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Why are hiding WMs standard, and not tiling?(ie. ubuntu vs. xmonad) | nathanb: Probably because Apple made theirs hiding, Microsoft copied it, and the X Window System copied both. |
service to transform PSD files into clean HTML | varaon: Here's blog post that runs down about a dozen services:http://m.snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/html_css_services/ |
Where did the name Heroku come from? | orionheroku: The term is merger of "Hero" and "Haiku". The Japanese theme is a nod to Matz for creating Ruby. |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | tsally: Companies would rather not spend the money. It's as simple as that.Also, you might be interested in: http://bench.cr.yp.to/index.html |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | lucumo: I don't worry about CPU. What I do worry about is cost and most of all the amount of effort required to set it up. You'd have to get a key somewhere (figure out where you get one that is both supported by most important browsers and as cheap as possible), install it (probably an afternoon's worth of work, mostl... |
Review ContextSense - deduces context and sentiment for any URL/text | onewland: I think positive/negative is too shallow. I actually do enjoy this, but I think you need to rate sentiments on other vectors, so if I rate http://teddziuba.com/ I get something like:Anger: 25
Smugness: 50
Vulgarity: 15
Boredom: 5etc.I'm not even sure that's a good example or if it's clear, I just think positi... |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | trezor: For HTTPS you need a dedicated IP since security negotiation happens before the HTTP hosts header is posted and your cert needs to cover the host you want to connect to. That is, it is impossible to host several sites using HTTPS on one single IP. HTTPS using SSL (instead of for instance TLS) means that this is... |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | izak30: I don't support more HTTPS because of the cost of static IPs on EC2 (i.e. ~72/mo) |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | adamt: Why though - would anyone want to browser a site like news.ycombinator.com over SSL? The vast majority of web data is public data so encryption is of little value, and due to the way SSL works, then there's arguably little value in SSL for authentication (if someone can hack the site, they can generally apply/... |
How does Microsoft calculate commercial intent? | ankeshk: Would love to know what goes behind the scenes in calculating online commercial intent... |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | uptown: Can somebody lend some insight into how SSL certs function for international users? I've had no problems with the inexpensive SSL certificates with domestic (US) users, but I've had complaints of users accessing things from other countries. Do SSL certs not function the same globally? Is it common for the CA... |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | jhancock: For most startups, the performance hit is not a big deal. If your a serious startup, you need your own IP, so this shouldn't be a roadblock. Setup is not hard. If you can't setup an SSL cert, how are you going to manage the rest of your server concerns? Cost of the cert? This is a drop in the bucket comp... |
How does Microsoft calculate commercial intent? | javery: Did you read the study linked from that page?http://adlab.microsoft.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Algor... |
Why don't we see more HTTPS? Is CPU an issue? | scumola: Most larger companies have an "SSL Accelerator" which is usually part of a router/switch/load-balancer. This device does SSL in hardware, so it can do the offloading much faster and let the web servers and app servers worry about serving-up the app and doing that work. Most SSL Accelerators can do millions o... |
Review ContextSense - deduces context and sentiment for any URL/text | erikwiffin: Reading the other comments, it looks like your biggest problems are false positives. It might not be a bad idea to put together some kind of feedback mechanism - in the event that I disagree with the sentiment/tags/categories that I could provide better ones and you could eventually use that data to refine ... |
Do you think machine consciousness is possible? | pjw1187: I'm going into graduate school next year and I plan on pursuing this exact topic or something similar to it. I believe that consciousness can be achieved if in fact we can analytically explain what consciisouness is. |
Best Unix Tricks? | compling: Process Substitution in bashcomm <(sort file1) <(sort file2) (comm file1 and file2 without temp files) |
Audio books to listen to while working? | ScottWhigham: Hmmm - Brian Tracy is really good and, if you like his style, you might enjoy Anthony Robbins as well. Anthony Robbins isn't for "coders/entrepreneurs" specifically but the lessons/ideas are valuable to anyone IMO. |
iPhone copy/paste library for web? | ScottWhigham: Sorry to ask this but why? Copy/paste isn't so difficult that people need a new way to do it, do they? I mean - let's say that you write/use this great jQuery library and deploy it to your site. Now, everyone who uses your site has to unlearn how to copy/paste just for your site. Seems weird to me. |
Audio books to listen to while working? | jeffcoat: While coding? None.If you're doing something so mindless that you can follow an entirely different thread of plot or conversation while doing your best work, something's gone very wrong. At best, your talents are wasted on whatever you're working on. |
