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How much do you exercise a day/week? | tsbardella: I bike to work. I ride my bike every weekend. I am thinking of running.. I lift wieghts 4 times a week |
Best User Registration & Password Management Package | wadew: Got something stub-in simple right now. Doing the leg work on the existing library frameworks... but it seems like this problem has been solved atleast 100,000 times already. |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | mahmud: Before you go public, or selling for that matter, make sure your startup is not your life's work. My first project was one I worked on since I was 16 and sold it when I was 24. Granted, it wasn't a startup but a software product, it was to me a combination of high school, college and graduate school. When I sold it and signed the ridiculous non-compete papers, I had NOTHING else to work on. Even the much taunted liberal arts PhDs get to keep their titles; I kept nothing. (sure, I was happy to sell it by then, because I was burned out, but it might have been better to delay the negotiations until I was in a better emotional and financial state and was optimistic about the future.)I know this is tangential to the topic at hand, but had to air my grievances to warn someone else who might be tying their startups with their personal identities. |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | medianama: WEB - not sure if its available |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | csomar: I prefer to use the first choice, (Google - GOOG) or (Microsoft - MSFT) as it's unique and represent my company |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | davidw: I don't care. I'll keep using Postgres whatever happens because it's the best thing out there as far as I'm concerned. |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | noodle: maybe not skyrocket, but it will definitely tip some scales into the postgres side. there's going to be some movement. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | vaksel: How did you find the broker? A website or some service?Anyways post up the info and I'll see if I can find him. There is pretty much 10 or so steps to go through to see if there is info about the guy online |
If your startup ever goes public, what stock symbol would you use? | cmars232: FSCK or ARGH would be funny symbols.Honestly, I wouldn't care much about what it was called at that point. My eyes would be big glazed-over dollar-signs. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | pierrefar: Not sure of the legalities, but hire a private investigator? It's kinda their thing... |
tracking a criminal down electronically | tsally: I helped a friend out with an issue like this recently. If you know his name, get a background check done on him. That should give you plenty to go off of. If you don't know his name, try figuring out which service provider his phone number is from. I assume the email has stripped out the IP address in the headers? If not, just plug that into one of the many databases available online.If all of that fails, try this. Set up a webserver for which you have complete logging. Then, send the guy an email from a different account with a link. If somehow you can get him to visit your webserver, you can log his IP address. This is completely legal and there's not even anything that underhanded about it. You just need to get him to visit a webpage on your server. The IP address will give you an ISP and a general location. Armed with this data, you should have no trouble.EDIT: For those that are suggesting he post the info, I strongly advise against it. Also, why would you track down someone when you don't even know the truthfulness of the original poster's story? I don't believe he's lying, but that doesn't mean I would get personally involved. There is a big difference between giving general advice and actually carrying out the action yourself. Further, HN doesn't need to follow the type of witchhunt behaviour that often happens on other sites like Reddit. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | dkokelley: What you would need to do is see who provided phone service to him and then get the information on address and billing through the provider (requires warrant). Also, did he use a public email (yahoo, gmail) or was it through a private site? You could try the whois to see who the host is and contact them too. I agree with pierrefar that the best course seems to be hiring a PI.Or...You could post what you know up here and round up an HN posse.Edit: That last line is sarcasm. Don't really do that. |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | icey: The clip art all over the site makes me feel like my email will get sold the second I register. |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | jpcx01: I'll switch. I use mysql only by convenience. Postgres seems better anyways. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | tptacek: I've been involved in criminal cases that had less to go on than a phone number (try IRC /whois and finger) and seen that lead to an indictment within weeks. Why aren't the cops working with the phone number you gave them? Which "authorities" did you contact? |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | hwijaya: My opinion.
1. Most professional investors are overwhelmed by proposals. Not lack of it.
2. Even on seed level, i'm not sure if i want to invest in a company through social network. I would prefer something more personal if i want to pick a company. And, referral often is the key to that. If you can't connect yourself up to the investors, i would say, you haven't tried hard enough.
