instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
|---|---|
Review my Startup: Pitch - stop re-writing the same emails | ScottWhigham: 1) Volume on video demo should be higher2) Better mic on video demo - got tired of hearing sibilant ssssssssss within 20 seconds3) Better demo4) Less compression on audio on video demo5) Does Tawheed really want his actual email address in your demo video?6) I see the need but don't get it. Why is it free... |
How did you come up with your startup idea? | seven: One project I am working on is the reimplementation of some old software I wrote 8 years ago. It worked very well but had some conceptual problems and got very bloated. New version offers more or less the same, but in a more modern way using modern standards and fixing some old problems.
I had the idea to do thi... |
Where to find reputable legal advice for web startup? | javahava: Yes, I needed to clarify this would be for the U.S. Thanks. |
How did you come up with your startup idea? | gruseom: People at a company complaining about how existing software didn't do what they want. |
How did you come up with your startup idea? | chegra84: Three ways:
1) I see something I like and want it done better.
2) Randomly, enters my head. Like connecting stuff. This happens alot when I walk.
3) Observing a need
4) Testing out a new theory :D(I should stop doing these they are unprofitable)
------
You should try to observe yourself when you are creative ... |
share your copyright/patent nightmares with us | mlLK: Related (or why I'm asking): http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/bqcut/ask_rweb_d...Related submissions: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+intitl... |
share your copyright/patent nightmares with us | hxa7241: I would have thought http://www.techdirt.com/ was one of the richest veins to mine. |
Any Successful Startups using Microsoft Dotnet Stack? | csomar: So far what I knew are StackOverFlow.com and PlentyOfFish.com1- The stackoverflow engine is a great example. Also you have the power of SilverLight, if you want to make your application interactive.2- You are not really locked in, you should just pay the server licenses. Expensive, but that's the price you pay... |
What are the best free and pay web charting libraries? | alexjmann: I've used the free version of AM Charts. They look nice and work well.http://amcharts.com/ |
From what countries do people use HN beside USA? | Y6b: UAE, Dubai :-) |
What is scarce now - what will our descendants be addicted to? | ascuttlefish: Hopefully enlightenment. |
What is scarce now - what will our descendants be addicted to? | knieveltech: Craftsmanship. |
review my startup concept - web achievements | yourabi: I think you are on the right track with the idea - but I see some problems with some of the specifics.1) A lot of companies are paranoid and will want to run this inside their network/firewall. You should develop that option (look at GitHub firewall for example)2) What incentive do platform providers have in p... |
review my startup concept - web achievements | barmstrong: I've never tried adding achievements to my app...is it difficult to get right?The services I like to outsource are the ones that are hard enough on their own...mail server (sendgrid), possibly hosting (heroku), recommendations (directededge). Some of them which are relatively easy, like comments with disqu... |
review my startup concept - web achievements | franck: This reminds me of this project by Jeff Lindsay (progrium) : http://www.getachievements.comI'm not sure it's still active though. |
review my startup concept - web achievements | Sidnicious: You watchedhttp://g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-bo..., didn't you? |
Pricing models, stand-alone software vs. enterprise what works? | pedalpete: Without knowing your business, or the environment you are in, it is difficult to really make a recommendation here.I would recommend picking-up the book Crossing the Chasm or Inside the Tornado, both by Geoffrey A. Moore, if you haven't already looked at them.You mention that you've gained pretty good tracti... |
review my startup concept - web achievements | OmarIsmail: Congrats! I had this idea about 8 months ago and knew that it was going to exist in some form on the web within 12 months. Now there are two services that are entering the space, so that is very cool.However, my original idea seemed to be a combination of both webchiever and iactionable. And to be honest, I... |
Open-source PDF Viewer for my Website? | zbanks: I know it's not OSS, but scribd.com is a really useful service. They have a decently powerful API that lets you upload the doc and let them handle hosting, rendering, metadata, etc.I'm not sure if this will work for you, but sites like drop.io seem to use it pretty well. |
review my startup concept - web achievements | johnrob: Problem - if a new game shows up, it doesn't provide a fresh new leaderboard for the achiever to climb. |
Need Advice for a Literary Magazine | samratjp: Hmm, on first thought, checkout this hot thread going on right now:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261499 It's about dead tree version of Hacker News. I am sure these guys are going through the same questions as you are.Well, without Ads, it's going to be a tough sell (unless you will charge your members... |
Open-source PDF Viewer for my Website? | stse: Don't know if I would call it really good, but pdf2swf might be a start.http://www.swftools.org/ |
Open-source PDF Viewer for my Website? | asnyder: I can't think of any OSS, but Vuzit makes a pretty good one that you can add and embed in your website without having to host your files with them http://vuzit.com/. |
