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Should I just burn the bridge? | mhartl: Now, the question is, what should I do to improve my chance of success despite the situations (sole founder and inexperience)?Move to the San Francisco Bay Area. (I'd bet the Aussies in the audience who've made the same move would agree.) |
Review our site, ListBite (social classifieds) | joshsharp: Not to offend, but that logo is simply terrible. It looks... cheap. |
Learning Erlang from scratch | tlrobinson: Bob Ippolito (who wrote mochiweb, a webserver written in Erlang) did an introductory talk last year: http://bob.pythonmac.org/archives/2008/03/08/exploring-erlan... |
Learning Erlang from scratch | gqwu: 1) read all courses in http://www.erlang.org/course/course.html
then do the exercises in http://www.erlang.org/course/exercises.html2) read official Getting Started manual http://erlang.org/doc/getting_started/part_frame.html3) learn about erlang OTP http://www.erlang.org/doc/design_principles/part_frame.html4) this book is a MUST get! "Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World" by Joe Armstrong http://www.pragprog.com/titles/jaerlang/programming-erlanggood luck! |
Why haven't signup confirmation emails died yet? | wlievens: In some applications (games) you want a way to enforce that a single person has only one account. I know email verification is only a weak way of enforcing that, but it helps somewhat. |
Should I just burn the bridge? | joshsharp: I recently quite my day job to be a consultant/freelancer in order to do similar things to what you describe.I spend the majority of my time working for clients, still, but I get to charge a lot more than as an employee, which means if I keep the same lifestyle, I can support weeks without any work - or in this case, working on my own startup ideas. It's not technically a 'startup', because I don't want to take the plunge and go all-or-nothing, but being freelance definitely gives me a -lot- more flexibility to work on my own project.This might be a good solution for you in the interim until you can jump straight into another full-time business venture? |
Learning Erlang from scratch | voodootikigod: We did it as part of a group and found that to be highly advantageous. I recommend finding someone near you who is also interested in learning Erlang and work through it together. |
Name/address/e-mail/phone parsing? | crazyirish: I recall doing this with a bunch of horrible regexs a few years ago when I needed something pretty quickly. Let me know what you find. |
Are you Autistic? | tsetse-fly: Are you a troll?Your posting history is suspect. |
Name/address/e-mail/phone parsing? | oldgregg: Good question. I've used everything from expensive mail house software to hacked scripts, I still haven't found anything very versatile... maybe hire some Indians (or mturk?). |
Name/address/e-mail/phone parsing? | Flemlord: Update on my search: I'm currently looking at something called NetAddress. It seems to work well but costs $500. Probably better than writing it myself but I'm not eager to cough up that much cash.http://www.softwarecompany.com/dotnet/netaddress.htmPlus, it's made by a company called "Software Company". That can't be good. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | qhoxie: Rspec is my current favorite for testing. I still do unit tests, but rspec is so semantically intuitive and helpful when running the suites against large apps. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | jimb: We have Hudson running continuous tests on svn checkins. Which is unit tests and some other tests run through junit and junitperf etc, sort of functional testing.We then also do full build performance tests using the grinder at night. This is currently not very automated at all, and involves doing processing in the morning. These are short runs, multiple samples averaged. It would be good to know how others are running there performance testing automatically, and also how they are monitoring the systems during the exact times of the test.We also prior to release run some serious stress testing, again using grinder. Then soak tests using grinder at expected load for 1 week. This gives us the data we need for a release. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | Allocator2008: Borland SilkTest. A good "industry standard" by this point. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | makecheck: I rely on Python's built-in unittest module. While this is most seamless for Python code, with some customization you can make it manage anything (e.g. running external test programs and writing assertions on the results). |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | keefe: JUnit, FlexUnit and nightly build scripts with ant. Everything is complicated by working on an OSGi based project, so eclipse test framework is a core piece and reports from ETF are formatted with an XSLT and mailed. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | perezd: I use the standard Ruby Test::Unit framework, with ThoughtBot's Shoulda extensions. I enjoy the standardization of the xUnit family, but the RSpec-y contexts and definitions are great too! best of both worlds! |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | Elfan: You may find this page useful:
http://pycheesecake.org/wiki/PythonTestingToolsTaxonomyI find nose particularly useful both for running tests (including unit). I have also found (fire)wait to be useful for driving a browser. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | Hates_: Selenium IDE for web application acceptance testing. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | cstejerean: nose for Python testing. Nice plugin architecture and compatible with unittest and doctests. http://somethingaboutorange.com/mrl/projects/nose/ |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | natch: Test::More for Perl.Watir (ruby-scriptable driving of a browser) for web UI testing. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | gqwu: TDD + EUnit http://svn.process-one.net/contribs/trunk/eunit/doc/overview... for my erlang apps. |