3. As an entrepreneur, i don't think i feel comfortable to expose everything that i have in the arsenal to the social network (especially strategy etc). It's one thing to be paranoid, it's another to be totally open-source! But, if you don't do that, how can investors pick you over the other through that massive companies in the social-networks?It's still a nice try though. Would like to see how it goes. |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | evgen: Those who already use Postgres are not going to switch to MySQL based on this. MySQL users who can see themselves hitting a substantial size (e.g. those who fear they may be herded in the direction of "upgrade to Oracle to get that particular feature you think MySQL lacks") will probably start giving Postgres a hard look. The website-in-a-box users are unlikely to even know that Oracle will own MySQL and are not going to change.The big question is how big is that middle category. I don't think it is particularly large now, but this is the time for the Postgres community to start getting aggressive in putting together new features, lowering the initial learning curve, and evangelizing their product. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | silencio: I'm not quite sure which part or to what extent "rogue" applies to, but if the guy is a licensed broker/agent, you can go after him via the state or local licensing people - i.e. in California, you could file complaints with the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Real Estate and the National Association of Realtors (if applicable), et cetera. |
Now that Oracle owns Sun, do you think Postgres will take off | lsc: I think the installed userbase will be slow to move. In fact, this might strengthen Mysql's position amongst the larger, less technical users, however, I find it quite likely that we may see more activity either in the MySQL forks drizzle or maria, or in PostgreSQL, which may lead to MySQL eventually losing its lead. |
Movement to get regulators to force Oracle to spin off / sell MySQL? | spooneybarger: When the code is open and anyone can forkm what does divest even mean? Anyone can pick up MySQL and carry on like drizzle et al have already started to do while Sun was/is the owner. |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | viggity: buy nicer stock photography |
tracking a criminal down electronically | mojonixon: 1. real estate brokers are typically state licensed. State licensing boards often have online databases with good contact info.
2. he probably owns real estate. if you can narrow it down to a county, check that county's property records (also often on the net). Nexis/Lexis or Westlaw also has decent nationwide searches.
3. some counties also keep records on personal property, i.e. cars. he's probably run to a relative, is his car in their driveway?
4. +1 to the previous recommendation to send him an email containing a link, to get his IP.
5. zabasearch for established addresses (does he have a second home? relatives?)Frankly, this type of thing is a lot harder than it seems. Although, law enforcement should be able to run his social security and credit card numbers to find him. Once he settles somewhere and his new info has time to get into the "system" it will be easier for you to find him. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | brk: My guess is that it has not gotten a lot of traction because it appears to be completely vaporware, and it's hard to get excited about something that doesn't exist, and does not seem to be on a path to completion.The Internet, and the VC startup world, is littered with fancy product illustrations, mocked-up demos, and empty press releases. What makes this one worthy of a fan-club above all the others? |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | webwright: This is one of those ideas that sounds wonderful, just like the touchscreen of the iPhone sounded wonderful... But people are rightly skeptical of things that claim to be game-changing which haven't launched.The instant this exists and a reporter slips it on and can "type" 70 WPM with minimal errors (with no learning curve) is the PR shoots straight up.Until it's changed the life of a single user, it's science fiction. I'll cheer 'em on in the meantime (just like I'll cheer for TechCrunch's 'CrunchPad'), but I'd go hoarse if I evangalized every game-changing product that hasn't been built yet.(Flying car? Jet Pack?) |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | Alex3917: Advice: Make it do one thing well before you ad a job search and all this other stuff.I don't think I'd use this for a serious business, but I might use it if I needed 10,000 for some little project. |
tracking a criminal down electronically | chris11: You seem to have gotten a lot of good suggestions. It sounds like the easiest is to get the police to subpoena the phone company or the email provider. It seems like the police are working on that.If they won't do that, do it yourself. The easy way is to just do a reverse phone number look up. I found a site that will do single lookup for around $15. It may not be accurate, but that is relatively inexpensive. But I don't see why the police would not have already done this if possible.Address lookup: http://www.numberinvestigator.com/Otherwise, you will probably need a court order, but I don't believe that should be too hard to get.It sounds like the amount might be small enough to be handled by small claims court. So just file a case yourself. I don't think he actually needs to get served, you just have to make a reasonable effort. Since you can't get his address, I'd hire a process server, or just try to contact him through all means possible.. If the judge won't accept your efforts to serve him, I think you could reasonably subpoena the phone company for his address. If he doesn't show up, you will easily win, and I am sure you can obtain his address through a court order for collection purposes.Of course I am not a lawyer, so I might be totally wrong in what I suggest.How to file a case in small claims:http://consumerist.com/consumer/small-claims-court/how-to-ta... