instruction
stringlengths
4
105
output
stringlengths
8
56.7k
Review my startup
soundsop: I like the idea.You may want to let users know on the front page which rewards programs you support. I see that it's in the FAQ, but to see that information instantly might be more reassuring to the user (especially, the one that isn't going to look at the FAQ before leaving).Personally, I would never trust your website with my reward site password (I think that's how the site works). I'm not picking on you, I simply don't trust any website with another website's password. This doesn't seem to be a hindrance to sites like Facebook that ask for your Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo password, although, unlike your site, they don't store the password (or so they claim). I don't know how you would possibly get around this limitation or whether you should bother trying, as you may get more users from the convenience of storing passwords.
How has the current economic situation affected your startup?
jfornear: I had to downgrade my hosting service from Mosso ($100/mo) because my dad is out of a job.
Review my startup
breck: asp? interesting. (i'm not judging at all, just curious as to your reasons for using it)i like the design. the messaging isn't that compelling for me however "track your balances".when i sign up for something i like to think "what am i going to get?" tracking balances isn't something that i get. could it be something like "see where you can go [with your current points]"?that would make me want to sign up.
Review my startup
rokhayakebe: Very beautiful design. Great idea as well. I have worked for 4 years with frequent fliers and they all experience headaches with their miles and rewards....
Review my web application
speby: Good start. Have you looked at apps that do somewhat similar things? You might find improvements and/or inspiration to do something better or different.Also, your site is simple enough that you might consider doing progressive signup. Don't require an account to start marking things. If they like it, they can create one later and it will save things into a unique account for them specifically.
Review my web application
inimino: Besides only lasting a week, what benefit does this have over clicking on the star in Firefox 3?Edit: I like the design.
Who's Hiring?
nc: We are hiring excellent Objective-C / Cocoa devs at Kodu (http://www.kodu.co.uk), to work on some upcoming iPhone applications. Don't let the uk domain throw you, it's a per-project position and we are fully open to remote working.See http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/4634 for more info.
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
netcan: contextIt may help to think of SaaS as a part of a larger context. Over the past 20 years or so, many 'product companies' have become 'service companies.' Aircraft tyres is a popular business school case study. In many countries where company owned cars are the norm, leasing companies are the primary providers of cars (+ petrol + insurance + washing + servicing + all other issues). Office hardware is another good example.If it helps, those are all X as a Service business models & I believe they do quite well compared to their industries. But note that most of them targeted mature customers.There are quite a few software segments where SaaS is or is becoming the norm: Live chat customer support, Web Analytics, CRM.
Is there a HN for music?
dmix: http://contrastream.com, my previous startup.
Review my startup
terpua: Have a sign up button at the end of the learnmore page.
Who's Hiring?
fleaflicker: Fleaflicker. If you're passionate about sports and software development and you have a CS degree, contact me. We operate like a startup but you get all the cushy benefits of working for a large company.http://www.fleaflicker.com/jobs.do
Who's Hiring?
pjharrin: I'm looking for a marketing or business related internship with a tech startup for the summer. Check my profile for my blog and contact info
Is there a HN for music?
jaytee_clone: Start one.
Who's Hiring?
brianm: We're hiring at Ning, more or less all roles: front and back end engineering, operations, product mgmt, UX, QA, various management roles. On the eng side we have java, ruby (not rails (okay, there is one rails app)), c, php, and whatever-or-not, the focus is on getting the job done with the right tool for the job not the language or framework.http://about.ning.com/jobs.phpEmail me if I can answer any questions -- my HN username @ning.com
Review my web application
pedalpete: I've often thought something like this would be useful, but I'm missing a few things (and you have a bug, I can't leave my e-mail blank because it says that e-mial is already taken).1 - I can't figure out how to add a bookmarklet. I can only add you page 2) I wouldn't go to a page to enter in the sites to save, that is too much of a pain in the ass - a browser plug-in would be much better.
