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What do you do for analytics? | lordycon: I've been using a mix of Google Analytics and Mint but am keen to try Piwik, which is open source. Anyone using it?http://piwik.org/ |
What do you do for analytics? | ideamonk: im sticking to google analytics as for now, gonna try getclicky soon, seems interesting, plus after checking out "who uses it", i have to give it a shot. |
help me find something Alan Kay said | pclark: "OOP to me means only messaging, local retention and protection and hiding of state-process, and extreme late-binding of all things. It can be done in Smalltalk and in LISP. There are possibly other systems in which this is possible, but I'm not aware of them"Source: email [1][1] http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/doc_kay... |
What do you do for analytics? | buro9: I'm using Google Analytics primarily.getclicky is fine below 100,000 page views per day, but I've passed that milestone.woopra was my favourite for tracking user activity, but 10,000 views per day is barely an hour in the day so not a large enough window.If you're above 100,000 page views then I think Google Analytics still rocks.The only issue I've had with Google Analytics is the lack of an API to publish the stats back to the site or elsewhere. But you can get around this by having an email subscription to receive Xml, then deliver that to a public Google Groups set up for announce, and use Yahoo Pipes to parse the attached Xml and re-publish it as JSON... if anyone cares I've published a pipe for this here:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=f633ec8e5eabfe3c3... |
help me find something Alan Kay said | RiderOfGiraffes: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/doc_kay...From here :
http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/alanKay+talk Alan Kay regrets the terminology, object orientated,
thinking later that message orientated would have
expressed it better.
This seems the most definitive:http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-... Just a gentle reminder that I took some pains at the
last OOPSLA to try to remind everyone that Smalltalk
is not only NOT its syntax or the class library, it
is not even about classes. I'm sorry that I long ago
coined the term "objects" for this topic because it
gets many people to focus on the lesser idea.
The big idea is "messaging" -- that is what the kernal
of Smalltalk/Squeak is all about ... |
What do you do for analytics? | ErrantX: I use:
- clicky
- GA
- Woopra
- MintAcross my variety of sites. Usually a combination of 2 or 3 of them: the reason being that the variance between the stats the all collect means that it's helpful to have more than one stats collator to double check your info :D |
I want to build a simple but good website, what do I need to do? | pclark: Wordpress and/or PHP.or drop me an email and I'll make it you :) |
What do you do for analytics? | jli: We use a mix of Google Analytics, awstats, and webalizer. Awstats and Webalizer are post process your weblogs so they don't really effect the performance of your website. |
Value of comments in regards to applying for YC? | cperciva: In the past, PG has talked about comments here from the perspective of the YC crew"recognizing names". Based on this and my past experience with selection processes, I imagine comments here will influence how carefully an application is reviewed, but not necessarily the outcome of that review -- rather like any resume which says "Linus Torvalds" at the top will be looked at closely, but Linus would nevertheless probably not be offered a job as a web designer (if, for some odd reason, he ever applied for one).Should I be spending more time commenting for my preparation to apply to yc?Please don't. There is an influx of new people posting here every 6 months, and it does nothing to improve the level of discourse. I rather doubt that it helps the YC applicant much either, since (a) the only reputation which you have time to develop between now and the YC deadline is a bad one, and (b) people who are writing comments just for the sake of writing comments rarely end up saying anything interesting anyway. |
What do you do for analytics? | thinkzig: I'm currently using a combination of GA and StatCounter. I use SC to see what's going on in real-time and use GA for long-term trend analysis.As someone else mentioned, the downside of real-time is that you have to constantly sit and refresh to see what's going on.I'd like to see a package that notifies me when a significant action happens on my site. Like if I were to start getting hits from a new referrer, or see a statistically significant spike in page views for a certain page. Does anyone know of a solution that does something like this? |