review my startup concept - web achievements | hkuo: Just from my rudimentary math skills, I'm not sure the pay-per-achievement assignment would work. As an example, let's say I have 10,000 active users per month, and from their activity, they achieve 10 things per month. At one penny per, I would be shelling out $1000 per month for your service, $12,000 per year.... |
Any Successful Startups using Microsoft Dotnet Stack? | kobs: Writely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writely#History), one of the precursors to Google Docs, was written using the .NET stack. http://scobleizer.com/2006/03/09/congrats-to-writely-for-usi... |
Where to find reputable legal advice for web startup? | samratjp: Though I don't have any personal experience dealing with this in the real world, I do have an answer for those with access to an academic institution. Usually, the big research universities (in the U.S. that I know of) have a technology transfer department and they can be very resourceful. Of course, this dep... |
Open-source PDF Viewer for my Website? | bmills: I built this for a project I'm working on. http://github.com/Benmills/pdfizeIt's a jquery plugin that uses the google pdf viewer. Here is a demo: http://files.bmdev.org/pdfize.html |
Need Advice for a Literary Magazine | JacobAldridge: Basically, a magazine can make money either by selling Content to its readers (what newspapers do, see also http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Why-conte...) or by selling access to its readers to other people with content (often known as advertising).The more readers you have, the more re... |
How did you come up with your startup idea? | samratjp: It's really like sowing seeds and waiting for it grow mature. You will get some weeds, but that's part of the process.For example, I would consider some ideas and just when it's getting so good, I stop thinking about it to leave on a high note. This usually happens when you least expect it at places such as t... |
Open-source PDF Viewer for my Website? | NLark: Google docs viewer has worked well for me:
https://docs.google.com/viewerExample here:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/09/embeddable-google-d... |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | pbiggar: If the first comments on NewsTilt are the kind of quality we've come to expect on HN, we may be able to socially engineer others into leaving really good comments too. Help set a good example.As a bribe, I promise to write about how well that works. |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | ajkirwin: I have to say, I don't like this site. I run at 1680x1050 and when the actual meat of the site only takes up a fraction of my screen width..:/ |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | jgrahamc: Got a comment from a 'silver surfer' in my family that it wasn't obvious how to log in to comment. Need to do something to make it obvious to people who've never used Facebook connect before. |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | riklomas: From a design point of view, I think it's really great, but there's a couple of tweaks I would make. First, I would ditch the Zapfino script font, it's quite distracting and jars with the other fonts. Secondly, I would slightly increase the leading on the main body text (something like line-height: 150% works... |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | axod: Just my 2c, please rethink most of the fonts. Not a fan of those.Also I just don't understand what NewsTilt is :/ It just looks like a blog with some articles... Is there a clear description of what's going on somewhere?For example I see an article reviewing the movie "How to train your dragon". Why would I only ... |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | avinashm: some random observations:Please rethink about fonts. I would prefer "continue reading" button on right side. "News" link can be little more prominent; centered content on "news" page.on the side note: are you going to let user to customize/filter/personalize "news" page? |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | ErrantX: Why when I log out does it also log me out of Facebook?? Is that a limitation of FBConnect?EDIT: I see that it is a limitation.. that sucks. |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | AmericanOP: I thought you guys were syndicating stories to reach the audiences who would comment on human interest stories, etc. |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | leif: The icon you've got there (tiny newspaper on what looks like a mac monitor) is completely unclear to me. What are you trying to say with it?I don't know if this is true for anyone else, but for me the header nav stuff is HUUUUUUGE and could use some aesthetic work. For reference, here's what I see: http://img.p... |
Help us seed NewsTilt (YC 2010) with thoughtful comments. | jackfoxy: Disappointment. The layout is well done. In fact my eye was immediately drawn to the leads of the first 3 stories, from which I concluded I was faced with 3 more opinion pieces.Disappointment because the web, tv, and all entertainment media are already drowning in post-post-modern opinion. Eric Schmidt wants ... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | duck: I would check out Visualizing Data - http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514556Also, I enjoy this site http://flowingdata.com. |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | mcantor: I've read The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Tufte, and I think it would benefit you even though you are not talking about manually generating charts. For example, he talks about how it's easy to be misleading with a chart based on how you calibrate the axes, which is something you'd still need... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | alilja: Edward Tufte's book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is a monumental book. He writes not about how to make your graphs look pretty, but how to display vast quantities of data and distill them down into useful graphics that communicate themselves effectively.He provides examples of good and bad gra... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | ajdecon: To me it sounds like you want to be using a tool like Matlab or matplotlib in python to automatically generate various types of plots from your data. There are a wide variety of books about Matlab, and I don't really know one better than the rest. For python, there's "Beginning Python Visualization" by Vaing... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | j-g-faustus: The Tufte books are brilliant. For dynamic charts, his first book (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information) is the most relevant, it covers the theory - how to tell a good representation from a bad one - and the basics.Readings in Information Visualization ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Readings-Informa... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | anonjon: You might want to check out the processing language at:http://www.processing.org/And look at the examples section.A lot of it is about artistic sorts of representation, but it is programmatic. There are a few books that the authors of the language wrote, including the visualizing data book mentioned by duck. (... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | Anon84: Leland Wilkinson's "The Grammar of Graphics" http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Graphics-Leland-Wilkinson/dp/0... is also excellent and fully implemented in the R programming language/statistics package ( http://www.amazon.com/ggplot2-Elegant-Graphics-Data-Analysis... ) |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | wdewind: Tufte is great, but he's extremely heavy and a bit dated. He is about 80% brilliant 20% completely missing the point. It's very strange.If you are looking for a smaller book I've found the WSJ Guide to Information Graphics by Dona Wong to be pretty decent and pretty straight forward, and it's about 100 pages... |
Ask HN:Choosing the right open source license for SaaS software | drtse4: What about the Affero GPL? It's a GPLv3 that also allow you to receive code modification when a software is used in SaaS mode.
I'm not sure if this is the level of protection you are searching, this has always seemed a bit to strict to me (as gplv3)... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | timwiseman: If you are considering using Python, Beginning Python Visualization (http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Python-Visualization-Transfo... ) seems quite good to me. It is of course a niche product targetting though who intend to use Python though. If you are looking for a more broad based grounding in visualiza... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | Flemlord: I do a lot of charting for financial services software. The best practical book that I've found is The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics: The Dos and Don'ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and Figures. Simple but practical guidelines for displaying pie/line/area graphs.But for your situation, check... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | aohtsab: Fun fact - Tufte's in Arlington giving a talk and we're taking a 15 minute break right now. Compelling speaker and thrilling read (he's giving away four of his books to every attendee). |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | revorad: I would highly recommend learning R (http://www.r-project.org/). It is very easy to directly query databases and R has many visualisation packages, including the awesome ggplot2 (http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/) based on the grammar of graphics. I'm writing an R graphs cookbook and my startup's visualisation product... |
Ask HN:Choosing the right open source license for SaaS software | cjbprime: If you don't want someone else to be able to build a competitor site, it sounds like you don't want an open-source license.The best you can do with an open-source license is the AGPL, which will force any competitor site to release all of their modifications -- this means that they can't gain any advantage ov... |
Best JavaScript drag-and-drop plugin? | simonw: I've had lots of success with the draggable/droppable modules from jQuery UI. They cover a lot of tricky cases (don't start dragging unless the mouse has moved more than a few pixels, revert to original position if the drag fails, arrange draggables in to "groups" so they only interact with the correct droppabl... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | samratjp: I had a similar situation except that I wasn't as smart as you to consider books in the first place.But, I did use some really good tools. I highly recommend using Prefuse (yes, it's java but it ships with great examples and it's open source). If you like prefuse, then try flare (actionscript based). As far I... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | SlyShy: There are also options like Erlang and Node.js where hot code-swapping is possible. Although having a second database is useful as a slave, of course, I don't think it is necessary to run two copies of the database just to redeploy.Github just redeploys by killing and restarting Unicorn workers gradually. It's ... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | thinkbohemian: Not sure if this is exactly what you're getting at, I use capistrano, it was built for rails deployments and does require some scripting/setup but once you've got that down, i can push changes to any of my sites all day long. I have a few wordpress installs that i deploy with capistrano as well. Once you... |