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
jedc: If it helps, I tried modelling 37signals' revenue a while back. Based on some of their posts and a few guesses I think they've got about 10k paying Basecamp customers, and across all their products will have about $8million in turnover this year.My original blog post is here: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2008/02/25/37signals-is-one-...You can play around with the spreadsheet I created, though I hope to update it soon.I think it's absolutely easy to see that you can get 5000 users paying $20/month if you provide $20/month of value to your customers! Are you saving them that much per month in other costs, or generating new revenue through your software?
Review my startup
pjharrin: I believe travelfli.com/ is going to be doing a similar thing, so make sure you market a lot to get the market share
Who's Hiring?
GavinB: I'd love to talk to someone who could do some flash work on a freelance basis in the NYC area. Not for a startup, but fun stuff.. Imagination a big plus!gavin at gavinbrown.com. Include a link to some work.
Review my startup
inrev: What does acruw mean or stands for?
Review my web application
tlrobinson: How's this different/better than Instapaper?
Who's Hiring?
utefan001: woti.com Computer Scientist (all levels) - Crystal City, VirginiaDesign and develop high-performance, data exploitation and web-database applications following a standard life cycle development model, including unit test development and quality assurance. Experience with Linux, Python, HTML, and SQL is required. Javascript or C++ language experience is a plus. Oracle database programming (and preferably performance tuning) experience is also a big plus. The ideal candidate will have strong written and verbal communications skills; ability to work effectively in a team environment, including a strong ability in troubleshooting production software. woti.com
Who's Hiring?
erinokots: Hello, HN!If anyone is looking for programming work near Eugene, Oregon, they should definitely check us out:http://eugene.craigslist.org/sof/898533379.html http://www.otsys.com(I'm a HN lurker and happy On Systems Employee.)
Who's Hiring?
sanswork: If you're in Sydney Australia we're looking for PHP developers at various skill levels. Send a mail to shawn at casid dot net if you're currently looking and we can setup a chat.
Who's Hiring?
wenbert: What about if I am from the Philippines? :-/
Who's Hiring?
indigoviolet: Facebook is always looking for good engineers: PHP/Frontend stuff; Python/C/C++/Java for backend stuff; data science and machine learning. Start on their jobs page, do a couple of puzzles, demonstrate exceptional ability.
Who's Hiring?
bmj: My employer isn't a start-up anymore (still privately funded though) and we're hiring in the Pittsburgh area.http://www.invivodata.com/aboutus/careers/clinical-systems-s...We also have a small development center in Scotts Valley, CA that isn't actively hiring, but is often looking for good engineers, especially those with Windows Mobile experience.bjanaszek AT invivodata.com
Review my web application
daemon: I think your tag line should read "a naturally zesty enterprise" as opposed to "a natural zesty enterprise". And what is it, exactly, that makes you "zesty?"
Who's Hiring?
rms: I nominate this for thread of the year.
Who's Hiring?
ivankirigin: http://tipjoy.com/jobs
Review my startup
shawndrost: Oh thankyou thankyou thankyou. I was looking for this earlier.
Is there a HN for music?
edb: I did a radio show for two years, and all the recommendations on this page are a great way of finding music, but by no means are they better than just reading interviews and articles on your favourite artists, find out what makes them tick. Heck, go to a concert at your local (smaller) venue and chat with the band if you liked what they did.That was always the best way I found music, lots and lots and lots of research and discussion with like minded people, mostly at shows.... at least until www.last.fm came about. :) This, in my opinion, is the best way to find music that's in line with what you listen to. It takes what you listen to and finds people who listen to the same thing. It then finds out what they're listening to that you're not. Yes, you have to feed it your listening record, but once you've done that, your life won't be the same. I don't know why it's so neglected.In fact, I always thought this would be the best way to run HN. Take all the articles I've upvoted, find people who've upvoted the same articles, look at what they've upvoted that I haven't and show me THAT on the main page.The main problem with a HN for music is that music is too subjective and immeasurable. In hacking, you can argue stats, performance, visitors, etc. Music is different. More people listen to Brittany Spears than North of America, she also made more money, but there's no fully logical way to argue why she sucks. It's all a matter of perception and emotions. You can't wrap a webapp around that, nor can you get a group of people to agree on what's good and what's not because tastes vary so greatly.
