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Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | andrewf: See a medical professional! That said, anecdotal not-medical-advice:I had mousing-related pain, and I fixed it by mousing left handed. The first couple of days were incredibly frustrating, but after a week I had probably 80% of my right handed dexterity.To prevent the same issue from building up in my left hand, I started alternating between left handed and right handed mousing every couple of weeks.I guess the worst case outcome here is severe damage to both hands, so proceed with caution. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | quellhorst: I switched to dvorak, got an Aeron chair and Humanscale KB tray when my hand started to show signs of RSI... 3 years later I haven't had any more symptoms of RSI. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | DenisM: Mind telling us which machines do you and your friends use? Are those MacBook Pro's by chance? I starteted having quite a bit of problems soon after buying one. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | smanek: There was a thread a few years back on comp.lang.lisp about this very topic.Peter Seibel (of 'Practical Common Lisp' fame) replied:"Okay, here's how I do it. Of course I tend to overdo things--how do you think I dorked up my wrists in the first place so I can't say this is necessarily recommended practice:a. Fill one pitcher with cold water and a tray or two of ice cubes, leaving room for you to immerse you hand and wrist without overflowing.b. Fill another pitcher with scalding hot water, again leaving room for as much of your hand and wrist will fit into pitcher without bending your wrist at some weird angle.c. Stick affected hand in ice water. Scream in agony until the numbing takes the edge off. Leave in for 1-4 minutes.d. Move affected hand to hot water. If you timed it just right the water has cooled just enough that you avoid parboiling your hand. Leave in for 1 minute. Move your fingers around some.e. Go to c until you get bored or the water in both pitchers has gone tepid.I also periodically freshen up the hot water by filling a mug from the hot-water pitcher and microwaving it for a minute while I'm soaking in the cold water and then putting it back in the hot pitcher when I'm ready to switch. But I'm pretty weird.-Peter"Or you could just get a reasonable keyboard. I've been lusting after a Kinesis Contour for some time now ... |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | yummyfajitas: First thing: figure out where your problem is. Next time you feel pain, try to determine exactly where it is. Also useful when you talk to a doctor about it.Then find a map of the nerves in your hand (Grey's Anatomy has one). Find the joints that that nerve goes through, probably one of those is squeezing it. Adjust your position/workspace to avoid stressing that particular nerve. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | rtf: Things that have worked for me:-Stop using a mouse. Use a trackball or a trackpad or anything else. I have a death grip on mice and I bet others do too.-If you have to use a mouse switch your mousing hand. Deal with the fumbling and inaccuracy. You'll figure it out.-Lean farr back in your chair(legs propped up) and rest your keyboard in your lap. Shift position occasionally.-Move your monitor so that you look in different directions. Laptops are great for this and that compensates for their other ergonomic problems. You can usually find a way to move them higher or lower and correspondingly shift the strain. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | Prrometheus: Good thread from 6 months ago:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=104977Some of the tips given there took my pain away.In particular, the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboards with negative key pitch are awesome, as are ergonomic mouse pads. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | slackerIII: Things I've done: -switched the mouse to my left hand
-installed WorkRave, actually did what it said
-switched the caps-lock and ctrl key
-switched to dvorak
-use the ergo microsoft keyboard
-avoid laptops
-learned to sit up straight and not cross my legs
-stopped using the mouse scroll wheel
These days I'm trying to pay attention to my keystrokes. For example, using the right shift to make (){} results in some stressful twisting, so I'm trying to cut that out.If you spend a lot of time coding, try to spend more time with a pencil and paper designing before you hit the keyboard. That gives you a good break and reduces the amount of typing and deleting you'll do. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | mechanical_fish: Ask around. Find the professors who are the best at teaching Introduction to X (where X is any field) and take their classes. The teacher is more important than the subject matter, almost every time.Useful values of X: statistics, biology (esp. molecular biology), linguistics, statistics (I mention it twice because it's twice as important), economics, first-year chemistry, physics. Skip organic chemistry unless you want to be an M.D.Keep practicing the essay writing. If you can get good at that, or at least comfortable with it, it's better than a second major.Which brings me to my radical suggestion: Drop the double major. Double majors are a waste of valuable time: You could be taking a sprinkling of intro and second-year classes in a bunch of different fields -- including at least one class from every excellent prof on campus -- but instead you're spending time taking boring classes from bad lecturers just to check off boxes for your second major, which will not matter to anyone, ever. [1](My school made me have a minor. I minored in history, which was a nice change of pace from physics, and was enjoyable, and made me practice all that writing, and I found an excellent history prof and took three of her classes. All of which was good. And yet... if I hadn't been forced to take the fourth history class, which was required of all history minors, I could have done the econ class instead, from the really good econ professor who was recommended to me. I regret missing that econ class to this day.)Make a choice: e.g. if you like to program, are leaning toward startups, are aceing CS classes, and are not feeling "clever enough for pure math", major in CS -- that's where the marketability is, anyway. Then dump the math major -- just add math classes to taste. Then, add other classes to taste. If, as you say, you're "quite bored", you need to try something different. Mix it up a little. Archaeology. Japanese. Music Theory 101. Accounting. Something.[1] There are only two times that double majors make any sense. One is if you're a premed. Another is if you're so hopelessly fascinated by the classes in your second field that as a senior you discover that you've accidentally come within two credits of your second major -- might as well finish it off. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | PStamatiou: Start a website or blog. It is the single best decision I have done in the last decade. I have found many interesting people online that are interested in the same things as me and many interesting people have found me through it.And yes, go out with as many women as possible too. I made the mistake of going to an all-male college.. well just about (~30% female at Georgia Tech). |
