instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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The GRE subject test | apgwoz: I would definitely take it, and make sure that you do very well giving your relatively low GPA. You'll also want to do very well on the normal GRE too, since most schools look at that first and fore-most. The subject test is almost never required except for in the very elite schools, but a good score definitely will increase your chances anywhere. |
Is my little tool doomed to obscurity? | noelchurchill: Add a yahoo link count for each domain name so you know how many links are already pointing to the domain name. |
A legal career helping start ups? | DenisM: Whatever you do, learn to respond quickly and when you can't proactively notify your clients and offer a referral to someone good but less busy than you are. Just this thing alone will put you head and shoulders above most other lawyers out there. |
Is my little tool doomed to obscurity? | sh1mmer: Maybe if everyone on HN that like it bookmarks it.I think you've highlight the core issue yourself though. You approached us and got some interest. Unless you engage with communities getting love back is unlikely.You should be actively looking for people with this problem and giving them the solution. The more you do, the more it will spread until it's self-sustaining. |
Is my little tool doomed to obscurity? | eterno: I think distribution is the key. You built a good product and ppl like it, that does not mean they will start using it. (Welcome to the real world, by the way).To make it very clear, there are only 4 things you can do to tackle distribution.1. SEO - Will not work in your case because it typically works best were large amounts of original content is getting generated. (think ugc)2. SEM - Will again not work in your case because lifetime value of visitor is not much. Plus conversion rates are low with extremely low deal size. (Let me know if any of this is not clear).3. Widgets - dont think how this will work for you.4. Go B-to-B - I think this is the best option available for you right now. Essentially offer this as a service to hosting companies and domain registrars. Charge them a usage fees or an ROI rate. But this will require some real world busines development where the rules of the internet do not apply. If your tool is good, it could also be a nice little acquisition target. |
Best way to implement natural language commands for todo's, reminder etc | graham: parsedatetime (http://code.google.com/p/parsedatetime/) is a fantastic Python library for parsing natural language date / time strings. |
Is my little tool doomed to obscurity? | arihelgason: How about making the search more user friendly by offering a simpler search option in addition to the regexp search?Many potential users may struggle to figure out regexps. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | jgrahamc: I'm hiring for a new start-up in central London and we are having a hard time finding very good people because many candidates are deciding to hang on to the jobs they have. Most seem afraid to leave for something unknown when the economy seems to be tanking. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | prakash: I am helping a couple of my friends in India get a job, mostly Bangalore, some Mumbai & Delhi. Most of the companies have a hiring freeze, quite a few are laying off people (but don't publicize it), only a handful are hiring, those are all startups. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | truebosko: Here in Waterloo, Ontario I still see a lot of hiring going on. RIM and other big names are still posting job listings. Small companies in areas like Montreal and Toronto are cutting, but others are hiring so it seems like a mixed bag. |
If I bootstrap, does my current company own the IP for my work ? | yeti: hey, i was in your situation (actually i had started a lot of work on my website before i started panicking about it)i actually made friends with the company lawyer and asked her informally about it first. i suggest you can try first. if the work contract. then it's not unreasonable to ask for a letter from the company saying its ok... as long as you're doing a good job at work i guess it's fine (people may even see you as with a lot of initiative to be starting your own idea outside of work)good luck... |
Anecdotes about the current job market | plinkplonk: Here in Bangalore the big outsourcee companies (Infosys, Wipro) are cutting back/ going slow on recruitment. Companies like Yahoo are still hiring. It is hard (but not impossible) for folks just out of school to get a job. |
Is my little tool doomed to obscurity? | streety: As other people have said you should be able to boost your income with affiliate offers. Pool, enom and snapnames all have programs. Where domains are registered with network solutions you may want to default to snapnames. For all other domains try some A/B testing and go with whatever pays the most.It has been suggested that you add in link counts. My understanding is that the search engines, at least google, tries to discount links received prior to a change in ownership so I'm not sure this would be useful from a SEO standpoint. If you're interested in natural clickthroughs then it may also make sense to add in alexa/compete traffic stats.The regexp gives a lot of power but many people have problems constructing them. I don't suppose there is a WYSIWYG editor for regexp is there? I would certainly take that form out to a page of its own and add a cheatsheet. I really don't think linking out to wikipedia is the right solution. Provide your users exactly what they need and no more.You need some way of encouraging users to return. Subscription to a regexp search has been suggested. Weekly featured domain might also work. Email and rss would be good. Might also be useful to have a tell a friend function though the audience is probably wrong for this to work.It would be good to be able to construct more complex sorts. Deleted and part of speech for example. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | byrneseyeview: I recruit for some mid-size software companies, and they're getting really great people without trying too hard right now. Trying to get in touch with some startups (I convinced the higher-ups at my company that it makes sense to accept a portion of the recruiting fee in equity rather than cash). |