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | domdelimar: We all know this isn't the first nor the last thing that come before its time. But even in this case I think all that is needed is a single person with enough will and dedication to shake things up and at least move them in the right direction. If that isn't you, and it certainly isn't me ;) (don't get me wrong, I like the concept but I'm not really interested in using it... much less in bringing it to masses), the world will just have to wait for someone who is. Given that this product has the future. And I'd merely wish I could try it out to see how good I'd be typing in midair :) - honestly. My main problem with this thing is that I believe not many people would be able to use it easily... |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | noonespecial: I'm just tired of seeing what seems to be first class ideas like this sidelined while streams of clone digital cameras, media players, GPS receivers, cellphones and so on pour into the market as if the world wont be satisfied until there's ten models for every human - and that needs to happen yesterday!)It always seems that what could be built and hasn't been is so much better than what can be built and is. This is how technology matures. The market explores the new space with tons of releases with tons of features. Eventually, the best features are evolved and incorporated into all models via consumer selection. Sometimes this takes "ten models for every human" before we come up with the one model for every human.The thing I've found about most of these sound-bite vaporware products that are going to "change the world when its released", is that most suffer from the 95% problem. The idea 95% works. But the 5% that doesn't makes it unusable.In this example, perhaps it works just like a keyboard! The only thing we haven't been able to solve yet is that it confuses j and n 25% of the time. So its useless.Many products get into the 95% phase, generate all of their buzz, tout their impending, world changing release, and then flame out struggling for that last 5%. To make matters worse, their investors then sell the leftover company for pennies to patent trolls who ensure that its not worth it for anyone else to solve that last 5% either. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | kqr2: If you are going to carry around a pocket projector, why not use the bluetooth laser virtual keyboard. And best of all, it's not vaporware.http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/keyboards-mice/8193/ |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | lionheart: My biggest question is: does this work? Or are we sure it can be made to work?It seems to me that interpreting your keystrokes from tendon movements would be hard.But if this can be done, I would buy one immediately. |
Thoughts on 40Billion.com | hedgehog: Check out Angelsoft and Kiva and figure out how you differentiate yourself from them. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | ashleyw: When you create a patent, are you obligated to follow through with the creation of the product/idea to keep the rights to it, and if so, do you have a limit?Or can the creator of this idea just wait for somebody else to create it, and then sue for patent infringement? (if he has a patent, that is) |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | anigbrowl: There are similar devices and ideas, aggregated here: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6670894.htmlPersonally, I don't see much hope for something that requires you to maintain a mental picture of a qwerty keyboard while you type. I do about 85 wpm with 10 fingers but when I try to type on the surface of my desk I just get lost, even looking right at my keyboard 3 inches away from my fingers. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | resdirector: Maybe spruce up your pitch? I skim read this Ask HN and went on to the next article. Everything's a pitch in startup. Even this Ask HN. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | jerf: I see two basic possibilities: One, it ran out of money before it could launch, or two, it doesn't actually work.I would put relative probabilities of those two as somewhere around 1:9.I look at this thing as an engineer and I see a signal processing problem that means it's probably pretty easy to build something that's right about 70% of the time, and with great effort you could get to 85%... but that's terrible for an input device. Maybe I'm wrong. But I also know for a fact I've encountered tons of people who have faced other problems like this, and in their boundless optimism are sure that the last few percent are just a matter of trying harder, and some of them go on to blow millions on "trying harder" on what is fundamentally impossible. The truth is, electronics really don't care how optimistic you are.Most of the 'first class' ideas you think are being overlooked are actually the second case. 3D interfaces, a whole whackload of input devices (including the fun case of exotic video game console interfaces), energy sources, new circuit types that are going to blow silicon out of the water, and the list just goes on and on. Most of them just plain don't work like the advocates said they would.Some of the advocates are honestly wrong. Some... are not.Just about the only thing that factors in this thing's favor is that exotic input interfaces have historically faced a very steep uphill battle. Dvorak and other alternate keyboard layouts have gotten very little traction, and that involves no extra hardware at all. I've used a couple of exotic input devices or methods that work perfectly fine but stand no chance of general acceptance because people have no interest in learning how to use them.(I would point out that I've left open the possibility that it does work. But I'd want to see a lot of evidence not coming directly from the company. Everybody always claims awesomeness.) |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | jmatt: This is interesting. It's definitely a different take than the laser virtual keyboard or the Wii Remote. What sort of advantages does this have over hacking a Wii Remote? Is it more portable? Is it more sensitive? Arguably it's design would work better in a mobile environment. When I look at recent innovations in this sector (gestures/gyroscopes) I think the Wii is the product that's made the biggest impact on the industry and the first to (at least widely) release a product that does as advertised.See http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/ |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | david927: The frustration is understandable. It's partly the problem of gate keepers. Something like 20 publishers turned down J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book. The people making the decisions on what to fund can be woefully out of touch. What makes me sad is that they often don't try. I'm sick of seeing silly Web 2.0 startups. At first I thought they were getting funding because no one is working on hard problems -- but no. There are a lot of startups taking on tough, game-changing problems; there's just not a lot of funding for them. That makes me sick.As for the device you mention as an example -- it would be much more amazing and powerful if you could move it down to your wrist, so that they look like wrist bands then combined it with an earbud microphone/speaker. If the electronics were in the wrist bands, the cellphone as a separate device could go away for a lot of people. I would definitely buy that. |
Career path for developers | cmars232: Find some big technical problem to solve that's bigger than yourself, and get people involved. It'll all flow from there. |
