provide all content management features applicable to that segment. This, of course, would render it, and rightfully so, unusable for other niches. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | ntoshev: It's not a techie/non-techie distinction, it is about level of exposure to wikis and similar things that people have. Ten years ago techies didn't get wikis either. |
Afraid I've dug myself into a hole | MHollender: I'm in a similar position working as a Navision ERP consultant/developer (MS Dynamics-NAV), doing it for 6 years now. But my advice is different.I think it really boils down to one question: are you American (or Japanese, as your nick seems to suggest) or not?Americans and Japanese have this cultural thing that your job should be your life, your major form of satisfaction, it should be something you are really motivated to do. In this case do switch, because if you lose your motivation you fall behind those who do have it. And besides, if your job doesn't make you happy, you'll always feel you are losing something from your life. The real reason behind it is that Americans (and Japanese) IDENTIFY with their jobs: they say "I AM an programmer/salesman/whatever". So how good you feel about your job is how good you feel about yourself. In this case best thing is to move to the edges of SAP - get involved in writing other software that communicate with SAP.But if you are, say, European or British or something, it's differnt. We "oldworlders" tend to think this way: it's just a fucking job. It's just to pay your bills. You don't have to love it, it's not supposed to be your major source of happiness, you don't have to be very motivated, just do it OK. If it's bearable and pays the bills, OK. Reason is that we don't identify with out jobs, we just do programming or sales or whatever for a living and don't think we "are" programmers or salesmen. I'm not "am a Navision developer", it's just something I do. In this case, just stick to SAP, and not just for the money. No, not for the money at all. For the respect. That's the important thing. After 6 years with Navision I'm starting to become something sort of an expert. People praise me all the time, I solve hard problems fast and they think it's magic, all that. Not that I'm very smart or anything, it's just experience. And boy, it feels good, that you are not a beginner anymore whom everybody looks down on, but you are starting to become an authority in your field. Slowly you progress to the situation where nobody cares if you come late in the office and leave the suit at home, because you are the "wizard", and everybody knows "wizards" are different, but yet they are very useful. Man, that feels good, this kind of respect you receive after a certain amount of experience, the self-esteem you can take out of it, it's really great. This is what makes it worth doing it.There are two kinds of excellence. That of the hacker, the discoverer: who keeps solving new problems. And that of the Zen archer, who solves the SAME problem year by year, decade by decade, but in a more and more perfect way. I think the second one buys more self-esteem because after a while you are simply incapable of making any errors in your narrow field and thus never get chewed out. So I chose the later. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | vivekkhurana: What you are facing is a standard problem in adaptation of technology. What most techies think usable might not be that much usable by non-techie user. As far as wiki is concerned, I find it challenging to use a wiki even being a techie. The obnoxious syntax of wiki is sufficient to scare away several users.
As you mentioned, people like to send email, I would suggest creating a separate mailbox for leave applications and then writing bunch of scripts to parse the email and put the email in wiki, db or whatever you want to. Second option is to use a CMS and create web form, as most CMS have support for forms and reporting built in. I have done this with drupal couple of times and the solution has been received well by non-techies.
