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Review my Startup, Entitea | davidw: Is that a big enough niche to make any money from? |
Review my Startup, Entitea | answerly: The site seems easy enough to navigate and the messaging is straight forward. I don't know enough about the tea market to know how big the niche is (although there is a ton of search volume on Google Trends for tea related keywords, which is a good indicator).Regarding monetization- I noticed you are using adsense. Your content is so ultra targeted that you would probably make a lot more money with affiliate or revshare deals than with adsense. Here is a list of tea related affiliate programs (I have never used any of these and am not affiliated with them in any way, just thought it would be a good starting point).http://www.associateprograms.com/directory/food-and-drink/te... |
Review my Startup, Entitea | minalecs: agree with the first two.. overall i think a tea site could be aesthetically a little nicer because I imagine the audience your targeting are not for example twitter users, but still very niche. best of luck |
What to do about a strike? | brk: By and large, unions serve no useful purpose these days. They exist for the benefit of the higher-ups (union management) to make money off of the members (think ponzi scheme).My guess is that you had no choice but to join the union when you took the job. |
Review my Startup, Entitea | shaunxcode: when I clicked on an ingredient it showed me 3 other teas with that ingredient but it was titled "3 other ingredients" instead of "3 other teas/recipes" as I would have expected. |
What to do about a strike? | gojomo: Perhaps the UAW can do for American higher education what it's done for the auto industry. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | ObieJazz: When I went to college a few year ago I got my first Mac -- a Powerbook G4. I had only owned PCs before then but used Macs in the computer labs at school. I loved the Powerbook and didn't look back.Of course, at work I have to use a PC so I can't speak too much to web development on the Mac. In general, though, I have to deal with a lot less of "trying to get things to work" on OS X and a lot more "working with things". |
buying options in a privately-held company | gojomo: If it's a great deal, and the option-holder's only problem is liquidity, loan him the money at an interest rate that's attractive to you and should be easy for him to pay if the shares ever have the expected value. Make the principal and interest due if the shares are ever sold (or when dividends are paid). |
Review my Startup, Entitea | akronim: is this just straight adsense for revenue? (though I guess you could obviously sell tea...) |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | thomasswift: I am a long time mac user, not a new switcher, but I am a web developer on a mac. If you are going to heavily rely on VMware to run all of you windows apps you might want to grab a pro or the top of the line macbook, the bare minimum is to juice up the RAM. I have an older white macbook and I love VMWare, but just for running on operating system at once, I usually have a ubuntu server going and when I try using a winxp system it does get a little sluggish on the computer.In terms of mac version of the software they are equally good, MS Office for mac is usually pretty responsive and doesn't crash. In my experience massive excel files sometime bomb out excel, I'd say the PC version was a little more stable. People have also said the newer version of Adobe CS seem to run better on PC then mac. I have not really had a problem, though. I never heard of mac version of UltraEdit, SQLYog, WinSCP, Camtasia Studio, Although for Camtasia there are some decent mac screencast recorders, but not to my knowledge ones as feature rich as camtasia.I know a few people who have asked for my advice for buying a computer and being a good apple fanboy, i've recommended macs, once they got the hang of it and the little differences they've really liked it.I know for me having access to the unix underpinning/programs is a great thing that has help me as well as being able to install pure linux programs, pending dependencies and all that. I've gone the VMWare route for running my windows things and not using boot camp. If I wanted to use the windows side of things for longer periods of time I would use that setup.All that said, with more market share that macs are gaining it's great using one because most of the system is well thought out and can be pretty powerful when you need it to be. I can develop sites on my system like I am developing on the linux box I am going to deploy to, test sites with in safari, firefox, ie6, ie7 and have a generally secure computer that I can kill any process or program that is freezing up on me.Just my thoughts |
What to do about a strike? | jstraszheim: Unions are a power structure. When they are weak, they are good, because they in fact help workers who are getting screwed. When they become powerful, they become bad, because their leadership acts as all leadership does, and seeks to entrench its power and privilege. You are kind of screwed, because you are caught between two power structures who both can punish you in various ways. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | cjoh: For me, I made the switch because I think Macs are cheaper after about one year of use. If my time equals money, and I value my time at $50/hr (which, yes, is a bit arbitrary), and I assume that I will spend less time configuring, defragging, cleaning, or anti-virusing my Mac than my PC, then it gets to be a real simple equation.I took a look and just sort of estimated how much maintenance time I put into my PC over the course of a year. I estimated it to be at about 2 hrs per month (which I think was, actually, not enough to keep it secure), or $1200, so the total cost to me, of ownership is whatever the price is of a PC plus $1200.I find that that maintenance time on my mac is significantly less right now than it was or ever has been on my PC.So in the end, my answer is: yes-- get a Mac. At the end of the day, they're cheaper. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | icey: Will you be doing ANY mac work?If you're just going to be running everything in Windows anyways, you can get more machine for your dollar by buying another Dell or a Thinkpad.I use Mac, Linux & Windows at home; most of the development I do is Windows based though, so I use a Vista / Ubuntu dual boot laptop (Thinkpad T61P. I LOVE it.) for when I need to go on-site. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | gaius: OSX + VirtualBox + XP is a far better Unix/Windows hybrid than XP + Cygwin. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | Jasber: As a developer I like running software that is similar to my production environment. OS X is close enough to Linux that most applications work the same. This makes me more productive and makes development easier.When I switched it was frustrating. It took me 2 weeks before I felt comfortable navigating the OS.After that 2 weeks things began to feel comfortable. I feel much more productive on my Mac now than I ever did on a Windows box. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | scott_s: I went from Windows at home, Linux for work to using my Macbook both at home and the office. (At the office, it's hooked up to an external keyboard, mouse and monitor.)Most of my work involves programming, but I ssh into another machine and do everything from the command line. My workflow has changed very little - it's just prettier and behaves much better. I think of OSX as being the prettiest Unix has ever been; it is everything I wanted Linux to be.I'm not sure how this maps to you. Eclipse supposedly works on Mac, http://developer.apple.com/tools/eclipse.html, but you might want to look at Xcode. |
