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How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | oakmac: The Teaching Company; sometimes I look forward to traffic. |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | byoung2: LA has vanpools...maybe you could look into that in Phoenix? |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | thetrumanshow: Get this (unless you have a very small laptop, like a netbook) and put it on your dash:
http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=4205894Then, get this:
http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/landing/consumer.asp
(DNS will probably fail in a noisy car, but worth a shot)Dictate code on the road.Edit: Be sur... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | garyrichardson: Here are my preferences:1. Move closer to work.2. Find a way to work from home as much as possible.3. When you do need to drive in, podcasts are much better than the radio.4. Find a car that you love to drive. This may be easier for me, since I generally enjoy driving, even in traffic.Now, I'm in a situ... |
Is a free Ipod a good way to drive traffic to my site? | byoung2: I bet most college students already have an ipod or iphone, so wouldn't that skew the results toward those who don't already have one? I think the college demographic is pretty jaded when it comes to giveaways.Even if you got 1000 reviews in exchange for one ipod (if you actually gave it away), that's $0.20 p... |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | DanielBMarkham: The key question really is: Is anything interesting happening fast enough that I want to see it right now?Analytical asshole man says no -- that's what newspapers and google are for: the great majority of stuff I care about happened either in the far past (like more than a day ago) or needs to be edited... |
Is a free Ipod a good way to drive traffic to my site? | Readmore: I actually tried to use iPods to drive traffic to a site of mine a couple years ago. It didn't work very well but I think the reason was that I didn't make them do enough to get the prize. Just make sure that 5 new reviews on your site is going to create enough value for you to warrant the cost of the iPod.Wi... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | mk: I have around the same commute time. Lectures in the car don't work for me. Language audio lessons such as Pimsleur were a little better but still require a bit too much concentration. I can however listen to audio books and follow along. |
Is there any press-release service that you can recommend ? | mrduncan: Instead of a press-release, you could try contacting some blogs individually which focus on your target audience (admittedly I'm not sure what your target audience is). |
Is there any press-release service that you can recommend ? | bigstartups: My experience is while press releases are valuable marketing tools, press release services are worthless. I've done probably a dozen press releases utilizing some of the expensive services. Not once has a service been directly responsible for a write up or driven any substantial amount of traffic.Identif... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | callmeed: It may not work for your company, but what about making sales calls or taking support calls? |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | ivankirigin: There is a great deal of risk in real-time news. If you search for a term many people are searching for, there is a big spam problem.Twitter has done little to nothing to fight this spam problem. You could say the same for any of their spam problems - they have quite a few.That said, I think many big names... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | ax0n: I moved considerably closer to work and positioned myself nicely in relation to the public transit infrastructure. 20-30 minutes driving, 45 minutes if I ride my bicycle to an express bus stop a few miles away, 1 hour by bus using the closest bus stop to my home and 1 hour if I go by bicycle.This is awesome, beca... |
Is there any press-release service that you can recommend ? | vaksel: Posting on here will get you more coverage than an actual press release.Could of course always submit to techcrunch but they lurk here as welll. |
WTF Is The Value of Real-time Search? | kapauldo: real time search is useful and probably monetizeable, but extremely niche. i have heard plenty of examples, like some described above, where i've felt "yeah, ok, i could see that." but those times when it might be useful might occur twice a year, maybe 3 times a year? so the market is incredibly small. it ... |
Is there any press-release service that you can recommend ? | ankeshk: Check these 2 people out: they are pretty good at what they do:http://www.imalwagner.comhttp://www.publicityhound.comWhatever you do - don't go for a cookie cutter plan where all they do is write a press release and submit it out and then offer tracking services. Make the publicist sit down with you and creat... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | bendtheblock: Podcasts. Lots of them. Get a wide variety (I have documentaries, language lessons, venture voice, this american life, word of the day, historical, social science, comedy etc.). If you're worried about iPod/iPhone space, set it to just sync only the last 10 of each podcast. That way you always have someth... |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | rg123: In addition to the ideas for what do to while driving, consider avoiding driving during rush hour to cut down on the time it takes. Even if your work schedule isn't flexible, this might still work for you. Depending on what kind of exercise you're into, maybe you you can do the drive earlier to avoid rush hour... |