What do you do for analytics? | jakestein: My company (www.rjmetrics.com) develops software that you can use to analyze your users in different ways than web traffic analytics, things like tracking customer lifetime value, churn analysis, and segmentation by any data on which you track your user base (registration date, geography, plan, etc). We actually recently wrote a blog post on why a tool to analyze your database is a great complement to a tool to track your traffic.http://themetricsystem.rjmetrics.com/2009/01/22/rjmetrics-vs...For the record, we use Google analytics and of course we are ravenous consumers of our own dogfood. |
Value of comments in regards to applying for YC? | vlad: The more time you spend commenting on News.YC, the better. Other investors look at this, as well. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | RiderOfGiraffes: For previous answers to this question see:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123371http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=224473http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124856http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460677Before asking questions you might try searching to see if it's been asked before.http://searchyc.com/If you did, say so:http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/smart-questions.html |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | davidw: I wrote this:http://stufftodo.dedasys.comIt's now open source. Have fun! |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | HendrikR: Maybe this is interesting for you: http://www.billingsapp.com/ |
is it a good idea in Python? If yes, how to make it not suck? | MHollender: Better version, with GroupBy and less lambdas uploaded to
http://pastebin.com/f201d8052 |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | bjplink: As a Mac user, I'm a huge fan of On The Job (http://stuntsoftware.com/OnTheJob). You enter in a task and the charge per hour, hit play and go to work. You hit stop when you're done and it builds the invoice for you automatically. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | dabeeeenster: We've spun this off as a seperate web app that we have been using internally for 3 years or so:http://www.pipelineworks.com/Designed for UK companies... |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | almost: If you're an Emacs user then org-mode is has excellent time tracking features.You have a normal org file with your tasks, I use one per client with 1st level headings usually being projects (you might find that one per project suites you better though).So something like this: * Project 1
** TODO Some task
** TODO Another task
* Project 2
** TODO yet another task
(the "TODO" keywords aren't needed for the time tracking, but I use them to
track what needs doing)When I want to start work on a task I clock in by moving the point to
one of the task headings and hitting C-cC-xC-i. It adds a clock thingy
under the heading and the task shows up in my mode-line (along with
how long I've worked on it for). When I'm done with that task I do one
of three things, either clock into another task, clock out manually
with C-xC-xC-o, or mark the task as done (for TODO style headings).So doing this means that all my task headings accrue clock annotations
(which org-mode collapses by default so I don't have to see them). I
can then use various functions to generate reports. My favourite way
is using a dynamic block: #+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 2 :scope file
Clock summary at [2009-02-11 Wed 15:08]
| L | Headline | Time | |
|---+-----------------------+--------+------|
| | *Total time* | *9:02* | |
|---+-----------------------+--------+------|
| 1 | Project 1 | 7:36 | |
| 2 | TODO Some task | | 5:32 |
| 2 | TODO Another task | | 2:04 |
|---+-----------------------+--------+------|
| 1 | Project 2 | 1:26 | |
| 2 | TODO yet another task | | 1:26 |
#+END:
You can hit C-cC-c at the beginning of the block and it will update. I
usually have several blocks under a heading at the top, one that shows
my hours for today, one that shows my hours since I last invoiced and
one that shows total hours ever.I also org-mode for tracking my schedule, taking notes, writing documents (LaTeX output is great) and tracking all my tasks.Planner-mode also has timelogging capabilities (using timelog.el) but
I prefer org-mode. |
What do you do for analytics? | pstinnett: I'm kind of interested to see what YongFook puts out with GumTrail (http://www.gumtrail.com/). Supposed to be "User Engagement Analytics". I'm curious to know how it will work and how different it will be from regular stat tracking software. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | 3pt14159: At the risk of sounding like a reckless spammer, I recommend the company I work for: FreshBooks.We have more than just time tracking and invoicing/billing. Including estimates, simple support tickets, document sharing, expense tracking, contractors.We do not do full accounting or payroll. If you need those capabilities I recommend either checking out our competitor Xero, or checking out an accounting package that integrates with us.I'm on support today if you want a walk though or something.
Toll Free (North America): 1-866-303-6061
Toll Free (UK): 0808-101-3408
Just ask for Zach.