What to do about a strike? | time_management: If you're asking about whether or not to leave grad school for something that pays, I'd say this: excluding medical school and elite law/business programs, don't go into debt for graduate school, ever. You're much better off in the long run if you can get a decent job (which may not be easy right now).This is just a matter of general principle. You should do graduate school only if you can do so with savings-neutral compensation at a reasonable (low, but comfortable) lifestyle. Otherwise, you're getting a harsh signal from the market. If you can't get a university to pay you ~$15k as a grad student, you have no hope of getting them to cough up $70k for you as a tenure-track professor.$1000/month with 1/3 going to tuition? You're getting screwed. TAs simply should not be paying tuition. Professors' kids don't. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | jaxn: I think I am actually a little less productive on a Mac than I was on Linux. However, if you are developing web applications that will be hosted on a *nix server, OS X is much better than Windows. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | MrFantsyPants: I do a fair bit of coding on Mac, Windows and Linux (usually ubuntu) If you switch, be prepared that it will take you a bit of an adjustment, as many of the basic actions that you do without even thinking about it will change.However, I think over time you'll find that it is not a change you'll regret. I find that in general, you'll get things done faster, and learn new things quicker. It's definitely the platform that I have tended to gravitate to for most of my work.Plus, the new macbooks are solid. |
What to do about a strike? | jamess: So, if you're not sure how you feel about unions what have you done as an individual to improve your pay and how has it worked out? If they're saying no to the union, I'm guessing either you've done nothing or if you did ask for more money yourself, they simply laughed at you.Given that, if you choose to cross the picket line, what you're saying to your employer is that you're happy with your pay which you say is not the case. You're also making the statement that you either think your co-workers who will be striking are either malcontents or greedy, unless you know they're getting significantly less money that you for the same job.Your decision is simply whether or not you believe your and co-worker's current compensation is fair, or if the deal the union is proposing better represents your market value. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | ericb: I switched from Windows to a macbook pro about 9 months ago and have mostly been happy. I'm irritated by the behavior of cut and paste regarding subfolders and files, and the different hotkeys slow me down. On the plus side, Terminal and shell scripting make the dos prompt look like a cheap toy. The hardware itself is beautifully done. There are far fewer instances where OS X annoys me, and I've yet to have a virus or spyware issue on OS X, and I haven't had to pay the antivirus "tax" of speed and money.Overall, I prefer it to Windows, but I'm still thinking of switching to Ubuntu. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | tortilla: Yes it's worth it to switch. Took me about a month to get completely comfortable, but a lot of it is trial and error. It's like learning to drive on the opposite side of the road.The keyboard commands aren't hard to master but by default, a lot of the keyboard options are turned off in OS X. System Settings > (Full Keyboard Access) [x] All controlsI can't live without Quicksilver, but the learning curve for it is pretty steep (more advanced commands).http://osx.iusethis.com/ <- Good site to browse to discover OS X apps.Hey if you have specific questions, email me and I'll be happy to answer them. I've helped a lot of people switch. Lots of times, you just need some tips to feel comfortable. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | guruz: Except some stuff like proper java 1.6 I am very happy with my Mac. Switching from windows to mac is a good choice. If you would have been a Linux user, I'd say maybe stick with it :)Eclipse works like a charm on OS X.Instead of VmWare you might consider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels,_Inc. ... or well, actually you don't need any virtualization at all for what you are using? |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | bprater: If you want to go native, this list of Mac counterparts might help you: Eclipse - There is a Mac version.
UltraEdit - Coda or Textmate.
SQLYog - Sequel Pro.
WinSCP - Cyberduck, YummyFTP. Tons of clients. Check out ExpanDrive for some real fun.
TortoiseSVN - Syncro SVN.
Adobe CS3 - There is a Mac version.
Camtasia Studio - Screenflow.
MS Office - There is a Mac version.
WAMP - There is a similar MAMP. Then again, you are running on a platform
that has all those goodies pre-installed and ready-to-go!
Anyone have some additional suggestions?PS: Virtualization has a cost associated with it. I only fire mine up for testing. Make sure you max out the RAM you get on the machine. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | jmtame: I recently made the switch and my #1 objection to doing it: the keyboard shortcuts. I've actually mastered most of the shortcuts in about 1-2 days.The main reason I made the switch is because I am going to do iPhone app development and that's pretty difficult on a PC.So far it's been pleasant. I am pretty impressed by OSX, definitely some advantages over XP and this is pretty much understood and repeated, but Apple goes out of their way to make everything work nicely. My freakin' keyboard lights up when the room gets dark. That's pretty cool. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | minalecs: I recently switched from linux to mac, and I would not pay the apple tax again. I force myself to use the fisher price os they call osx, to justify the apple tax i payed for the hardware. But being a windows to mac user may be a better transition. For those that say use Vmware.. why not just buy the cheaper hardware and run windows. The hardware is all commodity, and you are not getting any benefits from the hardware, compared to x86 vs ppc days. Mainly is a software point of view. From what I've found in ubuntu repository any software I ever wanted or needed I could find for free. To make osx usable for me, I've had to pay for quite a bit of software. I find it much less productive.. my best example is .. on standard keyboard layout .. press ctrl + c , and notice how your hand is shaped. Its already in an extended position for the next key. Now on mac to copy its command key (apple or win key) + c ... you hand is curled into like a ball.. and no matter how long you use it, its still awkward, and not as natural when typing. For me I wanted the *nix environment + the stability, and osx does deliver, but the price is your computing freedom. |
What to do about a strike? | olefoo: You do know that you can have a role in the negotiations?
