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Do you use a Dvorak keyboard configuration? If so, how did you learn? | pedalpete: I know I'll probably get downvoted for this but...I was looking into trying Dvorak a few years ago, and was talking to a friend that used it for a few years.
He liked it, said it was a little bit faster for him than QWERTY.The reason he switched back is because with multiple devices, very few able to use Dvorak, the benefit of being used to using a single common standard (he felt) far out weighted any benefit he got from using Dvorak while on his PC.This is what turned me away from using Dvorak.
Doesn't answer your question, but I thought it might be good to have another opinion here. |
Learning about Venture Capital | aditya: Read Mark Suster's blog, cover to cover:
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/Start here: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/pitching-a-vc/ |
Learning about Venture Capital | pw0ncakes: I don't have any direct experience, but my understanding is that:VCs will give an amount that seems appropriate to getting to "the next stage", however that is defined. Their take is determined by the pre-money valuation and the amount given. A web startup might be able to sell 20% of the company for $1 million, implying a $4m pre-money valuation. Biotech startups typically give up 90-95% in order to get $20-40m invested.VCs will want to know where their money is spent, and generally want the CEO to pay himself $125-175k. Paying the CEO a million, if not vetoed, would quickly ruin the relationship with the VCs, which you do not want to break.Also, and this cannot be stressed enough: watch out for downright evil terms such as participating preferred and multiple liquidation preferences. VCs usually ask for a 1x liquidation preference, meaning that they take out their investment at par before anyone else gets paid. (This only makes sense, because otherwise you could sell on a down round, liquidating but screwing the VC). However, evil VCs will ask for a multiple. So, on $4m invested, the liquidation preference might be $8 million, meaning that if you sell at $7.5 million, you get nothing. Another evil term is participating preferred, which means that they get an equity-based share after taking the liquidation preference. So if you take $2 million for 40% of your company at 2x with participating preferred, then sell at $8 million, the VC gets $4 million plus 40% of the remainder ($5.6 million) instead of the $3.2 they deserve-- and you, the founders, just got ripped off. These kinds of terms exist because, although there are a lot of great VCs, there are also a lot of silver-spoon entitled shits who actually believe they deserve that sort of thing for the gift of their existence. |
Learning about Venture Capital | stevenwei: I would recommend you check out a few sites like:http://www.venturehacks.com
http://answers.onstartups.com
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.comTo answer your questions directly:1) You generally tell them how much money you are trying to raise (based on your financial projections). The valuation determines what percentage ownership you end up giving up in exchange for the funding. The total amount you end up with is negotiable.2) The VC takes a percentage ownership of your company, and generally ends up with a seat on your board, Officer salaries are generally determined by the board. As the founder, you usually specify your salary requirements during the fund raising process....an overly large salary is a red flag and could turn investors off. The total amount of control the investors end up with depends on your specific situation.3) Usually it is done as one big check. However, it may be split up into 'tranches', which are delivered upon meeting certain milestones.4) Most startups do end up failing, the investors know the risks associated and factor that in their decisions about what companies to fund. If it fails, it fails. The fact that your company is a separate legal entity protects you from personal liability.5) Generally investors end up taking a 20%-40% ownership stake in your company per round. If you raise multiple rounds, each new investor takes a new slice of the pie.I would definitely recommend checking out the sites I linked above to get a much more thorough overview of the fundraising process. I would also recommend looking into angel investment. |
Learning about Venture Capital | sajid: > Any other tips others have for raising capital would be extremely appreciated! Thank you!You really need at least one of the following three things to successfully raise capital:1. Traction.