Audio books to listen to while working? | jacquesm: While coding ?? I have the room dark, the music off or set to something very quiet that I know well so it won't distract me, if possible the door locked, the phone switched off, the cat tied up in the hallway and everybody else in the house sedated.How on earth can you listen to an audiobook while coding ? Ar... |
Audio books to listen to while working? | cema: When you work on coding, do not listen to books; read! Read what you are writing. |
Is learning Scala/Clojure/Haskell a good career move? | tsally: As a general rule, if you're trying to build a career in industry, no. If you're trying to start your own company, use whatever blows your hair back. |
Audio books to listen to while working? | throw_away: I can barely listen to music with words while I code. |
Is learning Scala/Clojure/Haskell a good career move? | KirinDave: It is a good thing to diversify.(t) I learned Erlang and Lisp and literally carved out a part of Powerset that had a problem to solve. Now my Erlang code is part of bing.com, and our startup got bought and integrated into Microsoft.com.(t - 1) I decided to learn Ruby, and started to do a bit of open source w... |
Another twist on dating web sites? | byoung2: I've had lots of ideas for dating sites: setting up group outings like ad hoc speed dating, a rating mechanism for actual dates, a virtual currency system where you could "buy" access to deeper levels of people's profiles, and many more.The problem is always the chicken/egg question. How do I get a sizable me... |
How come Disqus goes down all the time? | simanyay: Growth pains. Last couple of days were especially difficult because we're in the process of upgrading our hardware and optimizing architecture. But everything is going to be much, much faster in a matter of days. |
Another twist on dating web sites? | ismarc: I had an idea at one point that the current sites go about it the wrong way. They charge money to talk to the people, encouraging the catalog effect. My idea was that you charge a reasonable fee to join, and then the system makes some guesses (not any of the "compatibility stuff", but provide a list of reason... |
How come Disqus goes down all the time? | danielha: The downtime issues Disqus has had in the last few days can be attributed to maintenance being done to the database. It's been an unfortunate combination of load and unexpected problems arising while upgrading our servers.Summed up it is growth pains, but fortunately pains that we know how to address immediat... |
Financial Forecast for Inventory Based Product | JacobAldridge: IANAA, but would suggest this depends on the purpose of the Financial Forecasting.If you're trying to run a cashflow projection, you probably need to record cogs in the month the cost is incurred.If you're trying to determine margins, it may be better to records cogs when they're actually sold - just be ... |
Is learning Scala/Clojure/Haskell a good career move? | astrec: There are a few great Java and C# programmers, quite a number who are good and a great majority who are mediocre or bad.In my experience, those who hack scala/clojure/lisp/ocaml/f#/haskell/lua etc. in their spare time trend towards the great/good end of the spectrum.To answer your question more directly: Yes. I... |
Financial Forecast for Inventory Based Product | yannis: Anything Financial can benefit from Pacioli's treatise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Pacioli) :)!If you modeling using a spreadsheet or by pulling records off a database or an old and ancient ledger the method is the same:- When you Purchase debit stock, credit Creditor
- When you Pay debit Creditor... |
How did you land your original contract jobs? | lucumo: A friend already worked there and wanted to work with me, so he recommended me when they were looking for people. |
Audio books to listen to while working? | mike463: listen in the car instead -- it's wonderful.I wouldn't recommend it while working on focused mental tasks.It would probably be ok if you work at a job where you don't use your brain much like a parking booth attendant, janitor or a manager. ;) |
How did you land your original contract jobs? | lionhearted: Under bid to someone you respect a lot, and make sure they know you're underbidding. Emphasize how much you'd like to work with them, and how much you think you're going to learn. Don't try to sell yourself - nobody cares. You're boring to to other people, no one cares about you. Instead, tell them about t... |
Is learning Scala/Clojure/Haskell a good career move? | jhancock: Scala may get more mainstream traction. Haskell is good to learn if your also great at maths and can swing a job in elite financial circles. Erlang is certainly catching on. Can't speak for Clojure.I learned Scala and erlang. Did a real world webapp with erlang 5 years ago before it was noticeably cool. ... |
Ask HN:Use the cloud? | jhancock: It probably comes down to how much money you have to buy servers (or rent ones) up front versus smaller cost increments for "utility" computing (can we stop calling this "cloud"? isn't everything in the cloud?). |
Power and Cooling Cost compared to Server Cost | lsc: I can't point you at a study, but I can tell you a bit about my costs.First, server cost varies wildly. seriously. I build something from parts, and I'll pay 1/3rd what dell charges, especially if you want more than 16GiB ram. Hell, even if you go with dell, often small, poor companies will pay 75% or less what ... |