If you start attending the union meetings you will find out very quickly whether you think the unions position is reasonable or not.If you decide to break the strike, the right thing to do is to withdraw from the union first. Although, I would point out that a strike like this is only one step in a long drawn out negotiation, it would not be happening if the negotiating team thought they had a better alternative. |
What to do about a strike? | jonallanharper: Be an individual and do what you think is most rational.No chance in hell I'd let a mob of idiots influence my decision making process. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | brentr: When it comes to programming, I found Xcode to be a much nicer IDE over Visual Studio. On the downside, I can't find many games for the Mac at my local stores (*I don't want a dual boot or VM). |
Review my Startup, Entitea | dmharrison: I liked it, here I was slurping my Irish breakfast tea and it struck an immediate cord ;)I second the affiliate wisdom.All teas are not created equally, so one of things that is important to me as a tea drinker is sourcing good teas, as part of the recipe's would be great if I could identify and get high quality components or teas based on recommendations.To me at least, bags of tea doesn't really sound appealing and isn't specific enough to make these, eg do I use earl grey, irish breakfast, scottish breakfast, ... I would characterise these as flavoured teas, but there's also tea recipe's using components, eg 1 part assam to 2 parts kenyan (or a strong black) with lemon rind for example which is kind of the level of detail I'd be looking for.Searching for ingredients with assam currently doesn't find anything, so could be a tad smarter maybe, eg find all recipes with black tea in this case. Also brewing etc is really important so I'd be interested in things like brewing techniques as well as recipe's etc. |
Review my Startup, Entitea | rokhayakebe: Very nice website. If you could add coffee, you could count me as a lifetime member. Oh. I would change the color scheme. Maybe adding some brown would not hurt or making the green more minty. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | drwh0: no, you are just trading an "uncool" closed platform that bends you over for an apparently "cool" one. their hardware is unimpressive commodity stuff, and i don't even think osx is interesting. if you can't figure out ubuntu, maybe developing software isn't for you. the day is coming when people will reject steve jobs psyco-level control freak pointless upgrade cycle and macs will be uncool again...just get out ahead of the trend now and look that much hipper later. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | dotpavan: I recently (<1 month) switched to Mac from Debian. As others have suggested, the initial comfort period might be lil difficult to cope with, but it wont feel like a curve. Things are pretty the same (Eclipse, dir structure, shell etc.), but I havent regretted the "change" yet.. plus the community is good, with nice treatment for apps as in Ubuntu.. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | liangzan: How about the linux to mac switch? Has anyone tried that before? |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | raffi: I switched from Linux to OS X several years ago. I tend to live on the command line so my experience is a bit different.First, I installed Fink which brings dselect and friends to MacOS X. Fink let me install all the packages from Linux that I use. For giggles, I installed the Apple X server and ran KDE from Fink. It worked but felt sluggish. I also realized this was very pointless and stopped doing it after 5 minutes. Running X apps with the Apple Window Manager in rootless mode feels fast.I have Virtual PC on my G4 Powerbook. It isn't fast but lets me test stuff in Windows when I have to. I used to work off a Macbook Pro in an old job and found VMWare Fusion and Parallels were fantastic when I needed to do work in another OS.Overall I like it because its a UNIX I don't have to spend time administering.I notice your usage patterns/programs are different than mine. Hopefully the perspective helps at least. Good luck! |
Review my Startup, Entitea | drwh0: is it april 1 already? TEA RECIPES???? |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | andrewl: Here's Paul Graham on the switch to Mac:http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html |
Review my Startup, Entitea | alexkay: Your layout gets broken when increasing the font size (Ctrl +).Other than that, a great website! |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | flashgordon: actually if you are not doing any iphone development (or mac development) i dont see the point. i am on a dell inspiron (bought early last year) and is very solid. running fedora 9, only log in to XP if i have to (around once a month).. cost of hardware is lower (id say atleast 10%-20%) and you have a lot more freedom with what you can do without running into the JobsWall! plus for webapps i can get it to mimic the production environment almost as is.Yes it is not as "cool" as a mac, but hey if I wanted my machine to look hot Id have gone into fashion design. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | davo11: Think about the software too. I see you use Adobe CS3 and MS Office, so you'll have to buy new licenses of each of these, unless you're running them in a VM.I looked at moving to a Mac just like you are and after looking at the hardware and software costs, I could by myself a separate linux server as well as a new PC for about the same price as a Mac. You're also limiting yourself in the hardware you can buy by using a mac, no more upgrading the video card if you feel like it, or getting a $40 digital TV receiver, no more plugging in a RAID array on the weekend, the number of third party accessories is smaller and there a lot more expensive. Also the amount of free utilities for the Mac is a lot less (I use a bunch of little free PC utilities, that have seeped in over time, and would take a lot of time to replace). I have 2 monitors at the moment and thinking of getting a third - can the Mac support a third? not sure. There's a lot you take for granted in the PC world that you give up if you move to the Mac world. The Mac hardware is a closed proprietry system and all the negatives that come with that are there, but I do agree it's nice and shiny and I just want to touch them :-).So I'm buying a little Mac laptop to play with (officially for the kids) and keeping my development on PC's. If you want to dip your toes (to see what all the hoo ha is about) the Mac mini could be an option too. hth. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | fuzzy-waffle: Having all the power of unix and a nice interface is great. Its slightly harder to sell if you are not a command line addict but if you are developer though you should be one.My experience has been pretty positive. I can focus on coding and not have to spend all my time holding my OS's hand or hunting for settings buried in some maze of dialogs or some undocumented config file. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | Poleris: I was in your position recently and decided to switch. 3 months later and I'm back with Windows - it is simply more efficient for me. I'm really big on productivity, so I really tried to customize every tool I've listed below. To give some background, the main programs I use are:1. (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/04/09/launchers.h... "Launchers - SlickRun vs QuickSilver + Butler/Launchbar")a) Ported all current bangs from SlickRun to QuickSilver.b) Tried Butler, Launchbar to quickly launch artists, songs. Ended up sticking with Launchbar.* SlickRun is marginally faster, minimalistic. Support different use cases.* Felt frustrated in QuickSilver's scripting language trying to do simple stuff like "Open new Window (not tab), ssh to this hostname."* Tie as I'm prejudiced.2. Terminals - PuTTy + cygwin vs Visor + Terminal, iTerm, x11... + Gnu-darwin, fink* I heavily abuse remote (Ubuntu) session screens to do all my work. (I'm usually a Rails dev using VIM.)* Needed 256 colors, package manager, bright (as opposed to bold) colors. Prefer no tabs.* I have no idea why the native Terminal program doesn't support 256 colors. Entirely silly.* Package management is a pain. Ended up doing all my work on my remote Linux box.* I really prefer PuTTy. Every single terminal program I used on OSX either didn't fit in visually or were missing some feature that was provided in PuTTy.* Spent way too much time frustrated while trying out everything. At then end, still frustrated.* I understand this might just be due to my prejudices, so tie.3. Virtual desktops - VirtuaWin vs Spaces, Witch* Spaces has huge numbers of problems. Especially when combined with CMD-TAB. Spent way too much time frustrated. Gonna give this one to Windows.4. Browsers - Firefox vs Firefox.* Lack of right click drag mouse gestures. Large drop in productivity I never managed to replace. Windows wins.5. Music - Winamp vs iTunes.* I really learned to hate iTunes. A lot. Ended up bugging out on my giant music library and crashing a ton for no reason. ... Spent even more time debugging/Googling. Frustrating.* Tie, lots of people like iTunes. I prefer my Winamp + Python script to update m3us.Every other program had a relatively easy replacement. Here are my other gripes:6. Hardware - Right click.* 'nuff said. Everyone trying to justify this design decision is probably a fanboy.7. Keyboard shortcuts.* Three months later, I'm completely used to the keyboard shortcuts and hate them passionately. Does anyone honestly like the Apple bindings better?* They lie! Changing bindings for applications like Firefox in the "control panel" does not work at all. Another frustrated day.Conclusion:* If you spent a lot of time becoming proficient on your platform of choice, you probably can only lose on OS X.* It is incredibly frustrating trying to make "minor" tweaks. They turn into massive battles that remind me of my days trying to tweak my Linux desktop box.* If you aren't an efficiency freak like me, you might gain by switching. |
Review my Startup, Entitea | djm: Like the idea - tea would appear too be the worlds most popular drink after water if you believe wikipedia. I've no idea about the size of the specialty tea market but assume it must be big enough to well in financially.I'd take a second look at those images on the left side of the page - the writing in them is a bit too small to read. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | catone: As someone who recently switched from Windows to Mac, the only software I really miss on my Mac are Word and Excel -- the Mac Office 08 versions are vastly inferior to the Window Office 07 versions, imho.I had thought I would miss a lot more, though. So when I first switched I bought Parallels and installed XP. For awhile I was running XP with FeedDemon (NetNewsWire has some annoying features I couldn't figure out how to turn off), Digsby, and a few other Windows-only apps I thought I couldn't find Mac replacements for. Eventually, though, I found replacements for everything (save Word and Excel).Plus, I can now use TextMate, which has made my like a lot easier.I still own XP and Vista machines and use them fairly regularly as well. But my main computer has become by MacBook.I made out a list last month of all the things I love and hate about the Mac after a couple of months using it. It might be helpful for you: http://mockriot.com/post/58997722/my-mac |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | zacharydanger: No. Just switch to Linux. At least that way you'll learn something and won't have to deal with the ctrl/alt dyslexia. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | zmimon: Since you mention eclipse I would say "proceed with caution". There are two issues:a) Eclipse itself is less usable and less stable. I have colleagues who are unable to debug, experience crashes etc. which I never see on Linux / Windows.b) probably you are doing java development. Java itself has very weak commitment on the Mac and often lags years behind the latest releases and even then may have issues. If you make your bread and butter doing Java stuff, you should probably run an evironment that natively has first class support for it.Of course, if your Eclipse use is just incidental then these may not apply. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | ontilt: iShowU HD might be a suitable replacement for Camtasia. |
What to do about a strike? | mojonixon: I used to work for a union. Now in grad school, live with the grad student union treasurer.1. your pay is very pathetic even for TAs.2. You can find how much your officers and staff are getting paid here: http://www.dol.gov/esa/olms/regs/compliance/rrlo/lmrda.htm
At my school, officers get a $50 honorarium month, and staff get nonprofit compensation (low pay, decent benefits, and the thanks of thousands).3. Some one described them as a "mob of idiots." A democratically run organization of graduate students is a "mob of idiots"? What does that make the United States?4. Management gets the union they deserve. The big 3 have disfunctional management so they get a disfunctional union as well.5. The Big 3 have been pissing away all their profits while ignoring their building obligations for decades. It's management's job to make sure the budget works. You don't get paid to make those decisions.6. It's a matter of priorities. You aren't a priority (and a football stadium or refurbished admin offices are) unless you make yourself one.7. The time to start worrying about this is way sooner in the bargaining process. Don't need to be on the negotiating team, but know who they are and tell them what you do and don't want. If you don't participate, don't expect to get what you want.8. Union internationals typically have very little control over union locals. SEIU being the exception.9. There are crap unions, though they are far rarer than the WSJ editorial page would have you believe. Unions with active membership are almost never corrupt, self-serving or mismanaged, just like any healthy democratic organization.10. I have noticed a pattern of common but very short strikes in academia. I suspect Presidents feel they have to demonstrate fiscal restraint, but the vast majority would much rather move on and get back to education. Except corrupt self-serving bastards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Joel_TrachtenbergHilarious and sad note: your strike pay is equal to your TA pay. This is very uncommon. |