2. A successful track record.
3. A personal recommendation from someone the investor respects.It might be possible to get a small amount of seed funding with just a good idea and a prototype/demo (e.g. Ycombinator).Also, I cannot recommend venturehacks.com strongly enough. |
From what countries do people use HN beside USA? | Concours: Germany here |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | brk: IMO, those terms are grossly outdated and are/were often representative of companies that are a little too full of themselves.It sort of reminds me of the "Everybody is a winner" method of child rearing. There is quite a wake-up call when you realize that everyone is a "ninja". |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | jellisjapan: I've always had the feeling that those companies have bosses dedicated to plenty of duplication and little innovation. |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | estherschindler: I once got worked up about the subject, enough to write a blog post for CIO.com, back when I still worked there (http://advice.cio.com/esther_schindler/rockstar).These days, it's a little bit of a turnoff. At a minimum a job ad including "ninja" or "rock star" communicates to me that you can't otherwise quantify what you want, so you use a vague description that doesn't help a prospective candidate judge whether she's suited for your company.I'd rather see a job ad that's much more explicit in what the company wants, whether that's technically ("5 years of Python"), attitude ("We want someone so passionate about chocolate websites that she'll jump up and down on the conference room table... but please, don't, it cost us a lot of money for that table"), or in visibility ("We expect to recognize your name; this is a job for someone who probably needs no introduction"). |
What DSLR should I buy? New/Used? | brk: I've been shooting for 20+ years.IMO, I'd only look at a camera with a full-frame image sensor, but your budget may limit you to less expensive bodies.Half of the equation is the glass (lens). The XSi is an overall unremarkable camera body, but it gets the job done. You'll notice a big difference though between a low-end lens and a quality lens on almost any camera body.Don't invest in the EF-s lenses, they'll only mate with APS-C sensor bodies. Go with the standard EF series lenses so that when you eventually upgrade to a higher-end body all your lenses will still work.I tend to recommend the craigslist route to many friends looking to get into photography. There seem to be a lot of people who upgrade for no good reason, and end up selling their old bodies for a good price with only a few hundred to low-thousand shutter activations (practically new).Canon and Nikon gear both hold their values well. The Canon gear is generally considered to be a little better than Nikon, but that is kind of an "emacs vs. vi" argument... Everyone has their own religious preferences.If you must compromise on the price, get a good lens and a decent body. Upgrade the body when you have some extra cash. |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | cgherb911: When you take a job, it's an investment. You want to make sure that the company you are investing in takes itself very seriously. Asking for Ninjas and Rockstars to fulfill an important role? Works only if you're casting for a movie. |
What DSLR should I buy? New/Used? | hopeless: Honestly, it doesn't matter what camera you buy. Lens are much more important but even they pale into insignificance compared to subject, light and skill.Just buy a camera then... Practice, practice, practice. Shoot everything. Try everything. Keep a photoblog. Publish photos daily. Join a club. Do a SoFoBoMo (look it up). Be critical. Aim for better shots. Plan ahead. Shot subjects that take you out of your comfort zone. All these things will do more for you than any camera body or lens, and are basically free.Do NOT fall into the trap of thinking that photography is about the equipment.I like to think I can hold my own, even with a basic Sony DSLR and a few mid-range lenses:
http://photoaday.ideasasylum.com/p/407
http://photoaday.ideasasylum.com/p/419
and so on: http://photoaday.ideasasylum.com/browse/1 |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | Mankhool: I don't like to see such colloquialisms in job postings, but as someone who has done a fair amount of hiring in my career, I also don't want to see them on resumes or CVs unless you've worked for Rockstar Games, real Rockstars or Ninjas or on a game called Ninja. |
Tiny things that make a positive difference in your day? | mechanician: A cup of coffee |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | nfnaaron: I feel like I'm not one of those. |
What DSLR should I buy? New/Used? | pasbesoin: Canon T2i just came out as what looks to be the successor to the Si (Sx? I forget). I believe it's around US$800-900 with an 18 - 50-something starter lens. I saw a mention of low noise up to 3200 ISO equivalent, and it does 1080p x 30 frame/sec video. If you're going for a starter Canon, I'd include it in your evaluation. |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | hga: While I agree with many of the detailed points made by others in this discussion, I can put it very simply: it makes me feel like I'm not a member of the culture of the company.And companies have to be pretty professional to tolerate some of their staff being from different cultures (narrowly defined) ... and one making such a advertisement sure doesn't sound professional to me. |
Do you need to shout anonymously? | tcagri: I was thinking about using FreeBase (www.freebase.com) in a project and come up with a small website where you can write (shout) to some public figure anonymously. Do you think you want to use something like that? |
Passive income? | swombat: There's oodles of sites on the net about how to make money online, and books written about it (e.g. Tim Feriss). If all you've come up with is those two options, you need to go back and do more research before asking HN for help. |
Passive income? | faramarz: ebook.You have a better chance of success if you are an authority in your subject/niche, or your opinion/method/perspective is is unique (and possibly controversial). |
Passive income? | aheilbut: Treasuries. |
