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what do you use for mailing list software? | zandorg: I have used Topica (defunct) and YahooGroups (aka Onelist) before. Not used Google Groups. YahooGroups is AFAIK most likely to last and archive another 10 years. Google Groups != trust. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | MrFantsyPants: For VillageToolbox.com, I needed a database driven mailing list with a highly customizable web interface, both for subscribe and list options, and for the list archives.I ended up writing my own mailet for Apache JAMES. It seems pretty robust so far, but hasn't seen heavy traffic yet. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | eisokant: I find PHPMailer a great class to use; there's also opensource mailing list code for it (http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmailer) but haven't used that one personally. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | brm: tough to go wrong with dada mail http://dadamailproject.com/ |
What resources did you use to learn PHP? | coolboy89: First of all: Programming is learned by practicing, get off HN, books and just do it.If you are a person who can master a practical subject (typing code) by just reading specifications, I'd recommend stop using PHP and maybe switch to a more thoretical language; LISP, prolog, mathematica why not?If you are a "mechanic" type of person why learn by experience, just start programming, don't worry, you'll learn!I recently programmed a site in PHP more or less boilerplaty. The idea to avoid ugly, boring code is to abstract things away, supposedly by a framework or by yourself. Nevertheless if you don't know what you're looking for, you won't find it.A thing i would probably use next time is MYSQL-classes as described in http://www.justincarmony.com/blog/2008/10/25/php-design-bigg....A thing i would probably use next time is MORE regular expressions for sanitizing input. Learn regexp, it's a time saver!1) I too started with basic tutorials, but bit by bit startede gravitating towards PHP.NET, finally landing in some nice PHP-framework. I see PHP as a great language, but not a great framework. There are no prepackaged 'concepts' of programming as in, for instance, ruby on rails. There is however lots of nice low-level type of oppurtunities for clever hacks if you know the technical bits, as in C.2) I wouldn't think about it, as for always, i would start typing away. It's not LISP, Prolog or Haskell where a lot of planning is involved. |
Boston or Silicon Valley? | mooneater: Re: ponds. I would most definitely want to experience both scenarios. So I would pick the one I hadnt experienced before. |
CakePHP? CodeIgniter? Symfony? Other? | eisokant: I have only tried CodeIgniter so I can only speak for that but it is by far the best decision I have made to move to this MVC framework. It's holds a lot of libraries and helpers which will simplify most tasks and they are incredibly easy to extend. It's downside though is that you're not able to call functions internally from other controllers but once you get used to that it doesn't pose many problems. I would recommend you having a look at their documentation (which is very well done) and a demo video. |
CakePHP? CodeIgniter? Symfony? Other? | dchest: CodeIgniter is OK, but the first question is -- do you really need any PHP framework? It's not hard to get MVC in a few lines of code without any framework. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | speek: We've used ConstantContact for some time. It's nothing special but it gets the job done. I'm not a big fan of the logo on their emails, but I don't really mind.I do use phpmailer to send off some stuff to me on my server, but nothing for mass mailings. |
Buying servers? | bbhoss-synsol: I like Sun servers, they can be expensive, but you can get some good deals if you are accepted into SSE (Sun Startup Essentials). For me one of the best things about them is the ILOM, which is badass as far as I'm concerned. Also, their N1 System manager lets you manage and provision a bunch of servers from a single location. It will also keep track of the environment on all of them, but thats nothing you couldn't build with SNMP traps etc. Also, I must mention that if you pay for the support, it is awesome, I had a problem with system drives on a Friday, and they overnighted it and I had it Saturday. They also don't charge you unless you don't send the defective part back, with THEIR free packaging and shipping. It was also nice of them to include 3-4 3M anti-static wrist straps with my shipment of new hardware :) |
CakePHP? CodeIgniter? Symfony? Other? | noodle: codeigniter is a good purely MVC framework that doesn't add much extra overhead to your project (by default -- you can pull in plenty of overhead with the external libraries and such). if you want the MVC separation but don't want to be weighted down by other things and like to hack around in php, its a good choice.cake/symfony/etc. are rapid development frameworks that try and recreate some of the magic of rails in php form. they're very good to get somewhere quick. they do suffer from a bit of feature bloat and performance problems if you're planning for a large application down the line.i've used them all, i like them all. having said that, i would hands-down go with codeigniter on every project IF they were to pull together a better community and form better community code and libraries. for example, it took me forever to get a simple, working, secure authorization library in codeigniter, including having to mess around with the module myself to do what i wanted it to do. it comes fully functional in cakephp.just my $0.02 |
what do you use for mailing list software? | Jasber: I've heard great news about Aweber (http://www.aweber.com/). I plan to use them for my next few projects. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | DTrejo: www.MadMimi.com
A free online WYSIWIG editor that is very intuitive and yields some very pretty things.Highly recommended (much better than ConstantContact).They also have amazing customer service, even for those who don't pay. |
CakePHP? CodeIgniter? Symfony? Other? | qhoxie: Kohana is my favorite PHP framework by a long shot. The developers are very bright and they work hard to incorporate the wants and needs of the community, without diluting quality. It is PHP5 only, though.Use CodeIgniter if you need PHP4. The two are similarly flexible and light. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | mooneater: Meta tip for these kinds of queries: If you can find the product category in Google Directory, you get a nice list of products in page-rank order. http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Server... |
what do you use for mailing list software? | johnm: Customized version of http://ezmlm.org/ |
what do you use for mailing list software? | callmeed: I like campaign monitor. Have used it for a couple years. Great reports. |