In the end, what ever comments you receive on this thread will turn out to be useless if you are not willing to understand the reason why non-techies are not using the wiki ? Few minutes spent with the end user will save you several hours of developing and deploying a solution that will not be used by non-technies... |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | MHollender: Um, I'm techie enough, but I don't get it myself. I mean, if you are already using some sort of knowledge base then yes, it should be a wiki, I get that. (Wiki is the closest thing of the original idea of what HTML browsers were created for: cross-referenced knowledge bases.) But if you don't, then not, because in my experience maintaining a knowledge base never really works.The basic thing is the following: you can only trust data from those software where users have no way of avoiding entering the data. Example: ERP. The truck is waiting there, you need to print a shipment note because the damn truck won't take the goods without it, and the system won't let you print a shipment note before you put in all the data that lets the system amend the stock levels, mark the sales order as shipped etc. Such as system can enforce data entry, you find the data you need in such a system.Similarly, e-mails are reliable, because if you want to communicate something to another person that's too long for a phone call, you have to send an e-mail. So you will find the information in your e-mails.But what enforces entering data into a wiki? Just rules won't work. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | jderick: Maybe you should be talking to your users more. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | iamdave: Stop calling it a Wiki. Call it a knowledge base and watch activity boom.It works. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | jwilliams: I see the opposite problem - Customers want "wikis" and "blogs", but don't really know what they are, or don't fully understand the implications (e.g. "on our corporate wiki anyone can write anything they want? what if they write something bad!?"). |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | RKlophaus: Wikis are like commenting code. They both require you to write some stuff down now in case someone else needs it in the future.Think of how long it took you to learn the value of good commenting... That's about how long it will take to teach people why they should document their business practices on a wiki. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | Angostura: Why on earth are you trying to use a Wiki as a calendaring app whn there are so many good calendaring apps out there. I'm fairly techie - but if someone told me to edit a Wiki to put my holidays in, I would not be amused.You'll be getting them to use vi to enter expenses claims next. |
Is Content Management a solved problem? | bjplink: You generally can't throw a rock in a crowded room of programming nerds and not hit someone who has built their own CMS these days. I've basically built my freelance career out of building and selling a set of CMS software and I'm sure others here could say the same.For a simple term like Content Management System, it seems like everyone has a different interpretation of what that means. I think that alone answers you question about whether or not this is a solved problem. There's always going to be some target market with a need that can't be solved with current CMS software. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | rfunduk: This sort of thing can really slow an entire company down.Work on getting it mentioned in performance reviews. If 'non-techies' start to have their bosses poking around asking questions about "so why do I keep hearing that you refuse to use the wiki?", that'll help.I mean, really. A wiki is about as technical as a whiteboard... they're just being lazy. No one's asking them to make beautifully formatted pages, just get the stuff in there because _that's how we track it_... it's part of their job. They need to realize it. |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | noamsml: Revolution OS and Pirates of Silicon Valley |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | artlogic: I have seen a great deal of wiki-phobia, even among so called techies. No matter how many wikis I deploy, this inevitably occurs. Here's my take on the problem:- Wikis require a heroic effort to keep organized. Most people, when faced with creating a new category, or even a new page would rather send an e-mail and forget it. The fact that you have to not only post something, but also decide where it belongs makes the job of posting feel much harder. "You mean I have to categorize my content before I post?"- Wikis require more cognitive effort on the part of the poster. With e-mail or a message board, you can essentially dump your brain and hit send. With a wiki, you have to integrate your post, not only into the organization, as I mentioned above, but also into an existing post(s). "You mean I have to read and understand other content before I post?"- Most wiki markup is based on the ideas behind the semantic web and should remain readable and understandable even in markup mode - unfortunately, people don't like to cede control of the way their document looks. I have seen non-techies spend hours jumping through HTML/WYSIWYG hoops simply to achieve a particular look - not realizing the nightmare of editing such a page (think word generated HTML pasted into the page). "You mean I have to sacrifice my format before I post?"- Finally most wiki software doesn't have a easy to use e-mail notification system. Many times you have to manually "watch" a page instead of just watching the whole wiki or a whole category. When you do get an update e-mail - you have to actually go to the wiki - no hitting reply - this again interrupts cognitive flow for a lot of folks. "You mean I have to keep track of all the changes myself?"I love wikis, and certainly think that they can increase productivity - but they require a greater cognitive effort on the part of the poster, and a lot of folks are unable to make the short term sacrifices to achieve the long term gain a wiki can offer. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | matt1: I'm in a very similar situation.We use Microsoft's Enterprise Information Management at my work. It was rolled out about a year ago and is now primarily used as a replacement for storing files. I started playing around with it and discovered, to my delight, that there's a built-in wiki feature.There's a huge place for it in our daily operations. It could save thousands of hours in the long run if we got only a few people to contribute. The problem is that second part: How do you get people to contribute?Here's my strategy:1. Privately create lots of stubs beforehand along with an intelligent structure for linking them together. Also add tons of how-to articles (because for non-technies, obvious isn't so obvious)2. Add pages that show how people could actually benefit from it3. Brief our management, stressing the benefits, and ask for them to push it within their organizations4. If all goes well, people will slowly start adding information. If even 5% of the employees contribute, it will quickly reach a tipping point and then explode in popularity.5. I'll continue to add and edit articles on a daily basis for the next few months regardless of the initial reaction6. Gradually make it the go-to point for certain types of information, forcing people to use it and see how useful it can beI'm at step #2 right now. I'll have the opportunity to brief the management in about three weeks.Also, I'm going to call it a "collaborative notebook" as that encompasses how people can benefit from it much more than calling it a wiki or knowledge base.The thing I've found is that even just telling people what I'm doing in basic terms is unclear. They hear "wiki" and go "wiki wiki wiki" and then nod their heads when I'm explaining things to them.What I've realized is that its not their fault if they don't understand what you're doing. Its your fault for not explaining it to them in a way that makes it clear.We'll see what happens... wish me luck. |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | visakhcr: My choice would be The Ninth Gate starring Johnny Depp....there is no hacking in it, but it's interesting to see him piece together the nine pictures from three books... |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | sam_in_nyc: Because editing wikis is an excruciating experience. Just look at the edit page... it's a textarea with strange icons above it, and the most fucked up formatting you've ever seen.I'm technically inclined but I shutter at the idea of having to write anything in a Wiki, because the syntax is so unintuitive and annoying. I seem to recall adding line breaks, and it NOT showing line breaks on the preview. It was one of the use user experiences I've ever had: some fucktard decided that hitting "enter" wasn't enough to add a "<br>" to the content, so I have to go and dig through documentation to find out how to do it. Pisses me off thinking about it. |
Do we need to have payroll in C-Corp ? | aquaphile: I've done both: distributions/dividends and payroll. For years I calculated payroll on my own. I highly recommend spending the $60/month to use ADP's payroll service. It pays for itself -- even with a tiny company -- in saved time and automatic form W-2, form 941, form 940, and state unemployment reporting. Unlike other services I've looked into, ADP also indemnifies you against any mistakes made with the IRS, which is a HUGE selling point. If you've ever received an IRS penalty notice for a late report, you know what I mean!As a side note: It is disappointing that our government's laws are so burdensome that private companies exist just to help citizens comply with the laws. |
Building a trust system into a social app | tlib747: I can add yet another approach to your list, the one that we've developed for trustedones.com (a trust-based social networking app).Basically, we mimic the word-of-mouth recommendation model. The people you trust the most, are those you know well - yourself, friends, their friends, and then all trusted ones (the wisdom of the crowds).
You build your own network of people you trust, and quickly slice and visualize information.Here are a few links that you may find interesting. We're still tweaking stuff, so let me know if you have any thoughts on what we can do better.
http://arnox.trustedones.com (my page)http://maps.google.com/?q=http://www.trustedones.com/feeds/g... (all of my local recommendations on a map)http://www.trustedones.com/topic/restaurant-local/listing/bo... (sample recommendation) |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | jnil: The last season of 24 had really good hacking scenes. Also, Anitrust is a decent one. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | cabalamat: Have various things that are (1) essential, and (2) can only be done on the wiki.For example: well them they can't go on holiday unless they book their holiday days into the wiki.Also, overtime. Do people at your work get paid overtime? If so, make the system so that they don't get paid it unless they put their overtime hours on the wiki. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | eatenbyagrue: From what I've seen, most people really dislike the formatting the most. Plenty of people get the 'track changes' feature in Word, but when you edit a wiki you have to use a markup language. Simple or not, any kind of symbolic representation for text is patently foreign to most non-techies. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | tokenadult: People from a certain generation (or people in your generation who studied certain subjects in school) were told that working collaboratively in school is "cheating," and so in the workplace they don't distinguish situations where working collaboratively is supporting the team. I suspect the main problem is cultural and would show up however you try to get your colleagues to collaborate. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | sachinag: "A wiki is an electronic whiteboard. Anyone can erase, add information, or redraw stuff. But try to be nice and respect the stuff that's come before; only add stuff that needs to be added." |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | TweedHeads: WYSIWYGPeriod. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | KWD: I think the overall question is what problem is the wiki a solution too, and is it the best solution?What information is the non-IT user really having to disseminate to others? What value is it truly providing? How have you made adding the information to a wiki not be additional work? Is it improving productivity or reducing it?And finally, who has ownership of the project? If you do not have a non-IT owner it'll 'gather dust' if the value of the application is not easily perceived. |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | akirk: Factolex.com is a fact lexicon. We split up knowledge into small sentences: factsYou can use the checkboxes to remember the facts that you find relevant and by doing so, we create your personal lexicon (which can be exported using the API or a widget). Also, the more people select a fact as relevant to them, the higher it is ranked within the term.I'd love to get some feedback from the HN community. Thanks for checking it out. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | icefox: It is all about momentum. From their perspective the email system still works. Sure there is this "wick-ee" thing, but they don't care because it seems like they don't have to use it. Go and checkout the book "Diffusion of innovation". It explains all about this. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | mattmaroon: I think the problem is that you're assuming something is wrong with the non-techies rather than that something is wrong with the wiki. |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | Jakob: Excellent, should be part of Google! (e.g. "fact:Hackernews")On index pages no inline links are visible.