Do you need to shout anonymously? | cgherb911: Very cool idea. Would love to use this for customer support for my business to have users yell their complaints to us. |
Is there a new app/startup/product that excites you? | ig1: http://graze.com - healthy snacks (olives, nuts, dried fruit) delivered by mail. I spend over £500/year with them now. Which frankly is a huge amount of money for any company let alone a startup to convince me to part with. |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | mnemonicsloth: It's OK under one condition. The whole advert should go something like this:"We're Looking for a Ninja BrainFuck Programmer. Come hang out sometime and we'll see if you're a fit."That's it. Anything else -- resume, phone screen, FizzBuzz, whatever -- and it's obvious they're pretending to be cooler than they really are. |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | cookiecaper: I hate it and always try to avoid job postings that contain those terms. It's usually deployed by inexperienced/naive/arrogant teams and/or companies trying to sound "hip" and "with it". There's no way to measure what "rockstar" or "ninja" means ... for the most part, in my experience, I've found it most often to mean "superhuman", i.e., someone unrealistically and absurdly better than everyone else, who can meet 72-hour deadlines for a whole project (real encounter I had). It's definitely a bad omen when someone uses those words and an instant, severe reduction in respect for the company/interviewer. |
How much to pay for a domain for a side project? | tumblen: The ideal domain name is memorable, easy to spell and pronounceable. I think these 3 factors matter a fair amount.If that is the exact domain you want, I'd say $350 is a pretty good price as long as you're serious about the project. |
Passive income? | tumblen: What types of things do you like to do/are good at? |
What programming languages should a web designer know? | briandoll: I think one of the most critical skills for a web designer to know is version control. 'Web designers', by which I assume you mean front-end development; JavaScript, CSS, and integrating UI elements into presentation layer views.Working with a development team is different than working by yourself. Working with others means collaborating in some systematic way and version control is at the center of that collaboration.I'd recommend learning how to use git and subversion to get a feel for decentralized and centralized version control systems and familiarize yourself with popular workflows with each. |
Feedback on our startup (LabApp.com) | vantran: May I ask who designed the site? I really like it. Very clean and simple. |
How much to pay for a domain for a side project? | hugh3: While I'm generally against supporting the domain squatting industry, if I were you I'd sit down and spend an hour making a list of ten other possible names that don't completely suck and actually are available. If you still think that the $350 domain name is worth $350 after that, then go for it. |
How much to pay for a domain for a side project? | jacquesm: For a 'side project' that is at the hobby level it is clearly too expensive, if you plan on eating of it some day you can expect to invest a large multiple of that worth of time and effort anyway, presumably you'll recoup that.To date I have only bought a single domain ever from someone other than a registrar, usually with a bit of thinking I can come up with one that is not already taken, in your case that might be impossible, hard to judge without more info.Best of luck with your side project anyway! |
What programming languages should a web designer know? | Ascendancy: I would say XHTML/CSS is extremely useful to master, as they are basic markup languages to display how your website looks.From there you can go down a few different paths, JavaScript being the frontend path for fancy UI effects and PHP/MySQL seem to be the matching database and backend programming language for most web 2.0 apps today. You can learn all of these languages online through tutorials and help forums, it'll just take some time |
Do you need to shout anonymously? | aintgotone: very interesting. Bill O'Reilly wouldn't like that. |
Tiny things that make a positive difference in your day? | pmccool: Buying identical socks. Increases my chances of finding a pair. |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | thesethings: It's generally a bad sign. I wrote at length about it here: http://thesethings.posterous.com/rapping-grandmas-and-ninja-...The gist of my post was:
Originally, it was a way to suggest to a technical candidate, "Don't be scared, our place of work respects technical people." It was a code in a way for, "We're not a boring bank. Or if were are, you still might have fun here."Now I think the term leveraged in the opposite interest: "We need YOU, the candidate, to be awesome. But our wacky language still gives no clue about us, the employer." |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | chrisbennet: "We want rock stars" seems is used by some companies to mean "We want someone who is 5 times more productive than average but who will work for much much less than 5 times average pay." |
What DSLR should I buy? New/Used? | arthurdent: like hopeless said, the lens is a big deal. I'd ABSOLUTELY SKIP THE KIT LENS. If you're going nikon or canon, buy yourself the 50mm f/1.8 lens. it'll run you 100 bucks and teach you way more about photography because you'll get to play with the aperture a lot more (open that lens all the way up and you'll get a really narrow depth of field compared to the widest open on the kit lens).Camera: to start with and learn on, xsi is a great camera. if you're thinking nikon, i'd get a d40 if you want to stay in the same price range (skip the d60, its not better than the d40).i generally recommend the d90 for nikon as a starter if you're a little more flexible with budget (same sensor as the d300, cropped sensor, but i think thats a nonissue for most beginners, especially if you're shooting for posting online).between nikon/canon -- just pick one. this is basically the same sort of question as "ruby or python".i've bought happily off craigslist, but if you're even slightly concerned that the seller is sketchy, skip it, unless you know what to look for. better to pay 50 bucks more as insurance that you're getting quality early on. B&H photo is a great place to buy online and they'll match any reputable vendor (usually they're the bst though).read kenrockwell.com. he reviews a ton of cameras and generally has a higher concentration of quality information in one place than you can find elsewhere. |