CakePHP? CodeIgniter? Symfony? Other? | teej: Anything but Symfony. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | dangrover: I want to know too -- I'm moving there in January.I've been looking on housingmaps.com and using earthify.org w/ Google Maps, trying to find a place that looks like it would be a feasible commute.I can't decided if I'd be content to just rent a room from someone with an apartment (like I've always done in Boston), or if it's better to go for a full-fledged apartment of my own. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | sil3ntmac: phplist is what we recommend at work, since it's often easily installed through fantastico |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | mwinters58: Depending on the city, look for local management companies that own multiple complexes. I'm in Palo Alto and Vittoria Management has like 10 buildings (vrent.com). They will post them on their website before posting them on Craigslist. Things go so fast on CL that's it's not even worth it. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | greg: I have an apartment in SF with a room opening up in January. Email is in my profile. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | ericb: When I had to find a place, I wrote a script to alert me to new worthwhile postings. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | gojomo: Walk around the neighborhoods you like, look for 'for rent' signs. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | potatolicious: Slightly OT, but can we expand this question to the Seattle area as well? |
what do you use for mailing list software? | ROFISH: While it's not software, my company uses MailChimp for our newsletter/special offers emails. The statistics and guaranteed delivery is worth it. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | zaius: Yeah, bay area apartment searching is a bitch. CL is by far the best tool though, you just have to learn how to do it right.The biggest tip is to post a 'room wanted' ad - most people will only post a room if they don't find a fit there. Make your post stand out - don't give the same boring life story that everyone does - it's not relevant for a house. Post your phone number and the times you're available. When you inspect, make sure you're prepared to write a check on the spot (and say that you can in your post).It's easy to get desperate and take anything that is offered, but don't let desperation convince you to settle for something that will piss you off in a months time. Short term hotels are a good solution while looking for a place - you can get a small dorm-style room for around $500 per month, month-to-month rent.Good luck! |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | marketer: I wrote a blog post about moving to the city a couple months back, it might be helpful to some people: http://is.gd/9sPS |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | umangjaipuria: I got a copy of the Apartments For Rent magazine from a friend (I believe you can get it from ForRent.com) and found a lot of places that weren't there on Craigslist or Rent.com. It's useful to just call up the apartments directly to find out if they have anything. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | auston: I'm not living in the bay but HotPads.com seems like it would be useful anywhere. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | timcederman: I used http://www.apartmentratings.com when I first moved here.And based on the reviews of the apartment complexes I decided to go with something private. The best way to find that was Craigslist. I live in a cottage behind someone's house in the middle of Mountain View. The rent is reasonable, I get along great with my landlord, and it's a very comfortable situation.It's a shame things aren't set up more like Australia. Most apartments there are all privately owned, generally between 8-40 per complex, and a far nicer overall experience. |
A Karma API? | qhoxie: Interesting thought but I really prefer the isolation we have here. |
A Karma API? | ram1024: a universal "reputation" tied to your email account might be usefuluniversally |
Should I drop out or not? | ksvs: Do you feel like you're learning at lot in college? |
Should I drop out or not? | qhoxie: It sounds like you have a really solid background outside of academia. That said, I would not advise dropping out at this point. The reason being that you did not mention any concrete plans or anything pulling you directly away from school.Feeling that it does not have a purpose for you is valid and understandable, but there is probably a lot to going through college that you haven't taken into consideration (internships, finding partners, etc) that could be very beneficial.My final thought would be that if you at some point in the near future have something immediate that you want/need to do, then it might be a viable option. At this point, though, I would stick it out. |
Should I drop out or not? | jmtame: Which school do you go to?I find my own school to be pointless in terms of teaching me something I couldn't easily figure out on my own. I wish it were more of a "pick your own topic of study" type of thing. Only newer schools are beginning to do this. Olin College has a terrific engineering curriculum that is project-oriented, prevents faculty from being on >5 year tenure, and allows the entire curriculum to be reviewed and voted on each year.My challenge at school has not been learning material, it has been finding people who are as driven and ambitious as I am. I see that as the only real value a university has: it's a petri dish of intelligence, but there's only a few people who are going to be just as driven as you are.I am done with school in about 1.5 years and I still regret how this system is designed. I would say find a startup and go work for them. Get paid to learn, instead of the opposite in college, where the quality of material is usually very low. Get to know the very smart and driven employees and co-founders. When you have a nest egg built up, go and try to startup with someone. |
Should I drop out or not? | aak: Patience, young jedi! You've got the rest of your life to work and experiment with startups, but it's harder to go back to school later in life. It's great that you're already well ahead academically, but try and enjoy college in other ways, be it through challenging yourself with non-hacker-related courses or meeting interesting non-hackers. Good luck sir! |
Should I drop out or not? | charlesju: I'm 1.5 weeks away from graduation and I know exactly how you are feeling. So perhaps I can provide some insight.School has crammed a bunch of useless information down my throat that I will never use again in my life. It has tested me in a format that in no way shape or form reflects how well I can contribute to society (in that, if I had Google, which I do in real life, I can ace every test that I have ever taken). I've essentially picked up everything in school by reading a book since, like you, I go to a top 25 public University where the professors are all on tenure and don't give a rats ass about the students.But in light of all that, I am still damn proud of my soon to be college degree. At the end of the day you have the rest of your life to be a slave to the "man", but you only really have these couple of years to live up your youth and enjoy the finer stages in life (ie. college frat parties).So my suggestion is to look outside just college as a means to an end, but rather an end in and of itself. |