What to do about a strike? | nostrademons: Read this thread about negotiating leverage:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387027What a union does is replaces a bunch of independent actors with a single monolithic organization. You may be a replaceable cog in the wheel and hence unable to bargain for more, but all TAs together probably can't be replaced. So the union can negotiate a better deal for all of them if they strike together.Like all competition-elimination strategies, this decreases economic efficiency. However, you shouldn't feel too bad about this: so do corporations, and any other form of organization. People live with big corporations, even if they are ultimately worse both for consumers and for employees.When unions have struck themselves out of existence, it's usually because the statement "But they'd certainly care if all X no longer worked for them" is no longer true. Most Americans don't give a damn about Detroit and would happily go on with their lives if all 3 American automakers and their workers just disappeared. (My parents haven't bought an American car since the 1960s.) So when the UAW tries to bargain, they just end up taking the corporations down with them.Unless you work for a really sucky university, I don't think you need to worry about that. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | raquo: OS X is great in terms of productivity, I would recommend it highly. There are a number of limiting factors, though.1) Not everyone needs this, but you won't get absolute compatibility with MS Office - MSO'08 for Mac can't read some stuff that MSO'07 for Windows created - I had severe problems with theme colors, sorting, etc.2) Out of mine and friends' experience, the hardware sucks in terms of reliability. It seems like every other logic board or battery fails at some point. I'm speaking of pre-last generation macbooks and macbook pros.3) Applications that you need may not be there. You said you can't find a substitute for Camtasia Studio. I can't find any substitute for Paint.NET (apart from Photoshop that is comparable to my monthly salary in cost) and that's very frustrating. GIMP, being non-native (run through X windows manager), is ten times more unusable than it is on Ubuntu or Windows. |
Review my Startup, Entitea | chandler: I do like the idea; however, the site has aesthetic flaws that need to be addressed.Notice a site like adagio.com (which sells loose teas): earthy colors combined with attractive closeups of leaves & herbs.As a tea drinker, the design & color scheme you've chosen really does put me off. Remembering that tea is typically made by steeping leaves, buds, and flowers from nature itself, the abstract graphics and pale blue/white motif feels wrong.Also, the example recipe on the front page (in addition to many of the contributed recipes) remind me of noncarbonated sodas (or nonalcoholic cocktails), not teas; very sugary, and reliant on extracts and juices (whipped cream?) for flavor. Perhaps you could seed the "teas" section with actual tea blends? |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | giles_bowkett: I've used both and find OS X preferable. For me it's really OS X vs. Linux, and I like OS X because you get so much shiny stuff, you can run consumer software on it, and it's not really that much work to make OS X really really hacker-centric.YMMV.Anyway, in terms of the question, workflow, yes, overwhelming improvements in workflow. You get all the shiny goodies of a consumer GUI OS and all the power-user magic of Unix. I'm much, much faster writing code on my Mac than I was on Windows - better editors, imho, and a much better command line. |
Open Philosophy? | iamdave: I've thought about starting a wiki just for the purpose of personal theories and philosophies. The caveat in this takes the inherent nature of the Internet into affect: someone disagrees, things will get difficult. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | BenS: I recently switched, and didn't find it took more than a week to adjust. OSX is great and the laptop I bought is undoubtedly a beautiful machine. I've found servicable replacements for all of my favorite software, and have come to love a few mac only applications. One caveat:Most people I know agree that hardware reliability is poor. Anecdotally, everyone I spoke with when deciding strongly recommended getting apple care. More objectively, friends I know who work in the IT support groups at large tech companies, said that they see roughly 3-4 times the number of hardware related problems compared to thinkpads (which run about half the price).Many people tell glowing stories about the great service and support they receive. When my new macbook pro shipped with a defective optical drive, I WAS impressed with how friendly support folks were, but I was NOT unimpressed that the fix took 9 business days even when at an AppleStore and after paying for apple care. Note: getting a new machine with upgraded RAM was an estimated 15 day turnaround including shipping the machine back to the factory. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | elai: There's less yak shaving on a mac vs. linux/windows. If linux had minimal yak shaving and a really good quicksilver replacement, (and a bit more elegance to their program suites) I'd go there in a heartbeat. But there is always tons and tons of yak shaving and i've found laptop hardware support to be painful.You can get a refurb macbook pro with comparable specs to a dell laptop for the same price right now. And the macbook pro has a better build quality. Worse comes to worse, you can install windows xp on it and get a better machine out of it. Macbooks also keep their resell value a lot better than the typical laptop too, so you can sell them used for alot higher vs. an equally specced dell. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | tdavis: I switched from Windows to Mac about 2 years ago and never looked back. My main reason for going to OSX instead of Linux at the time was because Photoshop wasn't available on Linux and GIMP makes me cry. I used Photoshop a lot. Still, I'd do it again at this point.I found the adjustment period to be quite short, but then again I had been working on both Windows and Linux for quite a long time so I was already used to using multiple platforms and switching between them easily. My Mac experience has been nothing but positive; no defective hardware, software has always just worked, etc. From all the detractors, I'd say I might be a minority. Mac notes:* There is some seriously great software for OSX. Yeah, you have to pay for it most of the time, but it's well worth it. There are also tons of free apps which are still leagues ahead of their Windows/Linux counterparts.* The user experience is so much better I actually enjoy using my computer now. No more fighting Windows stupidity or Linux incompatibility / quirks. Well, I still use Linux for all my servers, but that's another story.