Anecdotes about the current job market | time_management: Most companies that are not publicly laying people off or frozen are still "hiring", but they are extremely selective and conservative in their hiring practices. This is true of all major US markets. It's a decent time to be an established programmer, but it's probably utterly terrible for a 22-year-old CS grad.For aspiring hedge fund quants, it's bad (bad all around) but not nearly as bad as the financial news would have one think. Talentless, unskilled IBD/M&A kids are toast and will never earn that kind of compensation again, but quants and IT are still in high demand. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | kumpera: Hiring is getting harder here in Brazil. Too many openings and too few available professionals.Most companies, even the ones on consulting, have an increasing number of openings and it's only getting harder to find qualified people.Quite a few companies will take English speaking only professionals, just in case.If you are on a large city and have some marketable skills it's trivial to get a contractor position in less than a week. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | gaius: Not odd at all - hedge funds thrive on volatility. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | known: Start-up jobs in India
http://www.venturewoods.org/index.php/venturejobs/?cp=all |
Anecdotes about the current job market | darose: Here in NYC I'm seeing a tough market all around, but especially with large companies, banks, brokerages, etc. Most of the interviews I'm getting are with smaller companies and startups. |
Ask HN:switching careers from Supply Chain to SAP consulting? | jay888: Now is a bad time to switch careers into SAP consulting. Due to credit crisis, companies are postponing/canceling SAP related projects. So demand for SAP consultants (and consulting rates) are down. Most of consulting companies in North East have lot of ERP people on bench.As supply chain functional consultant, there is very little coding. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | coliveira: Add Google to that list. |
That "window focus" problem | yan: Simply Alt(Command)+Tabbing into a window should do the trick. Remember, in OS X, you can do Cmd+` to switch between windows of the application.If your focus is already on, let's say, Firefox, you can hit tab a few times for the focus to land inside the browser rendering area and then your shortcuts should work just fine. |
That "window focus" problem | jamess: Click to focus is not (historically, at least) the only focus model nor necessarily even the best. It used to be the case that most environment used focus follows mouse. My personal preference for focus scheme is focus follows mouse, click to raise since raising the window under the mouse can get irritating.If you use various linux window managers you get to customise your focus model. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | icey: Well, if your site is technically solid and you aren't spending a ton of time writing the software any more, you should be spending your time talking about it every chance you get, everywhere you go.You should start by putting your website in your profile at the very least. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | pjharrin: What hedge funds are hiring? I would love an internship with one |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | ConradHex: It sounds like the problem isn't "getting enough traffic", it's getting people to stay, or to come back. Are you focusing on that? |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | jchor: I have a few theories and quick ideas on this..For starters, are you partnering with any other companies? I think the synergy of having working relationships with other companies are a great asset since they will actively promote you while you promote them and so on.Secondly, do you have any viral aspects / proposition for your site? I haven't seen it so I can't tell.. But if you positioned yourself such that a small niche group must have and use your site then I think that's a great start since the group will be self-replicated the newly spawned groups will self-replicate more, hence viral.Thirdly, have you looked at the discoverability of your site? Look for patterns of how your users are finding you and how they are not.Last, SEO is the hot term for these days and I think for a good reason. Imagine if I did a google search for something related to music and your social website always shows up as #1 / #2 in the search results? I have a lot of ideas on how this can be done.. but I guess I'll try it out on our stealthy startup first.. and if it works and we become widly successful then I will defintely blog and share about it. =). |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | rokhayakebe: Can you share the site URL? |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | enomar: What about apps for the iPhone and Android? |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | papa: In some ways, building the product is the easy part. Getting traction is the really dicey problem.Check out some of the SEO/SEM sites like seomoz. SEO is very important. Link-building is also important. Look at getting some reciprocal links or at focusing on a specific niche within your site and really trying to develop a core audience around a few musicians/genres in order to get that "critical mass" of interest. Contact other sites in your space and figure out how you can get them to write about and/or drive audience to you. Hold contests. Build widgets. There's no silver bullet (for most of us).Knowing the type of user that is attracted to your site is also very important. That will really help you narrow down what kinds of sites and techniques you should be using to capture more audience. Do you have a lot of kids on your site? If so, seek out affinity sites. It will be much easier for you to convert that audience to your product. Use sites like Quantcast to discover sites like yours that have traffic. Learn from the successful sites and employ their tricks (are you asking every user to invite their friends when they sign up? if not, you might be missing out on new users).And, as always, be patient. My website is a little more than 2 years old and we've gone from 1000 visitors/day to 100k+/day. And even now it's still one of my primary tasks every day (figuring out new ways to get word out and encourage inbound traffic). You should be spending several hours a day working on this stuff. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | siong1987: The first thing to do is at least tell us your link here in HN, please. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | mahipal: Well, I think I know exactly the site you're talking about, but I won't blow your cover for you. I saw it on Reddit just a few days ago and there's a suspicious Facebook icon in the corner that wasn't there a little while ago... so if this is your site, shoot me an email (in my profile) because I found a few small HTML bugs and such. It would probably be to your benefit to share the link here though.The SEO point is a very a good one, especially for a site that is (probably) very JavaScript-heavy. More than just your site's own tagline, you can optimize for keywords such as "social music," "music sharing," "music community," etc. I just pulled these off the top of my head -- I recommend spending some time with the Google Keyword Tool ( https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal ) if you haven't already.With a social music site that's based on upvoting, you also have a tremendous resource that sites like Last.fm don't have. Beyond just allowing people to friend each other like all the social networking sites do, you could introduce a feature along the lines of "Other people who upvoted this song also liked..." as a good way to add immediate value for a new user who has just joined and voted up a few songs, but hasn't added any friends yet. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | wwsculley: I think the question you need to ask yourself before - How can I increase the net traffic to my site? - is: Why do I want to increase traffic?Building out a customer base for the sake of increasing numbers leaves too many open questions. Building one for a specific purpose, however, (e.g. increase ad revenue, subscriptions, user-relationships) can help shape the direction of the site's development. It is much easier to increase the volume and stickiness of your audience if you can give them a purpose to look forward to.That said, the nature of your product should dictate this direction. If you are selling a specific product, consider what modifications and accessories will complement the original product, and to what extent that will draw back loyal users.Why should I buy an iPod? Because I am confident that I will enjoy engaging with it, look forward to the next model, and that I will be able to relate with my friends about it (consequently encouraging friends without one to get one). Engagement is more important than ownership.In terms of social music networking, consider what ways that you can allow your users to engage with one another through the product, and to give them some agency over the process. |
Anecdotes about the current job market | kaens: I am currently working for what could be considered a startup based in the UK (I am in the US). It's a fairly interesting problem, but not normal "startupish" stuff.I have no formal education, no credentials (other than code).I landed this job by doing what I had been doing for a while: going to the bottom-of-the-barrel freelance sites like rentacoder, and skimming through the job postings each day until I found things that didn't look painfully boring, weren't asking for way too much for way too little, and weren't "OMG FIX MY PHP CODEBASE" - because I had done a few of those, and they are far from fun. That's another story though.I did (and still do) have an ace up my sleeve - I live really cheaply. This meant that I could grab up the interesting projects that got put there because the company doing the interesting stuff overloaded one guy, or because they couldn't afford a "consultant", do them for cheap, and do them well - which gained me repeat customers.My current employment happened when after finishing one project, the client asked me to do another, very similar project. I inquired about what he was doing, and it turned out that he was doing a bunch of these really similar projects, that would be better implemented as one kinda loose project.Wheee.I guess I don't have much experience with the actual "job market" - but I can say that if you're a person like me, the jobs are there. You just have to be willing to work for cheap, at least for a bit (I'm not even close to rolling in the dough, but I have enough to pay my rent and bills and save some money for trying to attend college next year).With the bottom-of-the-barrel freelance sites, just communicating well and not being a bot puts you in the top 95% of bidders for a job. It's really that ridiculous. If you don't have much official prior experience, you'll probably have to do some real crap work real cheap - but once you've got a few "this guy is good" bits of feedback, you pretty much have your pick of the lot. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | TobiasCassell: I joined and roamed around a bit, its really beautiful. I very much admire the minimalist style. But I think it is possible the very thing that makes the site such a joy is what makes it hard to gain traction, and that is the lack of content/information outside of the actual music. Users need to be getting a constant stream of info to hold their attention. If a site doesn't do this it sends a subliminal message to the user "nothing new here, I'm never coming back"- they may not even be aware of this and they may have nothing but great things to say about your site but they might not return either. I feel you may need more emotional branding of the artists to hold everyones attention, and more intimate connection to the music industry. In a perfect world you would not have to clutter up your site with any of the following suggestions but maybe there is a way to incorporate some new elements without sacrificing the gorgeousness of it all.1)Video content never fails to resonate with users, it would be great for artists to embed their existing online video content somewhere on your site.