A Karma API? | mdasen: I'm going to have to say no. One of the largest sources of anxiety in our society is this belief that we have a dossier following us around. And we do. New jobs won't hire us without references from our old jobs. We have to fill in empty spaces in some way. Schools won't let us in unless we have a good record.The internet allows some respite from that. We can simply create an account and go on our merry way. Screw up? Start over!Yes, it allows trolls to troll, but it also removes the anxiety of failure and dossiers. It's (one reason) why OpenID hasn't caught on - most people would rather NOT authenticate beyond reasonable doubt that they are who they say they are on the internet across sites. They don't want everything they've said to be traceable to them.If this is an opt-in system built around a number of sites where you can share karma OpenID-style, you'll find people creating their own shell sites to boost their karma. Good for nothing. If it's a mandatory system in a few sites, you'll find users rebel. We choose our communities because we want to be there and we recognize that when we go to another community, we need to work to gain a reputation there. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | charlesju: Facebook Marketplace |
Should I drop out or not? | ryanwaggoner: Two things:1. As someone else already stated, it doesn't sound like you have any concrete plans or alternatives, so dropping out might not be the best option. When I was an undergrad, I was fascinated by the tales of so many extremely wealthy people who had dropped out of college and gotten rich through tech startups (Gates, Dell, Zuckerberg, etc, etc). I wondered if there was some link between dropping out of school and success in technology. However, I was confusing correlation with causation, as these people weren't rich because they dropped out...they dropped out because they had started something that was growing so fiercely that it took up all their time. If you don't have that something that pretty much forces you to drop out, don't do it. If you feel like you're torn and you're not sure what to do, don't quit school.2. I mean no offense at all here, but it sounds like your communication skills in English could be improved. This may not seem like a huge deal, but learning to express yourself well through the written and spoken word will serve you well the rest of your life. Others might disagree with me on this, and perhaps there are better ways to improve that area, but college seems like it would be a good environment to do so, though I have no firsthand experience in the matter.Good luck no matter what you decide. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | tdavis: I am a lifetime MailMan advocate. But you mention tasks that are mostly handled by an MTA (confirmation e-mails, alerts, special offers). Mailing lists are just that -- mailing lists. It's not a simple one-to-many delivery service like, say, sending a confirmation e-mail for account creation or sending out alerts to people who subscribe to some kind specific alert.When companies say "sign up for our mailing list" it just means "add your e-mail to a list so we can contact you," it's not an invitation to a discussion group. |
A Karma API? | rms: Let's start by allowing karma transfers between users here... |
Should I drop out or not? | prakash: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/12/graduating-college-... -- read this |
Should I drop out or not? | vlad: 1) College students don't ask how old you are, but what year. Take classes in the summer and winter to change that faster.2) Since you do care about learning, but want to pick your own classes and also learn more efficiently, talk to your advisors. They will let you take more fun, advanced classes in place of ones you are taking right now.3) Realize that in the US, the same freedom students have to do virtually nothing and still stay in the program until graduation is the same freedom that allows a student to concentrate and complete their studies much sooner. Rigorous schools around the world make sure students do the same amount of work, but such programs can sometimes limit students who want to go even faster or pick their own loads each semester depending on what they want to do outside of school. Here, schools give you a wide variety of ways to take classes (on campus, online, winter, summer, transfer credit from other schools), majors, credit loads, class offerings, and just enough structure to keep students on a path. However, the freedom to chart one's own path and speed is given to the student--so take advantage of it.My other post for you: http://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=379988 |
Should I drop out or not? | apu: If possible, I'd advise you to take more challenging and/or more interesting courses. I know there are probably several required courses that you cannot avoid (of which many are probably going to be worthless/boring), but for the ones where you can choose, pick ones that interest you. Often, more off-beat courses can be very rewarding -- for example courses in foreign cultures, various arts-related courses, etc.Also, I'd use college as a means of finding talented people you might want to work with in the future. It's an ideal place to meet such people, and perhaps even start cooking something up together.Finally, college is perhaps one of the last times when you'll have large chunks of time to do whatever you want (especially if you feel your classes are easy). Take advantage of this to explore your interests. |
Should I drop out or not? | lionhearted: College does two things primarily:1. Learning.2. Credentialing.There's also the social aspect, but it's way overrated. There's way more fun/socializing to be had in the real world. So you've got:1. Learning: You're obviously able to self-teach. Not sure how familiar you are with college courses - it's much slower learning than self-teaching. The place where college is good is for things that'd be way too tedious to stick with in self-teaching. I still think Accounting 201 is the best college course I ever took - everything else I could have self-taught or learned from someone I respected. But I sure as hell would've never taught myself double-entry accounting without a course.2. Credentialing: College is a credential. A degree is an easy big credential to get, and it helps a lot. But if you've done lots of great stuff, and no degree, you won't have much trouble. The problem is the "lots of great stuff" - specifically, tangible great stuff that you can show and point to. I wouldn't hesitate to hire a hacker who had built a couple cool things, experimented in business, and had no degree. If a kid had showed me how he started a business that made $7,000 in revenue before folding, and that he'd coded a Firefox add-on, I'd be all over it. If a technical writer listed on a resume that he'd compiled research and created 300 Wikipedia pages just because he loved it, and gave me links to his favorite 3 or 5, lack of degree wouldn't stop me from checking him out thoroughly.Managers/bosses look for credentials and track record. College is such a good credential because college sucks, so bosses know you can stick through something that sucks when it starts sucking if you finished college.If you want to get in "the army" (big companies), you might need a college degree. It shows you can take orders and do stupid stuff. If you decide to just go crazy and start doing mercenary work, you'll be able to sign on with some revolutionary, commando assassin companies, but the army will frown about taking you on. That's okay if you find the army boring.The key is, figure out how you're going to learn if you don't go to college. (You seem like you can self-teach). Then figure out how you'll get CREDENTIALS. A track record. Do some tangible stuff, and FINISH IT. Even if it sucks. Something you can write down if you apply for a job or try to get financed or borrow money or get investors. Any credentials are good credentials.Dropping out might be one of the best things you could do for your life - just make sure you do some cool stuff instead of playing XBox and drinking Mountain Dew. |
