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Whoa - why did Google bork us? | mbrubeck: I see you already did the obvious thing and put up a redirect. You might also put up a robots.txt on the "admin" site with "Disallow: /" (and no redirect).I see pages from my personal site disappear from Google results unpredictably and be replaced by other copies of the same content (e.g. on Planet Debian).... |
How to enter and stay current with the security industry? | hga: I've talked with a friend of mine who's a name in this field and my strong advice before the Internet got big and dangerous was "stay away", e.g. far too many security jobs simply existed to provide someone to blame.Nowadays, there's got to be a lot more legitimate ones, I would think, but you should investigate t... |
Whoa - why did Google bork us? | cpg: We had never seen this before. I understand their crawler has to be very aggressive, but it seems to me like the indexing is broken, at least in this case.Imagine if someone gets all our pages and puts them somewhere else. Even without links to them, they could take over us.Thanks for the idea of the robots.txt. S... |
Check out my YC app demo - rip away | TrevorBurnham: Hi freebsd_dude,As a heads-up, let me tell you that I'm applying to YC with a similar concept under the name Theoryville. We envision a very different interface, but we haven't built a demo yet. I'd be happy to exchange ideas with you privately; I'm not difficult to track down.Here are some specific crit... |
Whoa - why did Google bork us? | gboudreau: > How can this happen?Good question. I don't think Google published a list of the multiple sources they use to find new websites.
I think it's not too far fetched to say that all URLs they can see though any of their service would be added to the Googlebot queue.
Sending an email to a Gmail user with a link ... |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | joeld42: I think the "words with friends" model works very well. There's a free version, it's identical except that it shows a small banner add on the main menu, and shows you a full-screen ad after every move. It's not very intrusive but you can't really ignore it either.It was enough to make me upgrade to the full ($... |
Whoa - why did Google bork us? | eklitzke: Having an admin or test site publicly accessible is a really bad idea, for exactly this reason. If any search engine comes across a link to this site, it will crawl the site. Even if it doesn't promote the test site above you main site, it can cause a lot of problems:
* googlebot finds a ton of new content, ... |
A watch that doesn't suck when typing? | shrughes: I've never had to take off this when typing: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002HI5N5A/ |
How do I go about shopping for someone to build me a website/flash app? | rms: This is a place where flash game developers can list games that they have for sale. I'm sure that if you contact many of them you will find they are willing to do custom jobs. http://www.flashgamelicense.com/ |
How do I go about shopping for someone to build me a website/flash app? | mediarosh: Hi. Sorry about the self-promotion, but if you want a website or webapp designed and coded (in Flash or any other language), please email me. My email address is mediarosh(at)gmail(dot)comI hope I can be of some help to you. |
How do I go about shopping for someone to build me a website/flash app? | chaosprophet: Your best bet would be to ask people around you if they would recommend anyone. You could also try hiring freelancers. This thread should be helpful if you're deciding to go the freelance route: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028327Now for some shameless self-promotion: I am a freelance web develope... |
A watch that doesn't suck when typing? | ledger123: Is there a still need for a watch when we have one in cellphones? I always wonder this. (Except perhaps as a piece of jewelery for men) |
A watch that doesn't suck when typing? | hga: I use one with a cloth band that's snug enough to keep it from sliding down; the cloth makes it sufficiently comfortable when a bit snug.It's also small and very modest in scope, just an analog hours and minutes hands display (yes, I'm old fashioned). |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | yogibear: Everyone -- thanks a lot for all the answers and insights.
That helped.