What should I try to do while still in college? | romainl: Pick up skydiving!I did during my military service (compulsory between sophomore and junior year at my engineering school in France), and there's nothing better for your ADHD. Seriously, it looks very ballsy from outside, but it actually would fit super well with your craving for learning and discovery - plus it will help solve the women issue, see comment #1 :-) And it's the best way to meet people as crazy as you are but completely outside of your usual circles (kind of saved my life when I moved to MA ;-). |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | eyudkowsky: Dvorak solved this for me permanently. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | andreyf: I was in a similar boat as you 2 years ago, and I wish I did two (seemingly contradictory) things different: 1st, go outside of your majors - take some acting classes, some poetry classes, some philosophy classes. 2nd, understand your majors - take a couple of hours to research every class your major offers, and decide which ones sound appealing early on - at Rutgers, I finished a CS BA without taking a compilers or OS course, which was, in hindsight pretty clearly, a mistake. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | natch: Male bonding activities are never wasted time. Seriously. Even something as small as going along on a beer run, might get you a position on a board twenty years from now, or a great job in an amazing place, or, by far the most valuable of all possibilities, crash space on a sofa in San Francisco. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | webwright: Be careful avoiding things that other people enjoy because you think they are vapid. Try to enjoy them instead.Travel a LOT-- long trips (3-4 weeks per trip if you can swing it). It's very hard to pull this off after college for most people.I'll echo the "meet women" sentiment. For some, it can be hard to meet women after collenge-- especially if you get a job at a startup (most people meet women at jobs and women are notoriously absent from startups).Career-wise, if you want to do a startup someday... Either find a cool startup that you can work at (be picky) or build something that you'd really love to have yourself but no one has made yet. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | keefe: For one thing, don't be too quick to underestimate the value of socialization. You don't have to be a vapid partier just looking to hook up, but making social mistakes is much less costly in college than it is in the business world. Find some groups that interest you, and there are probably girls there that share that interest - it's much harder when you're out.Is there some programming project you're passionate about? In college, it was horse racing and poker for me. Always trying to make a quick buck, I know. Anyway, the only real way to learn about writing code is to do it. Your first project will probably fail, so don't sweat it.If you like this craze, pick an easy language and write a web application. You can get a VPS running for $20-$50 a month, and you could install SVN on there as well. Anyway, have fun and observe yourself - and make sure to study your algorithms! |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | keefe: I have had the beginnings of that unpleasant tingling at 27, and I make a conscious effort to keep my wrists straight. After a few years, it didn't even feel like an effort. Remember, it's compressing this little tunnel through which a nerve runs that is the problem - that doesn't HAVE to happen while you type. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | vaksel: My advice, is a little different from the rest. All those things are good and all, but it doesn't hurt to lay the ground work for your future.I recommend that you start coding your statup now. This is the best time for it. You have no expenses. You have very few commitments. And you are surrounded by a lot of other smart ambitious people that you can tap. Clubs, professors, classes, will make it easy for you to find out who the smart people are. So if you run into a problem, you can easily find someone to help you understand it.And this way the times when your startup grows very slow, you'll have some other things to play with. Honestly if you don't have an idea now, start throwing some ideas in your head, pick one and start coding, if you change your mind along the way, change your product, you have plenty of time to get a winning combination. And remember, it doesn't need to be rocket science, Facebook is nothing more than a big database.But this shouldn't be your only concern, you have to multi-task. Honestly the startup life is pretty shitty. You work all the time, you lose touch with most of your friends because you constantly skip going out, and unlike college where you are surrounded by women of your age, you end up being pretty much a monk, seeing two-three women your age during the week. So spend that time in college having fun.a) start lifting weights. Trust me, it'll do wonders to your social life and for your self esteem. Honestly if you are afraid of going to the gym, buy a set of weights at a store and workout at home. I actually prefer that because you don't spend the extra time of driving to the gym, and can do it whenever you have free time.(i usually work out when I watch TV since I'm in front of it anyways)b) Join some activity clubs. Honestly you sound like you have no idea what fun things you like. So look at all the clubs at your college and join a bunch and see what you actually like.c) if you want excitement there is nothing better than buying a motorcycle. Start off with a Ninja 250(used). The reason is that its a starter bike(it'll run you like 2K used, 3K new, they hold their value really well). Granted its a little dangerous but thats part of the excitement. Then once you get the basics down, upgrade to a 600cc bike(the most expensive one will run you like 7 grand). And don't upgrade to a 1000cc bike because those are the killers.d) get laid, Honestly college is probably the easiest time of your life for that .You are surrounded by women your age and as long as you are even remotely in shape you'll get a positive answer. If you wear glasses get contacts. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you'll be knee deep in women once you graduate. Like I said, w/o going out I see maybe 1-2 attractive women my age. And if you hate the party scene in college, you'll hate the bar/club scene when you graduate. You don't want to end up like that guy in the 40 year old virgin movie. And trust me, if you ride a bike, have a decent physique and no glasses, in college? You will have NO problem getting women's numbers. All you have to do is initiate the conversation.e) take a road trip, just get into your car and head some place 2000 miles away.f) obviously there are many other exciting things to do, but I don't know your money/location situation, so I dunno if you can afford to go sky diving, or if you live near an ocean so you can learn how to surf/ride a jet ski |