Should I drop out or not? | humanlever: I was in the same boat as you not too long ago and while I haven't found my undergrad. experience to be a particularly enlightening one, it has had value.Also, a bachelor's of some sort is almost a universal prereq. for a decent job. While you may be able to convince a hiring manager your skills are solid and that you're worth hiring, they're going to be talking to those who meet their requirements first so you may never get that chance.Rather than drop out, why not take a heavier course load and finish sooner? |
A Karma API? | sahaj: isn't this what "open social" is all about? i mean you can't carry your karma (actually a pretty weird concept to me), but a person that chooses to associate with you, gets to see your profile, your friends, your pictures, and whatever other info you choose to share. i think this model closely follows how real life works. having a rating that describes and follows you, i think, is fairly useless (i'm sure plenty of you will disagree). |
Should I drop out or not? | wyattpeak: Without any particular plans for what you want to do, I think the other commenters' concerns are valid. However I think the best solution would be come up with some plans, not to continue university.You've expressed your disinterest in spending your life in a company's employ, so I question the utility of getting a degree. Four years of your time is not a small price to pay for a qualification you may not need, to say nothing of the financial cost, so I don't buy these 'nothing else better to do' arguments.Regardless, it's a significant decision, so I would advise against a hasty choice. Consider the other benefits of a degree - for example, if you ever need finance for a project, an investor would likely be comforted by some proof of your qualification.I think it sounds like you'd be best off dropping out, but do think hard about your plans before you make a decision. If you do need to get a job in the future, IT is one of the most receptive industries to people without formal qualification, provided they can demonstrate their skill. Good luck with it. |
Should I drop out or not? | mindaugas: If you don't now the answer yet, then you should stay where you are until you know what you want to do next. |
Buying servers? | rmason: I can second the Supermicro solution. Worked for a hosting company in the past and we never had a Super Micro machine fail. They cost less and are built a lot beefier than comparable Dell's. |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | andymoe: Kind of old school but find a local real estate agent that lists rentals or manages properties. They can give you a list of apartments that fit you needs and you won't have to spend so much time dealing with flakes on CL. Worked for me. |
Should I drop out or not? | hs: don't confuse college 'experience' with freedom, they're not the samenothing gives better track record than startup (even failed ones) ... don't confuse it with the college-track-record ... they are not the samecollege rank is a gamed metric (engineering rank #1=100 pt, rank #2=90ish pt, rank 3-rest=60ish) ... don't bother with itcollege debt is an early enslavement scheme (later u'll get family and mortgages) ... bewareMy suggestion is you to drop out and read this book:How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis:Young, Penniless, and Inexperienced?"Excellent. You stand by far the best chance of becoming as rich as you please. You have an advantage that neither education nor upbringing, nor even money, can buy—you have almost nothing. And therefore you have nothing to lose."Nearly all great fortunes acquired by entrepreneurs arose because they had nothing to lose. Nobody had bothered to tell them that such and such a thing could not be done or would be likely to fail. Or if they had been told, then they weren't listening; they were too busy proving those around them wrong." |
Should I drop out or not? | jamiequint: If you're not already a US citizen first you must worry about how you will legally stay in the US after you drop out (your visa will be terminated). It is very hard to get a US Visa without a degree. One of our co-founders split time with school and our startup just so he could get his degree and pursue a visa. Make sure you know your full immigration status before you proceed. Immigration law sucks, do your best not to get caught up in it. |
the most amazing python script you ever wrote ? | gaius: I don't know about the most amazing, but I am constantly impressed by how much work you can get done in so little Python. Last script I wrote 1) parses its command line 2) tries a list of servers to find the logfile it needs 3) retrieves and parses that logfile 4) fits a trigonometric polynomial using Fourier series 5) draws the original data plus the curve fit on a graph and saves that on a web server.90 lines of code. |
what do you use for mailing list software? | skmurphy: We have used iContact for more than a year and been very pleased. http://www.icontact.com/ |
A Karma API? | mixmax: What gives me karma here might not give me karma at other sites and vice versa.A "karma is hard - let's go shopping" comment would get a high rating on reddit and a negative rating here.So your karma is tied to the site, and tells very little about how "popular" you would be elsewhere on the net. |
A Karma API? | presty: tbh i see no use in this karma thing. |
A Karma API? | lst: Don't call it Karma.Call it with its real name: Democratic Dictatorship. |
Should I drop out or not? | simplegeek: I dropped out of my CS school to pursue a career of my own choice i.e. business of software. I've been quite successful so far. However, you've no idea how how much I want to go back to school but irony is that it's no more an easy choice. It's really hard to go back to school later in your life. I dropped out of school because I was kind of bored too. I will reckon that you should stay at school. Attend as many math classes you can. Also, take the hardest courses you can find in your school. Remember, these four years is the most important time in your life and this is when you can really enjoy life. TRUST me. Keep attending the school. In the interim try different things. IF something takes off and has a potential to grow only then consider this choice. Now that I'm married and badly want to go to school but you've no idea how hard it is. I know eventually I will. |