A languishing startup with a great product - thoughts? | cmos: If it got the 'best product of 2001' at CES that pretty much guarantees it's 100% vapor.Awards like that are a scam.. it's all about who you know + how much bs they are willing to absorb. Since that time most high end trade shows require the product to be shipping before getting an award, brought about because of absurd products winning that never had a chance of seeing the light of day.Even if the technology existed, and it was ivory soap accurate, no one would use it. Those things you put on your hands just look lame, like you need hand braces or something. I'd rather learn morse code and just tap my finger... |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | anigbrowl: I don't have direct experience, but on the purely practical level:a. you could do worse than learn to use sketchup. I can't tell from your description how complex or mechanical your 'thing' is. If it's beyond your capabilities, advertise for someone to do it, but have them sign a 'work for hire' agreement which includes a rigid confidentiality clause.b. it's hard to say because I can't tell whether it's a widget (handy-shaped thing) or a gadget (handy single-function machine). If the former, look into Rapid prototyping and/or 3d printing. If the latter, research similar products, find out what class they are described as, then investigate manufacturers in China.** Who will probably ignore your confidentiality clause, foolish roundeye.I'm sorry this is so hand-waving, but I honestly don't know whether you're making a plastic resistor drawer or a self-regulating soldering iron.It might be worth advertising for an electronic engineer to do some consulting, executing the above-mentioned work-for-hire agreement, and asking them to evaluate the functionality of your prototype. Best of luck. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | rgrieselhuber: 0. Figure out if your market is B2B, B2C, etc.1. Find a way to talk to your prospective customers according to their channels. Sometimes this is easier in B2B.2. Talk to them about your ideas (ideally with some mockups) and see if it's something they are interested in.3. If so, do whatever it takes to get money in exchange for something that you can build as quickly as possible.4. Iterate based on their / market's feedback.5. Worry about patents, etc. once you have an idea that you
can actually make money with.Edit: this is my approach, anyway. FWIW. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | thomanil: You forgot to mention one early step:Research market/niche viability. Are there enough likely customers out there for what you want to build and sell?It's a good idea to do this up-front before sinking hundreds of hours into a project, only to find that A: Few want it or (more infuriatingly) B: Many want it, but in a different form. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | Todd: You should check out contract manufacturing. Many of these types of small jobs can be handled by a CM in China. The problem with any physical device is cost--cost in materials, machining, tool building, assembly, etc. This means you'll probably need to get some form of financing. You may be able to do a small run for not too much (10's of $k), depending on the device. This is why I always opt for bits over atoms these days. |
Mammoth Hacking - just do it? | hendler: Via http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/waking-the-bab... |
No more Facebook Apps or Consumer internet | anigbrowl: Twitter seems to me to have much more in common with IRC than Facebook or Myspace; the primary difference is the persistence of identity across the system. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | trapper: 0. Hack together a prototype.1. Go get some users for which your device stops pain. Get them to sign NDA's if necessary, and pay them a small stipend for their time.2. See if your design really works. You can tell this if they do not want to give the device back.3. Iterate.Once you have something that is really valuable then get the patent. We made the mistake of getting designs done way too early and it cost us heaps in terms of ability to iterate and money.Customers don't care what it looks like as long as it works. We had the most "customer success" with a grey $2 box when prototyping. Iterate early. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | braindead_in: For the drawings, its best to contract it out to a Industrial Designer/Mechanical Designer. Find a freelancer if you can or search through LinkedIn to find a good reference.For production run the best bet is get the PCB's made, source the components yourself (try DigiKey) and then hand assemble and package them yourself or with your friends. There are some services provide PCB's in small quantity. I dont have the link handy but you should be able to Google it.There are some electronic enthusiasts forums too where you can find some help. |
No more Facebook Apps or Consumer internet | sgrove: "The first two generation still have to make enough company to be called interesting."I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "make enough company", but a quick google search shows MySpace pulled in revenue of $800 million, with $10 million in profit. Facebook came in somewhere around ~$250 million (admittedly not profitable yet, but that's high revenue. Only a matter of time).That's pretty damned interesting.Somebody is willing to pay for services these companies provide; they must not be all hype. Twitter will likely find a revenue model as well (not as high as the other two, I would suspect, but still).I'm sorry if it seems harsh, but these companies have had copious amounts of sweat and blood poured into them, and have grown into huge revenue generating machines. Calling them pure hype seems shockingly cavalier. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | hop: I can help.Depends on your project, but designing a couple iterations in 3D CAD is usually the first step. Life like renderings, stress testing can be performed on the models.Prototypes can then be made directly from that via 3D printing, CNC machining, low run injection molding, laser cut sheet metal, etc...Do a few iterations until you get a something functional, attractive and can be manufactured for a little as possible.Then source a manufacturer either local or abroad - whatever is most cost effective.In my experience, patents are a waste of time unless its absolutely necessary. Get it to market as fast as possible because there are 100 other people thinking the same thing and 5 may have the means to do it.You can contact me here: casey (at) elevationlab.comGood luck!-Casey
http://www.elevationlab.com/ |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | flavio87: -2. buy google adwords for the benefit / pain your product is alleviating.
1. measure searches/clicks to see if it's worth building a product.
0. all the steps above |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | mingyeow: 1) can you not do any hardware yourself, and choose to license it to someone else?