Is a free Ipod a good way to drive traffic to my site? | anamax: Are the folks who'd want a free iPod the folks who you want?Seriously. Who do you want using your site? What do they want? You need answers to both questions and then you need to connect them. |
Is a free Ipod a good way to drive traffic to my site? | theli0nheart: I'm marketing to the same group, and from what I've experienced, word of mouth is your best ally. Email me: http://scr.im/danl. |
Is a free Ipod a good way to drive traffic to my site? | clistctrl: I was going to provide a few reviews, but you haven't added my former college yet :)also the site is a great idea |
Is a free Ipod a good way to drive traffic to my site? | auston: Yes- if you are selling iPod accessories. Try something a but more relevant your site (like a voucher for a free text book on amazon or something) |
Is a free Ipod a good way to drive traffic to my site? | clistctrl: Also maybe you could give away Roman Noodles... when I was in college that was basically currency. |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | matt1: Audiobooks.I've listened to probably more than 20 in the last two years ranging from the Count of Monte Cristo to all of Malcom Gladwell's work to Investing for Dummies. It's a great way to make the most out of your commute because if you're like me, you probably don't have time to read all of those in your free... |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | vaksel: I think a general list, would be a good idea.(posting so that I can find this in threads)It's funny, more people downvoted this comment, than actually replied to the thread. Shows where your priorities are. Go ahead down vote, I can afford to lose the points. |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | dawie: Great Question.I use delicious to find tags for blogs that would like to write about my product. |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | nbroyal: I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'm in the same boat. Does anyone have any recommendations for podcasts or audiobooks that discuss/teach various concepts in computer science or software development without being impossible to follow while in a car?I tried listening various lectures, but at some point ... |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | protomyth: I have had an easier time with applications for the Mac then websites. There doesn't seem to be the website version of MacUpdate, rumor sites, or Apple Downloads. Maybe it is the difference between blog and community site. |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | ankeshk: Here are the steps I take:1.Round up the competition sites. At least 3-5.2.Go to:
http://tools.seobook.com/link-tools/backlinks/backlinks.php
and type in each of the competition sites one by one.3.See who linked to the competition and try to get a link back from there. |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | pospischil: I've never had much success with this. Can anyone who has comment on how they approach the blogs? Maybe even a copy of a successful email sent to the bloggers? |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | jdrock: In the past, I have emailed blogs that have just written a story about a topic relevant to my company.For example, when GigaOm wrote a store called "Where's the money in casual gaming?", I emailed them saying "Hey, we've got a great way to monetize casual games." Their staff picked up the email and forwarded i... |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | rokhayakebe: Go to Alltop.com, Select your industry. Bam, I just saved you hours and hours. Tip me. |
Are (web) developers now a commodity? | kaveri: Probably from some idiot MBA. Now there's a commodity. |
Are (web) developers now a commodity? | va_coder: People have been saying techies are a dime a dozen for years.Do you try to put yourself in your customer's shoes and help solve problems? Does your customer know you do this?If the answer is yes, you're not a commodity. |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | hotpockets: What makes your public option unviable? |
Examples of sites with 'customer class' freemium? | ScottWhigham: I've seen several. Search for "Personal Use only" maybe? Those are generally the terms I see when I see the licensing model on a shopping cart. I don't know of any offhand but that's probably where I would start. |
Are (web) developers now a commodity? | ScottWhigham: The proof that they aren't is the fact that all web dev is not outsourced to the cheapest company. |
what's the best python-supported web hosting out there? | tjpick: If by python-supported do you mean lets you run python code?I use nearlyfreespeech.net.They don't let you do long running processes so that rules out several frameworks. |
Is AI useful in industry? | f33l: I'm getting my PhD in Machine Learning right now, so I'll try to give you some ideas.First of all Machine Learning will be useful to you, because you'll understand much about statistics, data mining, optimization and efficient programming. If you don't get to work on an ML project in industry directly, some of th... |
Do press releases get traffic? | aarongough: So far I've only dealt with one press release that involved a product release. We hired a PR company to write up the release and then we did the final tweaking for the tech details.The experience that I had was that the press release itself garnered little to no direct attention. We had one reasonably well ... |