Should I drop out or not? | mahipal: Another great opportunity that's unique to the college experience is the chance to do research and work closely with a professor. You mentioned you have a lot of experience in computer vision. If that's something that interests you further, I'm sure you could pretty easily land a job in a research lab working on cutting-edge computer vision problems. Just talk to a professor who is doing work that interests you, and bring your resume and code samples. With your background, you're easily one of the most qualified undergrads on campus -- and you'd be hard pressed to find a day job that lets you work on something that interesting.And some universities will provide startup support if a research lab produces a marketable idea. Who knows -- in 4 years, you could have a stack of scientific publications under your belt, or you could be in business with a professor.The social environment of a university is unique too. Nowhere else will you find such a large group of people who don't yet have the stress of working a day job and are willing to discuss whatever academic issues interest you. The opportunity to make connections and meet like-minded people is biggest here. I've met the most brilliant people I know at my college, and I'll be going back over the coming months to hire some of them for my startup. It would be significantly harder to find programmers and thinkers like that in the free market.I think people like Gates and Dell are extreme outliers that greatly improve the drop-out image. Unless you have a lucrative idea that's already taken off and it's clear your time is much more profitably spent outside of college, it's silly to think you can easily follow in their footsteps. It would be different if you had a plan, and you may well reconsider if you launch a successful idea while you're still in school.For everyone else though -- whether you're trying to get a corporate job or pitching to VCs -- having the endorsement of a top school greatly helps your image. Even with your years of experience and great background, it's a sad but true fact that many people would automatically give you less consideration than college graduates.It's pretty clear you're not going to college for the education. Think of the classes you have to take as the 10-20 hr/week day job that you trudge through for the sake of the rest of the experience. If attendance isn't mandatory, you're probably better off skipping all the boring classes that cover the things you know. In the meantime... make connections. Talk to fellow students, your professors, everyone. Find like-minded people and brainstorm with them. Take the most advanced classes you possibly can -- surely there's something that will challenge you. There's a lot more to the college experience than just the classroom, though.Don't think that the only benefit of the college route is taking classes, getting a degree, and going to a corporate job. I fully intend to never, ever work a corporate job after I graduate. Exploit the possibilities and opportunities to further yourself, and do the things that truly interest you. |
Should I drop out or not? | tempest67: If you drop out now, you're basically handicapping yourself for the rest of your life -- unless you get lucky. You say you "mastered several scripting languages" in the last two years -- any CS department worth its salt will demand significantly more from you than that. What about theory? You say you saw a 4-year student who lacked "basic programming instinct" -- I certainly saw a lot of that as a CS TA, too, but I also saw brilliant students who made the most of their education.If you're so ahead of the game, why not try to get involved in research -- talk to professors, take more advanced courses, join ACM? If you push, you can use college to advance your skills and connections far beyond what you could (generally) do on the "outside". |
What besides Craigslist is a good way to find an apartment in the Bay Area? | rmaccloy: CL is pretty definitive, although walking around and looking for signs or working your network can yield results. If you have a smart HR department they're often helpful as well.Especially in San Francisco it's going to be brutal and pretty much a full-time job. Keep a rental resume (metrorent app, credit report, letter of reference, etc) handy and try offering to pay the move-in cost on the spot if you fall in love with a place.It's significantly easier to find a place if you're (a) willing to share an apt (there are tons of professional people around splitting fairly nice apartments) or (b) willing to live in a professionally-managed apartment complex/tower/whatever. If you go with an apt complex in SF, avoid Skyline/CitiApartments. |
Should I drop out or not? | wehriam: If you're not interested in your coursework, perhaps you're pursuing the wrong degree. If you already know how to program you may want to consider economics or business. |
Debian or Ubuntu for Web Servers? | tdavis: I use Debian for most of my servers and the only complaint I really have is that the repos are extremely outdated when compared to Ubuntu. Ubuntu's main strength, at least as I see it, is the fact that the packages are updated more frequently and there are more of them than for on Debian (even Backports). |
CakePHP? CodeIgniter? Symfony? Other? | mattdennewitz: phreeze is my pick when django isnt an option |
Buying servers? | carl_: Lots of great comments so not much add/kinda like others have said:When dealing direct with vendors (Dell, Sun and IBM from experience):1) Price you're given is not only based on current purchase, but future purchase. Telling your sales rep 'I need X servers now, but I expect to need a further X per quarter growing to X after X time' then they'll fight harder for your business. Basically, present your business as a growth opportunity to the vendor.2) When speaking to your first sales rep, ask at what price/order level they generally deal in. The reps who handle bigger clients have access to bigger discounts.3) Don't under or over-specify your machines without calculating your later options. Buying an extra processor for one machine now will be a hell of a lot cheaper/easier than buying the matching processor in 3/6/12 months. In the same respect, not buying that extra processor now might be more prudent because a new chassis with the latest and greatest processor in 6/12/24 months might be a better option. (should be part of your scalability predictions anyway).4) Know your stuff.4.1) We all know reps bs, by knowing what you're talking about you can reduce this tedium.4.2) If you ask which processor is better, then it'll always be the more expensive one (or more importantly, the one with the better margin for them which is not always the most expensive).4.3) mmmurf said it, but to re-iterate. Time = Money. If a rep is holding your hand too much, then you won't get as good deals.5) Know your vendor and their enemies.
