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review my app whereslunch.org | pclark: comments:Hurrah, email optional & no verification & having a delete my account button!I think you need to prettyfy your UI! Little bit of CSS and curves goes a long way :) |
review my app whereslunch.org | rogercosseboom: At first I have to question how this can compete with places like Yelp, etc. (we have a dumber app here in NYC called menupages.com) but your use of Google Maps totally sold me.I would suggest changing the language regarding accounts, specifically instead of 'login with openid' which some people may not have heard of, just have a register button. Also, definitely have an option for users to submit restaurant menu links to the restaurants they've reviewed.Great job! |
Please Review My New Site. | eduardoflores: - Let users add photos/videos
- Make design more fun, cheerful, drunken...
- Maybe link to social networking sites |
review my app whereslunch.org | EGF: Would love to have this populated for the NYC area. |
HTTP compression from client to server? | yan: How much data are you submitting? Usually, the overhead of everything else that goes on outside of your browser is a magnitude slower than the data transmission itself. Unless you're submitting hundreds of kilobytes, I wouldn't worry about compression. |
review my app whereslunch.org | kbrower: when buying a domain make sure the .com of your .org isn't porn |
HTTP compression from client to server? | cperciva: I never noticed before, but it seems you can't send compressed data from an HTTP client back up to the server.Not true. It is perfectly valid for an HTTP client to send an entity (as part of a PUT or POST, for example) with Content-Encoding: gzip. RFC 2616 specifically mentions this case, in fact.That said, in most situations this isn't worth the effort. Until you've established a connection to an HTTP server, you have no way of knowing if it will accept any particular Content-Encoding; a server which doesn't understand the encoding of a provided entity SHOULD return a "415 Unsupported Media Type" response code, but trusting that every server you'll ever encounter will respond correctly is probably overly optimistic.Of course, there's always the ultimate in portability: Send your data with a Content-Type of "application/octet-stream", and decompress at the back-end. |
Please Review My New Site. | Allocator2008: I appreciate the fact that there is a disclaimer about not drinking and driving. Perhaps one could further add a disclaimer that once one gets into the order of a dozen or more shots in a single night, one runs a risk of dying from alcohol poisoning, and that can happen with these kinds of "drinking games", so sort of a "proceed at your own risk" link might be appropriate and link to a medical article on the subject. |
my islandreefjob.com application..social hack? | eatenbyagrue: Not sure it's clear what the point of your website is... |
review my app whereslunch.org | lacker: You default to Austin, Texas. Why not detect the user's location from their IP address? Even if it isn't perfect, it's better than always guessing Texas.Also, it would be nice to see more about a restaurant than just a name and a rating. I can't really trust the ratings when there's only one or two per restaurant, so give me something more to base my decision on. |
review my app whereslunch.org | axod: Create an account:"Internal Server Error"Boo :( |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | josefresco: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289420http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37987http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=436523http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=133349all found with http://searchyc.com |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | tomsaffell: I'm glad you asked - I've been wanting to compare notes with others on this for a while...I use CamStudio. It's free, and easy to use. It doesnt have many bells or whistles, but I don't need it to. I get it to output a very high bitrate avi file. The real issue for me is how to then encode and stream the video. Here's what I tried, and where I'm at now:1. Use the SWFProducer app that comes with CamStudio. It produces an SWF that is nice and small, but it doent not allow progressive streaming, which is a big no-no for me..2. Use FFMpeg to convert the avi to an .flv file, and then use FlowPlayer to allow users to watch the video online. Works, but .flv isnt great quality for the file size.3. Use FFMpeg to convert the avi to an H.264 .mp4 file. Then either use FlowPlayer to allow users to watch the video online, or post as an .mp4 and allow users watch it using QuickTime plug-in. It Works, but it doesn't allow progressive streaming, which is a big no-no again...4. (What I'm using today). Use FFMPEG to convert the avi to an H.264 encoded .f4v file (the new flash video standard). Use FlowPlayer to allow the user to watch it online. Allows progressive streaming and is decent quality.5. (What I want to get to one day..) Encode using a codec designed specifically for screen-casting. I tried the 'Flash Screen Video' codec in FFMPEG and it produced a very nice quality file, but the size was ~2.5x the .f4v file, so I decided not to go with it. I'm hoping there is a better codec out there somewhere...Using (4) my video is:
650x620 pixels
24 fps
~700 kbps