http://www.freshbooks.com/our-team.php#zach |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | ctingom: If you need an exhaustive list of apps, try this page (which I maintain): http://www.timetrackingresources.com/ |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | ryanwaggoner: I use http://harvestapp.com and http://www.timepost2.com/ to post from my Macbook. I really love Harvest. Great design, email out invoices, right balance of simplicity and features.TimePost is overpriced, though...you could probably find a cheaper solution. I think Harvest has a dashboard widget. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | brent: Journyx wasn't terrible (it has been ~3 years since I have used it). I believe it is free for individuals, but you'll have to check. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | there: Corduroy (http://corduroysite.com/) is a full billing system that includes time tracking for projects and invoicing.Some of its other features include interaction with your online banking site and allowing your customers to login to your site and pay their invoices with a credit card.Disclaimer: I am the author of it. |
I want to build a simple but good website, what do I need to do? | ideamonk: Yeah its possible to make one, the cost is time. Learn some HTML and CSS basics, then a little bit of PHP & MySQL, that would give you an understanding with which you would be able to edit and customise wordpress or any other CMS for your own website. You could even come up with your own CMS (content management system).Well, let me know if I could be of any help - madetokill.com O_o |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | dan_sim: I use TimmyOnTime ( http://www.timmyontime.com ) for my time-tracking (my company created this product) and GnuCash for billing/accounting.TimmyOnTime uses with instant-messaging (GoogleTalk, MSN, Jabber) for real-time time-tracking so that tt easily becomes part of your work flow. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | jd: Thymer might just be what you're looking for.It has intuitive data entry (easy as paper), support for projects, clearly seperates personal todos from work tasks. (So you can use the same todo system for personal matters and billable hours) and much more. Of course you can also generate reports (which you can customize to an extent). Focus on simplicity and usability -- drag and drop where possible, undo for every task, and so on.Currently in private alpha -- beta coming soon. If you're interested, check it out at http://www.thymer.com(In case it wasn't obvious -- this is a shameless plug) |
What do you do for analytics? | cte: for "micro-analytics", try http://userfly.com, http://clicktale.com, or http://crazyegg.com |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | juliend2: To count my time I made a little ruby script that loops into a txt file and looks for projects, calculate the hours for each and outputs them. Here is the link if you're interested : http://github.com/juliend2/compteurdetempstxt/To invoice i use Freshbooks. I love it. But for the time tracking, i prefer my home-made solution (even if its not perfect) because i dont rely on a server so i can track my time even when offline. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | jbrun: I use harvest and it works quite well for me. |
Help me with this project - Gizmoojo.com | antiismist: Put this in your .htaccess:Redirect 301 / http://www.gizmodo.comBut seriously, when I look at the page: - it doesn't render properly in Firefox
- it seems like a knockoff of gizmodo
- it seems dead, e.g. everyone has 0 moojos. |
Help me with this project - Gizmoojo.com | TweedHeads: First, find a better name, then we can talk |
What do you do for analytics? | dmarques1: Google Analytics & Visual Sciences are my favorites, Visual Sciences is really for enterprise level sites but the level of data and ways you can slice and dice things is significantly better than anything I've seen out there.I have also heard a lot of good things about Omniture and have used it a few times. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | sevib: You may also consider Klok (http://klok.mcgraphix.com/) for straight forward timetracking, it's simple, stylish and exports to excel. |
What do you do for analytics? | bd: There is no single analytics solution that would be fully satisfactory. The ones based on web bugs (e.g. Google Analytics) slow down your site and usually have clunky, slow and/or limited interfaces. Additionally, better ones are getting expensive for more serious use (also, I prefer one time fee over subscriptions).Local analyzers of server logs do not filter out well robots and also logistics of transferring and updating logs is a pain.I use Google Analytics, though not everywhere. Almost always I supplement it with some sort of local log processing. Over the time I tried several log analyzing tools, but I kept using only Visitors [1] and WebLogExpert [2]. I remember Web Log Storming [3] was also good: very fast and it allowed to track individual visitors.Though often I just end up doing some custom logs processing, either by some Python script, or (more common) by some combination of Unix command line tools, directly ssh-ed into the server.For example, to get real-time referrers: cat access.log | grep "GET / HTTP" | grep -v '"-"'
If there is a lot of traffic, just use "tail -n XXX" instead of "cat".[1] http://www.hping.org/visitors[2] http://www.weblogexpert.com[3] http://www.datalandsoftware.com/weblog/ |
Why not prepay groceries? | timf: I like the general idea, we shop at the same place every week and would use something like that. Value cards are coming pretty close to all this (including customized newsletters).People are still trying online, too:http://www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-save/details/index.ht...http://www.alice.com/ |
What do you do for analytics? | tvbuzz: Depends on the type of analytics -- as that is a huge area.- For just tracking traffic -- Google is fine.