2) Do any of the artists have their own groups on Ning? Can you create a loop somehow?
3)Do the artists have flickr groups? Are they on tour, can you integrate their Dopplr profiles if they have them?
4)Geographical info mashup? Where is the music coming from? Where do the artists live? Can you figure out how to provide information regarding gigs?
5)Take the blog more seriously. Maybe don't hide it? Blog more often, mention music related links and stuff that may not directly concern the site. Maybe you should think of the blog as the marketing? (feedback loop again)I could continue but I'm not sure if I'm on the right track here. I look at everything with a marketing/social engineering prospective, I don't write code. Let me know HackerNewsCommunity and I'll give it some more thought. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | netcan: This is a post about tracking the increase of active blog readers. I think it can be taken as a broad parallel to active users.http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/11/blog-metrics-six-reco...By measuring well you may find some insight that'll help.The jist of the examples is that readers (apply to users) are acquired one at a time. Digg, stumble & such are not going to give you a massive spike in users. Nothing probably will. Its about momentum.Anyway, maybe you will find some answers in analytics. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | petercooper: our growth rate of active users isn't tremendously highYou have two options. Work on more traffic or, and this is FAR easier, work on your conversion rate. Get more of those fewer visitors to sign up and you get the same result. |
Should you hide members-only features for non-members? | ruddzw: 1. My view would be that I wouldn't mind being directed to a sign-in/up page upon clicking, as long as it was clear why I'd need to be signed in to do so. If I'm on yahoo.com, and I click on mail, it makes sense to ask me to sign in. But I certainly want to know that once I'm signed in, I'll be able to have mail.2. Google, Yahoo, and Amazon use "sign in." Facebook and Myspace use "log in." I'd say it depends upon the use, but personally I'd go with sign in.3. Since the functionality is somewhat limited before signing in, have sign-in functionality on the front page. That way the user gets to what they want with one less page. However, along with my previous comments of keeping the links there, they should lead to a separate sign-in page. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | mattmaroon: What does your Facebook app do? Does it have a strong viral component? Those almost never are able to direct much traffic back to your site, but they can often do what your site does, possibly better, and spread faster. |
Should you hide members-only features for non-members? | SingAlong: It depends on the kind of service your webapp is offering.If it's possible to use your app to create/enter data and then save it later, let your users do it. If the user is logged in, save it if not ask them to sign in and save it or signup. This would give your first-time visitors a demo of your app too.Sign in or Log in. I too hadn't thought about this before. Had used 'login' previously till today. But I think I'll choose to use 'Sign in' from today. But IMO when using 'Sign in' it's better to use 'Register' instead of 'Signup'. Both words sound totally different and don't cause confusion. Whereas 'login' would go hand in hand with 'Signup' or I guess it's upto you. |
Options to Add Classifieds to Site? | Shooter: Several companies have come out with what you describe (and variations thereof), but I don't know of any companies that have been able to achieve enough success that they were able to maintain a business doing it for very long.As with almost everything else, there are a few companies that own US patents that cover some of the basic processes involved. As long as business method patents still cover this type of stuff, it's a legal risk. The payment aspect, while obviously beneficial, just adds another layer of headaches.EdgeIO probably got the most coverage of companies that were working in this area because they had an interesting model. They no longer exist, but another company bought their assets/IP. There were also several companies that concentrated on specific verticals (jobs, autos, etc.) and some of those are still around...none are exactly setting the world on fire. |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | grag: You could work on integrating with the twitter api. Look how much linkage blip.fm is getting on twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=blip.fm |