e.g. "Illusion
a Polish band founded in 1992 in Gdańsk, Poland and defunct since 1999"You can only click "Gdańsk" if you’re on the single fact page. |
Does anyone here use software RAID on Linux? | sounddust: Can you afford a 3Ware card- even a used one? Nothing compares to a solid hardware RAID solution, in terms of quality, reliability, and performance. I suffered the failure of several RAID-5 software arrays in linux about 5 years ago (despite the failure of only one disk) and decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. I switched to 3Ware and have never had a problem since, despite numerous disk failures and replacements. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | callmeed: We just gave up on this. We serve professional photographers, who tend to be above average in terms of techie-ness.We implemented PB Wiki for our support pages. No one updated it.We spelled it out in big letters on the wiki home page. No one updated it.We even had a contest. Every time you add to a wiki page, you're entered to win a prize. No one updated it.Not only did no one update it, it confused customers. Customers confused the "login" link at the top of the wiki with the login area of their CMS. That simply resulted in more support tickets.So, this year we simply moved our support pages to WordPress and only our staff can update them.Since it appears your wiki is internal, maybe you have a better chance, but it would take some serious staff development in my opinion. |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | jdavid: still a few more (some are in the works)* Stargate* "startup.com" - about the formation of 'govworks.com' i wonder what these guys think about Obama.* Takedown - 'Kevin Mitnick's story'* Serenity* Star Trek: the Voyage Home* The Last Starfighter* Johnny Mnemonic* Short Circuit 1 & 2* Crest of the Stars (anime)* Fahrenheit 451* Equilibrium* Batman (begins, dark night, the tim burten one)* Edward Scissor Hands* Space Balls* Avalon ( http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/ava...)* LAIN: The Serial Experiments (anime)* Cherry 2000* Dune* Ender's Shadow (in the works)* Ender's Game (in the works)* Diamond Age (in the works for sci-fi, 'a young girls illustrated primer')* The Arrival* The Terminator 1,2,3* The Sarah Conner Chronicles* D.A.R.Y.L* Flight of the Navigator* Explorers* AI* Batteries Not Included* Blade Runner* IRobot* Appleseed (anime)* Bubble Gum Crisis (anime)* Ergo Proxy (anime)* Virtuosity* Metropolis (all of them are good)* The Last Exile (anime)* Cherry 2000* Robocop (this so hold up)* Primmer* Probe ( the TV series, it took me 3 months to find the copies of this Issac Asimov based TV series on ABC ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_(TV_series)* Infest Wisely* Logan's Run* Planet of the Apes* Star Trek: First Contact* CQ ( if you get it, you'll get why this is a hacker movie , 'la resistance')* Amelie* 2046* Trigun (anime)* Escaflone (anime)* Tank Girl* Twelve Monkeys* THX 1138* Bicentennial Man* The Philadelphia Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Experiment_(fi...* Seaquest ( some episodes )* Strange Days ( new yeas hacker style )* Freejack |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | skmurphy: It's an interesting thread. Historically organizations faced these same challenges getting people to consult a website and use E-mail, both of which are now viewed as the default. The problems you are facing do not come from the fact that non-techies are stupid. And learning how to solve them is good practice for working with normal prospects (vs. early adopters).One specific suggestion: pick one thing that will reliably be in the wiki and get people used to checking it just for that. Then branch out. Two good places to start: meeting agenda page becomes meeting minutes that any attendee can modify; internal or product specifications that would benefit from a wiki's ability to branch to background and related pages.I don't think it's a technology barrier at all (unless you are forcing them to use Wiki markup instead of a WYSIWYG editor) it's force of habit. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | giles_bowkett: Your title is invalid. Non-techies get Wikipedia.Additionally, your real question does not belong on Hacker News. You're dealing with the problem of how to accomodate the uselessness of mediocre people whom you're obligated to tolerate. The numbing pain of tolerating mediocrity has no place on a startup site. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | niels_olson: I use a wiki to take notes. I run navyhpsp.net, which is a wiki for Navy Health Professions Scholarship students distributed all over the US and recently overtook the official Navy HPSP site on Google (google for "Navy HPSP")
I also set up a wiki for my med school (at the Dean's request).I don't understand why there would be universal appeal to a corporate wiki, not unless it's searchable by google, in which case you at least have a chance of the information coming up when you go looking for "boilerplate" information in a search engine.People inevitably choose different ways of doing things. If a group of you is using a wiki, then run with it. Don't force people to use it. If it's better, they'll get curious and ask about it. If not, don't worry about them. Every time you ask people to play with your toys, you are spending political capital. Conserve your capital. If you make them play with your toys, you can bet they'll cry and call for mom and dad, at best. At worst, they might try to break your toys. |