5.1) When is there end of quarter?
5.2) How have they done compared to comparable vendors over the last quarter, year, etc?
5.3) Which vendors are pushing X line/type of servers at the moment?
5.4) Have comparison quotes.6) Specify a date when you will be looking to purchase. 5.1 has a MASSIVE impact on this. |
Should I drop out or not? | mechanical_fish: I'll bet you're studying CS. That's your mistake.Change majors. Physics. Biology. Statistics. Graphic Arts. Take MechE and weld together some solar-powered cars. Take EE and learn to build your own microcircuits (it's fun!). If your major isn't hard or interesting enough find something that is.There are schools where CS is a challenging major filled with bright students and interesting problems. Or so I am told by folks from MIT, and I have to trust them, because I've never seen it myself. I went to a decent engineering school, but even there CS was a major for the cube drones of the future, with the smart CS students in the minority, huddling together for mutual support and doing most of their real work and learning outside of class. I didn't fight that. I just took one look and left. There were physics problems to be solved.You can always work in CS without a CS major. Believe me. I did a physics B.S. and a Ph.D. in EE, took exactly two official courses in software in my life, and I can't seem to stay out of the field even when I've tried. Keep CS as a minor or just drop it entirely and rely on self-teaching, which you seem to enjoy anyway.Learn something hard or something important. Higher math. Statistics. Linguistics. Take some history and practice your writing. Take an accounting course. Take an econ course. If nothing else, work on your startup in your spare time, but have some fun while you can! Your soul-killing cubicle-drone job will wait for you, I promise!Don't leave now, for god's sake. There's a recession on, and thousands of people are probably trying to figure out how to get back into school to ride out the storm. You are where many people want to be! If you're running out of money transfer to a cheaper school and keep the debt as low as possible, but don't leave unless you've got no other choice. |
Should I drop out or not? | sachinag: It's a lot easier to learn social engineering, which is an important life skill, in college than any where else. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | alx: The ones collected in my rss reader after years, as hackers in the general sense, not just security:http://blawg.72dpiarmy.com/http://arduino.cc/blog/http://blog.makezine.com/archive/arduino/http://events.ccc.de/http://chaosradio.ccc.de/chaos_tv.htmlhttp://chaosradio.ccc.de/chaosradio_international.htmlhttp://charlie137-2.blogspot.com/http://www.flylogic.net/blog/http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/http://ha.ckers.org/blog/http://har2009.org/http://neil.fraser.name/http://www.nycresistor.com/http://schulzeandwebb.com/blog/http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/http://thepiratesdilemma.com/http://the-shoebox.org/Good luck, looking to see your memetracker ;) |
List of Hacker Blogs? | raw--: Share! Would love to check your memetracker out! |
List of Hacker Blogs? | alx: here is the rss feed to my blog (french/english):http://alexgirard.com/rss.xml |
List of Hacker Blogs? | gtani: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/188991/which-programming-...http://stackoverflow.com/questions/195689/what-developer-blo...http://stackoverflow.com/questions/78955/what-are-the-best-p... |
List of Hacker Blogs? | PStamatiou: I'd love to plug my blog here - I've touched on coding a few times but it's generally tech with a dabbling of what's up with my startup here and there and problems we have/how i get around them.http://paulstamatiou.com |
Should I drop out or not? | mrtron: Dropping out to save money seems like such a waste to me.Money is such an imaginary good. The difference between having 10k debt and 100k debt is marginal. Both situations you have to make monthly payments and need a source of income.Ignore the financial part of the equation, and consider you only have X more years left to live. How would you spend your time? I would definitely stay in school, it was a great life experience. After you graduate you can worry about work and startups. Would you rather work 35 years instead of 33? Make the most of your time at school. |
Should I drop out or not? | mooneater: I did a computer engineering undergrad, I dropped out half way through and only returned years later when I learned I was about to become a father. At that point I had a small business and mortgage, it was much harder to study with all that going on, but I was also much more motivated.Ultimately the most helpful things I learned came from
a) the co-op/internship jobs that I got through uni, and
b) technical things I learned during the last 2 semesters (ai, distributed, security), which I would not have known if I left early. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | matt1: mattmazur.com, updated every now and then :) |
Debian or Ubuntu for Web Servers? | olefoo: The heuristic I use when choosing between them is: What is the server supporting?If it's legacy PHP apps (like SquirrelMail, or SugarCRM) that need specific versions of PHP and mysql to be happy; then debian.If it's more modern apps, or things that are currently in development Ubuntu. Ubuntu's python and postgresql support are excellent. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | ricardo: Steve Yegge's essays are a great read: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/ |
List of Hacker Blogs? | cperciva: My blog (a combination of tarsnap, FreeBSD, and general computer security): http://www.daemonology.net/blog/ |
Debian or Ubuntu for Web Servers? | dmaclay: I favour ubuntu on servers mainly because it's what I use on my desktop, and it's handy to be able to write & test scripts on your desktop and deploy to the servers only once everything works. |