Should you hide members-only features for non-members? | yeti: Hey, we faced the same for our site.. imho:1. Show the features, so people have some anticipation of what they get if they register / upgrade. Suggest you mark them differently graphically so people get an idea that this is "pro" or "vip" only.2. Haha..we agonized over this for a full 5 mins! We settled for "Sign up" and "Log in", not "Sign in"3. We let them login directly on home page - for your returning visitors its a massive saving every time. Your users will thank you4. no idea :) |
Facebook Connect, Own User Sytem, or Hybrid User System | yeti: If your website is better suited with real usernames (eg - not a entertainment virtual world or game etc) then suggest go solely with Facebook Connect.It will simplify development for you and make it clean for your new and existing users.If Facebook changes the policy, you can always adapt at that time (as will lots and lots of other people). Better spend coding cycles on user features not planning for unknown future permutations? |
Translating your website? | pwim: Right now this question is far too broad. Are you looking for help from a technical perspective (i.e., a localization framework) or someone for a translator? If you need technical help, is it a static or dynamic website? If it is dynamic, what framework/language do you use? |
Translating your website? | theantidote: Because this is a service most places online will give you quotes for free. Just run a standard google search (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&...) and get quotes from the top couple results. I haven't personally used any of these services.If you're lucky find a friend/family member who is fluent in Spanish, a surprising number of people are, and have them do it. It would be best if they learned Spanish in mainland South America, preferably not Argentina, because those places speak the most universal Spanish. Spanish writing from Spain may look to a South American like British writing looks to an American. Caribbean Spanish uses more slang (although that may just be a stereotype) and Argentine Spanish is proper kind of like Spain's (again maybe a stereotype). |
Translating your website? | vaksel: you can take a page out of Facebook's book and let the users do it for you. |
What was the first blog/site/newspaper that covered your app/site? | patio11: I sell my product primarily to parents and teachers (mostly teachers).A 4th grade teacher with a web page, we'll call her Mrs. Smith, picked up my first linkbait and included it in the paper and virtual version of a list of resources she sent home with parents.Mrs. Smith is now in the good company of several state departments of education, a few curriculum guides, various and sundry teachers, and a smattering of homeschooling bloggers.As to the first site that featured my product qua my product, as opposed to something free I gave out to get my name out: a particular 3rd grade Spanish teacher, on her personal blog. She liked it.I also got a good chunk of nepotistic links when I was starting out from other software entrepreneurs who hang out in the same forum I do. Ian Landsman (http://www.userscape.com/blog/) and Joel Spolsky stand out from the first few weeks, but I'm probably forgetting people who were no less important to me at the time. |
What was the first blog/site/newspaper that covered your app/site? | thomasswift: Mashable |
What was the first blog/site/newspaper that covered your app/site? | aaroneous: techcrunch |
What was the first blog/site/newspaper that covered your app/site? | Raphael: HN(Sorry. Someone was bound to write it.) |
How do I get to that next level of traffic? | ujj: you could try using Google friend connect launched recently. Definitely adds viral functionality as people can invite their friends and you can push their activities on your site to open social containers to which they belong. For example id love if you could push my reviews on your site as my updates on Orkut (sorry am from india not a big FB fam:)) |
What was the first blog/site/newspaper that covered your app/site? | hbien: Tuaw - the only one so far =/http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/28/actiongear-simple-yet-powerfu... |
Customer Service Ticketing Software | makecheck: I've used Trac, which is pretty customizable and does a nice job (though it is a bit more project-oriented).I have also heard many good things about Bugzilla. |
Customer Service Ticketing Software | brk: Let me know what you find. Every time I've tried to look into this I hit dead ends as well. I ended up writing a "hack" about 6 years ago that has turned into a fairly robust system that I've used at 3 different companies now. I would share it, but it's 2000 lines of perl with about 6 comments :)RT always seemed like a good approach: http://bestpractical.com/rt/ I had problems getting all the right perl modules together an installed last time I checked it out (5 years ago), could be better now. |