- For Adwords, Omniture has a slew of products.Once you add on a couple of layers -- such as an affiliate program, some display and then PPC from Yahoo & MSN .. you will run into a couple of areas .. such as multi-payouts and an issue with attribution.One client just started using C3 Metricshttp://www.c3metrics.comIts working for them. |
Help me with this project - Gizmoojo.com | peterhi: I've got to go with the name issue. Not sure if you were first or not but your name is too close to gizmodo. Also you need more content, not just on the front page but some of the categories are empty.Of the six people on the front page only one has a picture, they could all go. More text, having just pictures makes it look like a shopping site.For example the "SanDisk Sansa c150 2 GB MP3 Player" is just a picture. How about an excerpt from the review "Enjoy skip-free music playback and photo slideshows with the amazingly small and lightweight SanDisk Sansa c150 flash memory digital audio player..." while is much better than that thumbnail. Ok it looks suspiciously like a sales pitch but that was actually from the rewiew.Graphically it's very nice, perhaps too nice. Like I say it looks to me like a shopping site. Is this really geek aesthetics? Maybe it should be more like ThinkGeek, Ars or practically any gaming site. |
Help me with this project - Gizmoojo.com | peterhi: Also if you go for a wiki like system then be prepared to moderate heavily, it will be a spammers paradise. |
He v. She | mooism2: I use "they" and "their". |
He v. She | russell: The use of he has been denounced as sexist. The problem is that there is no gender neutral third person singular pronoun in English. Well there is "one", but it sounds stilted. Some authors alternate between he and she, I sometimes use s/he. But s/him, s/his? In informal writing, I find myself using "you" a lot. Others are trying the plural for the singular. It sounds uneducated, but I bet it's the one that will take. |
Why not prepay groceries? | newy: For the budget conscious - having to commit a set figure each month might not be an appealing option (they're already locked into rent, electric bills, etc). For the not-so-budget conscious, the discount might not be worth the effort to set up this system and lock yourself to one grocery store chain (people like variety - one week Safeway, the next Trader Joe's). The grocery-space does need improvement though - who knows maybe it could work? |
He v. She | tome: http://plover.net/~bonds/genderedlanguage.html |
He v. She | DanielBMarkham: He is the traditional gender-neutral pronoun.If you care about being denounced as sexist, you can make your writing do weird things, like s/he.If you're tired of being told how to think, just go with he. It worked for Shakespeare. It can work for you too.I find myself using "you" a lot when "he" would be much better. In my opinion, it lowers the quality of the material. Likewise, some authors want to impress you with their sensitivity and alternate between he and she. This I find particularly annoying, for I could care less the sex of a gender-neutral example. I find it distracting. The s/he thing is so far out there as to elicit a little pat on the head and a warm smile (as you would do to small children) to anyone who finds it useful.Sorry -- pet peeve of mine. |
He v. She | yan: I use he almost always when 'one' sounds wrong. I'm not important enough to offend anyone. Plus, if someone is truly offended by seeing "he" in writing, they have bigger issues, in my opinion. |
What do you do for analytics? | abl: is anyone using omniture? |
Help me with this project - Gizmoojo.com | tlb: I've created a hamburger restaurant where I'm expecting average Joes to walk in off the street and cook the hamburgers, in return for a percentage every time they make a sale. Sound promising?Of course not. The burgers will be inconsistent and usually bad, and there'll either be too many or too few cooks at any given time.It's the same with review sites. You're expecting people to do the work for you in return for a completely unknown amount of money. You'll get a zillion reviews of some popular thing, and no reviews of DRAM, and reviews will be inconsistent and bad.If you think it's worth people's time to write reviews, then you should hire people to write them first. Hire college students at $15/hr. They can work from their dorms. Assign them products to review. Set standards. Have quality control. You can probably build up a really good set of reviews for only a few hundred hours of labor. Probably less than you've put into the technical part of the site.Eventually, once you have a thriving ecosystem, average Joes will contribute reviews. But you can't just wave your hands and expect people to flock to your site to do work on speculation. You have to lead. |
Why not prepay groceries? | ambition: Good idea. Grocery chains love loyalty programs. Though, grocery margins are thin. It would be difficult to profitably give substantial-enough discounts to lure people into the program. The numbers you've cited like 10% are too high. |
Why not prepay groceries? | sachinag: You can have pre-set baskets in PeaPod. |