Ask HN:Choosing the right open source license for SaaS software | staunch: One suggestion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbra#Software_license |
Apps Using Sproutcore? | jasonlbaptiste: MobileMe is one, but that's kind of the obvious one in the room. Looking for more obscure stuff. More Cappuccino apps would be awesome too. |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | wizard_2: After reading http://highscalability.com/ for a while I've happily found myself using some tips from there from time to time. I've only used these methods a few times, I usually just push large database changing changes at night and try not to do anything that takes longer then 20 minutes.One way is to use tw... |
Apps Using Sproutcore? | vitovito: Mozilla Bespin now uses it as their framework (they render a canvas on top of its elements). |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | kylecordes: I wrote up how we attack this problem a couple of years ago:http://kylecordes.com/2007/01/20/web-app-swap/including how we handle schema changes. |
what SaaS do you currently pay for? | tbgvi: Right now I'm using Get Satisfaction, ZenDesk, Salesforce.com, and Basecamp |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | ziadbc: If you're big on visualization check out Harvard's www.CS171.org. I'm enrolled in the class right now and it's been very enriching. I think it is also available as opencourseware.Books:
http://www.cs171.org/syllabus.htmlResources
http://www.cs171.org/resources.html |
what SaaS do you currently pay for? | tonystubblebine: Basecamp, Highrise, Campfire, Glance, Blinksale. |
what SaaS do you currently pay for? | danudey: MobileMe and Flickr for me. For my previous company, we used Hoptoad, GitHub, and Lighthouse for a while.I'd pay for Dropbox if I had more than one computer and/or I was ever anywhere near my storage limit. |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | emmett: For simple things like adding tables or adding columms, just do it. Add the column/table, then release new app code relying on it.For more complex things (changing the name of an existing column, or breaking a table into two parts, etc.) you need to write a compatibility mode into the application code. New writ... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | wvenable: I've got a pretty good setup going, most of the changes do not require any downtime at all. Adding a table or column rarely requires any downtime (the existing code knows nothing about the table/column and continues on it's way) -- push the DB change first then the code. Removing a table or column can work ... |
what SaaS do you currently pay for? | puredemo: Pandora. I think that's it right now. |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | thegoleffect: Depends on what scale you're dealing with. If you have a high traffic site, the db should be sharded so if you do a manual switch master-slave, only a small piece would be affected at a given time.But I'm guessing you're dealing with a single M-S setup. I've asked around and it seems the standard practi... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | physcab: Most of these (rather good) suggestions revolve around learning the theory of representing data. But how does one practically accomplish these visualization tasks?I have been delving in this area for the past couple months, and even though I am still learning, I will give my practical suggestions to the progr... |
Best place to hire Web Contractors? | thegoleffect: Add these to your list:* odesk* rent-a-coder* craigslist* referrals aka friends-of-friends |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | jeremyw: It sounds like you're making rolling updates across your app server cluster, version n -> n + 1. You have to separate database updates into innocuous and harmful, and your developers have to signal that state for deploy.Changes:a) Schema changes and row updates that are compatible with 'n'. No downtime, no w... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | stingraycharles: What we're doing is this: when doing upgrades that actually changes the data model, they go in two phases:* First, an upgrade that understands the old model and the new model, internally uses the new model, and writes in the old model. This means that this new version is 100% compatible with the old ve... |
What do you do with your iPad? | martingordon: I've been reading a lot more on it than I thought I would.I thought that having a multi-purpose device would create distractions, but instead it gives me more opportunity to read since I bring my iPad with me more than I did the Kindle. |
Best place to hire Web Contractors? | primemod3: Here's a HN topic about contractors:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1262467
and the list:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlD_6iEb8Ed9dGs3clV... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | jhancock: Its a pretty special app that can't handle a few seconds of downtime. The first thing I would do is be very certain this is a requirement.I thought it was a requirement for a couple of webapps I manage and I now think otherwise. I have scripts for starting and stopping various server processes and have othe... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | lamby: Are you just trying to avoid it looking "bad" for visitors, or do you actually require your site to be up that long?If the former, one hack is just make the downtime for users more fun - I added a chat interface so that anyone waiting doesn't get too bored and can interact with other members.Screenshot: http://l... |