Customer Service Ticketing Software | bdfh42: How about FogBugz from Fog Creek software (Joel Spolsky)at http://fogcreek.com/FogBugz/ You can set this up to run on your servers or use the "cloud" version. The bug tracking covers the bases nicely and you can also use it to manage your projects.There is even a free online trial. |
Customer Service Ticketing Software | Hates_: http://www.userscape.com - Not open source, but might be worth a look. |
Translating your website? | grosales: I might be able to help you out (I wouldn't be doing the translating, but I know a couple of hispanic college students who are just starting their winter break and might be interested). Send me an email at grosales at gmu dot edu |
Customer Service Ticketing Software | stumpy124: I'd check out HelpSpot: http://www.userscape.com/products/helpspot/ |
What was the first blog/site/newspaper that covered your app/site? | thorax: Digg (front page for bug.gd ) |
What was the first blog/site/newspaper that covered your app/site? | matthewer: BBC |
How often should you redesign your site? | DanielBMarkham: I redesign my blog once a year.I need to redesign my commercial sites, but I'm not sure what the goals of the redesign would be. Seems like if you have something that works (like Drudge) what's the point in redesigning? I guess having new goals -- changing market demographic, desire to keep it fresh, improving click-through or sales, etc -- is the most important driver. |
How often should you redesign your site? | unalone: I think that every time you have an idea for a redesign that's comprehensively better than your old layout, you should take it. Don't redesign for the heck of it. Wait until you've got a good idea. |
How often should you redesign your site? | kirubakaran: "One year" is a long time in internet years. Users won't notice the difference between yearly redesigns and bi-yearly redesigns. Good idea might be to change little at a time, all the time, with some A/B testing thrown in. |
How often should you redesign your site? | patio11: Test constantly. Button placement, calls to action, colors of buttons, etc -- 5% increases to conversion compounded 20 times means big bucks.As for total throw-it-out-and-start-over redesigns: I'd say "seldomly". I did one once, because I had the golden opportunity for it -- both a major tech change that was going to require a code rewrite, significant technical debt in keeping up the old templates, and major feature modifications which forced a rethink of my information architecture. As long as I was going that far I figured, eh, what the heck, get it a totally new look as well.I was surprised that for all the extra work added and the professional design, conversion rates moved less than when I tweaked spacing on buttons a little bit. Ahh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. The non-design aspects of the relaunch proved worth their weight in gold.(I was also totally prepared to send the designer a check and a thank-you card and not use a single pixel of it if the conversion rates changed in a majorly negative direction after the switch. Thankfully the starting hiccups were not that bad.)[Edit: incidentally, sub-sections or mini-sites are a great way to beta a design against your visitors without having to put your existing relationships or numbers at risk. When I made sweeping changes to my site, the sweeping changes started out on a "brought to you by this other site" mini-site that I set up, and I did iterative improvement on things like button placement and calls to action over there before I integrated them with the oh-goodness-if-I-screw-up-this-will-cost-money site.] |
How often should you redesign your site? | mpotter: Only redesign when you have a measurable goal or set of goals in mind. It helps if they're quantifiable, but they don't necessarily have to be.There are many dangers in redesigning prior to establishing a goal (particularly with commercial sites) -- principal of which is never knowing when and if you've succeeded. |
How often should you redesign your site? | jwilliams: Depends - is the site mainly content or functional/transactional?If it's mostly content then I'd say constant small revisions with the occasional overhaul. Tweak to whatever delivers the content best.It's different for a functional site. Even if a tweak is an usability improvement, existing users will go "eh?" when you (say) move a button. If you did this too often it would actually reduce your net usability. I'd say changes to this kind of site would be better aligned with every major feature release... With a major overhaul probably being a rare event. |
what's the web app for entrepreneurs which compares products from the competition? | mtw: found it, it's http://www.competitious.com |
Review My WebApp | acro: Maybe you could write a short description of the app to encourage people to comment? |
Review My WebApp | Adrenalist: This is a really interesting/fascinating webapp. A few suggestions.