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
auston: QUICK STATSHUBSPOT has over 700, my guess is close to 800 and they charge like $200 per month (~$140-160k per month)LEADS360 was doing like $400k in rev per month in late 2007.37SIGNALS obviously, is doing well, I'm guesstimating $10 mill, at least.ZOHO is doing like $40 million a year.CONSTANTCONTACT is doing $50+mill a year.Then of course, there is SALESFORCE.
Who's Hiring?
dreadpirateryan: Xobni is hiring developers - send resumes to jobs@xobni.com!
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
edb: Anybody know if schools are a good target?
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
brezina: Taleo.com - fantastic recruiting SAAS business, something like 300k paying users. Bought by individuals and corporations
Review my startup
mattmaroon: Personally I'd be worried about giving a brand new startup my OnePass creds, considering I have a stored credit card there and you could use them to book flights.I like the idea a lot though. I used to travel quite a bit, and mainly stuck to one airline due to the mileage.
Who's Hiring?
grag: Playlist.com is hiring developers. If your a talented PHP, Python or ActionScript programmer get in touch with me at gabe {at} playlist.com.Take a look at our new website here: http://www.playlist.com/?home=a
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
mattmaroon: What alternative is there really? Ad supported won't work well for most apps. It really depends on what you're doing, but it's clear that it may work, and it's often clear that it's your only reasonable business model, often with some sort of freemium twist.
Who's Hiring?
suzanne: we're looking for a lead engineer at weardrobe (details at www.weardrobe.com/joinus) drop me a line at suzanne@weardrobe.com
Review my startup
terpua: Awesome idea and clean execution. Please add international airlines. Great for the expat community which uses multiple airlines for different regional destinations.
Who's Hiring?
truebosko: I've been reading this post throughout the day and I must say, what an amazing act by the community here. You guys are awesome, all of you.
Review my web application
slice: markitforlater.com on the footer is missing the l and reads markitforater.com.
Review my web application
yeabuddy: how is this any different than delicious?
Review my web application
trevorturk: Sorry, but I just don't see a compelling reason to leave Instapaper for it.
Review my web application
PStamatiou: delicious + tag as "toread" is what i've been doing
I'm going to a Uni preview day - what can I talk about?
bootload: "... I'm going for a university open-day tomorrow, I'm applying to do CS, and although I'm not being asked for a formal interview I am trying to think of a few topics to chat about ..."Q. Do you:- do you use linux here?- teach C, lisp or Scheme? ~ http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...- have any electives I can do in entrepreneurship, learning to write or economics? ~ http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CollegeAdvice.html
What IRC rooms do you frequent?
mindcrime: On FreeNode, I auto join these channels when I bother to start my IRC client, which may or may not happen any given day.#trilug (Triangle Linux User's Group)#trijug (Triangle Java User's Group)#trilug-mtb (people in trilug who ride MTBs)#fedora#centos#asterisk#centos#openmoko#java#eclipse#spring#jboss#hibernate#ruby#erlang#prolog#lisp#ai#swig#machinelearning#openqabal
Who's Hiring?
timcederman: We have openings, in particular (as I keep posting!), Trovix is looking for a search hacker. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=355208
Review my web application
paul9290: WoW .... dude you totally ripped off this http://readitlaterlist.com/ . ReadItLater has been around since august 2007 and featured on Digg here is an article from one of Om Malik's network sites http://tinyurl.com/5bsuf4Dude reconsider the name it screams of copycat and a lack of innovation!!!
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
epi0Bauqu: http://www.liveperson.com/ ?Or why not just contact graduate students directly?
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
raffi: Yes. University of Phoenix. Err... wait, you want someone with PhD level knowledge? Can't help you there.
Review my startup
tomsaffell: As someone who has a fair few miles in each of 6 different FFPs I like the idea, but it's probably not useful enough for me to use it. I don't find any of the things listed in 'With acruw you can...' hard to do today (= you're not removing pain).Where you would be removing pain is if you could do searches for reward seat availability for me. Like a kayak.com but for points. I would use that for sure (searching for reward seats is real pain).