To give you more details, since some are curious, they are just beginning, about a month or two. There is some code but its not more then 5-10% of what is needed for public beta.One other advice I got is to strive to stay with ~3-4% afte... |
Productivity at work | cpr: You likely have Emacs on your system. Learn to use it.In the most trivial sense, as soon as you start editing C or C++ code (or any language), the syntax-aware highlighting/bracket matching is turned on, and you're off and running! All at no cost, other than some learning.Emacs has a good built-in help/info system... |
Productivity at work | there: I do not have the prowess of the pointy haired linux geek and I need the help of a good ide to spot those missing curly braces / syntax etc ( trivial mistakes).why can't you just enable syntax highlighting in vim? it has syntax files for most languages and will highlight/color words differently if they are reco... |
Productivity at work | aheilbut: I've been impressed with Codelite (http://codelite.org/) - it's the closest thing I've seen to Visual Studio for linux, and does very nice syntax highlighting and auto-completion. |
A Business Guy Getting Hired at a Startup, Help Please | espadagroup: Update: Just in case anyone is wondering or will wonder in the future/be in my position, I ended up asking for $49,000. |
A watch that doesn't suck when typing? | anactofgod: The Rado Ceramica and Movado Valor watches are the least obtrusive watches I own. Both have the added benefit of being extremely durable (I'm tough on watches). They still get in the way a bit, though.Maybe you need a ring watch. This one is interesting...
http://www.nova68.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Scre... |
Should Gridspy avoid Flash? | gridspy: Hot :Dashboard: http://your.gridspy.co.nz/powertech/Jquery sparklines: http://omnipotent.net/jquery.sparkline/Google visualisation: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gall...Annotated timeline (the flash one): http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gall... <-- Should I use... |
What are all the good launch platforms for an Internet startup ? | coryl: Why do you need a "platform" to launch on? It really won't have any effect on whether or not your startup is successful. |
Should Gridspy avoid Flash? | colonelxc: I don't think flash is "evil", but as I often am browsing around on my iphone, a nicely degrading site is a godsend. This seems like the type of site someone might add to their home screen and check periodically. |
Should Gridspy avoid Flash? | gills: I recently opted to swap jqplot for google vis for some reporting functionality. Losing the annotated timeline was painful, but I think, in the end, workable (jqplot can link the zoom together on two charts so that one of them is the thumbnail).Flash was part of the reason I switched; I was not wholly comfortab... |
What are the best ad services for low traffic sites? | briancary: I think you're looking for something like OpenX Community Hosted. http://www.openx.org/ad-server |
Would you pay for a 1Password-like service for email? | there: interesting idea. a few issues come to mind:- people concerned enough about privacy to use such a service might have concerns about their emails being passed through your service as well.- the domains of that service might get blocked on certain sites due to abuse and people using multiple email addresses to cr... |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | icey: Transifex is probably a competitor in this space (http://www.transifex.net/).One of the problems that I've had with lowest bidder translations is that the cost of a poor translation can be quite high. Working on a large real estate management application a few years ago, we hired a firm based on cost alone for a ... |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | csytan: Hey andrew,I've been working on launching a site like this for the last 5 months. Feel free to check it out:
http://www.caterpi.com/Also some competitors in the same space:
http://onehourtranslation.com and
http://mygengo.com |
Whoa - why did Google bork us? | cpg: Yeah .. not such a great idea ... looks like Googlebot is really aggresive (duh). It's still showing admin as the "main" site. Pain in the arse .. |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | friism: I actually submitted this exact idea to YC last year. Here are some competitors:
http://translationcreation.com/ (site down at time of writing)
http://www.proz.com/The YC-segment could probably be convinced to use something like this (I'd use it if the editing/checking worked well). I know of several tech-start... |
Should Gridspy avoid Flash? | icey: If it's significantly faster to do what you want in Flash, do it that way first. Your users are almost certain to have it.Most of the conversations of the evilness of flash are limited to the HN sort of audience. I don't think that the internet audience at large really cares about it all that much.If the features... |
What are all the good launch platforms for an Internet startup ? | keefe: lol here I was contemplating EC2 vs AppEngine vs dedicated servers... |
Is my web app idea worth the effort? | pedalpete: Does Joe Data analyst exist? and if so, is he able to gather enough data, and conceptualize what he is actually looking for?