Critique my startup | tectonic: Hey pstam! |
I want to add SMS to my service, tips/help/advice? | mailanay: Please checkout http://txtme.savitr.net. This is a service started by my startup Savitr Wireless (http://www.savitr.net)We have built a SMS Engine / Framework which easily integrates with aggregators / carriers to send and receive SMS messages.We license out the Framework directly as well as provide API to our hosted service. |
Critique my startup | Hexstream: I don't like the slider presentation widget.1. It keeps moving automatically. That's irritating.2. It always seems to be sliding too fast or too slow. I don't feel in control. Do you really want to place yourself in a situation where the best you can do is guess at the best compromise and hope your setting won't be too fast for the slower readers and not too slow for the faster ones? |
Critique my startup | akd: Do people ever get the undirected urge to blog but don't know what to blog about? Usually people blog about the things they care about, and don't need suggestions. |
Critique my startup | brianlash: I'm not a technical guy so I can't comment on the implementation. But it should say something that I'll absolutely use it when I get set up with my new blog. I like that Skribit's lean and won't clutter my sidebar or dramatically decrease my site's load time.Are you distributing via any widget networks? I ran a search on Widgetbox (don't care for that one but there are others) but couldn't find you. It might be something to consider when you're through this period of laying low.Also, I'd encourage you not to worry so much about scaring people away. I know that's a problem for new services, but there's nothing so off-putting about Skribit that would make users leave in some mass exodus. You may turn some folks off when you have those predictable hiccups, but the feedback should more than offset that loss.As an aside, I saw you got a hat-tip from Problogger. Awesome. |
Critique my startup | nadim: For some reason I'm not finding the front page of http://skribit.com to be informative enough of what your startup does. Could easily just be me though.I was going to ask if there was a way to vote, but then I found this example and it answers my question:
http://paulstamatiou.com/After looking at that example, why is there no way to vote yes or no? It looks like you can only vote yes for something . Based on the frontpage there are a lot of polls, why not add voting? |
Critique my startup | trickjarrett: Just to say that I'm a user of the skribit.com site for my podcast and that you guys have been great about watching for feedback and taking my suggestions. I think it's on the right track but you're a bit away from finding the real gold there.Some of the things you lay out are going to be real good, the analytics and possible value of suggestions from similar blogs suggests directory building and that information can be very valuable depending on how you do it.Keep it up! |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | gcv: The following three things helped me tremendously.(1) Stop using an external mouse. Right now. The sideways flick your wrist does when you reach for it is murderous. Most laptops' integrated pointing devices will help a lot. The Apple trackpad is great. IBM (Lenovo) trackpoints work well too. Switch up hands you use for the pointing device.I lucked out on this one: the last desktop computer I ever owned died just as my RSI symptoms peaked. I then didn't regularly use a computer for around three months, which let the symptoms subside. I've owned a laptop as a primary machine ever since (eight years now), and have had very few recurring symptoms.(2) Exercise. This is huge topic, obviously, but in particular, core strength development will help your body in surprising ways. Very specifically, use light (<20 lb or <10 kg) dumbbells and do regular and reverse wrist curls. Obviously go easy on these at first.(3) Keep your wrists straight when you type. Easier said than done, of course, but good posture and a good chair will help out here. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | mdakin: Try to meet everyone. Remember, keep track of, and develop real relationships with all of the people you click with. |
Interview with the competition? | icey: I think we need some clarification. Is the web site you're currently working on YOUR website? Or are you being paid to work on this site by a third party?If its your site, and you're looking to move on; it could be worthwhile. But you should be aware that you will probably not be able to work on your site any more after hiring on with your competition. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | timcederman: Exact same age and symptoms as me - 3M ergonomic mouse fixed it right up. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=h...Also using my left hand for touchpads and wearing a brace helped get through the worst of it. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | delackner: Exercise.You will probably ignore that, so let me say it differently.Every day, at least 15 minutes, cycle, run, I don't care. Move.Every week at least once, do something (I like Climbing) that gets your whole body, but especially your ARMS dead tired.You don't need any kind of special keyboard layout, just something with good key response. It is far more important what you are doing with your body when you aren't sitting. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | sb: hi there,i am 27, and just have had the worst tendonitis ever. adding to the already brought up advices, my doctor provided the following important insight: if your blood contains too high values for uric acid, or you are a candidate for urarthritis, then you also might take some concern for minimizing purines in your diet. so in the long run, you should be interested in keeping your uric acid values low.ps: usual stuff here too: kensington expert mouse trackball, kinesis freestyle keyboard, xwrits, cycling, using stairs, checking posture, etc. -- switching to dvorak soon... |