Your experience with Arch Linux on a production box. | qhoxie: I like Arch, but it seems not so geared toward server use as Ubuntu is. That is not to say that it could not be done properly, but Ubuntu Server would lend itself better out of the box.In terms of security, they will be about equal under proper administration practices.Canonical backing Ubuntu is probably an advantage for a production server environment. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | tlrobinson: Someone should scrape all the blog URLs from our news.yc profiles. |
rules of thumb for titling more difficult HN submissions? | qhoxie: You should title them here with what they are titled there. If a title doesn't exist, give them one that is objective and not sensational.There is no real way to get people interested in an article you think they should be. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | toby: I'll add mine here, I try not to participate in blog noise and only write about things I've actually, so it might not be so interesting for memetracking:http://blog.kiwitobes.com/ |
List of Hacker Blogs? | randomwalker: I wonder if you could generate this automatically. Let me explain where I'm coming from. I made the Theory of Computing Blog Aggregator (http://feedworld.net/toc), and part of the reason I didn't set up more aggregators with the software was that you need domain-knowledge to create the blogrolls.My idea was that you could start from 2 or 3 "seeds" on a given topic, find which blogs they are linking to, filter them by pagerank or technorati rank or whatever, and use an off-the-shelf machine learning tool to determine if they are on the same topic. I never got around to it; other projects I'm working on took up all of my time.But if you can build this intelligence, you can create aggregators/memetrackers/whatever for an unlimited number of topics. And further create communities around each one and so on.If someone wants to collaborate on this idea, let me know.P.S. To build my aggregator, I started off with planet planet (http://www.planetplanet.org/), but made a bunch of improvements like automatic comment import. There is an unreleased version with a lot more features (including a google reader-like UI) that I will be happy to show anyone who's interested. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | anthonyrubin: A few I haven't seen mentioned:http://blog.plover.com/http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/ |
rules of thumb for titling more difficult HN submissions? | mechanical_fish: I took at look at your last two links.Let's be frank. Both of them are just too long. I went to physics grad school and am friends with some quantum cryptographers, and there's still no way I'm going to read the physics one -- not because it's uninteresting but because I have no time. (Indeed, I'm being dragged out the door right now.)Ditto the software estimation one. It's a whole research paper. In the words of Bruce Sterling, it's like chloroform on the screen.If you want to motivate folks to read and upmod on these subjects you have to do some blogging. Write a blog post that cites the paper. Call out some points and tell us why this paper is important. Maybe relate it to other stuff in the field that we know, or should know.Take a look at an issue of Nature. At the front there are a lot of little articles that summarize the content and the significance of the real research papers elsewhere in the journal. Try linking to something like that, even if you have to write it yourself. It is hard to do well (I co-wrote one once, and it was a lot of work) but practice makes perfect, and even a quick job is better than nothing. |
Debian or Ubuntu for Web Servers? | kqr2: Also, Ubuntu has LTS (long term support) versions. The server versions are supported even longer. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | mapleoin: there are a lot of hackerblogs over at http://advogato.org |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | cschneid: Evaluate what you're good at and start a new company? You have run a successful company, only got screwed by the economy. You basically have 13 + 17 - 6 == 24k in debt. If you go bankrupt with the company, that drops to just 13k (assuming that it's not secured with your private finances).You say there are no finished products, then go on to say there's a good advertising/leads platform. Can you spend a few weeks pounding pavement and looking to sell or lease that platform? Start a new company, and go for it. Remember to sell both the platform and your knowledge as a consultant. You only really need to find one or two decent clients for that to work out well (rather than a dozen for just selling blackbox software).You'll be in for a rough time, but a part time job would help smooth out the financial bumps while you get a new company up and running. It sounds like you have the experience in a valuable field to make something work. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | randomwalker: Austin, huh. Nothing concrete to offer by way of advice, but a couple of friends who recently graduated from UT launched an advertising startup. Maybe I could put you in touch?Are you at conjunctured? I've been meaning to check out that space. I can swing by in a couple of hours if you're going to be there. |
Should I drop out or not? | siong1987: liuliu, we are at the same age and almost in the same situation.I am 21 years old and now just started my college for almost half a year. And, I am in a public university too.Anyway, you should not drop out if you are a foreign student. It will be very hard for you to get a VISA to work here without any proper education(diploma or degree).And, assume that you haven't started anything, you should not drop out too. Many successful entrepreneurs dropped out because they have something urgent(their startups) to do rather than their educations.