Why not prepay groceries? | HeyLaughingBoy: Wouldn't work for me because I shop at different places depending on when I have time to do the shopping: over lunch, after work, on the weekend, etc. Even then, "after work shopping" varies depending on if I go straight home, or have to pick up my son from after school daycare.The store would have to offer pretty steep discount before I give up that flexibility.What kind of "geek services" would a grocery store offer? |
Why not prepay groceries? | HeyLaughingBoy: On a related note, how many of you still have value cards? In the MSP/Twin Cities area, they're unheard of from what I can see. |
He v. She | davidw: "They" is actually quite good in many cases, and apparently even Shakespeare used it. It's not supposed to be "grammatically correct", but frankly I think it works a lot better than putting in a random he or she when the sex of the person is unknown. For example:"A child becomes an adult when they turn 18."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they |
Why not prepay groceries? | sidsavara: I had the same issue which I think is, you don't want to waste time standing in line shopping. I found this (shopping for food) was a huge waste of time in my cooking workflow, so I hired someone to cook for me (won't spam it here, it was on hacker news before when I blogged about it - much to my happiness and genuine surprise)One thing I have been wondering about is a grocery delivery service, and make it very specific - Costco groceries only, on a certain day a week, and perhaps say no especially bulky items (case by case basis). It seems to me if I could get maybe 5-10 people interested, it would be worth someone's while with a truck (and a couple friends) to go do our shopping while they are shopping anyway.In my mind, shopping takes time as follows: Driving + Physically walking around store to get items + waiting in line + Payment + load car + Drive homeIf one person did all the shopping for multiple people and had a close by rendezvous point (for the clients to pay/pick up their food), both driving times and time waiting remain constant. Walking around the store will increase slightly, as would payment and load time (since more items must be rung up and loaded)It seems to me though that this increase in time required may be on the order of 10-15 minutes per client. If I am willing to pay 5-10 bucks for this service, you could make an easy 20-100 bucks an hour, or probably ~50ish on average. |
What time tracking and billing software (or related solutions) do you recommend? | rayvega: AbstractSpoon's ToDoList is what I use.http://www.abstractspoon.com/tdl_resources.html |
If you're an independent contractor, how do you charge clients? | davidw: Sounds like you should charge per hour rather than on a fixed-bid basis. |
Good math forums? | simplegeek: I guess I deleted the previous thread. Sorry. This was one of the comments in the deleted thread.
----
1 point by tokenadult 6 minutes ago | link | parent | on: Ask HN: Good math forums?The definitive site for discussing math isartofproblemsolving.comfor discussion of contest-style problems. |
If you're an independent contractor, how do you charge clients? | thinkcomp: I would think it depends on the project. If it's estimated to be above $1,000.00 I would typically require a contract and a fixed fee. Otherwise, it's probably best to do things by the hour. |
Good math forums? | tokenadult: I'll expand my comment that was haphazardly deleted with the duplicate post.The definitive site for discussing math isartofproblemsolving.comfor discussion of contest-style problems.Some of the other online forums are restricted to persons in particular professional associations; Art of Problem Solving is open to anyone, and well moderated. |
If you're an independent contractor, how do you charge clients? | jhickner: If you're going to do an up-front quote, it's important to have an agreed-upon task list with your client. You don't have to go overboard on it, but if you don't have anything written down it's too easy for the client to sneak work onto your plate.The case you mentioned where the client nitpicks the design once it's built is pretty common. It's a natural thing to do when there are no constraints on the project.I find it helpful to have an agreed-upon maximum period of time that will be spent on a design review, to be conducted at the end of the project. If the client asks for too many tweaks and you go over that agreed-upon chunk of time, you start billing hourly. |
Good math forums? | tokipin: http://www.physicsforums.com |
Good math forums? | kobs: wu :: forums - http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgixkcd - http://forums.xkcd.com/#math on freenode |
Good math forums? | katz: You can try www.reddit.com/r/math although it is not that good. You may be able to digg up something nice at http://planetmath.org/?op=forums .I don't think there is really a nice discussion forum for math :( |
S-Corp in Delaware, located in California | white: The best idea I got on this matter, is the link to http://www.maximumassetprotection.com/scripts/Download.aspx?... - California Registration Requirements for Foreign LLCs by Jacob Stein.While I can find pretty solid grounds not to incorporate BOTH in DE and CA, for doing some of Internet projects; I'm still concerned about the consulting which is going to take place over here. |
What's best for learning new hacker techniques - video or text? | noodle: neither. the best way is doing. get the information from whatever source, text, video, a friend over your shoulder, and then do it. work it out yourself.imo, of course. |