I put this in the realm of wolframalpha, where most people (even hackers & programmers) can't word a query well enough to get the data they want back.From my experience non-programmers... |
What are the best ad services for low traffic sites? | volomike: Consider also posting this on WickedFire forums.But off the top of my head, consider VideoEgg.com because the owner of Twitpic.com (on the Mixergy.com website's interview with that owner) said that he didn't start earning serious ad revenue until he switched to VideoEgg.And then there's also CPM banners with ... |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | jasonlbaptiste: yes we would use this. we used mturk for translations and had it setup for multiple entries. This would help us significantly and we would pay. hth |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | natch: When you talk about "competing sites" that seems a bit off, since your site doesn't exist yet. It took me a while to figure this out.One way to find rough use data would be to find the existing sites, then plug them into http://quantcast.com and look at the traffic numbers. |
Would you pay for a 1Password-like service for email? | petercooper: Gmail lets you do something like that already with the +anything suffixes on the end of the e-mail username.Also, in a slightly similarly vein but if you want to have stuff on a separate domain with a message limit: http://www.spamgourmet.com/ |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | DenisM: I would use it to localize my iPhone apps. I currently use OneHourTranslation and they are pricey at $0.07/word. Make it half that and I will switch.Extra points: * have the translators know about iPhone and the app,
so that they have context
* support for incremental translation (so that terms
sta... |
Is my web app idea worth the effort? | dustinchilson: I Like this idea. If you were looking for a target audience you should also include students learning statistics. In college you get to use some of the software but this would be more ideal, hopefully working cross platform. When I took statistics it was a pain running windows on my Mac just for statisti... |
How can I find out ecommerce conversion rates for various verticals? | answerly: Nielsen publishes a fair amount of ecommerce conversion data. For example:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/nov-e-commerce-...I'd suggest digging around in the archives there to see if you can find some newer stats.Your verticals are pretty specific, so it may be tough to get exact numbers for ... |
How can I find out ecommerce conversion rates for various verticals? | dangrossman: Verticals don't have conversion rates. Specific funnels on specific sites do.According to Nielsen, Proflowers has a 42.8% conversion rate and 1800flowers.com 20.8%. That's two sites selling identical products.MarysAwesomeHandBuiltFlowerShop.com probably converts around 0%. |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | nano81: While not for iPhone Apps, Facebook's translations for Connect sites works similarly: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Internationali... |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | radu_floricica: It's just a feeling, so please take it with a grain of salt, but I think people see mechanical turk a bit like a game on which they can win small amounts of money. Turning it into work and making people translate for cash (as opposed to entertainment) is likely to lead to higher rates. |
List of all YC startups? | faramarz: Crunchbase seems like a good start, but I'm not sure how up-to-date the list is
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/y-combinator |
List of all YC startups? | erikstarck: This was discussed a few months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=958899 |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | bemmu: Yup, we were talking about localizing a bunch of strings for our app just yesterday. Specifically need Malay, Spanish and French. |
Is my web app idea worth the effort? | jdietrich: I believe that you will need to make a quantum leap in usability. As pedalpete mentioned, very few people have the skills to process meaningful datasets, even those working in industries where we might expect such skills to be commonplace. The people who do have the mathematical knowledge know how to use the... |
Is my web app idea worth the effort? | TrevorBurnham: Have you seen this?