Are you Autistic? | known: My karma is 232. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | timcederman: Some hand-rolled tools for search quality, Silk Performer and Silk Test for automated perf and regression testing. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | Sujan: PHPUnit it is for everything PHP. |
After school learning? | morphle2: Smalltalk and Lisp |
Are you Autistic? | morphle2: Why are you curious to know this? You can ask this question about the complete Diagnostic Statistical Manual, so why are you so interested in autism? |
How to offer equity to a marketer? | fbailey: In a similar process ( but not only focused on marketing) I did a consulting job for a startup ( mostly focused on concept and social design) and joined the team after some time.The basic thing is you can't be 100% sure, it won't work without some trust. I get shares depending on the success, first 7% after relaunch, next 5 % after 10.000 user and so on I think something like this might work in your case... |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | akeefer: We write a lot of what we call "smoke tests," which are essentially integration testing in most people's parlance. It's a long story, but we have a custom web framework that's widget-based, and one thing that allows us to do is to write UI-level tests directly in-process against that widget model, rather than having to use an external client to deal with the HTML output (so they can run and be written like unit tests). Our internal language has an open type system, allowing us to essentially do type-safe metaprogramming on the set of pages and widgets, such that if someone changes the page (like removing a button) the test will cease to compile. In general, maintenance is a huge problem for UI-level tests, so that's been a huge win for us.To test the framework itself, we mainly use Selenium to test the actual HTML and javascript output. To test things that Selenium can't easily handle, we've also used the Watir library (http://wtr.rubyforge.org/).Our real unit tests are basically built on top of JUnit, though we have our own extensions to it that are specific to our platform.To run the tests and report results, we have a custom application developed on our web framework and the rest of our software stack. Originally we used CruiseControl, but we outgrew that fairly quickly. It does a lot of stuff for us, but the key abilities are 1) parceling the tests out to a farm of servers and 2) assigning test breaks to users (basically a guess based on who changed what files in source control since the last successful test run); if you have more than a few people on the team, without actually making the test breaks one person's problem to resolve you end up with massive diffusion of responsibility where no one thinks it's their break.We also have an internal performance testing harness for running load tests, which we write using the same framework as the smoke tests I described above (though in that case the clients are naturally remote). |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | jamesbritt: Rspec and Cucumber for our JRuby Swing apps; Selenium for web acceptance testing. Sometimes Bacon for unit tests. |
What tools and methods do you use for software testing? | mwotton: Test::More, Test::LectroTest (Haskell's QuickCheck but in Perl), Test::WWW::Mechanize and BuildBot |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | SwellJoe: This has been asked repeatedly. Do a search. No, seriously. Search first.I universally recommend Debian or CentOS for our customers (and we deal with thousands of folks building web applications and websites--I have a huge swath of data in my head on how much trouble each choice causes). Ignore this advice at your peril. CentOS is the one I recommend for newbies...just because the documentation out there is so much better, the support channels are so much more populous, and so much software is tested first on CentOS. I really like Debian, personally, and the package selection is vast and wonderful, but for a newbie CentOS is just a simpler choice.FreeBSD is a fine choice, if you know you want FreeBSD and you know why you want FreeBSD. Since you've asked a bunch of strangers for advice, this is not you. So, FreeBSD is not a good choice for you.Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you'd have to be retarded, or hate yourself, to choose Gentoo for a server.Oh, yeah, hosting providers almost all support CentOS and Debian. Gentoo and FreeBSD, not as much. I don't know of any hosting providers that offer Gentoo, actually, and if I saw one that did, I'd pretty much write them off as amateurs. People who are passionate about FreeBSD are often extraordinarily savvy, and there are a few FreeBSD-focused hosts. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | qhoxie: You should give us reasons why you have narrowed it down to those 3 and what you level of experience is.I personally use Gentoo or FreeBSD whenever I have a choice. A significant reason for that is years of experience tuning these for my needs; it has become second nature.For some environments I have used CentOS with good success, but I still end up modifying and trimming things so it feels more like Gentoo. In the end, you would likely be happy with CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu as far as binary distros go. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | rms: Debian... the last poll on this showed that the vast majority (90%+) of posters here are running Debian on their servers. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | mamama: Windows 7 |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | whalesalad: Debian and Ubuntu are both rock-solid, excellent choices for a server of any kind. I have all of the servers I work with running Ubuntu, with my own personal screw-off slice running Debian Etch.I have a great deal of experience with the older versions of Fedora (the consumer Redhat distro) and slight experience with CentOS. I'm fairly certain that majority of Linux webservers out there are running some Redhat variant. I personally prefer the Debian/Ubuntu approach and stick with that.Off the top of my head I know that all of the Mediatemple servers are running CentOS, and Digg runs Debian.I think like SwellJoe said, if you're thinking about FreeBSD for the sake of going with FreeBSD and not really knowing why, then you don't want to be choosing FreeBSD. The same goes for Gentoo. Gentoo is a great distribution, but it's not for the mainstream plug-n-play let's-build-a-webapp! type of person. Gentoo, although featuring a pretty nice 'emerge' package management system, is going to require more work from you in the beginning to get it to a desirable state.I guess there is no real answer to your question, Linux is fantastic in general as a web application server. Any distro with the base binary packages for a typical LAMP stack or even a (Rails|Django|Etc...)/Nginx configuration will treat you very nice until you reach the proverbial land of scalability. Once you see problems with your app, fix them. Don't worry too much about that right now. Also keep in mind that 99.99% of the time your application is going to be "distribution agnostic" so later on down the line if you decide you'd rather go with CentOS over Debian, or a BSD variant over Linux, you won't have any issue with that.I'd focus more on writing a solid application and getting a solid product out the door on any of the distributions that were mentioned by the wise hackers here on HN, learn what you like as you go. As you learn more about the way Linux works and you configure things to suit your needs, the various unique characteristics of each will become more clear, and your "distro of choice" will become more evident.Bottom Line: Go with CentOS or Ubuntu, and worry about these things as they become worries. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | gtani: i think this was the last thread, from 191 days ago:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160288(From Gabriel Weinberg FAQ collection)http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t... |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | wheels: I'd say pick the distribution you know best, with a few provisos: - It's one of the major distributions
- It's not Gentoo
I used to use SuSE on servers because I knew SuSE best, and before that Redhat for the same reason. Now I use Ubuntu. All have been fine. Worst case is getting something on a server that you don't know how to configure. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | presty: slackware? |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | thorax: I've used Centos a lot with no major difficulties. I've also had great luck with SuSE, where I'm a big fan of AppArmor to help prevent zombification (assuming you're running any standard/open source web apps). |
Greatest Living Thinkers Today | michael_dorfman: Am I the only one who finds the notion of (for example) Seth Godin on a list of "Greatest Living Thinkers" to be terrifying?And would it be to much to ask to see, maybe, a philosopher or mathematician or two listed? |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | nostrademons: Debian also has the advantage that you can run Ubuntu on your desktop and use the same package manager as the server. It's a huge advantage to have the same deployment & configuration procedures on your dev environment as in production. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | antiform: I would choose whichever one you are most comfortable with, or the one that you want to learn. If you don't know any, just choose one that sounds the most interesting. This is one of those "religious" choices between computer geeks and is of little consequence in the long run. If you hack with other people, you'll get experience with several flavors anyway.I personally use Debian, and highly recommend it. It's very easy to get started out-of-the-box and there are tons of tutorials on how to get your typical LAMP setup or Rails or anything else set up. Ubuntu's also great, and probably has an even more supportive community than Debian. |
Greatest Living Thinkers Today | unalone: I wouldn't pretend to know. I know the people I consider to be the best in their respective fields, but I would never pretend that that equates to "thinking" because frankly, "thinking" is all-too-often a bullshit phrase that means nothing.If I had to name some people I thought were really making a mark on the world (and my list is biased immensely towards artists), that list would include:* David Lynch, who I think deserves to be on the list for Eraserhead alone;* Mark Z Danielewski, one of the very few writers I know who manages both to be fascinating, deep, experimental, and a good read;* Steve Jobs, who has done more for the high-end consumer market than anybody else I know and who has seemingly unfailing instincts;* Nobuo Uematsu, who is easily my favorite modern composer and who manages to write unique yet powerfully thematic pieces consistently; and* Philip Glass, who is an absolute master of his style of composition.But I wouldn't say that these people are necessarily the greatest thinkers today. They're just the ones whose work fascinates me, the ones who I feel are innovating the most honestly within their field. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | jgalvez: Thanks for all the responses so far, guys! HN has helped me immensely already.I should add that I am, by no means, a "newbie". I've coded and deployed many production web applications in Debian that are still running today, and although as a programmer my focus is in programming itself, not server administration, I've been sufficiently well educated to configure and launch web apps with Debian a few times already.As of late, however, I've been looking forward to expand my knowledge and grasp a deeper understanding of Unix in general, how everything works beneath the nicer high-level tools. So when I ask what distro is the best, please note that I'm not asking what distro is the easiest. I want to know, from a engineering point of view, why so many spectacularly smart people choose, for instance, Gentoo and FreeBSD. Can any of the few who know why they want these systems name a few of the advantages they have over Debian, for instance? |
Greatest Living Thinkers Today | clueless: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/who-is-the-... |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | drhowarddrfine: Use FreeBSD. It is based on Unix and powers the internet. In fact, its slogan is "The Power to Serve". It's unified, current, faster than Linux in some areas, excellent man pages and other documentation that's easy to find and can do anything Linux can do. |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | fietske: let's look at requirements first:
solid, stable, secure, KISS, small, best of breed applications instead of trying to include everything, vanilla kernel, not a patched one!yes friends, it's Slackware I'm talking about |
Greatest Living Thinkers Today | tbrooks: Tim Keller is pretty high on my list. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxup3OS5ZhQ |
No, seriously, what is the best distro for web applications? | herdrick: Whatever your dedicated hosting service uses. |
Do you want to challenge Facebook 2.0 | ram1024: are you saying you want to build something to compete with the two guys that left to build an enterprise version of facebook for corporate?why would you do that? they haven't even built theirs yet :|if you already had this idea in mind BEFORE they did this, sure i guess continue with your plans. if not do we really need a convoy of bandwagons all trying to tap this market? |
Do you want to challenge Facebook 2.0 | ahold: tmp.t01 gmail.com |
Do you want to challenge Facebook 2.0 | alaskamiller: I'm not sure what you're trying to pitch. |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | Sujan: Assembla.com - 200MB, SVN, unlimited users (but: free only for public projects) |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | Sujan: Unfuddle.com - 200MB, 1 project, unlimited SVN, 2 people |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | Sujan: beanstalkapp.com - 20 MB, 1 SVN, 3 users |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | Sujan: springloops.com - 25MB, SVN, unlimited users |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | maxklein: Subversion can be hosted on any webhost like webfaction or dreamhost. You need a website anyways, you may as well drop your code in there. |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | donniefitz2: Assembla is awesome. |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | ericwaller: Sounds like you need a lot of repositories but not much disk space.I have no experience with them, but some googling brings up http://svnrepository.com/. They've got a plan with unlimited repositories (2 gb disk space) for $7/month. |
Uncov articles being moderated on Hacker News? | qhoxie: Yes it is being moderated. I suspect if there is any substance it will be pushed through before too long./joke - Sorry for the confusion |
Uncov articles being moderated on Hacker News? | pg: The number of points an article needs to get onto the frontpage is not constant. It varies depending on the age of the account that submitted it, and the age, ip addresses, and previous upvotes of the upvotes on it. Comments have no effect. |
What's up with web based blog readers? | wmf: NewsGator Online?http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NewsGatorOnline/Default... |
What shopping cart system do you use and why? | mg1313: Checkout these free solutions (PHP/MySQL):
- www.magentocommerce.com
- www.zencart.com
- www.cubecart.comYou can host these on your servers and many hosting companies are making it easier to install by offering Simplescripts or Fantastico scripts bundles.Of course, there are tons of other options (including paid ones). |
Culture at various software companies | qhoxie: Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle have a lot of blog posts and the like outlining the culture in the workplace. Googling that is your best bet.Beyond that, you might have some luck emailing a company you cannot find information on. |
Culture at various software companies | jgrahamc: At Electric Cloud and Scriptics where I worked with John Ousterhout we documented the culture we wanted. See http://home.pacbell.net/ouster/startupCulture.html |
Free (or almost free) hosted version control? | Sujan: devjavu.com - 1GB, SVN+Trac, 3 commiters, unlimited users |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | jwilliams: Think this depends on the pricing structure. Are you offering a free or a paid service? Is support part and parcel of this, or do you offer different levels of support? |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | tihomir: I think you should think out of the box here.