- Mark Zuckerberg dropped out because Facebook was gaining traction.Remember, college is a good place for you to meet various people. You may find someone as driven as you. And, you can always start something together with him/her. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | ksvs: Joel Spolsky was in a similar situation when the last bubble burst. Maybe his example would be useful to you.You must have had something that worked, if clients were paying you. Could you turn that into a product instead of a consulting operation? I.e. something larger numbers of lower-paying customers could use, without much involvement by you? |
Buying servers? | lsc: Hah. I know this one. Ok. first, are you willing to use a wrist strap, to buy an anti-static mat and verify you are grounded?http://prgmr.com/~lsc/luke_opterons.jpg (my setup)If you are not, stop right now and take someone else's advice about how to get a good deal out of dell and HP (me, I can't afford dell and hp prices... my business model cant take that kind of markup on the ram. Dell and HP have OK deals on the base server, but you get screwed if you fill it with ram.)Ok, you have the wrist strap and the dissapative mat? Ok, now first the ram. If you want 32GB ram, remember that 4GB modules cost twice as much per gigabyte as 2gb modules. this means you really want a board with 16 ram slots.Second, the hardest part of assembling a computer is fitting the motherboard into the case and designing the cooling. Me, I buy SuperMicro SuperServers where that sort of thing is alrealdy done. It probably costs me $200 extra over some homebrew solution, but it saves me time and gives me a better finished product.Here is the computer I settled on:http://supermicro.com/Aplus/system/1U/1021/AS-1021TM-T+.cfmNow, just search around for the lowest prices. if you are buying 20, you can call salesjerks, but my experience has been that they spend a lot of your time (time that I can bill out for close to $100/hr) and almost never give you a better deal on parts (remember, the salesguy wants to get paid, too.)I got the aformentioned case from newegg for around $1200.Next, do the same with CPUs. I ended up buying quad-core opteron HE chips at 1.9ghz for $260 or so each on newegg again.Now, for ram, I very rarely beat the price on shop.kingston.com. They have a nice thing for finding the ram that fits your motherboard, and a good warranty.the 2 servers in that photo? they take 1u of rackspace, around 350 wats power, and the whole ball of wax, for 2 servers, each with 8 cores and 32GB ram and 2x1TB disks, came in at under $5000.But again, if you are unwilling to use anti-static equipment, buy the servers from a reputable vendor, and never open them. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | mini_word: Use your talent and experience, and bend the rules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy
... Or dunk for the next couple months waiting for the moment that will never pass... |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | jamess: There are things you should do right now to deal with the debt. First off, the rack space contract. You can almost certainly get out of it by phoning the company and explaining that the choice isn't between cancelling the contract now or getting paid for another two months, but rather cancelling the contract now or fighting other creditors over the non-existent assets of the company at liquidation. As long as you can talk to a real human being who is authorised to make a decision, then that one is a no brainer for them.Secondly, I think you'll probably find that declaring the company bankrupt won't free you from liability for most of the debt it owes. You should try your hardest to deal with both the corporate and personal debt through some route other than bankruptcy. It isn't a totally unmanageable sum, but it could quickly get that way since we're talking about credit cards here.I guess your best bet is to look for a full time job as soon as possible. In the mean time, phone your creditors and explain the situation. If they're nice you'll probably be able to organise some form of payment holiday until you're earning again, with a more reasonable rate of interest. With the current economic climate, my guess is lenders are just happy if their customers intend to pay back what they owe, and they'll bend over backwards to help you.Anyway, sorry to hear about your situation. Its a tough break becoming victim to the economy through no fault of your own. Hope some of this helps. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | hopeless: Ok, so this isn't the situation that you wanted to be in but, equally well, it hasn't all been for nothing. You have had a huge life experience that most people will never have. The trick here is to capitalise on that experience and to learn from it. You're also young enough that isn't the end of the road for you. Indeed, I'd say most successful entrepreneurs have at least one failed startup behind them so you're in good company.My advice? Don't waste this time. Work out a plan to repay the personal debt (I would consider this the top priority) probably by finding at least a part-time job. Tackle the personal debt first, in an upfront and mature manner, as it has the biggest long-term consequences.Business debt? I'm not so sure what to advise but those servers shouldn't be sitting idle. Try renegotiating the server contracts for just one server over 6 months instead of the 4 servers over 2 months. Then get the consumer products out there, visible and some (really cheap) promotion. If the consumer products are up and running, even without a large volume of users, you can show that the company has assets and potential, which may allow the business to raise money or be bought out. I'm not sure about the advertising product as it doesn't seem like the best market right now.And thanks for telling your story. There's far too many happy, smiling, this-will-make-me-rich, everything-is-fine, what-could-possibly-go-wrong startup founders telling their stories and it's good to hear the other side of the coin. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | Tichy: I don't know if this is the best advice, as I have no experience with being in debt. But I think I would just take on consulting jobs until I have a safety net again. That is assuming it is not too much of a problem to find contracts. |
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