(includes a 320x240 video - so a screen casting codec may not do the trick anyway - maybe I need a hybrid?)Looking forward to learning about what others are doing. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | thorax: I've been using Jing for a while now.http://jingproject.com |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | amjith: A setup for screencast definitely goes beyond a screen capture utility. You need a way of capturing and displaying keystrokes without interfering with the application you are trying to demo. Does anyone have any recommendations? What about adding text to the video at certain locations, like annotations?edit: What about video sharing services, which ones are good at rendering text? I know that youtube does a poor job, but what other services are better? |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | bprater: Over at the peepcode, they have a nice video for explaining this: http://peepcode.com/products/screencasting-on-the-mac. Not free, but very good. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | jaskew: http://freescreencast.comdisclaimer: I made it.But seriously, I do use it constantly. |
review my app whereslunch.org | jdbeast00: I don't get why this is getting good reviews. How is it different from the already-established sites? Even google does it itself on google maps. |
Dealing with fraud and liability? | Tangurena: You've got 2 major risks here.Your question indicates you're concerned about someone using a bogus card, using your site, and then you're out the money/fees (this is indistinguishable from a chargeback due to an unhappy customer). As far as I can tell, this is a "cost of doing business" and other than some common sense rules (don't accept business from Nigerians, East Europeans, or whoever is the "land of hackers" this week - check the address and IP addresses - log everything), I don't think anyone will be able to assist you (including law enforcement, who has a hard time getting involved for less than 6-digits of losses). One of the applications I'm responsible for accepts/processes credit cards, and we have 0 chargebacks, but that's mainly because this application is a add-on for a desktop application that costs several hundred dollars.The other one you didn't seem to address is PCI-DSS compliance. If you store the credit card number in any place (including log files), you (and your customers) could be in for a world of hurt if you're hacked (like TJ Maxx did).
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/index.shtml (see chart on page 4 of the spec, and the checklists at the end may be helpful as well). |
review my app whereslunch.org | lonestar: I assumed you were choosing location based on IP, but I guess I'm just lucky to live in North Austin.It wasn't clear to me what I could do once I created an account until I read deep into the site; some text on the homepage like "Create an account to add restaurants and ratings" would help.I'll definitely start using this, good work! |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | braindead_in: i used Windows Media Encoder 9, converted it to wmv and then used ffmpeg to create an flv. |
How do you handle debates with non-scientists? | yan: it's not my fault if they're not well-informed or wrong!Maybe it is you? |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | Hoff: Apple's Podcast Capture is a potential option here.It's part of Mac OS X client, and connects with Podcast Producer running on Mac OS X Server.Which means it's either free or (if you don't have a Mac OS X Server box around) it's not free. |
How do you handle debates with non-scientists? | lacker: If your friends think you have been rude, then you have been rude. That's how "rude" works. There's no official definition for what is rude behavior or not.Why don't you ask your friends why they find you rude and aggressive. They probably can explain better than we can. |
Please Review My New Site. | unalone: It seems like a fun idea, but it doesn't feel fun. I think the tag cloud is detrimental. It makes drinking feel like work.The logo doesn't appear in Safari, as was noted.Beyond that, this feels like you could have much more than drinking games on the site. There aren't enough drinking games to make a directory seem worthwhile unless you're adding some other features to the site to make it seem big. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | PStamatiou: screenflow for OSX is fantastic. |
How do you handle debates with non-scientists? | russell: If you are arguing evolution against ID, forget it. Their minds are cast in concrete and wont change. This is pretty much whenever arguing facts against beliefs, particularly true believers. If you are arguing pseudo-science, you are the one needing a little head cleansing. |
How do you handle debates with non-scientists? | DanielBMarkham: What's the purpose of your argument?If it's to prove that you are right and they are wrong -- well, sounds like you're pretty good at that.If it's to understand what the other person is saying and to come together towards a common understanding of a respectful disagreement? That's mature discussion. It's like level 20.I find from working with really smart people that proving yourself right is not an extremely difficult thing to do. Actually getting inside the skull of another human and helping them understand something is much harder (and more useful)Depends on what you want, I guess. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | SingAlong: I noticed a handful of sites having thir screencasts done by http://demogirl.comI had this problems of converting my screencasts sometime ago Most tools I found were either trial or were putting a big moronic "limited version" text in the center of the screen apart from limiting but found a good and free converter called "Super" (it's for Windows and uses ffmpeg).Download super here:
http://www.erightsoft.com/S6Kg1.htmlJust browse and move to the bottom of that page and find the text "Download SUPER". That page should also serve as a guide to how to use Super although you'll figure it out yourself.The direct download link:
http://www.erightsoft.info/GetFile.php?SUPERsetup.exeBut there seems to be bug with converting .rm files. The last time I tried an rm file it popped errors.P.S-- Their dirty website design might give you an impression that the software is really dumb. But actually it's really cool and powerful with a nice pretty good UI and plenty of options (it uses ffmpeg in the background). I waded thru the pages to give the exact download link. |