You didn't ask the right questions.How can you make people don't email you every time when they have problems?
Like building a good knowledge database .... give them the solution of the problem before they asked for it and so on.How can you prevent the disaster strikes to be less then a minimum and hopefully never to happen?For does question the right answers depends on you and what you can find on the net ....I think. |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | DanielBMarkham: If people are paying you, then you're going to have to make an effort to not only solve their problem, but solve the general problem of support. If you weren't getting paid, you can always make the case that support services are simply unsustainable. But if you're making money presumably you've factored the cost of support into your rate, right? |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | wheels: Respond quickly, even if you can't answer the question immediately. The most frustrating thing if some service isn't working is if users think nobody knows or cares. Just a quick mail saying, "Hi, one of our guys is looking into it. We'll send you an update in a few hours." helps a lot. |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | nocivus: From my experience, while working on a software development team and replying all the time to questions from testers, business owners, managers, etc., I think I would sum it up like wheels did: as soon as possible, even if you don't know the answer. People will appreciate the consideration.There are cases when may not have the time to reply immediately to all questions (e.g. small team). In that situation common sense will tell you which ones are more pressing, I guess.Going a little off topic, one thing I've been noticing that works pretty well (especially in agile environments), if you can afford it time-wise of course, is to have one person exclusively dedicated to support for a week. Then rotate to another person next week. That will both keep the requesters happy to get answers on time, but also the repliers, who can fully focus on other things when they are not "support person of the week". |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | markessien: In my business, which involves $600 software, I reply within 30 minutes. Many deals are lost because you delay in replying emails. |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | fallentimes: Just responding to every email (except form letters) we've ever gotten asap has gotten us countless buyers, blog write ups and press. |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | denton: The answer is 'as quickly as possible' - especially when you think about support as pre-sales and marketing. |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | bigthboy: In my current venture, we're not yet to the point where we have very many support questions, we're mostly still in "Friends and Family" testing. However, prior to this venture I worked on some other projects, specifically in gaming / gaming server management and for some small hosting companies. With them, responding to support "tickets" if you will was one of our top priorities. However, rather than using an e-mail support system we relied mostly on forums and, for the game, in-game support message systems.Every company is different and for most of these we were just a bunch of hackers running free communities (with the exception of the web host provider - which was free with premium memberships). However, the importance of answering support quickly was still the same. In terms of the free service, when things didn't work right or we wern't able to instantly respond we were able to write it off as "we're not paid to be here." That didn't always stick though. You might also consider making sure people know what times you guys are generally available. Letting people know that you're not available from midnight to 6am in your local time is a good thing for your users to know.Depending on what it is you're offering, looking at a message board / forum as a means of technical support might not be such a bad idea. It allows not only you and your team to answer questions (and quickly from almost anywhere you have net access) but it also gives your other users ways to contribute as well. Most importantly, it's an active way to build a knowledgebase, if done correctly. It also saves you from having to necessarily answer the same e-mail's over and over. Even with an e-mail contact available, you could easily put in an auto-responder that lets them know you got it and gives them a link to your support forum for them to browse for a solution in the mean time.Note: If you use forums, make sure you find some method of making your support posts easy to manage and your official team members easy to spot. |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | known: I'd recommend live chat similar to http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Live+Chat |
What if I don't have an idea? | vaksel: wait till you get one |
What if I don't have an idea? | sireat: As it has been said elsewhere, you'll know when you have the right idea (it will start burning inside you).However, there is absolutely no guarantee that you'll find the idea in the next 6 months.If you don't want to start working again for somone, my advice would be to go on a trip, preferably abroad. |
What if I don't have an idea? | tocomment: Do consulting, and you'll probably come across a lot of client problems that are amenable to general solutions. |
What if I don't have an idea? | tocomment: Or make games. The world always needs more games. |
What if I don't have an idea? | brm: What are you interested in?