Examples of sites with 'customer class' freemium? | chrisa: http://amcharts.com/ is one example I can think of. You can use it for free if you don't mind "charts by amcharts" in the corner. This makes it possible for free personal use, as well as the ability to try it for free, but if you want to use it on your business site or software, most would surely pay the fee. |
what's the best python-supported web hosting out there? | lowkey: webfaction is a great shared host. They do let you run long-running processes and are Django and Turbogears friendly. |
Isn't there a site that turns one webpage's text into a readable format? | boundlessdreamz: It is called readability http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ |
Do you recommend Open Office? | byoung2: I use OpenOffice, and Calc is better than Excel. It has regular expression find/replace, and no 65,536 row limit. It is my favorite part of OpenOffice. I've used Writer a few times, mainly for the PDF export.For most other uses, I just use Google Docs though. |
Do you recommend Open Office? | RiderOfGiraffes: I use Open Office all the time and have no problems with it. My wife does proof reading and she has to use Word, because taking a Word documment into OO then exporting it back out again as Word format changes the formatting.Personally, I only use OpenOffice and have no problems. |
Do you recommend Open Office? | minsight: Open Office has improved spectacularly over the years. It's very good for people who just want to work with data. There was a time when its interoperability with Office was poor, but that has come a long way. These days interoperability between versions of Office is poor, so there are times when OO can do ... |
Rewrite or Refactor? | Oompa: If they want to rebuild it in .NET, it's a lost cause. |
Rewrite or Refactor? | gstar: A lot depends on whether the code is unusable as-is - but it's a well established rule of thumb that a re-write of any codebase takes 3 times the back of the envelope calculation. |
Do you recommend Open Office? | wallflower: OpenOffice has the best save-as PDF feature. |
Rewrite or Refactor? | SwellJoe: Nobody can tell you what's best for your application and team. But here's some comments:Rewrites from scratch are pretty much always a stupid idea, and so you and the rest of your team are both probably wrong. Rewriting, in .NET or "new" RoR, is probably a waste of resources, and will probably introduce a w... |
Rewrite or Refactor? | inerte: Is it already in production? Making money/creating value? Refactor.No, this is not a rule of thumb. But an app already in production has a lot of little quirks already ironed out. That report one person really needs every third Friday of the month. When an Korean speaking costumer on a Spanish Windows Vista 64b... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | jcapote: All the time. Especially for it's export to pdf feature; can't believe people still pay for "pdf printers"... |
Rewrite or Refactor? | djcjr: Dive in and start the re-write immediately.This will inform either decision, and you'll look like you show a lot of initiative because you do. |
Rewrite or Refactor? | makecheck: If it is modular, reimplement one module in parallel and test. If there are no tests, add those first. If it is not modular, make it so, first.If a single module can be ported to sane code successfully, you have a chance to fix the rest. If not, start reimplementing the whole thing in parallel. If you ha... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | Anon84: As long as you don't have to send/receive MS Office files to/from other people, it should be fine. In my experience there are still some horrible incompatibility issues (specially in formatting). |
Do you recommend Open Office? | brianmckenzie: I've used it extensively when compatibility with a bunch of MS Office users was not a concern. Never had any trouble opening other peoples' MS Office files, but I wouldn't trust it if I had to send lots of files to people.For home use it's superb - even my computer-illiterate parents are using it exclusi... |
Are (web) developers now a commodity? | teeja: From the ads I see on Craig's, the parade of "requirements" they're looking for vis-a-vis the money they're paying, I'd say yes. It looks like too many of the troops have sold themselves cheap ... (and that too many potential employers want a lot for almost nothing). |
Rewrite or Refactor? | txxxxd: In my experience the best way to end these types of design arguments is just to start coding. If you're good you'll have a decent prototype to show off before the rest of the team has reached a decision. |
Do you recommend Open Office? | parse_tree: Yes. Completely happy. As everyone else said, the export to pdf is great. |
Rewrite or Refactor? | aidenn0: refactorIt may be slim on unit tests, but it passes one huge integration test (people are using it!). You can add unit tests as you refactor, and make gradual progress.Rewriting from scratch you will need to relearn all of the knowledge that already has been put into that code, and it's an all-or-nothing bet. |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | matthewer: I wanted to write about going after the mainstream press. Why just focus on bloggers?1. Do not use a PR firm. If you are on HN you are probably a startup with out funding. They will charge you an arm and a leg. You can do better on your own. Be passionate about your product - people will respond more to t... |
How to master the Art of Selling | zizou: first things first, product needs to be really good.
and when you're selling try to quantify the experience of your product in a simple way.