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
sharpshoot: its what academia.edu will become
Who's Hiring?
bjclark: We're hiring a Rails Dev in Portland, OR.We do 1000 req/minute. We have tables with 100+mil rows. 30" monitors, MBPs, and the office is on the 5th floor looking out at 7 (of 9) bridges, the river and downtown. There's a bar 1/2 a block away with 14 taps.Agile, RSpec, Pairing, the works.Our CEO is Ward Cunningham (the Ward in TDD by Example, inventor of the wiki and terms like "Stories").It's pretty freaking awesome.Email github username + resume to jon.farr -at- aboutus (dot) org
Who's Hiring?
Jrix: I'm an uneducated young adult with a very High IQ. FEED ME MONEY.
Which revision control system?
thorax: I'm actually a big fan of Perforce. I don't feel that any system I've tried (~dozen) really beats it when it comes to internal software development inside of an organization. For open source, distributed version control makes a lot more sense, but internally, Perforce is pretty hard to beat and modified versions of it are used at places like Google and Microsoft.What reasons do you dislike Perforce? Maybe we can help you pick by comparing what you're trying to move away from.If by "given the OK" you mean you need to swap because your company doesn't want to admin/pay for Perforce licenses, then maybe you can clarify that a bit, too.
Who's Hiring?
boris: We (http://www.codesynthesis.com) are looking for great C++ hackers in Cape Town, South Africa. For more information on what we offer and who we are looking for, seehttp://lists.clug.org.za/pipermail/clug-work/2008-July/00062...
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
timr: Well, gee....everyone has champagne tastes on a beer budget, don't they?If you truly need the expertise of a PhD to solve your technological problems, then why in the world would you think that the problems are easier to outsource than the mundane stuff where we know that outsourcing fails miserably?
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
wheels: I suspect the results wouldn't be remarkably better than using normal freelancing sites and it'd be suspect to falsifying credentials. Beyond that, a PhD does say something about a candidate, but presuming you'd want them for a development task, it doesn't speak much to their suitability for performing that task.One place that you might have luck would be on the ACM job boards. Many of the SIG announcement lists primarily cover open positions. While I'm often critical of the ACM, that would seem to have a similar target audience to what you're after.
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
known: SaaS + Govt Regulation = Successful Business
Who's Hiring?
nod: Us: http://www.tableausoftware.com/jobsI love the people and the product. Rails, C++, desktop, client/server. Interactive data visualization - analysis that's more fun than should be allowed. :)
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
scott_s: The problems that researchers generally solved are not well defined or tightly scoped. Researchers do research which often means the problem itself changes as they explore solutions.
Who's Hiring?
splurk: My employer (Guidewire Software) is hiring: jobs@guidewire.comAs an employer, it's a total hidden gem. It's website screams "boring insurance industry vendor", but inside it's got a very very good developer environment, and it may very well reach its goal of dominating its chosen niche: core enterprise systems for insurance companies. The other devs are excellent, management is excellent and very decentralized/hands-off, very little politics and other nonsense, free snacks and drinks, tons of interesting work. We're a java shop, so we'd expect some java experience, but most importantly, we're looking for really good, really smart devs. A CS-related degree (masters preferred) from a top school helps.
What do the enlightened use when the rest of us use Excel?
olefoo: I would just start w/ python, but I know several people who are in love w/ R http://www.r-project.org/ which is deigned for statistics (there is an RPython interface, so you can tally your cake and have it too :)
Anyone else getting annoying popups?
Shamiq: Thought about getting some ad blocking plugins for firefox?Adblock plus, I think, is a good one.