What should I try to do while still in college? | pjuska01: Take your best idea and RUN WITH IT! Don't quit college - the degree DOES matter; But use that free time and run all aspects of your "startup" business - create it, deploy it, market it, refine it. You can do that AND keep your classwork up. Once you're out in the post-grad world, the pressure is on - so take advantage of it NOW and see those ideas come to life!!Go on an info-diet, CREATE, don't CONSUME. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | elai: For me, I was starting to get wrist pain with my mousing. I purchased 12 different mice, tried them all out, keeping note of how I felt in my hand. I eventually found out that really large mice is what work for me. The M$ intellimouse explorer specifically. The MX revolution, and all the other fancy mice weren't as good as the huge honking intellimouse explorer. The huge thumball mice were also good, but I didn't have the patience to learn them. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | knv: Smoke pot. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | Tichy: Yoga (in a workout variant) seems to help the most. A lot of exercises stretch the wrists.Also, I had a cyst in my index finger and had to get surgery to remove it. The doctor almost didn't discover it, because he wasn't sure if the "common RSI" symptoms would even warrant taking an x-ray. Luckily he decided for it. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | cousin_it: Everybody's saying run run run, time's running out! I beg to differ. You'll have time enough for things you don't want to do, later in life. For now, kill time, relax and don't do stuff you don't want to. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | saundby: Start doing some part-time businesses now. Get with classmates, especially classmates outside your major, put together something quick and dirty and see if you can make a few bucks. You'll learn what you need to complement your skills & personality and get some experience balancing different parts of your life, going through the whole business start-deliver-grow-falter-fail cycle. Invaluable experience and killer resume/interview material.For social groups, find groups _outside_ of college. You'll be able to connect with people at all stages of life, and you won't be an outsider the day you graduate. Find something with a worldwide presence, whether it's the group or just the activity itself. I did medieval re-enactment, I connected with not only other medievalists worldwide, but all historical enthusiasts. Travel? Free room and board and often transport from the more established co-enthusiasts. Instant networking, too--jobs, advice, backing, prospects, you name it. |
Interview with the competition? | Tichy: Don't sign any NDAs, I guess. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | paraschopra: start doing regular blah blah on HN ;) |
Which is the best prog. laptop (battery, Linux Hardware support etc.)? | aitoehigie: Lenovo |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | iamelgringo: Get religion about ergonomics. I've spend close to $1k on my workstation's ergonomics at home (decent desk, chair, keyboard, tried a bunch of different mice, adjustible monitor arms, etc...) I probably need to invest another $500-1000 just to get it tuned even further. A small price to pay, to not have to quit coding.Is the pain in your R hand on your wrist (palmar side?) or is it in the back of your hand? It' makes a difference. A doctor can help you sort things out. All the tendons and nerves that control your hand flow through a narrow band in your wrist. If you rest your arm's weight on your wrist for extended periods of time (i.e. mousing on your R hand), you can put pressure on that bundle of nerves and tendons. Do it too long, and you can end up like a friend did and not be able to button a shirt for 4 months.So, may I suggest a trackball, trackpad or vertical mouse. I actually have a track ball and a mouse connected to my computer, and I switch back and forth between them every so often. I'm probably going to purchase a vertical mouse soon, because my wrist is aching a little bit. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | talkaboutadate: This won't help with the current symptoms you have, but when you've recovered:The best thing you can do is to switch hands frequently through the day. The second best thing you can do is work out in the gym regularly. This will strengthen your fingers, wrists and arms. |
Which is the best prog. laptop (battery, Linux Hardware support etc.)? | babul: If you cannot buy a new Mac (or better still a Mac Book Pro) why not try and get a used one from eBay? $1000 should get you something fairly decent. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | axod: "hitting keys"Stop hitting them then. Only use a laptop, and touch them lightly. Don't use a mouse, use a trackpad. |
Which is the best prog. laptop (battery, Linux Hardware support etc.)? | macmac: Anything from ASUS. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | JFred: I've had it, and it did get better slowly. It cost me many thousands of dollars of lost work. The doctors are pretty useless in many cases.0. Proper sleep, exercise and nutrition are important.1. Hit the keyboard more gently.2. If you're a wide person, like me, your elbows are out to the sides and your hands come in from the sides. So get a split keyboard like the Microsoft Natural. There are plenty of other keyboards that are split and "Ergonomic".3. I had to drop Emacs, as it overused the ^X and meta-x keys. I mapped them to Function keys but that wasn't enough.4. Not all RSI is carpal tunnel. There are even other tunnels. The thing about tunnels is that both a nerve and a tendon will go through the same tunnel in bone. When the tendon inflames it enlarges and squeezes the nerve against the bone. Misery ensues. You're body has lots of tunnels. There's even a pair in the head.5. The best voice software is or was from a company from "Dragon Systems". The business history of this company is fascinating. Their "Naturally Speaking" product might still be the best.6. Find and talk to some people in your state who have been on Disability. In some states, your Disability claims get paid by the last company you worked for. This results in you being blackballed by the business community. The companies seem to share information on employees and this might be legal. That's what those industry organizations are for, among other things. People who go on Disability are likely to sue. They don't want that. In the US, it varies from State to State. Get local information.7. In some times and places, Disability is a big con and the bureaucracy has learned to treat all claimants as crooks; you are guilty until proven innocent. This is an important psychological injury and leads to trouble.8. RSI can cause people to hate their jobs, and hate computers, they become the enemy. Work attitude suffers. Some management knows this and will head of trouble by getting rid of injured employees at the first excuse.9. Get three different styles of keyboard and two or three mice. You an actually plug them all in at the same time if they're all USB.10. See a hand specialist and an orthopedist. There is also a chance that what you really have is some outlier; like cancer of the bone in the hands, or something weird. Nerve damage can also be caused by bone weakness or osteoporosis. Have it all checked.11. Docs tend to look at bilateral problems (both hands) differently. The trouble might be in the common parts, the spinal cord or the brain. This could be good news if they're right, as some mental problems and neurological conditions are easier