When you're doing the things you love to do, what parts of them are the least fun/biggest pain in the butt?
what do you wish you could do?Answer any one of those questions with technology and you have the start of an idea and I bet you'll be surprised where it branches from there. |
What if I don't have an idea? | edw519: Find a customer.The current changes in economic conditions may swing the pendulum back in favor of a subscription (vs. advertising) model for web apps.There are 7 million small businesses in the United States. Every one of them needs something. They are everywhere.Start networking. Let everyone know what you do. Before you know it, they'll be coming out of the woodwork saying things like, "We sure could use <xyz>. Do you know of any way we could get it?"If you can't find a promising idea and a way to get started on it in 30 days, then maybe you shouldn't be an entrepreneur.Good luck. |
What if I don't have an idea? | pxlpshr: One of the best things you can do is get connected and get involved. Check out http://www.texasstartupblog.com, it's ran by Alex Muse and he's in Dallas... they're doing their own mobile startup: http://www.biggu.com. Reach out to him and see how you can get involved, and monitor the blog...In Austin, checkout StartupDistrict.com, AustinStartup.com, Austin Tech Happy Hour, Conjunctured(.com) Co-working, and a lot more. |
What if I don't have an idea? | unalone: While you're waiting for inspiration:* Find somebody to work with. Do freelancing. See what makes freelancing difficult for you or your clients. Figure out a way to do it better.* If freelancing is a no-go, use web sites. This is what I did when I first wanted to launch a site. Visit every one you can. Sign up for all of them. Make notes of what works well, what really doesn't work at all. When you find a particular TYPE of web site that doesn't have any good models going for it, make your own alternative.That kind of idea is no alternative to having a Great Big Plan, but it lets you mess with things, stay active, and it means when you DO have your Big Idea you have both a little more expertise for launching and you have users who might be willing to spread the word. |
What if I don't have an idea? | sfphotoarts: Put down the Django manual and go read Finnegans Wake.... |
What if I don't have an idea? | KLAW: If you have downtime then use it to learn new, practical skills. And where better to start than in goldrushland:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/overview.html |
What if I don't have an idea? | siong1987: At least, you know that you are passionate about Django. So, try to do something with Django. Whatever web application that is based on Django. Or, you can try to contribute to Django. |
What if I don't have an idea? | jenhsun: You don't have idea cause you already burn out of your passion, I guess.