review my app whereslunch.org | thasmin: I really like the concept. A few suggestions for the UI:1. Why make me choose a city at all? Start me at the US and let me enter an address and show all places on the map.2. The map is very small. At the minimum it should take up the available area. Keep the same height / width ratio if that looks better.3. The color codes should be visible from the start so I know what I'm looking at. I'd suggest moving it above the map and out of the tabbed part.4. Make the Top Rated part into a table with columns and alternate colored rows. It looks messy.5. The tags section is messy too. Give me a list of tags and the number of restaurants in each tag and let me click. And definitely don't show me tags that don't have restaurants.6. Actually, dump the tags and categorize the restaurants. There's too much potential for an overabundance of tags.7. The text in locality filter overlaps.8. I'm not a fan of popups in general because it covers too much of the map and makes it very difficult to click another restaurant. Consider moving all of the info on the popup to the area below the map.In general, figure out why people are coming to your website and engineer the UI to fit that purpose. I would think people are looking for where to go out to lunch because of your domain name (which looks it may change). So let them zoom into their office and see all of the places within a few miles. Colored pins are good but your customers have to know what they're looking at. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | jraines: Camtasia Studio kicks the crap out of all the free products I've tried (Wink, CamStudio, some builtin Windows Media thing).It's easy and produces small, high-quality output files in just about any format you desire.I plan on trying some of the ones mentioned here, though. Anyone know of a good one for Ubuntu? |
How do you handle debates with non-scientists? | khafra: If you're trying to get someone to change his views by debate, it most likely won't work. You'd probably do well to read up on influencing people, Dale Carnegie or NLP or something. If you're trying to convince undecided, rational third parties, and your interlocutor is "playing fair," you could trying proceeding from a set of assumptions, getting agreement on each assumption, then presenting your conclusion as necessarily following.For example, say you're trying to convince someone that String Theory is bogus pop physics:Seertaak: "NonScientist, would you agree that a framework must make testable predictions to be considered a scientific theory?"NS: "Sure, yeah."Seertaak: "As you can see by these references I've just pulled up on my iPhone, many physicists agree that ST hasn't made any testable predictions, so until that changes it can't be considered a scientific theory."NS: "You were right all along, Seertaak! You're so smart!" |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | kungfooey: I recommend Wink. It works in Windows and Linux and creates it in a Flash file you can embed on your site with notes, etc. |
Please Review My New Site. | latortuga: Typo from the About page: "If your still reading this..." |
How do you handle debates with non-scientists? | RiderOfGiraffes: I read recently (sorry - can't remember where) of a scientist at a party that was also attended by a number of astrology (not astronomy) practitioners and aficionados. He noticed that they were in discussion, and although some clearly disagreed with others, they were accepting of positive points, and offered alternatives to those points with which they disagreed.In constrast, he noticed, the science types would attack every statement, poking, prying, stressing, stretching, twisting, and generally trying to find weaknesses.This is what scientists do by nature and training, and non-scientists often find it aggressive, intrusive, and downright rude.I've found that striving for agreement and then working from that, is more successful than presenting what you think is a robust rebuttal, followed by a water-tight case. Find good points in what they say, and then lead them step by step. Be constructive, and respect that their opinions are their opinions. Telling them they're wrong won't help your case.In short, you can't debate with non-scientists in the sense you mean. You need to create consensus and build on that. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | andrewhyde: http://www.synium.de/products/screenium/index.html is what I use. |
Wrong choices during development, who pays? | DanielBMarkham: Consultants are supposed to consult, not make business decisions. If you hired a consulting firm, expect them to give you advice for you to make a decision.If, on the other hand, you care only about results, you should have asked for a flat-rate bid on completed work by a development company. In that case, "how to develop" or "which api to use" shouldn't matter, since you are no longer making development decisions but simply awaiting delivery of the features you paid for.You can't have it both ways: either you're hands-off and pay only for results, or you have a collaborative environment in which you call the shots (since you are writing the checks) and are responsible for dead-end paths.As as side note, I wouldn't get into finger-pointing and bad blood here. If you truly care about your product, move forward with it. You could easily spend more on litigation than the 2 weeks were worth. Better to spend you energies on something productive. If you don't like the way the development company is treating you, amicably part ways. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | ucdaz: I find that screentoaster.com is pretty straight forward and NO INSTALL required. |