to treat than soft tissue injuries.12. Physical therapy can be very annoying but also be very, very useful. Do whatever they say as if it is God Himself commanding you from the Mountain. Do it every day, if they say so.13. Going Dvorak means a new keyboard for both home and work. Give up game-playing and some web surfing. TV is also bad for you. You need basic exercise, walk or run. No handball, racquetball, tennis, ping-pong, hammering. Make sure you have an electric screwdriver or don't do that at all. I found that swimming stressed my hands.14. If you take as many breaks as the RSI experts say, your whole level of intensity will go down. I don't even know if it's possible to relax your body as you work your mind unless your a Zen master, or something.15. If you research the subject, you can terrify yourself and be paralyzed with anxiety. If you research RSD/RSI together, you'll leave work and become a monk out on a mountaintop, and starve to death. Okay, I'm exaggerating, here.16. Proper sleep, exercise and nutrition are STILL important.17. You might checkout http://www.rsirescue.com/, I haven't looked that stuff for years...18. The only way to sit up straight is to raise the monitor screens. If you raise them too high, you'll be looking up, which is just as bad.19. The most expensive chairs, keyboards, and so on are worth it, financially, if they work. Lost work is more expensive than any of those.20. In some states, employers have to assume that if you were out of work for a while, you must have been in prison. This is because prison records get sealed after a few years so that ex-prisoners can get jobs and rehabilitate. So if you've been out of work a few years ago and don't have a prison record, you look just like somebody who actually was in prison. |
What software engineering process for startups? | ntoshev: In a current project I do mostly exploratory programming (figure out the code structure as I go), but I will probably also have automatic tests that exercise large chunks of the application at once, from user perspective, without going into any detail. These are supposed to serve as smoke tests, ringing the alarm if I broke anything big. |
What software engineering process for startups? | babul: Exploratory programming to play with ideas and concepts and to quickly prototype and evaluate things.Once a clear vision/direction is established, I switch to a more test driven development model more to ensure robustness and iron out errors than anything else. |
Critique my startup | mikkom: What's your business model?That's the most important question. If you don't want to talk about it it's okay but there is no point in discussing about a startup without knowing the business model. If we do, we are talking about something else than the startup. |
Which is the best prog. laptop (battery, Linux Hardware support etc.)? | djm: I wouldn't be worried about what laptop you have - I generally find it's better to buy cheap stuff and replace it often (I tend to stay about 1-2 years behind the best in PC's for example and buy a new one each year, selling the old one on ebay to cover part of the cost).The only hardware aspect worth thinking about with a laptop for coding is how big a screen you will be getting - get the largest you can afford so that you can see as many lines of code as possible.Try http://www.linux-laptop.net to make sure you get something you can run your favourite Linux distro on. |
Which is the best prog. laptop (battery, Linux Hardware support etc.)? | olefoo: Shop around for a Thinkpad, you can occasionally find a batch of them off a corporate lease, which can be a real bargain (half what you'd pay for a new laptop of equivalent specs). |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | wensing: Thanks everyone--some really awesome, useful advice. I really appreciate it! |
Critique my startup | steveplace: The title of the main page may need some work. "Blog Topic Suggestion Application" seems to lack any fluency when you describe it. Perhaps "Cure your blogger's block" or something like that, except much better.You also might want to think about bringing your signup forms up to the front page, or at least making the buttons stand out a little more. Maybe bringing the login/signup from the top and putting it above your yellow box would help add to conversions. |
Critique my startup | truebosko: My 5 second feedback: Going to your front page, it doesn't excite me, looks boring, nothing really STICKS out.I've seen your widget in action and I think it's great, but for a new comer who is checking out your site I don't see anything exciting on the front page and it leads me away. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | gtani: see keyboard review threads:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=185743http://developerlife.com/reviews/?p=46http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=221434http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=199493http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=104977That's about 3 days' reading material: some bullets as i dimly remember:1. laptop keyboards: avoid, especially for emacs/textmate control/alt/command key combo's. These 2-key to 4-key combo's are hell on your wrists if you always have to do them on the left side. If you do COntrol_C and X and V to cut/past in windows, same deal. I think it helps to use both short-travel scissors mechanism keyboards, like the new aluminum mac KB's and older-style long-travel sprung keyboards taht logitech , Matias and kensington make. I especially like the Matias' feel.2. hourly breaks and wrist exercises: wrist curls, reverse wrist curls, the Dyno-flex ball , powerWeb exercises. The latter is expanding your semi-closed fingers out against resistance, which is one that I rarely read about, but it's important.http://www.fitter1.com/Catalog/Category/35/HandWrist.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Roller-Strength-Gripper-Forearm-Stainl...3. always have your elbows and heels of hand supported weight-wise when mousing and keyboarding (kinda like Formula 1 designers trying to minimize unsprung weight). Try to mouse with undominant hand (I'm not too good at this)4. consider other factors: cocking your wrists when you drive or ride a bike or work power tools, shovel snow, brush your teeth, sleeping on your side. The combination of weight-bearing, pressure/shock/vibration and closing off the outside or inside of wrist joint is insidious .5. Aside: i think JFred has enough material for a book. all my upmod points to him/her! |
How to set up a payment gateway | swombat: There's already quite a few players in this market. What will you do differently to make it worth using you instead? |