Does anyone here use software RAID on Linux? | soult: I am using RAID1 on my PC and RAID0 on some servers, all software raid with mdadm. I never had any problems temporarily removing one HDD from the array (when I needed some free space for a short time) and resyncing it again, but I always marked the drive as faulty (mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --fail /dev/sdb2) and then removed them (mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --remove /dev/sdb2) before re-using it.Resyncing the array is just as simple: Partition the disk, create a partition that is the same size as the other RAID1 partition and re-add it to the array (mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdb2) |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | padmanabhan01: Technology is there to serve us and NOT vice versa.If people are only comfortable with emails, well, techies should think of a way to scan and update the wiki with info in the email automatically. |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | zain: What's the difference between this and searching for "define: word" on google?http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define... |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | avinashv: Very clever--it's a nice way to integrate fact-searching across many different websites. The interface is effective and doesn't get in the way. I like the branding you've created for yourself as well. The avatar of the Factobot incorporates the logo and that awesome chimpy-looking bot really well.I like how you let me add to my personal lexicon without having to register, but will that be saved, and be carried over to any account I create if and when I do?Few nags:On the tab bar, if "Home" has a bar on the very left, shouldn't FAQ have one on the very right?On the "ongoing votings" page, it's not immediately clear what I am supposed to do, and the yellow hint box towards the right says the same thing it does when I search for something--hit a checkbox. There aren't any checkboxes. This could be confusing for some.Great job overall, I see myself using this. |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | kbrower: Does your grabber get things from urban dictionary? |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | rw: Suggestion: include the Cyc database. |
The best PHP book for Ruby programmer? | crnixon: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad |
hn for biz students? | raffi: Forbes.com, Facebook.com, and Hamsterdance.com |
hn for biz students? | mixmax: http://www.newmogul.com/ |
hn for biz students? | aneesh: http://studentbusinesses.com |
What are some (good) hacker movies? | joe_bleau: (Canadian?) TV show "Regenesis". Biology stuff, apparently a bit of real science mixed in from time to time. The first couple of seasons or so are in syndication, so watch for it at really bad times in the US, like 1AM Monday on minor TV stations. |
Considering an affiliate program. How to decide/implement? | bprater: Sure, it's valid. That's why it'll be important to manage your affiliates and not let them go nuts. (And boy, they will.) Fortunately, you can go far by having someone look through the referrers and see who is playing games and nuking them.As to an affiliate system, you need to figure out what are essential features. For instance, do you want to cut checks? Do you want it to be multilevel? Do you want to be able to modify the source? (And what language do you prefer?) What about budget?All critical questions you'll want to ask before you start the hunt. |
hn for biz students? | vaksel: HN isn't solely for hackers, there are plenty of people here who can't write a line of code. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | spoiledtechie: I am a big supporter of MSFT stack. I am a first time programmer out of college, being 24 now and 2 years on the job I would say it should be taught in school. They did a extremely good job with C# and it is becoming more dynamic with the "var" keyword. There IDE is out of this world which is just an amazing tool. It allows for extensions just like firefox in which there are tons out there. They allow you to talk to every type of server or data set with the new LINQ technology which allows going through tables absolutely quick.It is highly functional beating most of the competitors on bench tests. Look up myspace asp.net case study.The framework is solid and over all my time working on it, I haven't found a bug except one that existed in their ajax controls contributed by the community.Its a bit hard to pick up when you have had no programming experience, but it can be compared to syntactical to C++ and Java.Hope that helps. |
Considering an affiliate program. How to decide/implement? | timf: "you're just referring them because you get a cut"Do you think this would be different if the people were required to have a subscription themselves in order to become an affiliate? I think this is a good way to go. Is it enough to curb everyone's skepticism? Probably not. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | noodle: i'd suggest you sit down and take stock of what you need, first. if your situation requires you to follow a specific path, do that.after that, figure out what you want, and follow that. you have time and little obligations (i'm assuming), so even if following what you want to do leads to a dead end, you have time and flexibility to get past that that you won't later in life. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | rubing: startup would be best, but most risky. job will be good if they let you innovate and reward you for it. phd is good if you like to be tortured. |