Services for startups / gigs for hackers | yan: I was also at the NY meet up. This is off-topic, but do you know if there are labeled photos of people attending? I'd like to double check who everyone was and who I was talking to. |
Should You Publicly Post Uptime Stats for a SaaS site? | timf: As a consumer, SaaS sites that post information like this (that I find credible) definitely influence my buying decision (I don't have anything to say to you as a SaaS site owner yet).Check this site out, it has a lot to say on this subject (and good examples in their 'hall of fame'):http://www.transparentuptime.com |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | davidw: I'm holding out hope that those horrid things are just a passing fad. I can't stand them:-/ |
review my app whereslunch.org | tjr: I tried to add a restaurant in my city, and I could either (a) add a new restaurant or (b) add a new location. It took me a while to come to the conclusion that adding a new location meant adding a new instance of a chain of restaurants, adding a new restaurant meant adding a new chain. (I think.)So okay, I'll start by adding the nearby Chick-Fil-A, because that chain is already in the system. I add a new location, including the street address and zip code, and... nothing. My city isn't in the drop-down menu. I guess it didn't get added?Hmm, well, wait a minute, when I click on Chick-fil-A from the rating listing on the right, there are two locations, one in Austin, and one in... Cedar Rapids! There we go! So my entry did get added, but Cedar Rapids wasn't added to the drop-down menu of locations.I found the whole experience fairly confusing. |
Should You Publicly Post Uptime Stats for a SaaS site? | callmeed: I could be wrong, but I'm inclined to think it's only helpful for SaaS apps serving geeks/hackers.If you're serving Joe Consumer or a specific industry/niche market, I'm not sure it matters.I do like it when my service providers have a "system status" page, so maybe that's an option. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | AndrewWarner: If you check out myself you can see that I do much more than screencasts with CamStudio. I use it as a full video editing program. (mixergy.com) Email me if you want direct questions answers about video (mail at awarner.com). |
Please Review My New Site. | brent: "We are here to provide a source of entertainment for any sort of drinking game/activity. We wanted to provide the best place to find any activity for drinking so feel free to look around and add a game/activity or two."This is not as concise as it should be. Cut it down to like 7-8 words. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | answerly: I am not an attorney, but I have negotiated both sides of freelance software agreements in the past.Has the company you will be working with hired any freelancers/contractors in the past? If so, they may have an agreement they've used in the past. Starting with their agreement may save you some time because it will usually already include the stuff that is important to them so you know all that upfront.In the case that the company doesn't have a preferred agreement, here is a pretty straightforward work-for-hire agreement template that is well annotated and may be helpful:www.jian.com/software/Contracts/Work-for-Hire-Website-Development.pdfThings get more complicated if you actually want to retain IP rights (i.e. be able to sell the product you are building to other companies as you mention) since your contract will need to clearly lay out who owns what. I would definitely consider consulting an attorney if that is a route you would like to go down. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | xiaoma: As someone in the education field, I found Alan Kay's talk really, really inspiring:http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/alan_kay_shares_a_powerfu... |
What would you want to be if you couldn't work with software? | mg1313: Filmmaker :)...and I am already learning about this. |
What would you want to be if you couldn't work with software? | russell: Idle rich. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | mrtron: Getting paid out can be painful. Make sure do everything possible to make that easy. Properly document your time/efforts and send proper invoices at the proper time. |
basic word wrap in vim | cschneid: I'm pretty sure these two lines do what you want. It keeps it as one physical line, but wraps at word boundaries instead of at the exact character when doing logical wrapping. " Break lines intelligently when wrapping
set linebreak
set display+=lastline |
Should I drop out or not? | masterhacker: Stay in school and get a job. I think you can handle working and studying. That way you can pay part of the tuition now, plus school can be useful. |
review my app whereslunch.org | truebosko: I like it.However, my personal primary issue with your app is that when I go to it to find lunch, it's just too much information. When I'm looking for lunch I don't want to spend 10 minutes browsing around and researching. I want something quick.Suggest me a few places that might fit a criteria. Have a quick-access menu (e.g tag cloud) or search so I can quickly type in what I feel like and get the results filtered.I know this is all available in your app, but in my opinion it's to hard to find to engage the user. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | mattchew: I'd recommend writing your own contract/agreement if you can. Keep it short and simple, what you'll do, how much you'll get paid, when you'll get paid. Also, that you own the code.I'd recommend being up front about possible reselling. Your customer may gripe about it, but better to talk it out now than make an enemy out of your first customer later. Surprises are bad.Another option is to find a standard agreement. The other guy mentioned one, there is a book from Nolo Press,http://www.nolo.com/product.cfm/objectID/2C02C865-21E7-497C-...and there are surely others on the web.Be careful about Work For Hire. I believe a Work For Hire agreement transfers ownership of your code to the purchaser. Not what you want in this case. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | fizx: IANAL, this is not legal advice. If you want to do this by the books, get a lawyer. If you want to wing it, take the advice. This is my experience contracting for small to medium business and startups. YMMV, especially with large companies.Contracts mostly don't matter. Communication matters. Getting paid matters. Everything is negotiable.The wikipedia article on "work for hire" is informative. Read it. You (generally) have to specifically sign away rights to anything you create, so if you want to resell, you don't need permission, because you already own the copyright. But it will kill your reputation if you screw them.Take deposits. Get paid +10 days. Work your way into trusting them. Stop working once you get a certain amount of hours ahead of your last invoice, until the check arrives. For a new client, the amount of credit I will extend is about 5 hours. For an established client, I still try to keep it under 40-50 hours. |
What software do you use to make screencasts for you product? | critic: Windows Media Encoder, then upload wmv to blip.tv, who convert it to flash and host it (Got this idea from the Clojure guy)Not sure why the other Windows Media Encoder user got downmodded. Perhaps it would be more useful to explain why you think your approach is better (other than your hate of Bill Gates)? |
What would you want to be if you couldn't work with software? | burnout1540: Journalist or just another suit. |
What to do with a spare linux box? | inimino: You could give it away to someone who really needs it.A lot of low-income families and kids don't have computers, and there are organizations (Free Geek is one) that accept and distribute donated machines. |
Ask HN:Payment Platforms for Validating Users | russell: You should remember the transaction charges. I think most payment systems charge 20-30 cents per transaction. I dont know about PP. I don't have a PP account and would probably object to giving you my CC number unless I found your service compelling. I certainly would not give it just to look around. This would probably turn off lots of potential users. Even an email validation is a turnoff, but not so bad as a CC number. |
What to do with a spare linux box? | ichverstehe: Get a VoIP account, set up Asterisk, throw in Adhearsion, do fun stuff. I rickroll random incoming calls. People recently stopped calling me. |
What to do with a spare linux box? | liangzan: There're many things you can do with a spare linux box. I do keep a few 'project ideas' links just in case I got some spare time on hand.Home file server with ZFS - http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/Proxy Server - http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/10/0...Map-Reduce fun with Hadoop - http://www.michael-noll.com/wiki/Running_Hadoop_On_Ubuntu_Li...Donate bandwidth with a Tor Server - http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/08/31/how-to-run-a-tor-serv...More good ideas - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/09/17/put-that-old-comput...A Dial-In server - http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_dialin_server |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | wenbert: Putting yourself in the client's shoes always worked for me. For first time clients, it is the best way to gain their trust. I have never met face-to-face most of my clients. I live in the Philippines and they are either in the US/Canada/Australia. I have a day job and work mostly at night and on weekends. I have been doing this for almost 6 years already and in those years, I only had 2 contracts (both from France). |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | newy: [Not legal advice] General tip - always remember everything is negotiable. Just because someone hands you a form contract doesn't mean you have to sign it as is. IP's tricky, but basically you own what you author until you assign the rights (unless it's a "work for hire", which generally doesn't apply, see the Wiki). The company you're freelancing for likely expects that you'd be signing over all the rights to the work product to them -- they're paying for it, after all. If you expect otherwise, then you should document that you're only providing them with an indefinite license to use (they'll probably want the right to modify and own all mods). |
basic word wrap in vim | mhartl: I posted the same question at StackOverflow, which also yielded some useful advice: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/467739/how-do-you-get-vim...Basically, my terminal app was at fault, not vim. Switching from xterm to gnome-terminal fixed the problem. |
What to do with a spare linux box? | manny: I was also thinking of maybe doing that Folding@Home stuff. |
Please Review My New Site. | aptimpropriety: I'd remove the need for a log-in to vote on games. Regardless of 'abuse', which should be relatively easy to monitor, if someone feels particularly passionate about up-voting, perhaps they should be able to express it.Considering a large percentage of individuals who play such games are likely underage, who would want to log-in and, essentially, confess to their crime?In my experience, sites like this which are 'cool content' driven depend heavily on equally 'cool' design. Perhaps consider design overhaul, find a friend good with web design? |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | tjmc: First thing to know is - there is no such thing as a "standard contract". It's always useful to have a lawyer look over a contract before you sign it.