1. Improve the design / User Interface. It's a bit clunky and diminishes the experience.
2. Make the search field auto-complete. Use jQuery and you could have it done in a few minutes. I am not a chemist, so I don't know the exact spelling of most chemicals or elements. http://jetlogs.org/2007/10/22/jquery-auto-suggest-with-keyup... |
Review My WebApp | mdolon: I'm not sure if other tools like this exist but man I could've used something like this back in my Organic Chem classes. I like it, I tried to search for a few things and was able to find most of it (couldn't find nitroglycerin). Best of luck! |
Review My WebApp | sspencer: I really like the idea of being able to search for a molecule just by drawing it! It's a fantastic and intuitive idea, if it works...Which it doesn't, at least for me. When I click the draw link, all I see is an empty white popup box with Preview and Submit buttons that I can't interact with.Here's my setup, for debug purposes:Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008072820 Firefox/3.0.1 |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | yan: Books? My gf usually picks something from my Amazon wishlist when she has no other ideas.. |
How often should you redesign your site? | mikeryan: I'd say 5-7 years would be time to start looking at an entire overhaul.Here's the thing. Your site should be in constant state of flux with new features added and subtracted, moved etc. After a while you'll just end up with a bit of code "crud". Its almost worth it just to do a site wide front end rewrite once every 3 years or so. I think 5-7 years is about the amount of time that it takes for a styles to change enough where your site will start to get a bit stale. |
Review My WebApp | okeumeni: I have to admit, as a hardcore hacker I'm clueless here. I wanted to type "water", "beer" then out of frustration I end up typing "wtf" lol.Seriously you should find away to attract the attention of regular guys like me, the potential here is to make sense of chemistry to people by being a bit more talkative on the front page.Overall it looks like a great tool. |
Shall we hasten the demise of IE6 by charging more? | silentbicycle: Just a suggestion: Consider instead framing it as giving a discount to people who use a newer web browser, since "they didn't require the extra work supporting older, buggy web browsers does" (or similar phrasing). It makes the same point, but may be less likely to make potential customers resentful.Either way, you'll probably want to run this by a bunch of actual customers. People with the sort of personality quirks that draw them to (and make them good at) programming might respond to this very differently than customers/clients at large. Also, note that some people will not be allowed to change web browsers, e.g. for administrative reasons. (Whether or not they're good reasons is beyond your control.)I don't know if it's a good idea from a business standpoint, but I like it. |
Shall we hasten the demise of IE6 by charging more? | stuartcw: Make sure one of the ads is for Firefox... :-) |
Shall we hasten the demise of IE6 by charging more? | geuis: I wonder if IE6 users are more prone to click on ads anyway. Overall, this is an interesting idea. If you implement it, follow up in a couple months with what the effects are. My company has thousands of pageviews a day, with about 25% being IE6. I would love to push this idea internally because A) it makes the marketing dept happier if we make more money and B) it makes me and the other front-end engineer happy. |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | hs: "How to get rich" from Felix Dennisone of his article is in the ycombinator library (good sign as hacker types like this book)http://ycombinator.com/lib.html -> If You Want to be Rich, First Stop Being So Frightened.
Fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2291061,00.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Greatest-Entrepreneurs/dp... |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | sidsavara: I own "How to get rich" from Felix Dennis (suggested by someone else). I was a little disappointed in it.Instead, if you DO want to buy them a book, I recommend Tim Ferris - The Four Hour Work Week or Getting Things Done by David Allen.Both those books are enjoyable for their content and suggestions, and also for a relatively scientific approach to showing why their methodologies work - which I think is why they both resonated so much with me.I agree with the wishlist comment as well. For me personally, I have told my friends to stop giving me gifts and do likewise. I imagine I am losing some manner of social lubrication due to this decision, and compensate by sending personal emails and spending more time keeping in touch via facebook etc.I also like to send postcards when I travel, for similar purposes.I'm not saying that gift giving is selfish - but I am saying if you opt NOT to give gifts, as I do, then you need to be aware of the social ramifications and adjust accordingly. I do not have a perfect solution to this problem yet however. |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | IsaacSchlueter: Lots of good stuff here:http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/1AC761X0H14R9?tag=foohack-...:) |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | Shamiq: Can you give us an idea in terms of budget?Though not necessarily targeted at the HN crowd, http://www.uncrate.com has some neat stuff. |
Shall we hasten the demise of IE6 by charging more? | twoism: At my company we haven't found a way to charge more, especially with clients that have internal apps that will only work with IE6. What we have been doing is itemizing any hourly work spent on IE6 optimization (hacks). So, at least for clients with multiple projects in the works, it make them think twice about requesting IE6 support on their next project. |