How to set up a payment gateway | gm: Coming from a financial services guy: Look at the legal aspects first before you sit down and write code. It sounds like you are jumping right into the transfer money aspect of it, bypassing the laws ytou need to comply with.If you are in the middle of a money transactions you are subject to many federal and state laws, and if you deal with international, you are subject to more federal and state laws, as well as those of the country you are transferring to.You will be imprisoned if you do not. Since Sept 11 everyone involved takes these things extremely seriously, they will jail you first, and investigate later. (not to mention close your company and impound all your equipment).EDIT: And you will need much more than your gut estimate of $1.5 mill because there are huge bonds to be put in _per_state_ you want to do business in. Money transmission is not a business for the small guy any more.EDIT2: Have a sip of the legal requirements http://www.fincen.gov/ (this is just for the federal government, each state has its own office that places additional restrictions on you as well) |
How to set up a payment gateway | olefoo: Would Amazon FPS do what you need?http://www.amazon.com/Flexible-Payments-Service-AWS/b?ie=UTF...If not, then you will need funding if only to pay the lawyers who will be helping you charter your new financial institution. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | nunb: One thing cured my RSI carpal tunnel problems: the dyna-flex ball. You can find it in sports shops and sometimes golf or tennis pro shops.Edit: found a mention of dyno-flex ball above. This thing is awesome! Plus the usual things of course. I recently bought a Dvorak keyboard but haven't yet started using it. I always use a trackball (Logitech thumb-trackball, the only REAL trackball on the market). Joystick mouse sounds about right too. |
How to set up a payment gateway | blender: Anything is possible but the due diligence on your idea is enormous. Good luck getting investment. 1.5M probably won't even cover the upfront legal costs. |
Critique my startup | globalrev: Well nice webapplication. But a startup? Isnt that suggesting that you will make money from it? |
Critique my startup | Jax: Great Pstam! I agree with you. People actually need topic ideas to blog about(depends on what kind of topic they focus on). Consider a popular example, Arrington wouldnt find news to talk about if no one tells him about it or if he hasn't read anything. I just read the idea. I haven't seen the site yet, i'm on my mobile phone, so will take a look at it later. |
What software engineering process for startups? | syalam: agile/xp. release early. release often. a startup in its infancy needs to get the product out fast. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | dreish: http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wrists.htmlStep one is to see a doctor about it. Or as jwz puts it, "Do not fuck around. If you are experiencing any kind of pain, get to a doctor and get it diagnosed." Your hands are your livelihood and you do not want to be cavalier about this. Nobody here is qualified to diagnose you from across the Internet. Quoting jwz again, "... think what your life is going to be like if you can't type at all. I have friends this has happened to. You seriously do not want to go there."Mice with high click resistance have caused me the most tendon pain in my right hand. They seem to be getting much worse in recent years -- I had to replace one recently that took a feather-light touch, and I haven't found anything that comes close. The best one I've been able to find unfortunately doesn't have all the features I would like, but hands that aren't crippled are more important than features:http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-MX518-Gaming-Optical-Mouse/dp... |
How to set up a payment gateway | pageman: contact me at paulpajo [at] gmail
maybe asiapay [dot] com can help.
you can browse through this: http://www.slideshare.net/ebiziseasy/pesopay-presentation/
slide 17 might be of interest to you (payalert) |
How to set up a payment gateway | drusenko: A payment gateway doesn't handle the transferring of money, they only communicate with the interchange. Then, you go to a processor to settle the transaction given a specific transaction ID for which you have received an authorization.There's a very important distinction: A gateway doesn't involve transferring money, while a processor does. There's a huge set of risks on the processor side, and being a "start-up" processor seems to be a non-starter (big banks usually perform this task).You also need to figure out what you have to lose to fraud. Gateways, it would seem, don't have that much to lose to fraud (they just handle the transaction, they don't settle it or transfer any kind of money).There's definitely a huge market for a better gateway (Authorize.net's APIs suck). Being a new PayPal, in my opinion, is going to be incredibly difficult, for many of the reasons mentioned in this thread.I'd start your journey by educating yourself on exactly how the credit card system works. This is a good place to start: http://authorize.net/resources/howitworksdiagram/ |
I want to add SMS to my service, tips/help/advice? | ucdaz: You might want to check out teleflip.com. It's a free sms gateway. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | ucdaz: College was the best years of my life. Here are my guidelines.1. Learn as much as you can from class and people.2. Build authentic relationships. A lot college friendships usually last a lifetime.3. Follow your passion. Studying a subject you enjoy learning, and don't force yourself to learn something you don't like for the sake of making more money.4. It's always good to take a break once in awhile.5. Don't take college for granted and cherish your friends. When college is over, you're going to miss it. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | bobochan: N == 1 in my sample but a few random things that I did in college that have made me happy ever since: meet you future spouse; make lifelong friends; learn a foreign language; play in a band; act in a play; and find a life long sport that you enjoy. |
Practical Advice on Data Analysis | babul: Not limited to just unique startups, but simply record and measure the metrics that are important to you. |
What should I try to do while still in college? | logic_fiend: I'm currently in my last year of computer science. This will be my second degree, the first being a B.A. in Philosophy. I definitely think that your on the right track with the comp.sci./math double major. However, like you, I find the comp.sci courses easy and, for the most part, really uninteresting. Not that the info. isn't useful, it has mostly to do with having to sit through lectures where the professors have been teaching the same courses for years now and are utterly bored with the material as well. Unfortunately, a degree seems to be the main currency with employers, despite the fact I don't think that a comp.sci. degree adequately prepares you for becoming a competent programmer.Ultimately, I would recommend sticking with your program but pursuing your own programming and mathematical interests on the side (if you have time) in order to sustain and augment your enthusiasm for your future profession.Best of luck. |