Then - never be afraid to request changes. I've found employers are usually happy to make reasonable contract changes and clarifying things like termination notice periods can benefit both sides.I've been freelancing since 2002. Some of the common "gotchas" I've seen in contracts to look out for:1. Anti-competitive clauses (eg. After you work for us you can't work for a competitor for a certain amount of time).
I never agree to these and fortunately here in Australia they're illegal in most circumstances.2. IP ownership
This relates to your question. I've found employers are most concerned about lock-in. They want to make sure any project work you deliver is their's to use and modify as they please when you're gone. Not unreasonable. It's when they ask for exclusive ownership that you need to be careful. I've often added a clause that distinguishes between project specific deliverables which can be exclusive and the tools and techniques you develop to deliver the project which you share but can also take with you. I've never had an employer refuse that.3. Termination clauses
Make sure the timeframe for termination (by either party) is in reasonable proportion to the contract term. Eg. I had one contract with (initially) a 1 hour notice period for terminating a six month contract. I asked them if they'd mind extending it to 2 weeks and they were happy to do so. Remember, it's protection for both sides. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | Encosia: Dealing with small companies, I usually start by suggesting a simple NDA to protect them and make them feel safe. If they don't want more, I skip the administrivia and we move on to solving their problems.It's been my experience that you're a lot better off being informal about the legalese and just invoicing as often as you can (bi-weekly at longest).Companies without a legal department generally appreciate being able to do business in a straightforward manner. |
Please Review My New Site. | rksprst: It's nice to see a fellow asp.net website. It also looks like you're using the mvc beta. Though, the site could use a designer. |
What would you want to be if you couldn't work with software? | plinkplonk: Fiction Author |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | rrival: If you haven't been heavily client-facing inside a large company please, for your sake, remember to make sure you have written signoff from your clients at every stage re: expectations and deliverables. Clients spending their own money or with an incentive to keep costs low (been at this 10+ ys) have all read the same book, from single owner businesses to major international shoe brands: everything for nothing, yesterday, and "oh how about we make this little change, that won't affect anything, right?"Also make sure that if it's a fixed price contract, you factor some expectation of hours in there and have a clause handling the case that if you go over by 10% you'll need to renegotiate, or as others have suggested, you pause until payment has been made. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | bprater: Check Elance, they have several sample agreements you can choose from. In fact, many of the rent-a-someone services will offer these.Personally, I kept an agreement around for years. Over time, I would add or subtract from it, but in general, once you have an solid contract agreement, you shouldn't need another. |
Ask HN:Payment Platforms for Validating Users | bayareaguy: I'm not sure where payment fits in but I read a while back that craigslist uses http://www.reducefraud.com to validate users via a telephone call. Google App Engine signup does something similar with SMS messaging.Would a telephone number work for what you are doing? |
What would you want to be if you couldn't work with software? | jcapote: The people that make the machines in the How It's Made show |
Services for startups / gigs for hackers | pclark: You know, I've love a service where I can ask hackers how to do stuff.Like Yahoo Answers, but hacker answers. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | popschedule: Break your projects up into milestonesfor example:Milestone One (Prototype, wireframe, database development (if it's dynamic, or just design) then make them pay up front before you start this.Milestone Two (Slicing and Integration, programming, etc) break that up into another payment.and usually I make a final milestone for launch like:Milestone Three (Testing, debugging, content integration, etc) and have them pay you before you launch the website on their server.Some clients request contracts, use docstoc.com to find "standard web contract" or have a lawyer. As you get better at giving new customers a sense of trust you don't really have to bother, if they don't bring it up. |
What would you want to be if you couldn't work with software? | medianama: Mathematician or a Sportsman... who knows! |
Slinkset or not? | pclark: why not just host the reddit code yourself? |