Good math forums? | RiderOfGiraffes: In this, as with hacking, it's worth asking what your objective might be. Are you looking to learn math? Are you looking to listen to learned math conversations? Are you looking to ask questions about esoteric matters?How do you see yourself interacting, and what are you trying to accomplish? |
Good businesses for entrepreneurs to start in a recession? | arcadeparade: Ok, I wrote a large comment first but I dont want to waste all your time.Basically it was giving a taxback service to people.I'm in Ireland, and the average taxback you can get is €850, but only 55% of people bother to get it.It's for things such as rent allowance, bin charges etc.A small amount of companies offer to do this service, one charges 15%, about €125 on average.So with the huge dole queues, I would drive around to these queues in the few social welfare offices around Dublin and hand out leaflets offering to do this service for them. Then an accountant I would hire would do the actual paper work.There are 30,000 people joining these queues every month, 10,000 in Dublin. And these are people who need money badly, I know I do.Now maybe this is just a dumb idea, I wouldnt reach all of of those people, and presuming I want to make a €1000 euros profit a week, (assuming the same amount of costs) I'd need to get 3 customers per work day.Assuming 2% conversion that's 150 leaflets to hand out a day.But all ideas start somewhere, and a few bad ones can lead to a viable one.So that's my idea Hackers, let me know what you think and lets hear yours. It doesnt have to involve dole queues, heh, it can be anything really, but the way this economy is I'm going to need all the ideas I can get. There's a reason I know about the size of dole queues, I was in one myself today, and it's not a nice feeling. |
What do you think of my group chat app? | tptacek: The "user" cookie contains a base64'd username, the JSON responses include an echoed User-Agent, and I can rotate the "roomids" parameter to retrieve message logs from arbitrary rooms. Does security matter for this app? |
What's best for learning new hacker techniques - video or text? | sidsavara: I actually love screencasts. The rubycasts (or whatever they were called) were excellent, and are only a few minutes long. He provided text as well so I could play the screencast on our television while I copied and followed along locally on my laptop.So the answer, for me, "YES" ;) A screencast backed up with good documentation. |
Good math forums? | pclark: I really like irc.efnet.org #math |
Good math forums? | albertni: It depends on what you're looking for. As has been mentioned, artofproblemsolving.com (aka AoPS) and mathlinks.ro are good for the contest types. I've taught and graded for AoPS in the past, and there is no other place that can compare for contest math.On the other hand, the overall skill level at AoPS is very high and very contest math oriented. I don't really check it that often anymore but in the past it never struck me as discussion forum as much as a problem solving forum (or a "how to become a better problem solver" forum). In addition, the majority of the posters there are young, that is high school age and below (though there are still a fair number of older posters).To put it a different way, when friends of mine that are interested in learning "interesting math" from a casual standpoint ask me where to look, I'm not really sure what to tell them. Certainly I recommend giving AoPS a shot, but I'm unsure as to whether it would be the best place to go. |
What do you think of my group chat app? | pclark: paging axod to this thread. Am sure there is some form of collaboration possible for web chat stuff.few thoughts:great signup formthe uploader squashed my non-square picture to a square :(Privacy Policy. Especially if you're dealing with uploads and chat logs. |
Are job postings acceptable? | pclark: I see no problem with them, no promises your job posting won't get critiqued by lots of users though ;) |
Good math forums? | larryfreeman: If you want to get answers to questions for elementary math questions, you might also want to consider these two sites:1) MathForum.orghttp://mathforum.org/dr.math/You can check out the previous answers here:2) Yahoo! Answers (Home->Science & Mathematics->Mathematics)http://answers.yahoo.comOn Usenet, you're probably already checking math.sci. That's my favorite one.-Larry |
What's best for learning new hacker techniques - video or text? | physcab: I am a relative novice to hacking, and so here is my two cents:Over the past year, I've felt the best way to learn was to duplicate. Now, this comes with a certain amount of integrity, because you should never copy applications outright for commercial use. But for educational purposes, this technique is great.Specifically, I've found text was helpful to code certain features for which there was not a video. When I started coding iPhone applications, I did a mix of video tutorials and Google searches to give me the functionality I desired.When I learned Matlab, my professor told us to duplicate the pictures in the text (this was for Machine Learning and Bishop's text). Since I could not find good video tutorials for Matlab, I resorted to documentation. However, I knew what the end result had to look like, which was helpful.For web development I code in ASP.Net and C#. I usually have a project definition to fulfill. I have used video tutorials to a certain extent (to see the wealth of features available with MS Visual Studio/Web Developer).One option, which you did not mention, is to seek the help of others who are experts. If you can get into a community of developers and actively seek their input, you will learn much faster. |