Who's Hiring?
asdf333: salesforce.com is hiring. let me know if you are interested and i will get your resume in.while there are some exceptions for some really exceptional candidates, most of the jobs are in downtown San Francisco.mostly java. looking for enthusiastic, hardworking and talented individuals.is it soul sucking? honestly? not yet. its in the middle stages. ppl are enthusiastic, high quality and hard working still.email me here w/ your resume if you're interested! (email expires 11/25/2008 11:10PM PST) b57cruj24Q47@meltmail.com
Who's Hiring?
nradov: Axolotl Corp is hiring two full-time developers in San Jose, CA to work on enterprise clinical data sharing applications for the healthcare industry. This involves both front-end web applications and back end data processing. Current major platforms include: Java/J2EE, IBM Lotus Domino, IBM DB2, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, SOAP, HL7. We care more about intelligence, problem-solving, and understanding of fundamental development concepts rather than skill with any particular programming language. The company is not a start-up any more but still fairly small.http://www.axolotl.com/careers/index.htm
What do the enlightened use when the rest of us use Excel?
psyklic: It sounds like Excel is well-suited. Another quick option (if you are familiar with it) is Matlab.
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
trevelyan: I don't know of any site of the sort you're looking for, but if you need Chinese or English machine learning/NLP services, get in touch with us at Language Systems Ltd.http://languagesystems.netWe help people with a subset of NLP problems involving translation, segmentation, content-extraction and search and have cost-advantages from being based in China. That said we can't help you with distributed algorithms and your desire to just hand-stuff-off-to-someone-else is a recipe for disaster unless you can be very clear about what it is EXACTLY that you need your systems to do.Your best approach to working with NLP is generally finding the simplest solution to your problem and then iterating to make it more and more usable. As much work is needed getting and processing data as linking together algorithms. If you blindly outsource you'll get what you ask for, but not what you want.
Who's Hiring?
dazzla: Long shot but does anyone have anything around Sacramento?
What do the enlightened use when the rest of us use Excel?
czcar: Hmmm not sure if it quite fits but SPSS for Statistical Analysis...
Who's Hiring?
anand: BumpTop is hiring developers too, all the way up in Toronto, Canada! http://bumptop.comC++, OpenGL or Flex. Email me if interested anand at bumptop.com
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
sireat: How about contacting appropriate departments at Universities directly?
Review my startup
mikkom: Same question of always (because you are asking about startup, not website): What is your revenue model?
What do the enlightened use when the rest of us use Excel?
gaius: Your choices are many: R, Octave and Sage fit the bill, all are free and battle-proven.
What IRC rooms do you frequent?
herdrick: I've been lurking in #clojure lately.
Which platform for managing an opensource project (Firefox extension)?
Herring: I tried to setup a sourceforge project once & found it very complicated. Google only took me a few minutes & it's been working fine all this time.
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
santacruz: World of Warcraft - 14 million subscribers - $15 monthly. Can you do the math?
Review my startup
eli_s: As stated already - really great looking design. The idea looks good to me too. Are you thinking of travel based advertising for revenue?
Who's Hiring?
Vitriol: Ever thought of moving to India?Directi ($300MM, Internet Products, DNS + Infrastructure) is looking for Tech Leads and Engineers.See: http://careers.directi.com/
Review my web application
pclark: Hi, I like this.+ Kudos for entering a market that already has leaders (delicious & instapaper for example)+ I'd like to see some delicious integration, be it sending it to my delicious -- or the other way around (grabbing links tagged with "markitforlater"+ the UI is gorgeous, the name is good.- how do i remove links I accidently marked?- when you first register, make it do something other than redirect you to /links/ -- I make a new account and the first thing I get is a blank page? whoop ... :) I want to know some good reading sources, I want to b taken back to the homepage for more instructions.- the bookmarklet is a bit slow, the transparent thing takes a few seconds to appear causing me to think it didnt work.
Who's Hiring?
bjelkeman-again: Senior Web-developer - San Francisco, Netherlands, Stockholm, Sweden or London, UK.We are looking for a really experienced HTML / CSS programmer/designer preferably with a background in Python and Django. Some PHP experience is of course useful. Provable work on open source code is a merit.http://www.akvo.org/web/jobsThis is a fulltime position.
Who's Hiring?
Pirate: We aren't a start up but if you'd to do more low level programming work there is a Toshiba run shop in Nashville TN working on HDTV software (firmware up through GUI) and we are hiring. C and C++ - Real time programming experience a plus. Unix development - multi threaded - synchronization - blah blah blah, you get the idea.