If I were you, I won't stay in one location and think my next step. I might tend to join some conferences and traveling. |
how quickly do you answer support emails? | modoc: Use a ticketing system or issue tracker that creates tickets based off of e-mail (I like Jira personally). Setup an auto-reply to let them know their e-mail was received, and someone is looking into it. If your ticketing system is world facing (which I think is a nice idea), ask them to visit their ticket (Jira can auto-create accounts for people who don't have them yet when they send an e-mail that creates a ticket), and set the priority.Give your timezone/part-time issues, I'd provide a cell phone or something for people to use in case of dire emergency. If people abuse it, you cut off their support service.I'd also instrument as much as possible so that in the event of a disaster you are first to know, not last. I use a heavily customized nagios setup that sends SMSes to my cell phone. Works out well. |
What if I don't have an idea? | sfamiliar: walk through your next week and carry a notebook, making a note of all the things you think of that you wish existed, but don't. when i do this, it's generally through little irritations, conveniences that save me 3-4 minutes, realizations about people's work process -- that kind of thing. go fishing in the real world. do this until an idea for a product hits you. it will, and likely soon: something you want or need that no one provides.in the meantime, get into a startup, on an equity basis. look for contribution to the work, not a paycheck. learn the atmosphere, see what works and what doesn't. get involved with your local user groups and search for a partner, someone like-minded.put down the tech for a bit and read. spin down the head for a bit. my best ideas happen when i'm not thinking about them.it's really a question of the want-to. if you have that, you'll be okay. |
What if I don't have an idea? | mstefff: idealess = the worst |
What if I don't have an idea? | auston: Maybe trying working in a field that uses computers but doesnt program them? Sales person? Manager?I would try to put myself in other peoples shoes and find the pain they have. That's how I come up with most of my ideas, think about what I'd like to be able to do, but cannot, due to technological constraints. |
What if I don't have an idea? | ashishk: Sounds like a great position to be in. Seriously though, I think you have the right idea of taking time off to LEARN. It is so critical.To echo some of the other commenters, I would recommend two things.1. Learn what you're passionate about. What kind of applications do you want to build? In what capacity do you want to be involved in your next company (employee, CTO, CEO, etc.)?2. Learn from smart people. Email 20 people you look up to. Ask to have a 20 min conversation over the phone. Be bold! You might be surprised how helpful people are.Best of luck! |
What if I don't have an idea? | ojbyrne: In my opinion, one good business strategy is "fast follow."* Find a business that's getting good traction.* Copy it mercilessly.* Think of how you would improve it and implement the improvements.* Profit!Even if the final step might not be a monetary profit, you've accomplished something, and learned from the experience. |
What if I don't have an idea? | aneesh: No one is born with brilliant ideas. A professor of mine once said, "If you don't think you have any good ideas, lower your threshold for what you consider good."Take any idea (even a bad one), and plan out how you'd implement it. Rinse and repeat over time. Eventually you'll start getting better ideas, and seeing opportunities where you see problems. |
What if I don't have an idea? | aditya: Start a side project -- just get it out the door, projects have a way of morphing into glorious things that become what you want them to be and provide happiness. :)Read this for more inspiration: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=282158 |
What if I don't have an idea? | danw: Get a job |
What if I don't have an idea? | petercooper: Work on building up your personal brand equity. In less buzzwordy terms, build up your social network, become known for your opinions, and develop an audience of some sort. Gary Vaynerchuk's videos are worth watching on this topic - http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/I follow a lot of people on Twitter who aren't working on a specific idea right now, but when they do, you can bet I'll be checking it out and cheerleading for them! The same applies for those following me. Become known, get us to follow you and enjoy what you have to say, and then when you DO get "that big idea" you'll actually have some users and publicity out of the gate :)With that said, if you /do/ have a Twitter account or whatever, link us up! But your blog only seems to have one post.. |
What if I don't have an idea? | nostrademons: I'm in the same position (good skills, adequate cash, no job - but no idea or cofounder) and am thinking of resolving it by either:1.) Getting a job at a big Silicon Valley tech company or2.) Getting a job at a YCombinator startup.One thing I learned from my past failed startup is that ideas come from interacting with the world around you, they don't spring fully formed from your head. Either one of the above options puts me in contact with more potential ideas - I'd meet more people at a big tech company, but I'd do more things at the YC startup. They'd also get me out of the house and into an environment with lots of people interested in startups.I've also found that it's really hard to build a network or feel out a cofounder once you already have an idea that you're passionate about. That relationship has to be forged under a low-stress situation, and then you jump into the fire with them. ;-) So now may be a good time to work on that, if the environment allows (I've heard it's a really terrible place to start a tech company). |
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