How come Disqus goes down all the time? | chaosprophet: This is totally unrelated to this post, but I also found that accessing pages with disqus on greasemonkey enabled firefox caused firefox to crash. The last time I managed to reproduce this it was on Firefox 3.5.1. Then I moved to minefield and the problem did not occur. This also happens to be a one-off c... |
Ask HN:Use the cloud? | gizmo: 1. Don't do everything in Lisp. Go for Python. It's a decent language, and easy to pick up for your PHP colleagues.2. If you know your way around Linux, a few dedicated servers will be very powerful. Use Cloud as dumb storage for pictures and movies.3. Really, forget about Lisp. |
Ask HN:Use the cloud? | patkai: 1. Language / Framework
* your php programmers should use php: python is a great language but it takes time to learn it, plus a new framework, and to get efficient and stable takes even more. also, php is not a bad language and zend is not a bad framework. it's neither pretty nor cool or exciting but it works, ... |
How did you land your original contract jobs? | steverb: Friends.Most of my first contracts happened because of other developers I know recommending me to someone.After that, the customers started recommending me to their friends.Hang in there, and make sure that everyone you know is aware that you are available. |
How did you land your original contract jobs? | plinkplonk: I spoke at an AI conference about a system I built. A CTO in the crowd sent me an email offering a contract a few days later. |
the overview of interesting hn posts by subject? | Steve0: Nobody? Too bad! |
Three years to startup | rewind: I don't have comments regarding the entire post, but I definitely have one regarding the size of the project: stick to something smaller that you can push out (at least in limited form) in your four-to-six-month timetable. If you choose something that will take you almost two years to launch but you can't commi... |
Three years to startup | skolor: Do you have both a 4-6 month idea and a 1-2 year idea? If you do, pick the one you are most passionate about. Keep in mind that 3 years is long time, its likely that whatever time table you start out with will be completely warped by the time you could commit full time to it. |
Three years to startup | edw519: My business knowledge is slightly above knowing the differences between an LLC and an S Corp, but below having created one or knowing what to do with it if I did. I've been slowly becoming fluent in business lingo, but usually if I have a choice between hacking and reading about business structures I choose the... |
Three years to startup | petervandijck: Ok:
1. How can you know that you still want to do this same startup in 3 years? You might get married. Get a kid. Get a great job. Loose your legs. Google might have launched your idea and killed your chances. Just saying.
2. A project that takes 2 years to launch is a recipe for failure. Really. A start... |
Three years to startup | noodle: simple: your gameplan is to sit down and start working. push to get the minimum viable product - the minimum product that will bring in users/feedback/revenue. plan your initial timelines around this instead of the time you need to do everything you want.learn more about the things you need to know when they... |
Three years to startup | jeromec: As others have mentioned 3 years is a long time, especially in web technology. You say you can't commit full-time for 3 years, but what happens if you launch the 4-6 month one and it takes off (but is not profitable) and demands your time? I don't know if your other obligations can be set aside. The 18-24 mont... |
Three years to startup | vijayr: Am I better off working on a a project that takes 4-6 month to build and launch or one that takes 18-24 months?Why not have both? What I mean is, take a big project, break it into smaller pieces of 3 months each (features 1-10 in first iteration, 11-20 in the second and so on). Since you'll be releasing early,... |
Three years to startup | MicahWedemeyer: I've been doing the nights & weekends thing for exactly 3 years today (9/11). My project is http://www.obsidianportal.comWe're profitable but I still need a dayjob to pay the bills, so take my advice for what it's worth.1. Shorter release schedule is always preferable. Like others have said 2 years to... |
Three years to startup | dustingetz: The general consensus seems to be, launch as fast as possible. Don't put a year into something only to find that your idea isn't as monetizeable as you thought. |
How best to structure a "start-up" of 25 people | jedliu: This seems to be a natural thing to do. What are the drawbacks that you see from this approach? |
Three years to startup | felideon: So Domain Pigeon is just a side project for you? |
How best to structure a "start-up" of 25 people | floozyspeak: A 25 person startup is 22 people too many.Actually the students would learn more if the class was broken down into 5 startups all competing for the customers work. This would give you 5 small tightly focused groups. Each would have to nominate a leader and or agree on a unified vision for their approach.... |
Three years to startup | secret: What markets/industries are you interested in? |
Three years to startup | alexmacgregor: Hi Matt, I understand your scenario. I am working a project on a part-time basis that might interest you. My mail's in my profile if you want to discuss it or anything else. |