As to what it is, what it does and how it does, in a non-tech,no jargon,no bulllshitting manner.
this has always worked for me .period! |
How to master the Art of Selling | tdm911: Love your product and know EVERY single facet of it. There is no better selling technique than knowledge and enthusiasm.Personally, I've never been able to reliably see a product I don't have a passion for. Maybe this makes me a bad salesman, but I know I've had a lot of success over the years selling what I lo... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | bbb: I use Open Office and iWork on a Mac, and Open Office on Linux. On the Mac, Open Office's GUI sticks out as ugly and buggy. I think it's ok, but not great, on Linux, though. (This probably reflects that the Open Office port to Mac is still relatively new.)I prefer Open Office Writer to Word because the way that it... |
Rewrite or Refactor? | tjpick: The solution to having no tests is adding tests.
The solution to overgrown, unreadable, unmaintainable code is refactoring.A rewrite would take about 2 years probably (using some very naive calculations). |
How can I reclaim some of my commute time? | pepito: I work with my notebook and 3G modem. It works well enough to VPN into work - wish I could do some paid work on the side while telecommuting :-) |
How to master the Art of Selling | asher: Sounds like you're ready for a good sales book or two. I think one of the best is "SPIN Selling". It's not what it sounds like. It's almost the only sales book based on real research.http://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/007051113...I see advice in this thread to make a great product or know the ... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | anonjon: I use it, it is good.I like the spreadsheet better than excel, and the word processing gets out of my way quite nicely.I use it on ubuntu linux and it is rock solid. |
Do you recommend Open Office? | makmanalp: Custom build of OO, with added features: http://www.go-oo.org/ |
Do you recommend Open Office? | zeynel1: Thanks to everyone with your comments. I downloaded it and so far it is working great for me. There are many little things that I like much better than excel and word. I am glad I don't have to deal with the ribbon anymore. And also it appears to be faster. Help is very useful and unlike excel help, it is well... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | planetmcd: I frequently have issues opening word documents from some users of Word 2007. I know this is likely an MS Problem, but if interoperability is a concern, I would be wary. That said. I use it for most of my tasks. I also find OO spreadsheet's csv import to be superior. |
How to master the Art of Selling | percept: Jeffrey Gitomer has a lot of good ideas (and a free weekly newsletter):http://www.gitomer.com/You might find this helpful too:http://www.amazon.com/Outfoxing-Small-Business-Owner-Relatio... |
Are (web) developers now a commodity? | arghnoname: I got my first web dev job after two weeks of reading some PHP books and coding up an application to help my girlfriend of the time keep track of some stuff for her business.I sucked, but I got a job (making poor wages of course) and it didn't take too long to get past the median and (I think) into the high... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | azim: I'm a Linux user with Open Office 3.0 by night and Win XP with MS Office 2003 by day. A friend recently sent me a .docx file from MS Office 2k7. I was unable to open it in OO 3.0 but it worked fine in Word 2003 (it's supposed to work in OO). Just yesterday I typed a Word 2003 doc with heavy use of formatting... O... |
How to master the Art of Selling | seven: Since about two years I try to learn as much as possible about how to be a salesman. Some of my insights so far:Try to watch how successful sales-people work. You will get so much fun out of this, after reading some books and spotting their tricks.Selling is not about logic. It is about feelings.Do not tell, but... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | mark_l_watson: If I have to use a word processor, then I use Pages for OS X. The full screen mode is nice, and it seems more responsive that OO or Office.IMO, best is LaTex, but some collaborators, publishers, and customers don't like it. The advantage of LaTex is that you can spend more time writing and less time worr... |
What keeps you from burning out? | jacobb: porn. preferably gay midget stuff |
What keeps you from burning out? | makecheck: I think the best thing you can do is focus on results and not the clock. If someone wants to take 2 days off in the middle of nowhere, or work odd hours, they should, as long as they eventually produce as much as they're supposed to.A "fun" workplace may not actually be, since it seeks to turn the office in... |
What keeps you from burning out? | seven: My favourite (home-)office 'things':* big punching bag. (this is a must have!)* place to be alone (toilet does not count!)* working hammock (as homer suggested) probably a big sofa is ok too* a kitchen* my brother works for a company where they have breakfast together every Friday.and since I visited your websit... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | ryne: I've used Open Office in the past and advocated it to my friends but I hypocritically use Office.
The ribbon for all it's criticism seems to be highly functional, aesthetically pleasing and usable (using pictorial representations that aren't 16x16).