2) if you must do hardware yourself, can you have anyway of scoping product, doing google adwords, anything to assess demand and product fit?The hardware business is BRUTAL. It is going to be exceedingly tough to get financing for your project, given high capital requirements and low profit margins. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | davidw: This book has some good advice:http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/1/how-to-bring-a-prod...As I said in the comment though, the summary isn't great because the book is not a hand-wavy business book, but has a fair amount of advice. Worth a look at the library to see if you like it. |
No more Facebook Apps or Consumer internet | octane: MySpace has been around for about 10 years, and make large profits consistently.Quite honestly I'm not sure they belong in the same discussion as facebook and twitter. |
Mammoth Hacking - just do it? | stavrianos: Mammoth might be delicious. How can we know unless we try? |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | noodle: innovative.i'd brush up the design usability. you're on the right track, but i'd avoid the float right/left on the form labels/inputs respectively on a flexible layout, because it makes it harder on the eyes.also, perhaps set a cookie or something to allow someone to possibly go back to their last created dropbox from the main page. would be more convenient for the people who lose their urls. and/or an option to enter their email address and have the urls emailed to them, and maybe new comments. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | tsally: Decrease the size of everything. Or if you're set on the size, at least increase the contrast. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | marc28443: I like the concept.. suggestions:- the URL of the dropbox and the admin page should be human-readable- some way to find my dropbox if I have lost the URL (see suggestions by noodle)- some way to integrate it as a widget in my own site |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | nir: I like it a lot, quick and simple. I've been looking for something like this for gathering quick feedback on small sites, instead of forcing users to go through the whole getsatisfaction & co process.If you'd add some JS snippet for including it on a web page (popup etc), it would be very helpful. Also, email integration (both for mailing the admin URL so the user won't lose it and for sending user feedback) would be great. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | endtwist: I like the simplicity of the concept, however, it would be very helpful to provide a Javascript widget (a la UserVoice). As well, having the ability for the user to choose (or change) the given URL to be more readable would be a plus. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | staunch: Show me the user agent and IP address of the user. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | hellweaver666: I like the idea, it's like uservoice, getsatisfaction etc only really really simple.My only complaint is the fact you've called it 'dropbox' most people associate that word with a file storage/sharing device (such as getdropbox.com or the OSX dropbox).Perhaps 'comment box' would be more appropriate?Also, you may want to add some flood control - I was able to bombard my test account with all manner of crap ;) |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | dan_sim: I really like the design and the logo. Are you a designer? Did you find someone else to work on that? (I'm interested because I'm looking for a way to have a good looking design) |
What would you want to see in a new programming language? | bcheung: Good documentation. There are a lot of really great new languages out there. Clojure is probably one of my favorites but it is very hard for the average developer to put the time in to read source code to figure out how things work. PHP has excellent documentation despite lack a lot in features and I think this has been a large part of its success. |
I want to build/sell a product. Steps? | HeyLaughingBoy: Go straight from 0 -> 4. Get feedback before spending more money. If you can't find customers with just your prototype, you either won't be able to sell it later, or maybe just no-one wants it.I've found that most of my product ideas fail in the "marketing" step (which you omitted): either I can't clearly identify the customers, or the cost/difficulty in reaching them is prohibitive. In either case, it's a fail. |
How much do you exercise a day/week? | jamesbritt: I've been trying to make a point of walking every day, though it works out more to every 2nd or 3rd day.I used to listen to music, but found it too easy/tempting to skip around to find a better piece, and my mind kept focusing on all sorts of "must do" shit that made me want to go back in and work.So I started listening to audio books. It makes up for the reading I used to do when I lived in NYC and traveled on buses and trains (now it's walk or drive, so less reading :( )I prefer short stories; more immediate sense of satisfaction and completion, and greater variety. Right now I'm going through Tobias Wolff's Our Story Begins. Great stuff, and I find that I make myself walk longer if I think I can get to the end of the current story. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | vorador: Could you replace your image buttons by text buttons (or at least better image buttons). The buttons I see on my 15-inch monitor running ff3/ubuntu are really ugly) |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | stuff4ben: If anything, exposing your business plan will allow others to give you feedback on it. You'll get to hear wonderful things like "your plan sucks, you need to x and y or you'll never succeed, etc...". Hope you have a tough skin and can take criticism.Seriously though, unless it is a really innovative idea that will revolutionize the world, then it's probably best to let others in on it. Who knows, maybe you'll get some positive feedback too. It may also prevent you from wasting time on something that won't work or just isn't feasible or may have already been done exactly how you want to do it. |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | vaksel: Don't worry about it. Most #s in the business plan are usually made up so noone really takes them that seriously.The business plan is mostly there for you, to think through things |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | mjfern: Many entrepreneurs have a fear of sharing their new venture ideas with others and I