The best PHP book for Ruby programmer? | smoody: My opinion: The online documentation. It takes a while to sort through it, but it really is a great resource as are the reader-submitted comments at the end of each page. |
The best PHP book for Ruby programmer? | tremendo: Not aware of any book that specifically addresses the move from Ruby to PHP, but you may find the reverse helpful: http://www.pragprog.com/titles/ndphpr/rails-for-php-develope...Of course there's plenty of PHP-specific books. I found one by Wrox to be very helpful: Professional PHP Programming.PHP syntax is similar to Perl (and/or C) where blocks are delimited by curly brackets, statements by semi-colons and object to method (or attribute) is referenced by two characters vs. Ruby's dot. So in essence, you'll be using that Shift key a lot more. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | friism: I agree with spoiledtechie that C# is a nice programming language. Recent versions enable very concise higher-order functional (=fun) code to be written. The generics implementation has few warts and tooling is good.Another gem is SQL Server, even the Express version is fast and has solid backup-restore features.Powershell provides a (still somewhat embryonic) scripting environment.One nuisance is the relative dearth of free-free software. The thinking seems to go, that because MS gets money, then so should developers of small utils and such. It gives the entire ecosystem a slightly different feel, and you often find yourself paying $10 or similar for small, almost-trivial add-ons, that would have been free on other platforms where a tradition of sharing for the good of all is the norm (codeplex -- I think -- have helped in this regard). |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | wesleyd: I'd say do the startup. It'll be the one you'll most regret not doing. Whether you fail or succeed, you'll be ten times more able to tackle whatever you choose to do after. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | transburgh: There are few times better in your life to start a company than in or right after college. Obviously you have made a positive impression on your uni and future employers, so work in the future wout be that hard to get.I would say go for the startup idea since you see a need that could be better filled. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | abyssknight: I came from a PHP and Coldfusion background and jumped into VB.NET/ASP.NET development after some brief self training through our company training portal. Basically, they gave me a copy of VS2008 and said okay, "We have this project that is behind and we need help, do you think you can handle it?"I had a 2 day training on the internal corporate framework and then I was unleashed on the codebase. I would say it took maybe a month for me to 'get it' but after that it was just a matter of code reviews and common sense.If you can write good code in one language, you should be able to translate it over. That said, the event model is a bit different than the straight scripting in PHP or legacy CF. Once you get used to it you're going to feel spoiled. In the WebForms model, a lot is already done for you. Templates are built in, grids are built in, paging is built in... It can almost be annoying how much is built in, but then you realize how little time it takes to get things done. You have more time to spend on real business logic, which is a good thing.I would recommend checking out ASP.NET MVC RC1 if you're coming from Rails and Django. Less is built in, but it better suits the design patterns you've come from. The languages are the same, so if you learn WebForms first it doesn't matter: VB and C# are standalone. Once you learn them, you can use them anywhere whether its the web, GUI apps, or console batch code. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | hs: you live only once, do the scariest/craziest thing |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | puzzle-out: Just one point about the phd, I noticed that some students who stayed at the same uni for postgrad grew REALLY bored with the place after being there countless years. |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | shutter: Helvetica |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | arebop: The ASP.NET MVC framework is a pretty close imitation of RoR.The traditional ASP.NET framework is an attempt to shoehorn the Web into the Windows Forms conception of the world.One thing that MS MVC doesn't do particularly nicely is to capture the declarative character of ASP.NET 1.1; the default view templating machinery leads to a comparatively ugly mix of literal markup and imperative inclusions of C#. But, this may not be a severe problem for you in practice, and anyway you can use other view template subsystems.I think if you're starting out, you should stick with MVC. It harmonizes better with the wider architecture of the Web (http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/), and it