What programming languages should a web designer know? | Rust: HTML and CSS for sure (XHTML can't be properly handled by most server/browser combinations, although they fake it well).For front-end interactions, Javascript is pretty much the only answer. jQuery is just a Javascript library, and AJAX is just a method to send/receive information without refreshing the entire page.For "true" Web 2.0 functionality, you'll also need to know a server-side language. PHP is certainly one of the more popular ones (and among the easiest to get working), but there is also Java, Ruby, ColdFusion, .net (C#, ASP.net, VB.net,etc.), Perl, Python, LISP, ARC, etc.Chances are you'll need to be able to store information, which pretty much requires a database. MySQL is easy to work with, but there's also PostgreSQL, SQL Server and Oracle (among others).Personally, I currently use HTML 5, CSS, Javascript (with jQuery), PHP and MySQL most frequently.As a designer, however, your biggest concern is almost certainly going to be the HTML/CSS side of things. A library like jQuery will handle 99% of your cross-browser Javascript issues, but getting a page to look right (though not necessarily identical) across browsers can be a challenge. You'll need to know not just the markup (HTML) and display (CSS) languages, but also how each of those are interpreted in the major browsers (IE 7+, Firefox 3+, Chrome 4+, Safari 3+ and Opera 9+). You'll need to know how to make your PNG graphics look the same in Windows and OSX (gamma differences, if I recall correctly).Fortunately, all this information (and more, so much more) is at your fingertips. All you need is patience, time, and more patience :)Good luck! |
Tiny things that make a positive difference in your day? | Scott_MacGregor: I work full time (plus) at our startup and hate to stop working for lunch. So I keep a supply of fresh fruit, plums and oranges mainly, on my desk. It's cheap, healthy, and keeps my energy and concentration up. Plus it makes for a good late night energy snack when I'm burning the midnight oil, which is most nights--LOL. |
How do I put a div box around my cursor on click - like FB tagging? | jamesbritt: Better suited for Stack Overflow or some such place. |
From what countries do people use HN beside USA? | jorisvoorn: Croatia |
From what countries do people use HN beside USA? | gspyrou: Greece |
How did you meet your Mentor and what drew you to them? | ismarc: Honestly, this is going to sound cheesy at first, but it's not, I promise you. My dad was the first mentor I had. Entire time I was a kid he was trying to get different businesses off the ground. After I moved out he actually succeeded for a while, but that eventually imploded. You see, my dad isn't a very skilled person. He's lacking a large amount of business sense. He's really not even very bright. However, he's one hell of a salesman. He could always sell the product, but couldn't keep the business together. I saw him fail repeatedly, and learned from his examples. Essentially, I had a decade of failed startup experience before I was trying my own. The end result? He was a mentor by showing me a large number of ways to fail. |
Tiny things that make a positive difference in your day? | apsurd: Walking around town. I don't do this every day but the times I do do it reminds me of how valuable it is. When you walk around town for an errand like say to go the bank, you can't help but stop and view all the stores you pass by. You see the people your town is made up of. You get a chance to help the elderly lady find a bus stop, or open a door for a struggling mother. You get to help an out-of-towner find his way. You get to smile at people and say "HELLO!". You get to slow down and be human.Also removing white clothes from my wardrobe. I have colored everythings, and i never really got why anyone would want to wear dirty white socks anyway? |
Music APIs? | nimmen: http://www.discogs.com/help/api |
Tiny things that make a positive difference in your day? | ZeroGravitas: Cycling to work. |
Music APIs? | ahmedaly: You can also use Amazon API.
by using Amazon affiliate API, you can access and search artist/album/song info. |
input on the idea please? | pkc: I like the idea. I think key to success of this idea - getting people already know the subject to participate in the service. Their input might be more valuable. So it also brings down to point to ranking various lists available on the same topic. Digg/reddit like voting might be useful here and in turn might improve engagement also. |
From what countries do people use HN beside USA? | pjmurray: new zealand. although im currently in australia |
How did you meet your Mentor and what drew you to them? | seven: I am not sure whether my mentors are aware that they are my mentors.I am a freelance developer and security guy. Trying to go from services to something more scalable.My business mentor is an about 60 year old African business man, who is my client since about 8 years. He grew up very poor and is now owner of many companies, providing jobs for several thousand people. I am still fascinated about how he approaches new things and try to learn from him whatever is possible. I try to see him at least every 1-2 years in person, but we exchange emails more or less every month.Then I have my coding mentor. We shortly worked together in a project some years ago. I realized that he is a genius and started calling/emailing him when I had something interesting to say or to ask.I would give the following advice to find and keep a mentor:
Do not expect anybody to ask you for your progress. Present your work. Ask for opinion. Do not be afraid to question the advice of your mentor. And you should care about your mentor too. Give your opinion on your mentors work. |
Passive income? | rmc: The easy answer is to find something that makes you money while your asleep. The awesome patio11 on here has done mostly that. Go ready some of his stuff. |