Good businesses for entrepreneurs to start in a recession? | pg: Many startups are good to start in recessions, because the new technology they develop is often cheaper than what it replaces. You just have to pitch it from the money-saving side. E.g. if you build something with 2x performance for a given price, then in bad economic times you want to sell it as saving people 50% for a given performance rather than giving people twice the performance for the same price.(I realize your question was about startups for people who are out of work. I just wanted to point out that that is not the only, or probably the best, type of startup to start in a recession.) |
Are job postings acceptable? | yan: "we certainly don't want HN to turn into a jobs board."Why not? I mean we sure don't want to mix it with the primary news.yc content, but why not form a sister-board for jobs? And not just YC-funded startups looking for people, but an actual job board. We have the right kind of people here on both sides of the job-searching scenario. |
Are job postings acceptable? | pg: There are no official guidelines. YC startups get to post on the jobs page. We're going to let other startups post on the jobs page soon via startuply. |
Are job postings acceptable? | noodle: i think that if you have a compelling offer, post it. especially if you're looking for co-founders or lead developers.if you're soliciting for data entry people every few days, no thanks.might be nice if it were self-policed and tagged like the ask hn stuff is. |
What do you think of my group chat app? | tontoa4: I like the simplicity. Good job. Keep up the good work. |
What do you think of my group chat app? | run4yourlives: Not a bad little app, really. Nice job. |
What do you think of my group chat app? | joshuarr: Users need to be able to set a handle. |
What do you think of my group chat app? | trevorturk: Very cool! I think you could have a free service with an up-sell (more than 2 people, private rooms, etc) that made sense. Depending on how much it costs for you to run the free site, I guess.Is there a blog or somewhere to follow development? |
What do you think of my group chat app? | manvsmachine: I think that if this is intended to be anything more than a toy project, you should change the name (http://www.yammer.com). Otherwise, nice job. |
What's best for learning new hacker techniques - video or text? | anateus: Programming techniques, design patterns, that kind of stuff, is learned best from a hybrid approach, i.e. some of this, some of that.Hacker techniques however... can only be learned by hacking. Being as they represent the intuitive, "dirty" approach, that's the only way to get them into your system. |
The Fog of Secrecy | suhail: I've read from others and experienced personally that being more open about your startup is more useful. By being out there, you have the opportunity to be first, make current/potential competition re-evaluate their business, and building a loyalty and user-base takes time so get started fast. Merely, being out there, you might have opportunities come after you instead of what you're doing now (i.e. seeking them). |
Where do startup founders go for health/dental coverage? | pasbesoin: I don't have any specific suggestions, but I am interested in what others might have to say.In the U.S., for those who are young and healthy, and with an income and/or savings that can cover routine and significant initial expenses, I've heard it recommended to go with a major medical plan having a high deductible (multiple thousands of dollars). You pay for all the routine stuff yourself, and for the initial hit for anything bigger. If you encounter a catastrophic situation, you are covered (beware of pre-existing conditions when you sign up). The risk of that is relatively low. Rates are commensurately lower. This corresponds more with how medical insurance was for many some decades ago, before coverage was in practice extended to routine expenses.It's the expense of a catastrophe you need to worry about. If you end up tapped out, families and, if necessary, friends can usually find a way to cover a few thousand dollars until you hit your out of pocket limit.Most likely, there are people who care about you. Carrying health insurance isn't just about you, it's also about them. You prevent putting them in a bind where they must exhaust their own finances to take care of you. (Of course, these days the way insurance companies reprice and drop policies limits the longer term efficacy of self-insurance while unwell, but it's still a valid argument.)Years ago, I heard that (again, in the U.S.) the IEEE had some group plans that weren't terrible. But that was second hand information, from someone well into middle age (and so in a different part of the market), and times change.Finally, a number of people I know with their own small businesses obtain their coverage