* Fusion / Parallels provide very robust and mature virtualization. I use Fusion to run a single Windows app 24/7 and also use it for IE testing. Best of both worlds.* Specification-wise, stuff is still overpriced. Prices are coming more in line with what you could make yourself, but you're mostly paying for guaranteed compatibility and the OS at this point.* It seems Apple have had some serious quality control issues recently, especially with laptops. I continue gaining anecdotal evidence that suggests the new laptops are awful. I have an old-ish Macbook Pro which I don't use heavily anymore (though did for about a year) and a Mac Pro; I have never had an issue with either machine.So there you go. Macs aren't perfect and they aren't for everybody, but I maintain they are a hell of a lot better than any prefab or hand-rolled Windows box (except for gaming of course) and still hold advantages over Linux, at least for those of us who use software not available for that platform. As far as Linux goes, I like KDE a lot and detest Gnome. Maybe that will give you some insight into my opinions.Just remember: The camp that says there's no reason to go Mac over Linux are just as bad as the one that says there's nothing better than Mac. Choose whichever one suits your purposes better. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | mixmax: I usually just avoid the subject - my dad is the only one who understands what I'm doing and why, so I'll talk to him about it but usually noone else.Bu don't worry I'm sure Einstein had some pretty tough times explaining to his family what he did :-) |
Thoughts on CouchDB vs. SimpleDB | alexkay: Great question! I would also like to know how these two compare to Google's BigTable? |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | alnayyir: In short, no. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | ibsulon: I just bought one. The lack of home/pgdown/pgup/end is still frustrating. I must say, it's a great piece of hardware and the double tap/corner "right click" is a great addition. Frankly, the hardware is wonderful.The software? Frankly, I'd be happier on a "just works" linux, and I'm tempted to research reverse engineering the touchpad for linux - it's quite a nice addition and it would be a best of both worlds scenario. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | jtuyen: By end of the day.. just use whatever your comfortable with. If you want to experiment with OSX, just spec and build yourself a hackintosh osx86 with an apple keyboard. Once you get the feel of OSX and you're comfortable with the dev software, get yourself the real deal. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | philcrissman: I think the only answer anyone can give you is whether or not a switch was worth it for _them_.Will a switch be worth it for you? I don't think anyone can answer that. You seem to have done your homework, so... maybe?To actually answer the question you asked... I think it was worth it, for me. As some others said, expect to take a little while to learn new shortcuts/OS behaviors. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | code_devil: I was almost in the same boat as you, but decided to get a MAC so I can do some iPhone Development as well. If you are not planning to do iPhone or Mac Development I dont see much benefit in context switching apart from the fact that it's cool to own one ... my 2 cents. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | riobard: I switched from Linux to Mac last month. Definitely love OS X: I spent way less time tweaking the machine, so more time is put into real work. Everything works perfect.P.S. Anyone noticed the trend that apps developed on a Mac tends to be prettier and less clutter than those dev'ed on a Windows? I think OS X must be part of the reason for this ... |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | ejs: I tell people I watch jerry springer and wait for the mail for the part of the day I am not asleep. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | creativeembassy: I'm with you. I've been using PC's since we got a single desktop PC in elementary school. So I'm VERY comfortable using Windows.I still can't stop feeling that I'm wasting too much time yak-shaving with it though. And the fact that all of my programmer buddies have switched to MacBooks (and half of them own iPhones) that I'm missing out on something big.Being a relatively young entrepreneur, money is still the deciding factor. It would take quite a bit to convince me to save above and beyond the price of a PC, and aim for a Mac. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | auston: I usually just roll with "Im a computer programmer". That seems to work. |
What to do about a strike? | mdakin: If you approach your management independently will they negotiate a custom agreement with you or will they laugh? If collective bargaining is your only option it makes sense to maximize the union's leverage and to help steer the union in the proper direction. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | Anon84: You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.-- Albert Einstein |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | answerly: Two techniques I've used in the past:1) Figure out the "regular" job that is most directly related to what your startup does and say you do that. For example, I have largely been involved with ad supported startups, so most of my relatives think I work at an ad agency.2) If you have big clients, partners or vendors that you think your relatives have heard of you can say something like, "I work with company X". The fact that you have some relationship with a company they have heard of is typically good enough for them to think you are doing something right.That being said, your non-technical family members are also a great audience on which to practice refining your pitch. If you can figure out how to explain what your startup does to your family, then you can surely explain it to users, clients, investors, etc. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | timcederman: Better than trying to explain what you're doing with a PhD. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | noodle: fill it with commonly understandable phrases: i work in a new "small business" as a "computer programmer" who does some "other stuff" too |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | ddemchuk: Why doesn't anyone ever mention andLinux as an option? I have it installed on my over-a-year-old vista laptop with 2 gigs of ram and it runs great (I have a bash terminal window, photoshop cs3, dreamweaver, intype, and firefox open right now). I program with Rails nearly every day on this machine, using the terminal for all of my scripting needs and have never run into a problem. All I really need from Linux is the command line anyways... |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | donw: I switched from being a long-time Linux user to a Mac sometime in 2005, and have been overall satisfied with the results.Pros:
- Can play well with both Windows and Linux/Unix.