How much to pay for a domain for a side project? | rmc: I would suggest against it. It's almost certainly possible to pick another domain name, and just use that. If you're just starting off, and no-one knows about your brand, then you can just as easily switch to another branding.The only reason you should pay lots for a domain name is if it's hard or impossible to switch. i.e. you're already invested in that brand.For example, openstreetmap.org is basically "doing to google maps what wikipedia did to encyclopedias". They have been going for years, and have ~ 200,000 users. openstreetmapS.org (not the S) was squatted. They eventually raised funds and bought it. It made sense for them since they had already a lot of brand awareness of "open street map", and it's so easy to add an 's' to the end. |
How does one get certified as an ETHICAL hacker ? | rmc: Depends what you want.If by 'hacker' you mean security, then there are certs for that. Or start hanging around, reading and practicing security stuff.If by 'hacker' you mean a good programmer (that's probably what the hacker in hackernews means), then you don't need a certificate for that. Just do lots of programming. |
When does the Apple-AT&T iPhone Contract End? | byoung2: Most likely June 2010 is what I've read several places.http://www.businessinsider.com/apples-contract-with-att-is-d... |
When does the Apple-AT&T iPhone Contract End? | Mankhool: In Canada, Rogers had a monopoly on the iPhone from July 2008 until November 2009, when TELUS and Bell were allowed into the market. So a 16 month run. Very different from the US. |
What's a good place for South African programmers to emigrate to? | gexla: Looking for a job or working as remote contractors? I'm a U.S. citizen living abroad but since I do remote contract work I can work and live anywhere on a tourist visa. I have to do visa runs but that's just another excuse to travel somewhere different. |
What's a good place for South African programmers to emigrate to? | adrianscott: Check out Panama. Seriously. Get a base here and either work locally or do remote work in the same timezone (u.s./canada). Ping me if you have any q's. (Ad: I'm hiring and open to remote workers) |
Learnings from Dale Carnegie, "How To Win Friends And Influence People" | robdimarco: # There is only one way to get people to do something. You have to make them want to do it.# People love to hear their name. When someone tells you their name, remember it and call them by it# When someone asks you what you do, or what's new, have a good upbeat answer. No one wants to hear about your problems. |
Learnings from Dale Carnegie, "How To Win Friends And Influence People" | hajrice: I practically use all the points to get girls and tbh, it goes really good for me. |
Corporate innovation, but... | icey: This is why we build APIs |
Passive income? | simon_: In general, the only things that will generate income for you are work and assets.So... ask yourself what assets you have (a popular website or a library of photos, e.g.) that aren't currently being monetized. |
What's a good place for South African programmers to emigrate to? | hcho: England is not the preferred nomenclature. UK is your best bet; size of industry, proximity to continental Europe, ties with US and all...Depending on your age, income and/or ancestary, you can make use of Tier 2, Tier 5 or ancestary visas, all of which lets you to work in the UK without finding a sponsor. |
Please share your e-mail workflow, tips. | TallGuyShort: I've used a number of different email clients, but I think that the simplest tools, if applied properly, should solve this problem. Trouble is, though, is that's really specific to what mail you get.When someone un-CCs themselves from a bug report, find something that's common to every subject line (or better yet, the sending address, since it's probably your tracking software's server), and make a filter for that. Also, I think most clients allow you to distinguish between mails just to you and mass emails. I would just make a folder for every category you can think of, set up the filters as best you can, and then prioritize the categories. Emails that are written solely to you and don't look like notifications you get on a regular basis are probably the most important. Then replies, etc... |
Default command line software in Mac OS | jolan: It's all the basic UNIX stuff + programming languages like Java, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby. |
Where is Steve Yegge? | crpatino: In his writting, Steve seemed painfully aware of the pass of time. Said things like... having only a handful more of 5 year blocks of life to invest wisely, or... working at Google because life's so short to waste at a day job that do not let you exploit your full potential. He is a smart guy, but somehow he seems concerned of being so far away from greatness.My personal take is that he realized those who can, do; and the others just blog about it. |
Please share your e-mail workflow, tips. | visitor4rmindia: I've been using David Allen's "Getting Things Done" methodology for about three years now and I find it works really well.When dealing with mail the principle I follow is to use the inbox purely as an inbox and not a substitute "to-do" list.What that means is I process each message, one at a time, starting from the oldest. I don't skip ahead to "interesting" mails. If the mail can be handled in under two minutes, I just do it. If not, I create a related task (in EMacs org-mode (which is utterly fantastic but any old text file with categories can be used)) and handle that outside the mailing system.The mail itself gets filed into a specific category archive folder for reference. My inbox is almost always empty which is a GREAT feeling for some reason.EDIT: Thanks for the link to sup btw. I use mutt but the 'search' feature seems tempting. |
Default command line software in Mac OS | telemachos: In terms of a list, you can try this (though I can't swear that it's completely up to date): http://ss64.com/osx/Also, unless you install the developer tools (they are freely available on your install disk or you can download them), you don't have a compiler and other key development tools. But even before install the developer extras, you have a fairly full set of basic *nix tools and languages (Perl, Python and Ruby) to script in. Note that if you're used to the GNU version of the coreutils, find, etc., you may get some surprises in terms of flags. OS X uses BSD versions. |