advices for presenting a project | mkuhn: I have a slideshow for you which will help you improve your slideshow skills: http://www.slideshare.net/thecroaker/death-by-powerpointDefinitely one of the best I've ever seen. Its a tutorial what to do and how to do it. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | luminousbit: I HIGHLY recommend adding a LOT of language to the contract that deals with the exact terms of payment. Some things to consider:1) What are the late penalties if they don't pay on time?2) What are the penalties if they (or you) cancel the contract?3) What happens if you can't meet a milestone or deadline because they didn't give you a deliverable on time? Make sure you aren't held accountable and make EXTRA sure that you'll be paid for the extra time you have to waste in catching up.4) (If they are not local) Spell out how they send you payments. Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation is only a few bucks and will avoid any headaches with "We sent the check, we swear"5) If this is your primary source of income, then Net 30 is NOT good enough. They need to pay Net 15 or better and you should be invoicing every two weeks. Big companies have a real problem with this, but standard monthly invoices and Net 30 will cause you to starve for several months before ever getting a dime.The BEST way to arrange payments is to spell out the exact date that they will send a payment (and how much). It should be so precise that you don't even need to invoice them because all the info is right there.6) Specify how long you will wait for a late payment before work stops all together.In 6 years of contract work, I've NEVER had a contract that successfully avoided all of the situations above. Every one has run into one of these caveats, which are 'conveniently' left out of most boilerplate contracts. If these issues aren't addressed, you will be waiting for money for a LONG time. |
advices for presenting a project | TobiasCassell: "Presentationzen" by Garr Reynolds and "Slide:ology" by Nancy Duarte will be exceedingly helpful to you. Here are links to their blogs and Amazon descriptions. Good luck!http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321525655/103-6148611-3957...http://blog.duarte.com/http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596522347?ie=UTF8&tag=...You should also find a copy of Guy Kawasaki's "Reality Check" or "The art of the start". Even if you don't have enough time to push through the whole book, just read the chapter on pitching. Should be very helpful. |
What would you want to be if you couldn't work with software? | manvsmachine: The Stig |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | ballpark: Thanks so much everyone. You guys are great. I have some reading to do. :) |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | redorb: I think your prices should be $5/month "blogger" then I would just rename the others and perhaps shift the price downward too, "startups" will probably do this themselves with google alerts or other services.I think your market is small; I feel those who know enough to care about brand mentions - care enough to already have ideas of how to do it, and those who don't won't probably 'get it'.Good luck in your endeavor |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | rockbilly: * I greatly appreciate that the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card. Bravo! Finally someone gets that right.* Why do you start at 3 brands? I'm guessing that there are enough users that would like to monitor a single brand maybe for $12-$14/mo?* The plan pricing isn't good. The Big Shot plan costs $100 for 10 brands/users while the Blogger plan costs $19 for 3 brands/users. Why shouldn't I just get 4 Blogger plans? Clearly the convenience of not having to deal with multiple accounts and who can access what where, but it just doesn't look like you're getting the value you should be getting. As 37s said about their pricing "Each tier is roughly double the previous tier, but we deliver more than double the benefits." (http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1287-ask-37signals-how-di...).Overall, it looks like a great way for companies to track their brands online and see how things are going. I'd say you could easily create a sustainable business model out of that. |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | unalone: I hate that Feedback tab. I don't know what service provides it, but it ruins my process of browsing the site, it's ALWAYS slow to load, and I think a contact form is much more useful.The design is clean. Two things: make a hover effect on the "Free Trial" button, it feels oddly static right now, and "60 sec signup, no credit card" bleeds off the button in Safari 4.Now, question, from a genuine newbie: how is your service better than my just subscribing to a set of 6 RSS feeds? |
Slinkset or not? | known: You may consider http://www.kubelabs.com/phpdug/ |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | jbenz: The design is really great. Very clean, lots of white space, clear call to action. Just wanted to say: Good work! |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | eisokant: It looks like a great site especially since you allow filtering to some extent. I was just deleting my account with Techrigy.com earlier since they just didn't get it right, MightyBrand has a lot of potential.When I tried blocking an author though I got the following error from Google Chrome:The webpage at http://mightybrand.com/brands/block has resulted in too many redirects. Clearing your cookies for this site may fix the problem. If not, it is possibly a server configuration issue and not a problem with your computer.All the best,Eiso |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | ivankirigin: Definitely a cleaner design than BlueSwarm. Nice work. |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | symptic: With a name like MightyBrand, while I