managing subdomains cookbook | richesh: http://www.intridea.com/2008/6/23/subdomainfu-a-new-way-to-t... |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | mstefff: Hey,My latest web application went public today and I'd love to hear some input from everyone. The site is called Streetread. I've been dubbing it 'Google Reader meets Wall Street'. Streetread is a single-page ajax-driven interface that simplifies the process of gathering the large amount of news and data that flood Wall Street every day. The site aggregates the latest headlines from over 20 of the leading financial sites as well as from all of the stocks you choose to follow. The interface makes sifting through the content extremely easy and the articles are even presented within the same page. Basic stock charts/quotes display with the stocks you follow, etc. Please check it out and let me know what you think.Thanks,Mike |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | auston: I say it's semi-useful. But very easy to use.1 thing though... I don't like what happens when I try to scroll up on news stories for a stock. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | slater: Why do I have to be logged in to edit the list of stocks? |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | sc: Overall a nice, simple interface.The scrolling, vertical, ticker-like lists tripped me up for a second, though. I thought the left-hand arrow, pointing to the left, would scroll the list in left, that it would kind of pull the list in that direction like a ticker. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | noodle: allow people to vote up some of the news stories, and have the main page display the popular stories. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | JimEngland: Solid idea, but the one problem I noticed right away is that the site does not currently load news. "Error loading news. Please try again or contact support." Here are two other issues I think you should look at:UI issue: When I click on a stock, I get the stock quote and information on the right side just fine. However, it does not say anywhere the name of the company. I think that putting the company name above the stock quote on the right frame would be useful.External links: When linking to an external site (such as Google Finance) "Open in a new Window" does not work for me. Also, the bookmarks link is a bit confusing; it shows a few icons (like del.icio.us) and one could think that clicking on a part of that bookmarks icon would be linking to that particular service. Finally, the top bar (the Streetread part) seems to blend into the external page at times; maybe use part of the dark blue header in the design of the external top bar?Overall, I think that this is a great service so far, good work! |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | czstrong: Incompatible Browser.I'm at a large Nation-wide law firm and stuck on IE6. I imagine there are Wall-Street corporationss that are also still using old browsers. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | Stabback: Good concept, but could be implemented better. Definitely make the logo sizes at the top the same size. Don't stretch or anything, but leave grayspace between them. It just looks cluttered right now.Center the instructions vertically as to not have so much empty space. Although it will still be the same amount, it will look like less.How about multithreading? As in when you click on one it becomes active, allowing you to have more than one news source active at a time. Weave the news entries by date and color code them (not everything, but maybe a color code a symbol at the start).If you implement the above, how about having categories? Sports, world and business, etc? The possibility for sports from the New York Times and International Business from Reuters would be a major feature.Like I said, great idea. Some more work would make it amazing.*edit:
I like my scrollbar. I have come to expect my scrollbar from websites. Give me my scrollbar back, it acts as a visual clue to where I am and it allows for intuitive navigation. Don't force me to use your system. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | avinashv: Firefox 3 on an Intel Macbook running Leopard: the scrolling is completely broken. If I click on a stock, the new loaded data just scrolls wildly. Further scrolling using the scroll wheel seems to just send the page to various locations at random.Seems like an interesting idea, but there's no way I'd use it in this state. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | steveplace: Pretty slick.What advantages does this have over me hopping over to Yahoo Finance and plugging in a ticker?Also, I get live news feeds in my trading platform for any security.I know you've probably done competitive analysis, but here are some other sites that do pretty cool stuff too:theflyonthewall.com (fastest news out there)
stocktwits.com (twitter + stock mashup)Good Luck. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | chollida1: - Scrolling is too slow,
- Page loads are too slowIf your going to target the investment banking community, you'll find we want our information fast. You'll notice the old stock tickers had symbols whizzing bye, not slowly scrolling.If I detect even the slightest lag I'll go somewhere else, probably an rss reader. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | mercury: I get "error reading data" from all news sites...hm |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | jjburka: Looks nice. The only thing I found is if you scroll up in the news list area it doesn't stop at today's news , it loops back to a couple days ago. Which is rather unintuitive. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | axod: Scrolling is seriously broken. (ff3/OSX)You display some articles, then I scrollwheel, and things go bezerk. I scrollwheel down and it jumps up and down like a kid with hyperactivity disorder. There's no scrollbar - I have no idea where I am in the list of stories. Trying to match up where I was with where I am now is pretty hard. You've put up/down/top/bottom buttons at the very top and called them "Navigate".So you've reimplemented a scrollbar (Standard browser UI component), but very very badly.Up and down keys don't scroll properly either. If I hold down a key, it should keep repeating. Pressing a key should scroll the amount I am used to. You seem to be scrolling by a lot, on keyup - not what people expect.Sorry, but I just hate it when people reinvent something that already exists, is standard, and works. Especially when their implementation is completely unusable.Why not just use a scrollbar like people expect?Also when I click on an article to read it, I expect to click [back], to go back, instead of clicking on [return to the reader]. Once again, ignoring standard browser usability.Also if you try to open an article link in a new window, or copy it to send to a friend etc, it breaks, and you land at the homepage (I assume you're using onclick etc). Another usability flaw. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | sebg: Incompatible Browser.