Please share your e-mail workflow, tips. | csomar: Okay, here's my experience with e-mailing.Setup:- I use an ordinary Gmail Email (for 4 years). It gets around 200 email per day (that's around 8 emails/hour).- Apart from the usual email, I have few other emails with domains (like support@mydomain.com). I use Google apps for them and I forward all emails that I receive from these domains to the main ordinary Gmail Email.Benefits:- The ordinary email works like a repository for all my emails. By checking it, I check all emails I have.- The domains emails make it easier for me to arrange emails and keep a record of them. For example, I'm using a separate email address for my PayPal account. This keeps a record of all received or sent payments. In the same time, when I get a payment, the email show up on my primary email and then I get notified without the need to check all my in-boxes.Usage:1- When at home (my office), I run Gtalk full time (rarely my friends nudge me). When I get an email, GTalk pops up a box. I quickly read the email title. If it's the usual spam (80% of my emails are useless), I just ignore it, if it's an important one, I pause work and open my mail box.2- When outside doors, I use my mobile to check emails. Doesn't have a regular checking time, but when I feel I want to check I check. If there is an important email, I read it; but most of the time reply when I get back home.3- I sleep like all humans. When I wake up, the first thing I do (before anything) is running my netbook, check emails, reply or read and then archive them all. My inbox is now empty! A new day, get back at point 1.Usability:- Make use of the Gmail Star (also Gmail keeps emails conversations gathered in one email, that's the most useful feature).- Hit the Spam button |
Learnings from Dale Carnegie, "How To Win Friends And Influence People" | sganesh: I personally visualize & associate them and use them as much as i can:) I believe smiling is the single most important thing of the list.Here are the first nine principles with Number - Keyword - Visualization Technique :)#1 Don't criticize, condemn or complain :
One - RUN- A horse in a race crossing the finish line with THREE GOLDEN BOOTS on top it, with "C" imprinted.#2 Give honest, sincere appreciation :
Two - ZOO - You're vising a zoo and standing buy a monkey cage. You throw a banana at the monkey and monkey throws back a bouquet of ROSES.#3 Arouse in the other person an eager want :
Three - TREE- You're in front of the Rockefeller Christmas tree. All of a sudden, the tree falls to the ground and there is a WANTED poster with your picture on top of it.#4 Become genuinely interested in other people :
Four - DOOR - You're walking out of a grand hotel, through their revolving door, when the door gets stuck in a stack of 25% INTEREST bearing treasury notes :)#5 Smile :
Five - HIVE - You're out hiking and come across this huge cave, with a gigantic bee hive on it, with bees buzzing around it. Out that bee hive, sticks out a big yellow SMILEY face.#6 Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language :
Six - SICK- You're sick and are admitted to the hospital. The nurse brings the syringe and it is about 10 feet tall with a 3 feet needle attached to it. Out of the needle a NAME PLATE is dripping out.#7 Be a good listener :
Seven - HEAVEN - You look up and see something coming down. It's a flight of stairs. Tumbling down the stairs, is a pair of old HEAD PHONES, that are huge.#8 Talk in terms of the other person's interests :
Eight - GATE - You're about to cross a railway gate. The bells start ringing and the gate comes down on the bonnet with a thud. Attached to the gate is a MICROPHONE.#9 Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely:
Nine - WINE - You're dining in an upscale restaurant. The waiter brings you a big bottle of wine on which is it is imprinted "IMPORTED".Hope it helps. |
From what countries do people use HN beside USA? | csomar: Tunisia (Sfax) |
What's a good place for South African programmers to emigrate to? | gstar: A friend of mine thought he had a well paid job in Australia, then moved to the UK to do contract work in a similar field to yours and earned 4.8 times as much with much less responsibility and stress.The exchange rate isn't as good anymore, but I would recommend the UK over the other options. |
Learnings from Dale Carnegie, "How To Win Friends And Influence People" | faramarz: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.This is by far the best advice Carnegie made. If you want to get people to level with you, first you need to let them know you yourself are vulnerable, make mistakes and are very much like the opposing party.Once your each that level, the other party is more prone to listen to what you have to say next. Be it a suggestion, criticism or a direct order. |
Learnings from Dale Carnegie, "How To Win Friends And Influence People" | JacobAldridge: The best, and most dangerous, lesson I took was the value in 'mirroring' the person you are speaking with. Subtly mirroring their body language and speech patterns shows empathy, similarity etc, and since I wasn't naturally great at body language I found it really useful as I entered the business world.Unfortunately, this habit ended up becoming second nature. While in many situations this was great - I just naturally found commonality in discussions - because I wasn't doing it intentionally it could become inappropriate.One of my coworkers was flirting with me incessantly, and not only didn't I notice that behaviour I was actually mirroring it back. My girlfriend (now beautiful wife) met me for lunch one day and was ready to kill me (fair enough). Thankfully we worked through to the root cause - this book - and I changed the habit.That doesn't take away from the book, it just shows that any of the lessons therein and discussed here will be most useful when you have a level of self-awareness that I was lacking, and which will help you apply them appropriately. |