through their spouses or significant others, who work a job that provides a group plan. I'm not saying Plenty of Fish nor eHarmony is a plan of approach, but if you are in a long-term relationship with someone having coverage, even if not married, it is worth exploring what that plan may offer. My last employer covered long-term partners (although I'm not sure how that was qualified; I believe sharing a household may have been a factor).EDIT: One more thing: I think that COBRA may now cover students for some number of months after they leave school, as a continuation of their coverage e.g. under a parent's group coverage from work. I could be wrong; perhaps someone else can speak to this.If you are just leaving school, this would be looking into; it would give you a year or 18 months or whatever, as long as you can pay the monthly premiums. However, you must elect COBRA coverage within a relatively short period of the time at which you qualify, or you lose the option -- at least that's how it is when electing COBRA after leaving an employer. |
The Fog of Secrecy | dpifke: One of the VCs at a panel I attended in the last year or so said, "if your business plan depends on noone knowing you exist, you have a problem."In all seriousness, the execution is way more important than the idea, and execution is a lot harder to copy than ideas are. If you're at the stage where you have a working product, you're probably at the stage where you can go public with your idea. |
Where do startup founders go for health/dental coverage? | dpifke: I think a lot of us keep our COBRA coverage from previous employers. I took this route for about six months before getting around to pricing an individual plan. Which, surprisingly, was about 1/3rd the cost for way better coverage than what I had before.I disagree somewhat about only needing coverage for catastrophic illness or accidents. There's a huge psychological benefit to not having to do a cost/benefit analysis if you think something's wrong and you want to go to a doctor. |
What do you think of my group chat app? | ruslan: Welcome to 1988. There are dozens of Web based front-ends to IRC available, just install one and customize a little to meet web 2.0 "standards" and you get all the millions of IRC users at your feet :-). |
What do you think of my group chat app? | avibryant: Nice and lightweight, but useless (to me) if not secure. The latency is also quite bad at the moment (10 seconds or so between me writing "ping" and seeing "ack" from someone else in the room), but maybe that's due to heavy load right now? |
What do you think of my group chat app? | avibryant: One killer feature from Campfire that I would request is that when pasting an image URL, the image gets inlined into the chat. |
Good math forums? | ganley: It's not really a forum, but Project Euler (projecteuler.net) is awesome. |
Where do startup founders go for health/dental coverage? | Flemlord: At one point I had worst-case personal health insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield (Anthem). This was several years ago but I remember it costing <$100/month. |
The Fog of Secrecy | icey: If you think that someone can steal your idea and do it better than you can, it should tell you something.(In other words, the ideas are almost never as valuable as the execution.) |
The Fog of Secrecy | mojombo: There are two kinds of startup ideas: those that have basically already been done, and those that nobody else thinks can or should be done. In either case, maintaining secrecy is only detrimental. If you believe in your team and your idea, let the world know as soon as you have something usable so they can tell you what they like and don't like about your product. That's how you'll end up making a kickass offering. |
Help me with this project - Gizmoojo.com | truebosko: When I type "Gizmoojo" into Firefox (I forgot the .com as I simply copied your name), it sends me to Gizmodo.com .. I know it's been said, but if that's any proof you need a name change then there you go :) |
What do you think of my group chat app? | arnorhs: Great stuff- I love the signup "process" :)- I like the /anychatroom feature- I like the persistant nature of the chats- It's interface is amazingly simple/quirky - I love it- personally i don't care about security, as long as this is intended for OPEN chats and chatrooms (twitter-esque) .. not some private closed sessions between you and your secret lover...cons- manvsmachine is right about the domain name.. could confuse some usersIdea- i don't know how long backwards you have the conversations open .. that is.. can I scroll back and check what John was saying a few months ago? If so: excellent!
Then a permalink as in http://yamr.net/chatroom#388332 as an url to every single line of chat would be totally awesomeGood luck with this project!! I think it rocks |
What do you think of my group chat app? | axod: Looks like a good start :)
Wonder how you're planning to get users...I got them by leveraging IRC,
Campfire got them by having a popular blog to sell to. |
Where do startup founders go for health/dental coverage? | icey: Call a broker. They're in the yellow pages and will be happy to give you a quote with no obligations. If you tell them what your parameters are, they can probably find something for you. |
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