think you've got a solid design already, it just doesn't come across to me as something bold enough to sport the name 'MightyBrand'. I'd look to add bold, heavy, red coloring rather than orange. The white feels clean, but it also feels a bit too open.Also, in terms of conversions, placing the icons with links to the social sites themselves will drive some traffic away. Instead, create case studies for each one with very bold and obvious calls to action on the pages inviting the user to get involved.The screenshot is good, but the border is bigger around the screenshot than the 'Free 30-day Trial' button. I'd sugegst either making the button 'louder' or simply increase the border's size, or decrease that of the screenshot.Internally, one thing I notice is very wide columns for your content. This makes the text a burden to read. Make them more narrow. it looks like the line-height is good, but it may need to be bigger. A lot of the text is bold when it shouldn't be. You want a larger contrast between the content and the headers.The Pricing page is a good start, but it's too bland right now. Spice it up by adding short descriptions of each benefit under the price chart. Add background colors to the chart items themselves. make the most important item larger and in the center. The little blurb underneath could do with some shortening I think. "Special Request? Contact us." As it is, it's too much text for something so simple. You can have more text on the contact page if need be. |
Slinkset or not? | pierrefar: Spam is a problem in all systems. You'll have to deal with it somehow.Also try Drupal and modules. |
What is your favorite TED talk? | Radix: save thread |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | rokhayakebe: Finally a startup with "Pricing". |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | kbrower: Definitely interested in this and would become a paying subscriber, if:
1. prices were lower
2. it was more comprehensive(went through tinyurls for your domain, scanned other social websites) |
How do I make myself competitive for a master's in CS after college? | lacker: Apply for a PhD. If you get in, you can bail after you get your master's, and they pay you if you are a PhD student. A professor at a top-25 CS grad school once told me they accept almost every American citizen who applies to the PhD program because it's so much cheaper - so worst case, you should be able to go to a well-known school that has merely a good CS program. |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | pedalpete: I think your messaging is a bit off in the "add brand" sectionI created a brand, and then it asked for keywords or phrases, so I entered keywords, not the brandname itself as I thought this was a tag kinda think, maybe you were doing analysis on cross-section of Brands (that's capital B, 'cause you are calling your brand grouping a 'Brand').Not a bad idea to have Brand keywords.
Anyway, of course I was supposed to enter the brands I wanted to follow in that box, like the comma delimited list said, but of course, I didn't do that the first time.Then I had to create another Brand (I'm beginning to think that Brand is a bad word for that, Brand Group or something might be better). I couldn't find how I edit a Brand I already created.
Of course, the "edit brand' is in the menu on the left, but for some reason I expected it to be up near the to by the "add brand" button.
Add/Edit do go really well together. |
Slinkset or not? | brett: We're working on making things more flexible. If you have any specific questions about what you need please feel free to email me, brett at slinkset. |
How do I make myself competitive for a master's in CS after college? | tokenadult: I agree with the advice already given that the best way to be admitted to the programs you desire is to be ready to apply to a strong Ph.D. program.But why do you desire the master's degree? Can't you meet great minds in private industry? |
Review our startup - MightyBrand.com | brandnewlow: three things.1. The "keyword" concept can be better explained. I wasn't sure what to put there during registration. It was only after I saw it in action, and saw that it was actually asking for specific search terms, that I understood. Then I went back in and changed the keywords for my brand to specific terms I wanted to tack, rather than words that described my business.2. When I see my latest results, I want some kind of a refresh button that will tell the system to go check for new results.You know how some people refresh their inboxes all the time hoping for new mail? I would totally do that with this, hoping for new results. So give me a refresh button that checks for new terms.3. The language on the brand-editor page near where I enter my Twitter info is confusing. Under the "change password" field there's a checkbox....with no text near it to explain what the heck it does. That needs to be fixed.There's some big text to the left just kind of floating that says "Don't display tweets from this account." I guess that might apply to the check box. If so, shrink it and pull it closer to the check box.Also, with the twitter setup, when I enter my twitter info, I want a little JS message confirming that Mighty Brand successfully linked up with my twitter account, so I know that's working and the pipes aren't goofed up or something. Put me at ease.I may think of more stuff later. |
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