Why are HN relevant submissions getting killed today? | pg: Some are dupes and some are spams. E.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=arif100 |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | faramarz: Thanks for the question. I'll be monitoring this thread, because I'm entertaining the thought of outsourcing my iPad app. development as well.Upvoted |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | gte910h: This is what I do for a living (in Atlanta though).Depends a lot on the complexity.For non-game apps: Some smaller, simple apps are 2-3k, more complex stuff runs in the 10-15k range. Past that you're doing something A> Really Hard, B> New, C> On the edge of what Apple allows or D> Heavily involved with a complicated server component.I'd happily send you a fixed fee quote for your app if you'd like (see profile for an email address to contact me).One thing to see: See if they'll set you up on your mac getting you compiling and signing for submission to the store. Lots of overseas shops don't get you through that last part, and it is pretty tricky to do right. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | dotBen: Too many variables to be able to suggest a total rate (depends on how much work there is, in addition to the other factors listed).You are probably looking at the equivalent of $100-200/hr for good development, with the higher end for people located in SF.If you are going to out-source development, and you have a design/product background, I would build out a product spec and even a draft list of stories into Pivotal Tracker. It will help you define with your contractor what you want but also help to estimate total job time -- and that will help you arrive at a budget, based on the above hourly rate.[If you don't have a design/product background (or are not a developer yourself) then the success of outsourced is probably going to be mixed]I also tend to shy away from fixed bid because it doesn't work with an agile approach. You may not know completely what you want and as you get building and can get a better picture, being able to add extra components into the mix will cause friction with a fixed bid contract.Better to agree a budget so that everyone is clear what the limits and goal posts are. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | tarouter: I remember having read this story about a girl who outsourced her app to canada for 800$ and earned upwards of 8000$ selling it. The app was about a popular game played by girls. I know I'm being too vague but I specifically remember this -
1) Canadian developer
2) Was developed for 800$
3) It was a popular game app for girls
I hope that provide some useful data points to consider.
It was published in one of hacker/entrepreneurship related websites/blogs which probably many of you frequent and might have seen the story. Anyone got a link? |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | Mankhool: I got a very rough quote from a Toronto firm to do a location based app for web, iPhone and Android for approximately $370,000. I just talked to a Vancouver developer who charges $120/hr. As others have mentioned there are numerous variables, but most developers will usually be happy to do an initial free consultation to learn more about your project so that they can at least ballpark a figure to you. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | grinich: I do freelance iPhone/iPad dev work. I'm in Boston. grinich@mit.eduFor reference, I built this: http://michaelgrinich.com/hackernews/ The rest of my portfolio isn't yet online. Send me an email and I can show you more. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | glen: I'm using rent-a-coder to develop an iPhone app for an automatic thought record -- a tool that clinicians use to help people challenge irrational thoughts with evidence and rational thoughts. I put the bid out at $300 just to see what happened. I had 3 bids and ended up choosing one w/60+ reviews and a 9.7 (out of 10 rate) for $250. Feel free to email me with any questions. I'd be happy to share the project plan they developed. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | adriand: We're a development shop that focuses on web development, not far from Toronto. We're dipping our toes into iPhone and iPad development - we have someone who is trained, but no app in the App Store yet. We're working on a new app right now that we intend to be free, just to build credibility. But I'd be happy to quote on your project. I'd cut you a deal given that it'd be great exposure and experience for us.I realize that stating up front that we have limited experience in the area probably doesn't inspire confidence. However, we're a high quality shop with excellent design skills. We produce quality software, and wouldn't let you down.Contact info in my bio if you're interested. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | yish: The going rate for a great developer/designer with lots of mobile experience here in SF is in the ~150 an hour range. I've seen this price go up significantly in the last couple months, primarily due to high demand at the moment. You can probably get a little cheaper outside the area and definitely less offshore, but even then a good offshore house will run you $60 and they often don't like doing fixed bids at those prices.My experience is that app development for a medium to high complexity app with location features and accessing a 3rd party API for data would typically take 4-6 weeks including QA but really depends on the complexity.I've done about 30+ mobile apps now so ping me if you need any advice |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | rickharrison: I started up a small development shop about a year ago with a couple other people from Hacker News, and we have done a lot of iPhone development. I would be glad to talk with you about your project. We deliver quality work, and charge much less than some of the more well known shops.We just launched two iPad apps this past weekend, and they are in the top 100 in both overall categories (free and paid). And they are a #2 and #3 app in their respective subcategory. Send me an email (its in my comment). |