There's a "Save as XPS/PDF" plugin for Office as well, no one ha... |
What keeps you from burning out? | CyberFonic: Reading Hacker News and not being made feel guilty :-) |
Do you recommend Open Office? | CyberFonic: YES ! Open Office has been my only office package for over two years now. Use it mostly on Ubuntu but also on a spare Windows XP notebook. No problems sharing files between the two environments. Send documents, etc to others in PDF. Have struck some compatability issues reading Office 2007 files, but so ... |
What keeps you from burning out? | MichaelTroy: Trying to be conscious of feeling like I am burning (out). If I can be conscious of that feeling, I am able to detach to a certain degree. This enables me to go a hell of a lot further. I guess simply being aware that I may be burning out helps me find perspective. |
How to master the Art of Selling | CyberFonic: Demonstrate Compelling Value! Deliver something people WANT! Need is good, Want is much better.Another vote for "SPIN Selling", good one asher!Remember, if they don't have a need or don't have the money, no amount of persuasion is going to make you a profit. Difficult customers will bleed you on support,... |
What keeps you from burning out? | chrischen: Games? Sometimes I take a break with some video game, but then again I'm kind of young so I don't know if this works for older people.Also if the thing I'm working on is mentally stimulating and challenging, it motivates me by itself and keeps me from burning out. So something like a couch to sit on or a pla... |
Do you recommend Open Office? | sireat: I've been using Open Office almost exclusively (over MS Office) for the last three years on both Windows and Linux.For basic day to day tasks OO works very well.If you want to accomplish something more esoteric, you can probably do it(and there might be more than one way), but you will have to look at external ... |
Which blogs did you contact to get coverage when you launched? | petercooper: Don't just rely on Technorati. My blog has an engaged subscriber base of 20000+ yet we do verrrry poorly on Technorati (somewhere in the 5-6k range, I think) because we don't many inbound links from other blogs ;-) Googling for "[your topic] blog" and "[your topic] blogs" will bring up even more options. |
Scheduling software. | olefoo: This sounds like your garden variety project management software. Specifically one that works with the PERT methodology. [1] [2]There are approximately 2^8 software packages that do this. Which one is right for you is going to depend on the selection of output formats, your needs and desires for tweaking the so... |
Podcast Recommendations? | pneill: WNYC's RadioLab - It's this American Life meets Science Friday. Best show on NPR. |
Do you recommend Open Office? | slmbrhrt: It's fine for working with someone else's doc files. Sometimes you have to bend.
For producing my own work, I'll take LaTeX over Office any day. |
Do you recommend Open Office? | drhowarddrfine: My company, of almost 30 employees, uses OO exclusively. We also use GoogleDocs if we're on the road and don't have access to a laptop. Nowadays, we have no issues with it at all. We just don't see the need for 90% of the MS Office features that we would never use, especially at that price. |
Podcast Recommendations? | ypavan: POPTECH |
Share your Failure Stories | notaddicted: Never getting started -- I suspect I'm not alone on this. |
What keeps you from burning out? | pasbesoin: Environment. When I'm putting more effort into tuning out a noisy, distracting environment than I am into the work product, burnout is on the horizon.Beware of people who claim to like such environments: Some function well in them, but in my anecdotal observation, many crank out substandard work. This acc... |
What do you know about Africa? | keltecp11: There has been A LOT of talk in my network about taking products in the tech space and bringing them abroad... I'm curious what your thoughts are. |
How to sell a startup? | noodle: why only the two options? is there something intrinsic about this business that precludes him from having his cake and eating it too? |
PayPal Auto Payments | byoung2: There is a setting for PayPal Subscriptions. The most basic way of setting it up is to create a subscription button (PayPal->Merchant Services->Create Button->Subscribe). You choose the setup payment, and monthly, and a few other options, and when someone clicks to subscribe, PayPal will bill them accordingl... |
How to sell a startup? | rms: Ask boutique investment banks |
Why not criminalize unsubstantiated assertions made in public? | tdoggette: It's my opinion that you haven't thought your ideas through. |
Why not criminalize unsubstantiated assertions made in public? | jamesbritt: "You could still hold opinions/beliefs, but you would need to explicitly say that something is an opinion/belief."Or people could understand that everything anyone says is an opinion/belief unless accompanied by verifiable backing.There are unintended consequences of trying to guarantee something. For exam... |
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