Best place to hire Web Contractors? | lsc: what does elance have that you want that craigslist doesn't? This is relevant to my interests, as I'm kinda sortof toying with the idea of setting up a job board myself. |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | lsc: I watch /newest sometimes. But yeah, a way for the user to choose other ways to choose stories would also be pretty cool. say /getarticles?ratingbetterthan=10&afterdate=20100101 or something? |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | pg: Sure; click on the More link at the bottom of the page. |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | oscardelben: you could also subscribe to the RSS feed. |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | thinkbohemian: I would like the option to auto hide stories that I have clicked on after maybe 5 minutes, and to auto promote the "next" story to my front page.Pros: More content on front page.Cons: Slightly inconsistent content on front page between users, would need to be able to easily toggle between modes, incase y... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | lamby: Can you change your database paradigm? ¬_¬ A document-oriented database like CouchDB would "just work" in the most common database schema changes. Or perhaps you could throw upgrade-friendly data in a KV store encoded with Google Protocol Buffers. |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | devinj: I see plenty of posts with 10 points on the front page. This was one of them. |
what SaaS do you currently pay for? | apsurd: github, linode, pandora, getclicky |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | gaulinmp: I'm with @oscardelben, the RSS feed is the way to go. I browse what's interesting to me and am indifferent to the votes. |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | Kilimanjaro: My view:- Voting for STORIES is retarded. It can be EASILY gamed.- There should be editors who pick news RELATED to the main purpose of the site.- Let the people SUBMIT stories but let the editors PICK the most relevant.- On the other hand, voting in COMMENTS is ok.A good idea would be to have say ten edit... |
Is HN Ignoring The Long Tail? | dmharrison: Yep, but this is true for RSS and most news sites generally as well IMHO. You see it, read it and then unless someone reposts it, it's gone forever. I use delicious to tag that I've liked it and then can search, but it doesn't search content etc.But the primary reason I use the feed is that it's filtered ... |
Less features with new releases. Have you done it? | uncoder: Never. If your product is generating revenue and profit, the profit the only wise thing is to invest in the product. If you do so, the product will have more features and becomes bigger. If you did not, your competitor will have done so, and will have innovated to a build a better business. |
Less features with new releases. Have you done it? | j-g-faustus: A company I worked for tried to remove a feature:One release added a "tagging" feature (similar to Gmail tags) while the next release had a "hierarchical folders" feature (similar to Outlook folders).The thinking was that tags and folders did pretty much the same thing, and folders were clearly superior si... |
How to turn my web application into a lifestyle business? | pedalpete: First off, that site is amazing in it's simplicity. Even your sign-up process is the easiest I've seen (though I'd make it more clear that it is a sign-up, because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to already have an account).As far as monetizing, with the volume of todo lists available, you may have difficult... |
Patterns for deploying webapp updates with no downtime | lol_Sprint: Are you working for vendor X on the Sprint.com upgrade? 'cuz they seem to be having this precise problem lately. Down since 2300 on Saturday with no end in site. |
Open-source PDF Viewer for my Website? | seven: Not sure if this is an option for you, but you could run OpenOffice in headless mode and script it to convert pdf files to html. |
How to turn my web application into a lifestyle business? | steveklabnik: Read everything by our own patio11: http://www.kalzumeus.com/ specifically this post: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software-busin...I'd also suggesting reading Getting Real (or Rework, if you want to pay, I think it's worth it) by 37signals: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ |
Open-source PDF Viewer for my Website? | rbrcurtis: if you are into the java ee scene you can look into icepdf by the icefaces people. I've never personally used it but is is OSS now so it might work out for you.http://www.icepdf.org/ |
iPhone/iPad online app-development | xsmasher: You can get a Mac Mini for $599, hook it to your network, and access it using logmein.com or some other remote access method. That's what I did to get started, and it's worked very well. |
iPhone/iPad online app-development | Magneus: Apple does not support any development environment other than XCode on an Intel Mac.Thus, if you want to do Objective-C development, your best bet is to get your hands on a Mac. Barring that, you could rig up Hackintosh, or Hackintosh VM in VMWare/Virtualbox.If you are willing to consider some zanier options, ... |
Any good books on graphing/charting/visualization? | tedshroyer: Please keep in mind color blind people. I'm red/green blind and about 1/3 of the charts I run across are meaningless to me. Here are a couple sites with info: http://wearecolorblind.com/ http://www.vischeck.com/ |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.