How do you organize the online "content" you consume? | drenei: The best process for me at the moment seems to be using 3 tools in the following way. The 3 tools are: Google Reader (through a mac app - Gruml), Instapaper (a bookmarking service thats great for text) and Diigo (a bookmarking service).- I go through Google Reader once a day scanning for useful things. Anything that I can't go process in a few minutes or don't want to deal with immediately I save.- Anything I come across during the day (from emails, friends, colleagues, etc) that I want to look at later also gets saved.- I save things in two ways: articles/text to Instapaper, and everything else to a 'temporary' bookmark folder on my browser.- When I have some time, 3 to 5 times a week, I'll read through the articles on Instapaper. I'll archive the articles after I read them on Instapaper, deleting any that weren't useful.- 2 to 4 times a month I'll go through the 'temporary folder'. Deleting anything that isn't useful and and using diigo to archive everything that is.- The key thing so far for me is to make sure I relentlessly remove anything that I am reasonably sure isn't useful especially from my RSS reader.Its not as simple as I'd like it to be, mostly because I'm using two archiving services. I like instapaper's ability to easily convert articles into a readable format. At the same time for organizing and archiving everything else diigo works great. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | callmeed: A friend and I went to a few dev shops with an iPhone app idea. We got bids from $10k up to $50k.I really like the work these guys do:
http://www.ubermind.comYou might also post in 37signals' job board–they have an iPhone category. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | edster: I'll be happy to talk to you about your app. I've been developing freelance iphone apps since day 1 of the beta. I've had apps featured at the All Things D conference, NY Times, all of the gadget websites and one of my apps was chosen as one of the top 20 apps of 2009 by a prominent magazine.I live an Ann Arbor MI, but I've done several projects from companies in CA including a prominent app for a San Jose based company.Please contact me via email and I'll turn all of this theoretical stuff into real names and places.<edit>My rate is $75 per hour, which is why I think many CA firms don't mind working with a remote resource<end edit> |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | auston: Might I recommend that you make it a web app?All of the facilities you have listed are available in Safari (client side storage, location data). |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | jason_slack: Whatever you do, dont use Craigslist. You get what you pay for!And incidentally, are other just dumbfounded by those that advertise "Develop my iPhone app, no compensation" ads? How can they realistically think someone might do that?I can understand why they advertise, in hope, but I would rather be working on my own company and my own apps for FREE. |
How do you organize the online "content" you consume? | briandoll: Evernote. I heard the hype and ignored it for a while. I tried it a few months ago on a whim and have been hooked ever since.We come across a lot of data. Lots of it is interesting, but we don't need it right now. I save dozens of articles a day in Evernote and search it first when researching a topic I'm interested in. It's likely I've saved some great posts on the subject, but haven't gotten around to reading them yet. |
How do you organize the online "content" you consume? | frossie: I mostly use Google Reader. I use the shareaholic firefox extension to add non-RSS sites to my Google Reader shared items, so I can search for them later - I don't share publically.To a lesser extent: evernote, readitlater, and firefox bookmark folders.My mantra: don't archive what will still be there tomorrow, and don't sort what you can search for. |
How do you feel when you see "ninja" or "rock star" in a job post? | frossie: I don't like it, because it goes again my own beliefs in what constitutes effective teams. As a geek herder, I can't think of anything worse than a team full of "rock stars". The best teams have a mix of good people who excel at different things. For example you never see a job ad for "compulsive documenter" but every team needs one. |
Examples of (but no "get-rich") paid membership sites? | petervandijck: So in this case, I'd actually hire someone fulltime to answer question and research stuff members need to know. |
How do you organize the online "content" you consume? | nreece: Synced Bookmarks with Google ChromeSynced Notes with EvernoteSynced Docs/Files with Dropbox |
How do you organize the online "content" you consume? | thinker: Shameless plug - but worth checking out to solve your problem - we've built a website called Thinkpanda which lets you save notes, links, files, rss feeds and even etherpads in "collections". All your collections are a click away and we even aggregate content from all your collections (and those you are following) into one meta-feed.We're starting off targeting the academic market (students, researchers) but have found it pretty useful for organizing interest-based links and having general discussions as well.Check it out http://thinkpanda.com and any feedback is appreciated! |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | byoung2: I've worked with Take 5 Labs (http://takefivelabs.com/) for iPhone app development. They developed an app for the last company I worked for (http://www.veritasprep.com/iphone-gmat-practice-quiz/). That app was in the $5-10k range. |
What's the best way to manage passwords in a small company? | devicenull: LDAP? Depends on what kinds of passwords you are trying to share. If it's for internal services and such, I'd suggest LDAP. |
How much does it cost to outsource iPhone app development? | NiftyIon: Hey. We have a team of wanna-be iPhone app developers made up of ~6 people. We're high schoolers with a few years programming/graphics design experience.We're just starting up. If you're interested in maybe outsourcing something to us, shoot me an email. Since I understand that we're not experienced iPhone developers and maybe not even experienced developers in general (I'd like to think we're pretty decent, but maybe that's teenage arrogance speaking), it would be incredibly cheap.But we're dedicated, have spare time, want to learn, and we would be willing to accommodate changing schedules, weird requests, whatever, if it means we get a chance.My email is <my username> at Gmail.com. |
Emailing users their passwords outdated? | smallblacksun: It's always been a bad idea. The server should not be storing your password in plaintext, let alone transmitting it over email. |
What should I do when I get laid off | dwynings: What type of sales? Shoot me an email: dru@druwynings.com and I'll pass on your resume to some friends if there's a fit. |
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