When doing a startup, what is the best way to find capital? | pclark: > I would probably never even think about going a bank loan route if I was responsible for the money, but I hear that when you incorporate your company, you are no longer personally responsible for any losses.wow, if you're that confident about your product why wouldn't you put your neck on the line? Note: pers... |
Three years to startup | patio11: Three years into opening my business I'm at the point where, if I wanted, I could go full-time with it and not worry too much about my ability to put food on the table and a roof over my head. I suppose if I wanted to I could apply to a seed-fund, although candidly speaking taking other people's money is not ... |
When doing a startup, what is the best way to find capital? | byoung2: "need N number of developers, and N number of people to work on marketing and promotion. I also need N amount of dollars for hardware and office space in a downtown location."Are you sure about all of these expenses from day one? The reason startup accelerators like yCombinator are thriving now with small inv... |
Estimating market sizes | byoung2: You can buy reports at http://www.marketresearch.com/ or you can cobble the data together from free sources, such as the US gov't sites:http://www.census.gov/main/www/access.html,
http://www.bls.gov/data/,
http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml |
Estimating market sizes | patio11: where do hackers look to discover the size of their target markets?Its a whole lot of voodoo and has little to do with anything that matters to your business, since for a market of any size you're going to be limited by how much of it is addressable anyhow.I swear, the only reason people even bother checking i... |
Estimating market sizes | adamt: I'd be careful about believing any numbers, and just because some big market research company once said it doesn't mean it's true. Certain things spring up as being the truth after they are quoted enough, e.g. the Internet traffic doubling 18 months (http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=18702).In my e... |
Estimating market sizes | ig1: If you have public competitors you can often find out from their annual reports. For private companies published interviews with senior staff are often useful. Generally for most markets you have some idea of who the major players are and how the market share breaks down, so even if you can only get data for a few... |
Estimating market sizes | eande: In this particular instance you could use semiconductor market statistics, they often break the component usage down to market. They are usually for free and give some kind of indication. But as mentioned before there is lots of smoke around the market size subject and someone has to take these stated numbers wi... |
Estimating market sizes | nostrademons: They're very often wild-assed guesses. The introduction of a revolutionary new product often changes the market size significantly. For example, the market for computers got a lot bigger when the Altair was introduced (a world market for 6 computers? Really IBM?), then bigger still when the IBM PC was ... |
Estimating market sizes | jeromec: I think market research companies use existing sales data to estimate current market size; figures can then be confirmed with light checking. The market size estimate can be helpful to provide a reference on which to base rough figures (which usually mean nothing) or hone an idea. Investors that may not unders... |
Three years to startup | raffi: I read some of the comments and others have probably said what I'm going to say. I wanted to startup too but due to other obligations (coughmilitary servicecough), I couldn't do it until I was... get this... 27. So I know how you feel. It's weird to watch friends do things and be successful and feel like you... |
Estimating market sizes | zaidf: To get a rough idea, sum up the rough revenues of the public companies in that industry. |
Estimating market sizes | replicatorblog: There are also usually trade organizations that will report information. They have an obvious incentive to make the size seem bigger, but if they are big enough organizations investors will also probably use them as a reference.The other thing is to consider Total Addressable Market (TAM) vs (SAM) Serve... |
What are your favourite HN Hacks? | zeynel1: I find this search page is useful http://searchyc.com/ but the same is achieved by Google domain search as well. |
Estimating market sizes | jdrock: If you're trying to put together a business plan, investors will want to hear your "total addressable/available market", which means what's the most $ your company, specifically, could make.TAM is size of your company's market * price of 1 unit of your product. |
What are your favourite HN Hacks? | yan: I click on 'threads' every once in a while to see who replied to me and what my karma is for my recent comments. Not exactly a hack, but I use it often. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | edw519: Join Toastmasters - http://www.toastmasters.org/There's no substitute for actually doing it. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | steerpike: You will feel tense. Don't fight it.Hold your hands behind your back as you face the audience just before you start.Clench your hands into fists as tight as you can while also clenching up your butt.Hold that pose and your breath for a few seconds and then relax and breath out.Anyone facing you will not be a... |