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
trevelyan: Not to skirt the question, but ten thousand dollars a month is not really ramen profitable. Your hard costs are server space and bandwidth, and whatever amount of food and shelter is necessary to keep both of you working.A lot of subscription businesses are slow growth and high churn. Your market expands slowly as the people who will pay for your services find you and you get better at marketing to them. Unless you have a really killer service, large advertising budget or the media at your beck and call, I think it will be tough to grow to that subscriber level overnight.
What do the enlightened use when the rest of us use Excel?
murrayb: I use and like Gnumeric- http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/ it tends to be lighter and faster than the Open Office equivalent and I haven't found any features which it lacks. Excel has more prettiness options for display/print but from what I have read Gnumeric beats it's pants off in terms of math and statistics functions.
Review my web application
jgrahamc: Have you seen http://l8tr.org/ which also scans web sites that are temporarily down and emails you when they come back up?
Does the SaaS model really work? Really?
azsromej: I have a small service and about 3% of the user base opts to pay for advanced features. That figure has been consistent for me for some time, even when the user base as a whole was smaller.
Review my startup
pierrefar: You have some rendering weirdness in Firefox 3.0.1 on OSX Leopard:I've put up a screenshot: http://cli.gs/152EXg . Look at the first blue rectangle's left side edge and the bottom right blue box's right edge.Interesting idea, too :)Pierre
Who's Hiring?
gmr: We're always hiring senior php developer talent at myYearbook. If you're up for relocating outside of Philadelphia or are in the area, drop me an email at gmr@myyearbook.com.
What do the enlightened use when the rest of us use Excel?
mindcrime: OpenOffice Calc. One nice thing about OOo is that you can write scripts / extensions in pretty much any language you feel comfortable with. I think I've seen some reference to some integration between R and Calc as well, which would make Calc incredibly powerful for statistical analysis.
Who's Hiring?
jtbetz: Clickable is hiring for Software Engineers in NYC. See the job description at http://www.clickable.com/corp/jobs/20080723softeng.aspx.We're still a very small team, but our customer base has been expanding rapidly since we took our second round of funding this summer (Led by Founders' Fund, with additional investment from FirstMark and Union Square Ventures).
Who's Hiring?
fredBuddemeyer: haven't published this job yet but id like to be as helpful as possible to this community. need a java apps developer (familiarity with a framework like stripes is very helpful) in santa barbara california.funded and still quite stealthy you could say littleBiggy is mcluhan meets the white pages. our interview process starts with a sample project you do on your own time and get paid for. we learn about each other through working together and take it from there. i can be reached at fredb.
Who's Hiring?
amanfredi: Gilt Groupe in NYC is hiring both experienced candidates and recent grads.http://www.gilt.com/company/job/1337Email me at amanfredi@gilt.com
Great online reference books?
pavelludiq: http://www.diveintopython.org/ and http://swaroopch.info/text/Byte_of_Python:Main_Page are great, i also like the PLT Scheme's documentation http://docs.plt-scheme.org/
Is there a RentAPhD.com type service?
shalmanese: timr: The difference between this and normal outsourcing is that I'm not outsourcing the design aspect of it, merely the algorithmic development. Think of it as a netflix challenge style problem. The problem would be specced roughly as:"Here is an input vector, here is an output vector, write an algorithm that can translate input -> output with 98%+ accuracy". Of course, there would be validation data as well which they never get to see.scott_s: Of course, lots of research is by necessity vague but a lot of it can be tightly scoped as well. Handwriting recognition, for example, simply involves trying to improve an accuracy measure.sireat: There's what? 1000 universities in China and I don't read Chinese. Such an approach seems really hit or miss to me.
Who's Hiring?
pageman: our Manila, Philippines base is hiring people who know RoR and if you're a Merbist ... better :)
What IRC rooms do you frequent?
srn: #elinux and #linuxchix
Top universities in the world?
chollida1: I didn't expect Canada to have 3 universities in the top 13 in the peer review category. Good for us;)
Is there a HN for music?
espadagroup: http://mog.com is a great music site that is more centered around the community writing about music as well as sharing it.
Who's Hiring?
scrapblog: We are hiring! Flex & .NET developers, as well as designers. feedback@scrapblog.com