think this is a big mistake. First, it's very unlikely that someone will take your idea and implement. Other people rarely share the same passion for the idea as the originator of the idea. Second, even if someone does take the idea and runs with it (which is very unlikely) they will implement the concept in a fundamentally different way, given all the changes that usually take place from formulating a venture idea to commercializing. Third, the more people you share the venture idea with (a) the more constructive feedback you will get to make improvements to your idea, (b) the more you can practice and tweak your pitch, (c) the greater chance you will find great people to work with, etc.In short, I suggest sharing your venture idea with as many people as possible. Build a quick prototype and get it into the hands of users for user feedback. If you do have a secret sauce, which affords you a competitive advantage (e.g., Google's PageRank algorithm before it was patented), then you might want to keep this small piece of the plan secret until you can erect other barriers to imitation.Good luck with your venture! |
Good outsourced XHTML/CSS development companies? | tony584: yeah i've used Atlas Software before ... http://www.atlassoft.com they are pretty good - and they have an office in Chicago so you don't have to deal directly with the outsourced team - give them a call at 312.419.1945 |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | zackattack: What does MVP stand for? |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | wooster: Good idea. It would be nice to have a JS widget ala Get Satisfaction that could be used to provide feedback without leaving a site. |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | webwright: If I described Google to you before they launched, could you have built it? Would you have? How about Digg? The iPhone? WordPress? Facebook? Amazon? Name 10 amazing startups and try to imagine how it could have hurt them if their biz plans were public.Almost anyone who could possibly be a threat to you if they had your idea ALREADY HAS THEIR OWN IDEAS. Even if they don't, presumably you have dozens of competitors-- 1 or 2 more isn't going to change your shot at success. If you don't think you have ANY competitors, you are either stupid about your market or you truly have an invention on your hands and you should keep quiet.Talking about your idea a LOT will make you smarter about your market and increase you shot at success. Do it, and do it a lot. |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | medianama: I don't think you should participate in a business plan contest if you are really serious about that start up.The whole process is a distraction and doesn't bring any value. The downside is that you'll waste a lot of time filling templates and doing stuff that doesn't matter at this stage. You may also get demoralized if jury/public doesn't get it and thinks its trash. For all you know, they might not be the segment you plan to target..If you are serious - Move forward and build the product and show it to real customers that you plan to target. That's probably the only way to know if it'll work or not. |
Releasing your business plan into the public? | mixmax: Let me tell you an interesting true story.Last weekend I was at a friends place, and there were a few people there. One of them asked me what I did, and I told him about an idea I had for a new way of doing business online. It's pretty revolutionary, I've thought long and hard about it for a long time, and it can probably be easily copied by someone else. I told him about it anyway. Pretty detailed too.It just happened that he was finishing up a PHD thesis on a subject very close to what I was thinking about, and we started talking. This conversation gave me some great insights I didn't have before, access to his large network, a serious ambassador and maybe a friend.Will he steal the idea? I don't think so. Empirically it is very very rare. Did I gain something from it? Absolutely.Answer enough? |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | utsmokingaces: You did a good job communicating what this app does.
Add to the front page, "Why do people need this?" |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | icey: I'm using a wildcard ssl cert from them on some of our sites now. It works fine. Their logos are ridiculous, so we don't use those.They are so cheap because GoDaddy does everything with a metric fuckton of volume. |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | quoderat: I've used them with no problems. Generating a certificate isn't very expensive, really, and I am surprised the prices didn't come down sooner than they actually did.It's about time, though. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | anc2020: Common Lisp changed the way I program because the macros open your eyes to a whole lot of code duplication that you can't avoid in other languages - this encouraged me to really work at those bits of code until they actually contain the bare minimum of boilerplate code possible.Haskell changed the way I program because laziness can allow you to express your code in much clearer and simpler ways - this encouraged me to use more memoization.Functional programming is definitely where we want to be in theory, so if practice permits, use it! |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | grandalf: Here's how I think it works:Cert issuing companies are in business because they somehow got Firefox, IE, Opera, etc., to include their authority certificate by default in the browser.You could start your own competing service but you'd somehow have to overcome that obstacle.Second, many of those companies offer "business validation" services. This is the more expensive cert, maybe $400 or more. They make sure you have a D&B number, and ideally do a bit of auditing to be sure that you are legit.So if you are one of those companies and you can make money just for selling a cert, and without having to do any sort of audit, why wouldn't you? With such a basic cert you are mostly just allowing users to have ssl transport without an annoying browser message. That is worth something.There are even cheaper ones that use a second cert which I think is just a basic part of SSL. You could buy a cert and then issue certs, and as long as the web server includes the full chain, it should be OK. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | thomanil: Check out the book 'The Little Schemer'. Good way to ease your mind into functional programming.Also consider learning a dynamic 'scripting' language like Ruby or Python. They have some functional aspects, and will teach you programming style and idioms that you probably haven't picked up from Java and C. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | FalconNL: I can't comment on Lisp, but I've been working with Haskell for about a year or so now, so I'll cover that instead.My personal history goes something like QBasic -> Visual Basic -> PHP -> Java -> C# -> Haskell.Since Haskell is a purely functional language there's no cheating like you could in, say, OCaml. This forces you to learn how to work with immutability, which I have become a big fan of. When working with C# I try to avoid mutability as much as possible (naturally this is quite a bit uglier than in Haskell, but it does avoid some problems). Most of my C# projects now acquire a Haskell.cs file fairly quickly, containing things like a Tuple class, zip, >>=, etc.In the time I've spent learning it, Haskell has quickly become my favourite language. It's not perfect (my current main wishes are existential types and an extensible record system), but it is considerably less painful than the other languages I know.As for speeding up the transition, I can't offer anything other than just diving in. At some point it will just click and you will wonder what all the commotion is about (another monad tutorial? why?). Granted, I still don't have the slightest idea about why I would want to use a hylomorphism or what to do with a comonad, but perhaps I will some day. Fortunately you don't need them in everyday Haskell programming :) |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | hs: in pcl ch3, the author demonstrates using cl instead of sql for databaseafaik hn doesn't use sql/rdbms either, i guess it's because threaded forum is better suited using a tree-like data structure instead of simple tablei stopped using sql (after reading pcl and seeing the fact of hn) and just having a lisp process running, writing to disk every 5 minsi'm now experimenting with nginx's proxy_pass and upstream to many lisp unix sockets (weighted round robin)virgin territory for me, it's quite fun so far ... foolish and hungry :D |
hiring coders from developing countries | bgnm2000: I've outsourced to programmers from india, egypt, pakistan, ukraine, and right now I'm working with a Romanian. Its a great experience, the one thing I would consider to be the most important is to ensure their communication skills are good, and also, that they have a good rating/reputation.I use scriptlance.com to find programmers. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | asciilifeform: >the 10 year (or 10,000 hours) road to expertiseWhy is this figure being bandied about as though it were an actual scientific fact? |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | DougWebb: I also recommend "Javascript: The Good Parts". It and the jQuery library can teach you a lot about how Javascript is really a functional language with more in common with Lisp than with C++ or Java.A second excellent book is "Higher Order Perl", which shows how Perl, also, shares a lot more in common with Lisp than most developers realize. I'm on my 13th year as a professional developer and 27th as a hacker, and I still find some of the concepts in HoP challenging.I would also recommend learning XSLT. It's pure declarative, side-effect-free programming. If you're used to procedural code (including OOP), or even functional code, you'll still have to reattach your head sideways to learn to use XSLT effectively. It's well worth the challenge; there are problems that would be very difficult to handle in other languages which XSLT handles with ease; it's a powerful tool for your toolchest. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | Xichekolas: I found SICP was better for learning to "think functionally". PCL and On Lisp were both great in their own right, but idiomatic CL isn't as strictly functional as idiomatic Scheme tends to be (and neither enforces it like Haskell and Erlang do).As for improving my skills, that's an unequivocal yes. I think the biggest eureka moment came when I understood the idea of first class functions. That opened many doors to better code.Before, I used functions primarily like a writer uses paragraphs: to break up the narrative into chunks. After SICP, I saw functions more like (for lack of a better term) filters. They transform their input into output. The transformation is well defined, and the natural boundaries between functions become clear rather than arbitrary. |
hiring coders from developing countries | russell: If you are not an experienced developer yourself, I recommend against it. It is too easy to get dragged down by someone who is not good. Just like here, some are very good and a lot more are terrible. I have worked with programmers from the Ukraine, India, and China. The Ukrainians were the best and the Chinese the worst. The Ukrainians had the best education, practices, and experience. All were employees of moderately large companies. Even so when I asked a colleague about hiring Ukrainians he said use an intermediary you trust. |
Please review my MVP - Instant Drop Box | mdonahoe: How are you protecting against spam? How do any of these no-signup services protect against spam without resorting to captchas? |
At Google, are you able to read every online scientific journal for free? | Travis: I suspect the paywall protected articles that Google runs across aren't protected by IP address, but by User-Agent string. I've seen a few hacks for this (look at the NYT User Agent hack), and the FF plugin that allows you to alter your UA string indicates this similarly.Put another way, I don't know if Google necessarily has registered all of its crawling IP addresses. Sure, you could do a reverse IP lookup -- but you'd have to do that on every request, which can get expensive.No, the cheap-easy route is probably something as mundane as UA string. |
How are GoDaddy SSL certificate's so cheap? | Travis: Second the posts here. It's computationally cheap to issue a certificate. Godaddy figured, hey, why not try to take some business away from the other players? Minimal cost to them, once they got the issuing authority credentials from FF/IE/Safari/etc. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | tydok: ""I started "thinking in sets" and found that I was much more effective.""Actually that is the power of Lisp. In Lisp, batch or stream data processing is not only straightforward, but the way to think and program. |