Review My WebApp | tel: Hire a designer and a copywriter because the way it is now tells me absolutely nothing. My first impression was that you could purchase these chemicals from the interface.Play up the social aspects of it, too. As of now, I don't see what differentiates your site from PubChem (besides speed).Hooking into a spectroscopy database would not be half bad either. |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | vaksel: iPhone or some porn |
Shall we hasten the demise of IE6 by charging more? | SwellJoe: I've recently intentionally removed some of the hacks for making IE6 look sane in our apps. PNG transparency is the most obvious...so in IE6, our products have grey boxes around all the images. It still all works--nothing is impossible to do in IE6. It just looks stupid. This, of course, is the easiest thing to fix in IE6, so I'm still spending an inordinate amount of time making sure everything still works in IE6. But, it's my passive aggressive way to make it clear that IE6 is not an appropriate browser for modern applications.I don't know that this does anything positive for the world, but it gives me a small piece of satisfaction. (Of course, IE6 is less than 5% of our users, so it's not really a revolutionary act.) |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | mdolon: Newzbin subscription (or renewal) |
what's the web app for entrepreneurs which compares products from the competition? | TheBosch: I use the companies profiles on http://www.crunchbase.com and look in the left hand side under competitors. |
Shall we hasten the demise of IE6 by charging more? | lionhearted: This made me smile. I'm sure everyone who has built even a simple page has had the urge to break something after seeing their perfectly designed page in Firefox explode in IE6.That said, you'll want to test on a small segment of your IE6 users before full implementation if possible. IE6 users are actually more qualified buyers a lot of the time depending on your industry. As a gross overgeneralization, IE6 users tend to pirate less, are less likely to be aware of competitors to your services, and might be more likely to be business customers at work depending on who you to sell to. |
Review My WebApp | ashleyw: Try to remove your testing pages/comments:
http://www.chemsink.com/reaction_type/19/Not sure how close you are to having real visitors, but test comments are never welcoming! |
Gift ideas for hacker types? | bsaunder: Sometimes thinkgeek.com has interesting stuff. |
Review My WebApp | quantumhobbit: Very cool idea. I would suggest linking to chemical suppliers. I don't know if Sigma-Aldrich and the like have online stores, but that would be a very easy way to monetize this idea. |
Review My WebApp | rwebb: no clue what it is or what it does |
Do you think primarily in English? | comatose_kid: I think in 6502 op-codes. That's probably why many people think I'm 'emotionally distant'. |
Do you think primarily in English? | breily: I'd noticed this sometimes too, but I think it's something that you can change if you want to. When I was learning german, after a couple years of high school classes I went to a month long full immersion program. When I finished that, I was thinking entirely in german. This stopped over time as I went back to English, but I can still make myself do it sometimes. So with practice/time, you could probably teach yourself to think in something besides English. Though English seems like it might be the most efficient mode for a native speaker. |
Do you think primarily in English? | dkokelley: I too think is English. It's the only language I'm fluent in so that much is natural. One interesting thing I've noticed is that when I'm conceptualizing something, I will have an idea in my head, but out of some bizarre habit I will think the words through.My point is that I already know what I'm going to say in my mind, but there is no reason to actually hear my brain think them. Basically I go through 3 steps in my thought process:1. Think or conceptualize,2. recite what I've thought to myself (in my mind, in English of course),3. process what I've just heard myself think and act on it.My question is this: why is step 2 necessary? It would be faster just going from conceptualization to processing, wouldn't it? Maybe it's a habit from reading at a young age when I sound the words out in my mind as I read. |
Do you think primarily in English? | vaksel: Thats not being unilingual, that's just not being fluent. The whole definition of fluent, is that you can speak both languages w/o translating it in your head.As far as the whole needing to describe empathy, thats just a lack of vocabulary...you don't know the word for empathy, so you try to describe it with other words.As far as thinking in one language, that's not that uncommon, I'm fluent in 3 languages, and know 2 so-so, but the voice in my head is set to the language I use most in my day to day life. Sure I can switch to another language on a whim, but it takes an extra effort. |
Do you think primarily in English? | kapitti: 010011100110111101110000011001010010110000100000
010010010010000001110100011010000110100101101110
011010110010000001101001011011100010000001100010
0110100101101110011000010111001001111001 |
Do you think primarily in English? | markbao: Born in China, with my native language being Mandarin. Moved to USA at 4 years old. I think in English, though–I rarely use Mandarin day-to-day. |
Do you think primarily in English? | paraschopra: Whenever there is a hard problem, I try to visualize it and form a mental movie out of it. For example, if it is some sort of algorithm or optimization problem, I like to ride through the function/algorithm landscape. Visualization really helps in clearing thought.But in everyday thought process, I do think in Hindi or English. |
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