- Things like printing do 'just work'.
- Ability to test my apps on all platforms via VMWare.
- Cut and paste works.
- Drag and drop works in a very intelligent fashion.
- Multilingual interface is a snap. And it works.
- MacPorts works well enough to not make me pine for apt-get.
- Having a consistent interface is surprisingly neat.
- Spotlight makes life much easier.
- I have a real Bash shell, just like under Linux.
- Lots of neat little shell bits are integrated into the OS; like ssh-agent knowing how to interact with the Keychain.
- I can no longer live without Expose.Cons:
- The Finder needs improvement.
- Much slower than Linux.
- Not quite as stable as Linux.
- Hardware is more expensive, with fewer choices.
- FileVault and Time Machine don't really play well together. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | thomasmallen: What's so hard? You're a business owner and an entrepeneur. I always thought people admired that, especially here in America. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | wastedbrains: I switched to mac and couldn't have been happier, but admittedly I was a Ruby programmer on windows, which Ruby on windows has always kind of sucked, so I left. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | flashgordon: actually one thing i forgot to ask was, was there anything "bad" about your Dell system?? If you were satisfied with the Dell, why ceven onsider the Mac? Dont get me wrong I am not anti mac (you could even say I am jealous of mac users out there), just asking because i will need to be upgrading my dell in about 6 months... so seeing if there is a clear pain point that i am in denial about that could be totally alleviated with a mac replacement.. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | delano: Try to think a level above what you're doing. |
What to do about a strike? | lacker: $1000 a month for an applied math masters sucks. I am usually against unions but you should strike!Being a TA is much different than being an auto worker. Normal employees have a long time to bargain. You move around the industry, there gets to be a market for a job, and a fair price gets created. But as a TA, you can't really move between different universities. Plus, any individual is only a TA for a few years, after which your salary will be totally unrelated. So nobody really has that much incentive to negotiate hard. As a result, universities typically have a much stronger negotiation position and can give extremely low wages.There is no danger that TA unions will become strong enough to cripple universities. This is totally different than car manufacturers. Strike! |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | old-gregg: Software aside, when I was looking for a laptop I simply couldn't find anything even remotely close to Macbook Pro's LCD screen. All PC-based laptops feature what seems to be an exact copy of some crappy, cheap, glossy 6-bit panel with low contrast and distorted colors, only sizes and resolutions are different. Those crappy panels, I suspect, is #1 reason why laptops suddenly got so much cheaper lately.Don't get me wrong, new MBP's are also glossy, and their panels aren't 8-bit (i.e. only 262K colors, just like everybody else), but they still have decent contrast ratios and reasonably well calibrated.Keyboards are another matter. Only Lenovo Thinkpads and new generation of Dell Latitude seem to be well-made, everything else feels like an oversized Texas Instruments calculator.With all that said, I find I'm most productive on Gnome-based Linux distros. PC industry just stopped manufacturing laptops I can put it on. Hopefully, it's temporary. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | mattmaroon: Just do what I did, play poker for a living for 5 or 6 years first. Then compared to that, a startup is "doing something with your life". |
Mac, Windows, Or Linux? | tdavis: 1.5% FreeBSD?! I love this place.I bet Windows is still the majority since HN is probably a big work-time hangout for the corporate drones ;) |
Mac, Windows, Or Linux? | makecheck: I'm also curious if it knows which IDs registered as which OSes.For instance, I use a Mac at home, and I use Linux via VNC on Windows at work (though I don't visit HN from there, others might come here from work). So technically I could be using any of the 3, and if I really wanted it to "count" I'd consider myself a Mac user. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | time_management: While not pertaining to relatives or holidays, here's my experience as pertains to the social pull of various careers.Graduate student.0: "I'm a grad student." 1: (Deadpan/barely impressed.) "Oh. You must be really smart." 0: "Don't worry. I'm not."Analyst at a pharmaceutical consulting company.0: "I'm a consultant." 1: "Oh." (Isn't everyone?)Quantitative trader/developer at a hedge fund.0: "I'm a trader." 2: "Oh." ++Unemployed.0: "I'm a treasure hunter." 1: WTF? OR "I'm asking what you do for a job, not..."Working for a startup.0: "I'm starting a tech company."