Cost of 1 Person LLC | icey: I don't know that it's necessarily easier to form an LLC in Delaware than anywhere else. Companies usually prefer to incorporate in Delaware because it has the longest history of corporate law, so that more precedents have been set than in other states. By forming an LLC, it kind of removes the benefit of having that long history of precedence since LLCs are relatively new.As always, this is where getting a professional involved is worthwhile. A lawyer or accountant who specializes in this sort of work can tell you what the various legal liabilities you'll have to deal with in each state are, as well as how your choices impact your tax liabilities.[Edit: This previously had a sentence about code formatting in the submission; the formatting has since been fixed.] |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | marcusbooster: I got into Lisp through Emacs, but more recently I've been understanding it using Clojure.For me, I need to be able to create something tangible. Having access to all the Java libraries gives me a lot of cool things to import, then play around with in functional ways. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | iamelgringo: It sounds like you are trying to do two separate things: 1. Learn Lisp, and 2. create a web app startup.Both are very worthy goals, but I don't know if using Lisp, Haskell or erlang to write a web app is really a great idea right now. (Sorry PG). I think that is was true that writing web apps in Lisp probably gave you a huge leg up against the competitors in the mid 90's. I don't really know if that's the case now.Languages like Python and Ruby have tons of libraries, frameworks and documentation that really help you get productive making web apps. That's a huge plus in my book.Then again, maybe you're interested in rolling your own libraries and framework ala arc. If that's your thing go for it. I'm sure you'll learn a lot along the way. |
At Google, are you able to read every online scientific journal for free? | ivank: This practice is explicitly allowed. Google wants paywall-protected content to be "discoverable". |
Cost of 1 Person LLC | gojomo: The case for Delaware isn't costs so much as corporate law, if professional investment or mergers/acquisitions are expected later. I doubt those are relevant for your one-person LLC.By operating in California you'll essentially still owe the same franchise and other taxes, so you might as well form in California.If you're interested enough in having an LLC to ask the question, perhaps you want to get a reference guide, like perhaps one of the Nolo Press guides. One example (they have a few):http://www.nolo.com/product.cfm/ObjectID/15B382A6-2013-4BD0-...And remember, legal advice you get for free in discussion threads is worth no more, and possibly less, than what you paid for it. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | silentbicycle: For Lisp, I found using Scheme and reading The Little Schemer and SICP more helpful than PCL. I've also been using and heavily customizing Emacs, but Emacs Lisp is kind of a crappy Lisp, and keeping track of its idiosyncrasies while also learning Scheme or Common Lisp's will probably be really confusing initially. Scheme is also a lot more my style than CL, though. YMMV.I also found learning OCaml to be a real eye-opener, both for learning FP techniques (it emphasizes a different set of them than Lisp) and how to work with, rather than against, static typing. (_The Little MLer_ helped, as well, and is at least as good for learning types as _The Little Schemer_ is for recursion, IMHO. Highly recommended.)There's not a whole lot of material published in English on OCaml (the Joshua Smith book is terrible!), but there's a translation of a French O'Reilly book online (http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/), and it's quite good for learning the main ideas. The first few chapters are on functional programming, imperative programming, and then their relative strengths & when to use each. (Their emphasis on using FP when appropriate, rather than treating it as the new best thing ever, suggests more insight to me than the blind enthusiasm for languages that tends to cycle through here and reddit.)Also: OCaml is not without its flaws. In particular, its errors can be cryptic, and it's standard library has some infuriating omissions. The language is fantastic for some kinds of problems (ML's forte is anything involving complex data structures), though, and it's a great way to learn some very useful techniques. |
Could you limit all or most emails to five sentences? | tvon: Most business emails I receive are under five sentences, easy (and by 'most' I mean 'probably 95%'). People generally don't like typing, so the ones that are long are usually long for a reason.I also don't see screen size being an issue, at least I read a lot of multi-page content with the iPhone and it hasn't bothered me at all.Besides, what you propose would discourage inline responses (you know, when someone asks a few questions, you respond in context, under the question), and I for one think not enough people respond inline when it's appropriate. |
Programming language power and 10 years to mastery | triplefox: To answer in sort of a roundabout way, I think the problem domain matters a lot for how much you relatively learn when switching languages.With web app backends, for example, most of the problems somehow relate to difficulty maintaining state over widespread, always-on networked systems - things like authentication, sessions, concurrency, large-scale, flexible datastores. So the systems architected gradually get more and more tuned towards serving this particular goal with little programmer effort. And because those problems are a good match to functional programming - because it eliminates state - functional has become popular.But if you were building an embedded system, statefulness is less of a problem: there's usually only one thread, and all memory can be mapped in an orderly way. Your performance constraints are reliant on a single fixed platform, so the methods of inspecting and debugging code change.So to get back to the original question, think about reframing your familiar problems in a way that would simplify the solution with a functional technique. Preferably, look for simplifications that are really big changes and throw out traditional assumptions - the use of relational databases in webapps is one common target for this. Even if you get it wrong you'll get a better understanding of where the functional solution can and can't work. |
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