http://yeroon.net/It's a bunch of web-based graphical wrappers around R created by a UCLA stats prof, Jeroen Ooms. Slick stuff, for a hobby project.I agree with jdietrich: In order to be more than a hobby project, you need a "quantum leap in usability." But I'm optimistic. I think som... |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | innovate: Very interesting. What were your challenges with respect to the machine translations specifically? Also, can you post or share the MTurk ads you use/d? |
You're a Internet millionaire. Why aren't you supporting life extension? | chaosprophet: First off I am not a millionaire (yet). However, the concept of living on and on is something I view as scary, for reasons I do not wish to elaborate. I also believe that eighty years is more than sufficient time to live a life and accomplish all that I want to.Also, rather than donate to a research which... |
Productivity at work | macros: Also look at kdevelop. Should be a bit closer to what you have in mind and available for most any linux distro you are using. |
You're a Internet millionaire. Why aren't you supporting life extension? | janj: +1 for research improving quality of our current lifetime, especially in areas of great need.Also, aren't you the least bit curious what happens after your expiration? Not that I think I'll be joining past friends up in the clouds playing a harp but absolute nothing is about impossible for me to imagine. In that ... |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | Patonj: Another strong competitor - http://www.tomedes.com |
how to learn functional programming in Python | jacquesm: Functional programming is a technique, and that technique is best expressed using languages designed for the purpose.Python has enough elements of functional programming languages that it should be relatively easily done, but it won't be 'the real deal'.The interesting thing is that this exercise will probabl... |
how to learn functional programming in Python | spooneybarger: You can program in a functional style using python to an extent BUT... python in many ways puts up roadblocks that make it a less than fulfilling thing to do.I would say you could become familiar with functional programming in python but you can't experience the full depth of functional programming, for ... |
how to learn functional programming in Python | gruseom: If you want functional programming on the GAE, aren't Clojure and Scala more obvious choices? Both were designed with the functional style in mind. |
how to learn functional programming in Python | mnemonik: As others have pointed out, the best course for your goals (learning functional programming and using GAE) is probably going to be Clojure (or Scala).Python has taken some idioms from functional languages, but if you try to really code in the functional paradigm you will but heads with the language. Statement... |
How does Ookla Net Metrics (speedtest.net) works? | fragmede: Why do you believe they do anything more complex than a file transfer? |
how to learn functional programming in Python | probably: I was introduced to and learned functional programming through Python, beginning with these series of docs:http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-prog.htmlhttp://docs.python.org/dev/howto/functional.htmlI would say I program primarily, though not strictly, in a functional style in Python, Lisp, and R. Fo... |
how to learn functional programming in Python | python123: "The part of the answer on why I want to learn functional programming should be clear to almost everyone here"It isn't clear to me. Why don't you explain why you want to learn functional programming? |
FOSS for Profit? | gojomo: Read the license. If it's one of the usual "open source" licenses, for-profit use of the software is allowed. (It's not considered 'open source' if it discriminates against for-profit uses.)Perhaps you also mean whether the software can be included in your for-profit, for-sale, possibly closed-source product. T... |
how to learn functional programming in Python | cydork: You should read following http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1892324/why-program-funct...
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1017621/why-isnt-python-v...I still think if you are interested in learning functional programming choose another language. |
Would you use/participate in a translation site like this? | daves9400: whats the idea with getting into a segment that is crowded already? do you have something better? |
Productivity at work | KeepTalking: Thanks to all of you for your replies !Real neat ! |
Boston / Cambridge Colocation recommendation? | epi0Bauqu: http://www.iland.com/products/colocation |
Where best to sell an established website? | davidw: I'm testing out an auction on Flippa.com:http://flippa.com/auctions/83341/Innsbruck-Austria-rental-li...So far so good. It was a pretty smooth process, and even though it's a niche site, I've gotten a few bids. I'm hoping the price goes up a bit, but I just want to unload it at this point, so from that point ... |
Has Hacker News killed the stealth mode start up? | ismarc: I see stealth-mode startups differently. They aren't to prevent "theft" of an idea. Instead, they're designed around using that first big opening to secure a position to grow from. Where general feedback may help, it would lessen this impact when the time did come. |
Where best to sell an established website? | medianama: Why don't you post it here. I am sure lot of HNers would be interested |