Any tips on giving speeches? | jacquesm: Fortunately no speeches for me. But the few times I had to speek to a bunch of people to do a presentation it was hard enough. The trick I picked up from a friend is to pick out one person in the audience, address them but let your eyes wander around so everybody else is included too, make eye contact if the ... |
Any tips on giving speeches? | defunkt: Practice, practice, practice. Record yourself practicing and watch it later. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | gaius: The usual advice is to imagine the audience naked.Don't. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | ivankirigin: http://giantrobotlasers.com/post/176847959/bill-hickss-princ... |
Any tips on giving speeches? | jamesbritt: Be sure you know what your goal is.For a best-man toast, maybe it's to make people laugh, foster warm feelings towards the groom/couple, keep the party moving, whatever.For other speeches, it might be sales, or passing on information, or political persuasion.But know what it is you want to accomplish and pl... |
Any tips on giving speeches? | ScottWhigham: A few tips:* No caffeine - it makes you more jumpy, more anxious.* No heroin - talk too slow* Practice 10-20 times going through the whole thing* Practice doing the first paragraph 50-100 times - nothing derails a speech more than a stumble at the beginning.* Practice acting comfortable - don't just read/... |
Help me find a source? | xsmasher: I think you'll find this covered (with citations) in Peopleware, and possibly the Mythical Man Month too. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | bkovitz: Talk much more slowly than you think is reasonable.It will seem slow to you, but it will sound normal to the audience. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | tptacek: Practice. Write your whole talk out, print it out somewhat large, tape it to the wall in multiple sheets, and rehearse to the wall, marking up the parts that don't work. Repeat until you can get through it without changing it on paper again.You won't use the written version when you actually give the talk, but... |
Help me find a source? | byoung2: Probably not the exact article you were looking for, but still a good read: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-developmen... |
Help me find a source? | Erf: This is a very commonly expressed idea. One of the most-cited sources is "Mythical Man Month" by Fred Brooks.For more:
http://www.google.com/search?q=10x+programmer |
Any tips on giving speeches? | diiq: A rule I have learned from improvisational comedy: everything you do in front of a crowd is right. Don't apologize, just smile and continue, because everything you do is right. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | ca98am79: I found this very helpful: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58703/winston1.ht... |
Estimating market sizes | skmurphy: How sensitive are the decisions you are trying to make to the actual market size? A factor of two? A factor of ten?Does the market exist? Does the need exist?For startups, these last two questions are most useful in my experience: trying to attack a large market because it is well established is not normally ... |
Help me find a source? | run4yourlives: As xsmasher said, you're citing Peopleware, by Demarco and Lister. If you didn't know that instantly, you need to read the rest of the book as well.http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-S...Pick it up, you won't be disappointed. |
Help me find a source? | karjaluoto: Thanks for the links--I'm now off to do some reading! :-) |
Do you know some companies doing niche business in custom programming? | nostrademons: I interned at one:http://www.foliage.com/ |
What is your social cause & what will you do? | Mz: My websites:http://www.healthgazelle.comhttp://www.kidslikemine.comhttp://www.solanorail.comI can't seem to escape social causes, in spite of sometimes wishing I could. My hope is to someday figure out how to monetize some of what I do. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | 13rules: Read Dale Carnegie on effective public speaking: http://www.amazon.com/Quick-Easy-Way-Effective-Speaking/dp/0...Also, agree with the others that there is no substitute for actually doing it.One thing you might try is videoing yourself giving a speech. Then watch the video and see what you like, what you don't ... |
When doing a startup, what is the best way to find capital? | aaroneous: You're almost certainly going to need to personally guarantee the loan until your business is sufficiently established to be it's own guarantor.Just because you fill out a a bit of paperwork for incorporation does not mean you'll be able to secure large loans without personal liability (until, obviously, muc... |
What are your favourite HN Hacks? | hungdaddy: How can I save other peoples submissions? |
What tools do you use to automate the testing of your websites? | byoung2: http://browsershots.org/ is useful for checking layout on every browser/os combination imaginable. |
Any tips on giving speeches? | jetsnoc: Read your slides and notes, recite, recite, recite. You get through most of your nervousness, awkardness, blunders and the plain old issue "rushing through slides" and talking too fast practicing your speech atleast three times. |
What tools do you use to automate the testing of your websites? | dpig: http://seleniumhq.org/ is great for system testing. Easy to start using with the firefox plugin (selenium IDE), more advanced features (Selenium RC, Grid) and tests can be written in a number of languages. |
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