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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 payi... |
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 su... |
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 t... |
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 norma... |
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... |
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 somethin... |
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 b... |
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 ... |
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 i... |
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 eve... |
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 impl... |
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 ... |
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 use... |
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, bec... |
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 Sy... |
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 ... |
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-... |
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 pla... |
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 a... |
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 reportin... |
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 (t... |
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 th... |
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... |
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 ... |
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... |
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 ... |
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,... |
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)*... |
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... |
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 ... |
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... |
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 t... |
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 ho... |
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 fe... |
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 ... |
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 ... |
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 s... |
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 feature... |
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... |
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... |
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'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... |
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 ... |
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 w... |
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 op... |
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 debu... |
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:/... |
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... |
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... |
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.Fun... |
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 tot... |
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