Where best to sell an established website? | bgraves: This thread is extremely relevant to my interests.I've thought about this for a long time and I'm completely shocked when I see dog-allergies.com (which has only been online for 5 months) selling for $600! I know SOME of this is modern day snake oil salesmen, just working the system to eek out some small profi... |
Has Hacker News killed the stealth mode start up? | mbrubeck: I'm working at http://kiha.com/ and we've been in stealth mode for well over a year. For us it's partly about working together with partners who want a big, coordinated launch. Personally I agree that stealth mode is overrated, but our investors and leaders feel it's worth it for us. |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | pmjoyce: I submitted the same site in November last year - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902172. Since then I've gone through several point releases, a refactor and a design overhaul (I'm hopeful it won't be compared to a domain parking page this time).I'd be interested in your thought and opinions. I'd also li... |
Could you suggest how to market a proxy server? | jm4: Who would use the proxy server and why? |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | ryanelkins: I would make the "How Bookhu works" box stand out a little more. One thing I've noticed with all of the "review my startups" is that we have no idea what we are going to initially generally, and when we get there the first thing we want to know is - what does this site do. You explain it well enough, I woul... |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | fhirzall: I think you should have a longer delay on each book preview in the scrolling list of books at the top. I made it through half of one and then it switched over. 5 more seconds would be perfect.The "How it works" box isn't very obvious to a first time visitor - maybe you can hang this somewhere off the top next... |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | Vindexus: First thing I noticed: "What Does It Do?" I wasn't really sure right away what it did. I found the "How Bookhu Works" box, but at first glance I thought it was an ad so I didn't even look at it.My recommendation would be to put a small tagline below your banner. Maybe "Book reviews broken down by gender" or s... |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | bgriggs1: Why not move the "How Bookhu works" box to the top left? It doesn't seem like you need full width for the book scroller.For the book scroller, shouldn't you add some functionality there inherent to Bookhu, like the ratings? It just has descriptions right now, which makes it look simply like a catalog. |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | Vindexus: Here's a quick mockup of a possible redesign for the home page. I'd make the book thumbnail bigger than I put it at, but you get the idea: http://i.imgur.com/Xqy7r.png |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | andrew1: A few questions (I don't mean to sound overly brief or critical - it's a nice site - but I'm at work so can't spend ages writing):* Where do you get the data from about gender? Is it from users of your site? Is it from Amazon or something like that? I like to know where data's from so that I can make some jud... |
post your productivity tips/hacks in 160 characters or less | Gimpson: Do the hardest thing on your TODO list first thing in the morning. Later in the day you might not have enough energy to take it on. |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | ddemchuk: What's going on on the SEO side of things? You need to get your meta info cleaned up, running a site:bookhu.com shows that you aren't even including your meta descriptions, and you have a bunch of duplicate titles.Additionally, why are only 46 pages indexed? Are there more indexed and I'm just not seeing them... |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | jfarmer: Doesn't add value to my life. Can't really think who this'd be for.Or is this just a tech demo? |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | billturner: I'll probably dig into it a little more later, but initially, on one of the book's detail pages, the text (and everything else) is pushed all the way to the sides of the browser window (in Chrome on OS X), so your "Feedback" side button obscures the content. See this screencap: http://i46.tinypic.com/oixe77... |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | MicahWedemeyer: Are you married to the "bookhu" domain name? I think you might have troubles with the phonetic aspect of it. How does someone pronounce that? book-hoo? boo-koo?If you're totally set on that one, you might want to grab any phonetically similar ones like bookwho, bookhoo, etc.I'm not sure how important t... |
Where can I find some great resources on investing in tech companies? | jakarta: It depends on what kind of tech company you are talking about.A Microsoft will have a fairly understandable business model with predictable cashflows. Conversely, most young, public tech companies are more of a gamble on management teams/product being able to execute their plan and grow. That to me is somethin... |
Review my startup: Next Sprocket - Developer's Marketplace | pedalpete: Nice looking site, though I'm not sure I completely understand how it works.
Your video demo is more of a 'how it works' than a 'why would I use it' type of thing.