As someone who is in your target audience (I work for a well-known Wall Street Firm), this seems to miss the point.Also, it seems to me that you are going against Reuters, Bloomberg, finance.google, and finance.yahoo. What is your value added there?Good Luck! |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | maxklein: It's brilliant, exactly what I need. Excellent for hobby stock traders. I don't want to sign up for an account though, I just want to be able to edit that top bar. Till you implement that, I won't sign up. |
Avoiding carpal tunnel / repetitive stress injuries | rtra: What I did, after my 2 years away from computers. It sucked, but I was in real pain.- Switched to a big logitech trackball, which I use with my left hand
- Negative tilt splitted keyboard (microsoft natural 4000, I higly recommend it)
- setup my chair/screen height
- Xmonad (proper window manager)
- minimize GUI usage.I've been doing ok. I even started drumming (hard!) |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | tstegart: It does a nice job of laying out information, so I give top points for information design. The scrolling is a killer though. sounds like you really love the idea you came up with, but unfortunately, its very annoying and very confusing. It was like that Star Trek episode where they keep repeating the same day over and over again. You need to give the user some indication they have reached the end, whether its the top or the bottom. I'm sure the code looks great, but its bad user design on that point. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | mstefff: Ok, the weird article scrolling is being removed momentarily. Thank you for the feedback. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | dmix: Well designed, works very smoothly for me on FF3+Leopard. I love how quickly it switches back to the reader.First two things that stood out to me: 1) I would like to be able to input a stock symbol on my own with out signing up, that would show how its valuable to me personally without jumping through hoops. 2) Search, I'd like to be able to search the multiple sources if possible. I'm guessing your just aggregating feeds, but it would be a quality feature. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | s3graham: I thought the ticker symbols were associated with the logos above them at first. I think you need to edit the layout a bit or improve whitespace somehow.Scrolling broke in a strange way when I moved up. Also, there must be a scrollbar. |
Seeking Hacker/s for Co-Founder | aggieben: attempts to start such a community seem to frail [sic]I think that's because such communities have to be built on trust and personal relationships, which are notoriously difficult to build using a faceless and impersonal medium like the internet. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | dustineichler: Really good job mstefff, the feedback seems good too. Don't rest on your success... |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | elai: This seems like a part of google finance's news view (except with more news). What I liked about google finance is how it pegged news articles with exact times on the market. Yours might have more articles, but I don't see how it's that much better than something more integrated. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | cjc: mstefff, I think this is a great idea, but I have to agree with the majority of commenters that the implementation is poorly executed in three main ways:1) the scrolling simply does not work as expected2) you unnecessarily reinvented the scroll bar (axod elaborates very well on this)3) needing to sign up before typing in a ticker symbol is a major turn offThese are all easily fixable problems, but you are showing little interest in listening to user feedback. Here are three things you said:"I've barely had any issues with the scrolling""if you're at the top, you shouldn't scroll up, you should scroll down""There isn't anything wrong with the wrap-around"It is easy to become blind to the deficiencies of interfaces you create. Of course the wrap-around seems logical to you because you created it. However, and this is really important, almost every single HN commenter had a problem with it. If you want your app to become popular and maybe even profitable, you MUST listen closely to your users/customers. Even if you do not agree with our collective advice, it is detrimental to openly tell your potential users that they are wrong.So in a nutshell, open up to this constructive criticism. Your site looks very nice and offers a hefty collection of important financial news. Beware, though, that if developers cannot figure out the interface, suits won't stand a chance. |
Seeking Hacker/s for Co-Founder | pmjordan: The main problem I see with building such a community is that the people who return to it aren't the kind of people you'd want to have as cofounders. All the good candidates will form startups and get on with it and no longer have a need (or the time) for such a community.As for a good way of finding cofounders, I can't really answer that from experience. I've done a poor job of doing that myself having not found any, but I'd rather go it alone than just team up with someone I've randomly found on the internet.If you've got a bunch of friends who are kind of on the fence about the whole thing, either because they don't like your idea (big red flag!) or because they're not sure they want to commit to doing a startup, I recommend talking to them and forcing them to be honest with you about your idea and their plans. You could see if they'll join you after you've built some kind of proof-of-concept/prototype on your own, although I recommend you plan for the case where they never follow through with it.If your friends just plain don't want to do the whole startup thing (that would account for 100% of my hacker friends) and you decide to go it alone, try and keep a few of them in the loop of what you're doing as much as possible. They won't replace a good cofounder, but better than nothing and will keep you grounded.By the way, 'friend' here refers to people you have a lot of trust in, as opposed to 'acquaintances'. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | alaskamiller: This is pretty darn cool, you need to keep working on it. I would love for a search box to either search or quickly hit on the stocks I have in my list instead of relying on the side scroll buttons. |
Please review my webapp (Streetread) | mstefff: The scrolling issue is fixed and I'm working on all of the wonderful comments you've suggested. Please check it out... |