1: "Oh, cool!"
0: (Excited.) "Yeah, it's fun. I'm using a ridiculously powerful programming language called Lisp. It looks like this." (Points to some monstrosity of a macro such as ONCE-ONLY.)
1: "Uh, yeah..."++ The use of 2 here is not a typo. Finance is not nearly as "sexy" as I thought it would be before going in, and the standard-error descriptor is, in fact, appropriate. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | cpr: The best part of Mac OS X? The Cocoa text subsystem has a pretty wide set of built-in Emacs commands (including even c-U prefix), which you can customize.See http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/Cocoa%20Text%20System.... . |
Thoughts on CouchDB vs. SimpleDB | jmah: SimpleDB is a service, whereas CouchDB stands alone. So you can install CouchDB locally, mess around with it and hack on the source.Aside from that, CouchDB has views, which add another layer of indirection when reading the data. You break your data up into separate documents, where each doc is a collection of values that should be updated together (atomically). Then you use views to transform your docs to the way your data is displayed. (For example, you could store a blog post and each comment as separate documents, and have a view that returns a post and all its related comments together.) SimpleDB doesn't have this complexity. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | wenbert: if you not experiencing any problems with your dell, then i would suggest that you stick to it. you already have the software needed and it will cost you when you have to buy everything again for your mac.i switched to mac because i got tired of using cloned (home-made PCs) that failed 3 times in a month. i decided to get something more "robust". my choices were either Thinkpad or Mac. Thinkpad is as expensive as Mac and has the boring Windows (used Windows for years prior to the switch), so i decided to get a mac and explore the new OS. |
Mac, Windows, Or Linux? | DarkShikari: It isn't always black and white.I run Windows. But I have half a dozen SSH sessions open to Linux boxes, and I do my development exclusively under Cygwin (which is sufficient, 99% of the time, to develop for other *nix systems).And I have a Powerbook sitting on my desk running OS X. |
Review my Startup, Entitea | mattmaroon: I drink a lot of tea, but mostly just buy varieties off of Adagio. Don't really mix and match. Perhaps I should. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | netcan: Say you're starting a business or have a descriptive one line: 'making a ___ site'."Startup," "Entrepreneur" etc. is a loaded term. I think Australia & The States are almost opposites in their reaction to these terms. I'm not born Australian (5th year), & the term doesn't describe me, so maybe I'm not the ideal person to advise here.But I wouldn't venture further then 'starting a business.' I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an entrepreneur. Australians like to tear the tall trees to shreds. & that'd be like calling yourself a revolutionary poet. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | makecheck: The rumor seems to be that Mac hardware runs Windows the best, so if you intended to change nothing else about your workflow, it still seems like that's the machine you want.Having said that, there are some favorites I use, such as "vim" and Xcode, and SCFinderPlugin (for Subversion integration into the Finder, similar to TortoiseSVN on Windows).I've chosen a handful of graphical 3rd party software that has made the Mac infinitely nicer than its out-of-the-box config. DragThing is probably the most significant, so I can ignore Apple's horrid Dock and create truly useful docks.It is also very important to take OS differences with a side of salt, because many things that people gripe about simply aren't set in stone (so you can't discount an entire platform because of them). For instance, who cares if someone doesn't like "the Mac way" to use the keyboard for X, Y and Z, because the OS lets you change key mappings. |
Mac, Windows, Or Linux? | arjungmenon: I use Windows Server 2008. It's an excellent operating system. It's very fast, very stable (has never crashed), e.t.c.And above all I can run 90% of all the apps in the world (I'm guessing over 90% apps are for windows).If you want to use Linux, run it in a VM on Windows; or use Cygwin for basic apps. |
Is it worth switching to a Mac? | neovive: Pretty ironic that as soon as I came home after posting this question, my Dell greeted me with a blue screen. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | viggity: "I write computer programs. No I can't fix your computer" |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | gills: I tell them I'm starting a business. I explain in fairly vague terms what pain I'm trying to alleviate.Family and friends usually get it and they are very excited and supportive (of course, some family members are artists and independent contractors so 'startup' probably sounds less risky than it should).Not surprisingly, it's the bigco lifers we run into at holiday parties, who were always too afraid to take the plunge, that say 'I know a guy who's hiring if you want a job.' I tell them something like 'thank you for letting me know, but my plate is full with my business'...what I really want to say is 'I'm not *ing unemployed, you jackass, and I'm working harder than you ever have or will!" |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | mdakin: I think delivery is important. If you are showing enthusiasm while explaining the different concepts and possibilities it's often infectious. If you can do a demo-- awesome!When dealing with money-focused people it helps to reassure them that you can support yourself by consulting when needed.Some people are very fearful and often think everything will always go wrong. Those are the most difficult people to reach. I often give up once I detect someone has that characteristic. Just sort of change subjects and find common ground somewhere else that does not involve talking about risk, success and failure. |
Mac, Windows, Or Linux? | matthall28: Mac OS X for my home machine (MBP)
Linux for servers (Debian or CentOS usually) |
Review my Startup, Entitea | anthonyrubin: I would consider adding top-rated recipes to the front page. |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | andrewhyde: I used to say "I draw things." Now it is "I make things." |
How do you explain what you do to your relatives? | donw: Obligatory Penny Arcade (third panel):http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/12/31/ |
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