As a developer, I'm stuck wondering how do I get picked to complete the task? or is it more like CrowdSpring where the buyer picks a winner in ... |
Review My Startup: Bookhu | Goladus: Where's the data coming from? This is interesting as a sort of bookstore web-storefront, but the numbers look funny to me. Catcher in the Rye readers are 75% male? Poor Little Bitch Girl (by Jackie Collins) readers are 100% male? |
Where can I find some great resources on investing in tech companies? | tjr: I graduated from high school in 1998. My grandfather, wanting me to learn something about business, gave me $500 to invest in the stock market. Java programming was hip at the time, and I decided to put the money into Sun Microsystems, resulting in ten shares.A few months later, my grandfather passed away, so sudd... |
What books on running a software/web dev shop are worth reading? | rmk: Hmm... are you talking about the business side of things / the technical side?The question will be clearer if you are more specific on this point... |
Could you suggest how to market a proxy server? | gexla: I don't think it would be worth the effort to try monetizing. These things are a dime a dozen and they get blacklisted quickly. They can also be expensive to run because of the bandwidth usage. Also, some hosting providers don't allow proxies. My biggest problem with them is that I wouldn't want my server IP... |
Alternative to Exchange for Email Server System? | there: it depends on your needs. do you need a mapi-compliant server that works with outlook clients and does calendaring, delegation, etc.? or do you just need an smtp server with imap/pop3 access that works with everything? |
YC alumni to email? | lsc: I have no idea if it will help you, but if you want to meet YC guys, show up at the hacker dojo in mountain view. see http://hackerdojo.pbworks.com/ - plenty of them around. |
YC alumni to email? | thomaspun: You checked their twitter accounts? |
Alternative to Exchange for Email Server System? | profquail: One hosting provider I've used for a few sites offers SmarterMail for their webmail. They've got an enterprise version as well, which is supposed to have all the features of Exchange (like Blackberry support)...and they offer it for free if you have <= 10 users on your domain. |
How to avoid sore wrists | Kliment: The way I solve this on my Eee is to actually move the hand when going for the arrow keys instead of twisting it. Bending the fingers is also much less evil than twisting them. Beyond that, regular joint massage helps, try and find someone around you who knows how to do it, and get them to teach you. The bigge... |
How to avoid sore wrists | cperciva: Two things seemed to help me: 1. Wearing a wrist brace (a cheap one from the local supermarket) made me notice when I was bending my wrist too much, and allowed me to train myself to not do that (i.e., to move my entire arm when I needed to reach other keys); 2. using an external USB keyboard allowed me to ke... |
How to avoid sore wrists | yungchin: In my own experience, wrist pains didn't actually come from wrist action, but from wrist action with my arm in an unnaturally high position: on a high desk, with your shoulder kind of "locked", you bend your wrist to reach for the arrows. At the right height, you'd instead move your elbow backwards and not be... |
How to avoid sore wrists | awwx: Are you using your laptop in your lap or on a desk?I've found for myself that it's essential not to have the keyboard too high... my elbows should be comfortably at 90 degrees and my wrists comfortably straight. This means for me with a keyboard using a keyboard tray to bring the keyboard below desk height, and ... |
How to avoid sore wrists | blackdog: a typematrix keyboard and dvorak helped me. |
How to avoid sore wrists | nomoresecrets: The solution is to get a decent external keyboard. A laptop keyboard is never going to be good. Stop dancing around the issue - get a decent keyboard.I started to get wrist pain about 10 years ago, which worried me. This was right around the time MS first released their ergonomic keyboard. It was 100... |
How to avoid sore wrists | JayM: I'm working through some wrist/hand issues now, and I've found that the biggest key in prevention/healing is taking breaks.Find some free software that will time your computer usage (I use Time Out for Mac) and force you take 10-minute breaks every 30-45 minutes or so. I also take 15-second breaks every 10 minut... |
How to avoid sore wrists | jimfl: Our office has a foosball table. Playing a game of foos every couple of hours is a great way to avoid wrist pain. Of course you end up with calloused hands instead.Other remedies: learn to juggle and take juggle breaks every so often. Get some silly putty and play knead it while you're thinking.The basic thing t... |
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