doesn't suffer from much accumulated cruft. |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | yan: Whatever font the LaTeX resume template uses..http://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/ |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | physcab: Well first, be thankful that you have incredible options. To be fully funded for a PhD is not unusual, especially for engineering/science fields, but in this economic climate there are far more people applying for fewer positions. The same goes for the job offers.That being said, what do you really want to do? What are you good at?I've written a bit about PhD life in another post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=445082) and of course you are welcome to contact me if you are being pulled this way. Bottom line is that I think you should do the PhD if you are completely ready. Putting off a PhD will only make coming back to do it much more difficult, especially when bills start to pile on. Getting a PhD is not setting your life in stone, rather it will open up MANY MORE doors for you in the future.The start-up sounds enticing. If you two agree about how much work needs to be done and this is an area that you are truly passionate about...just go for it! However, know that good ideas are not finite. There will always be time.As for the job offers... Well, I tend to hate the corporate environment so I couldn't give you unbiased feedback. If you feel you can create value, and feel like your skills are valued, then perhaps its a good match.With any of these, I would encourage you to talk with the people you would be working with. Your community will make a HUGE difference POST-college, because life after undergrad is shockingly different. |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | noodle: i like georgia and verdana -- shouldn't have any issues if you end up having to send something as a .doc, and they're good basic-but-not-too-common fonts. use one for headings and the other for body, either way works. |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | russell: I use Georgia and I have used Bookman at times. They are both reasonably open styles and look good on both a screen and paper. The old standard is Times New Roman, but Times was designed for legibility while cramming as much text into a newspaper column as possible. I think it looks cramped. |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | arturoman: Wingdings. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | tomh-: I think if you are going to develop web applications you are better off with a dynamic language, recompiling large projects is a time killer and can get anoying. Another thing that is you might not like is that in general the opensource community for c# is not as big as other platforms have.On the other hand the technologies are nice and fast, but for .NET it is all about tooling which can make you lazy and it can get in the way if you do not understand whats going on under the engine. You can pretty much forget about being productive without Visual Studio.If you wanna geek around in a command-line interface, then .NET is not for you. If you want to do one part of your project the non-MS way, then .NET is probably not for you. I'm Microsoft partner and get all the software for a good price, but I'm not convinced that I would be more productive than with python and django. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | physcab: I am 24 and have also been in the LAMP stack for the past year until I began programming as an unpaid intern for a local web development company. The web company uses a MS stack and I have LOVED it. I have a physics background, so I never really "learned" how to code, and picking up PHP felt disjointed. One thing that I have appreciated about MS is the consistency. The IDE is wonderful. |
Review my project, Factolex - the fact lexicon | matt1: Some thoughts:Maybe write a script that goes through the web, starting with Wikipedia, and intelligently extracts facts from sentences. From there, pass it along to Mechanical Turk folks to gauge whether or not it makes sense. You could cheaply populate your database with all sorts of relevant information this way.Maybe focus on a particular field at first, such as tech industry or the stock market or... whatever. Once you've got a grip on that, start expanding to others. I'm not suggesting you stop gather other types of facts, but I think right now its better to focus than spread yourself too thin. I think your visitors rather have your site tell them a lot about one topic than a little about a lot.It's a small detail, but capitalizing the first letter of the descriptions would make it look sharper. Also, on my browser, IE7, the "More information" link drops down below the "Welcome" link. I think you could do better with a different, unique color scheme which people would associate with Factolex. (At first I thought HN was ugly, but now I wouldn't have it any other way.)Overall, very well done. I could see a lot of search engine traffic getting directed to Factolex someday down the road. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | CyberED: Get some "real world" experience first. I got bummed out doing a Masters many years ago - got distracted by money making ops. So 20 years later I'm back doing a PhD. The topic is more practical and yet breaking some new ground from the academic perspective.Don't let money dictate your decisions. Seek to optimise your experiences and that goes for life outside of IT & work. The startup option will teach you the most. Just don't count on getting rich. It so spoils the experience. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | mark_ellul: After 4yrs developing on the MSFT stack, I can say that it provides a nice end 2 end experience, especially using VS IDE. Now with Mono your deployment options are more open as well, which I find useful.My only gripe is the cost of the stack, if you are hosting your own servers. I also found it hard to debug live environments, as it was hard to do introspection without bring the whole system to a halt. |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | bd: If you are on Windows, new "C" fonts (bundled with Office 2007 or Vista) are nice and fresh (compared to older classics that are everywhere).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambria_(typeface)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibrihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candarahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantia_(typeface)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbel_(typeface) |
What's a Good Professional Font You Use? | icey: A resume you plan to print or one you intend to be read on a screen?I really do prefer a good serif font for printing and sans-serif for things intended to be read online. |
Getting Started on MSFT Web Stack vs Other Frameworks/Platforms | walesmd: I come from a LAMP background (learning Ruby now). What I have seen - in my experience (25 year old, military making the transition to a NSA contractor) is:LAMP and open-source is where it's at for the true innovators on the web. Your startups and companies that go out and try new things, will use some form of open source stack.A Microsoft Stack is prevalent when working within "the establishment," for the man, or in Enterprise level development. These are commonly workcenters in which they rely on the support and testing made available by Microsoft - it is a key factor in their decision to follow that stack.It's not always set in stone that way - my new job is a complete Microsft Stack (IIS, MS SQL) with the exception of the language (PHP). Every now and then, even the man, gets a little spunky and tries something new. |
Why do non-techies simply not "get" the idea of a wiki? | nihilocrat: In my experience, wikis are all doomed to becoming out of date and not a trusted information source, because the really important information ends up being in peoples' heads, or in code, or something like that. The wiki can only give you A) a 10,000-foot view of a system, or B) the details of that system as it existed.... two or three years ago.Honestly, this doesn't really have anything to do with the original post, because it's happened in techie-only or techie-dominated companies I've been in. Anyone else had this experience? |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | braindead_in: General rule of thumb is, recession is the best time for academics. But since you already have job offers, I guess it would not apply to you. But if you are in doubt, always refer to the first rule -- you do not talk about... |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | jules: What do you mean by SaaS? Banks have to upload transaction records to your servers? Do they want to do that? |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | jeeringmole: I went straight to graduate school, heeding advice that it would be difficult to give up the comfort of a real salary for a grad student stipend if I went and worked first. I observed in grad school that the students who had done that knew why they were there and what they wanted far better than I did.Fundamentally, you will only know in retrospect whether or not you made the right decision. On the other hand, the stakes are not as large as they seem: 5 years is 125% of your time as an undergraduate, but only 12.5% of your career. (In other words, you have time to switch courses later, though it may appear now that you don't.)Finally, the advice I always repeat to people facing difficult decisions. (Anyone who knows where this came from is welcome to tell me. I would attribute it if I knew the source.) .... When you have a difficult and important decision to make, flip a coin. Not because flipping a coin is a good way to make important decisions, but because in the moments while it is spinning in the air you will know which way you want it to land.Trust yourself, good luck, and congratulations on earning such a plethora of attractive options. |
PhD, Startup, or Career? | menloparkbum: Do the PhD and work out your AML software company idea while you are doing the PhD. You can drop out when you're ready to run with your startup. I personally know about 8 people who have become software millionaires this way. It's also how places like Google and Yahoo! got started.The "Real World" is totally overrated. Entry level software jobs generally suck donkey balls, even if they sound like they won't.However, it is very particular to your situation. If your job offer is to work on Photosynth at Microsoft Research, turn down the full ride to Toledo State U. However, if you're funded at Stanford or MIT, turn down the entry level code monkey job at Amazon or Yahoo! |
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