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How do you stay healthy? | brandonkm: Walk everywhere, excercise, keep track of what you eat, play sports with friends, and pick up a new outdoor activity like rock climbing. |
How do you stay healthy? | silencio: wii! (and by that I mean like wii sports|wii fit|ddr, and for more than like 10-15 minutes a day)I haven't had mine for long but some friends|family keep telling me that I look better than before. I have an elliptical at home and I try to go to the gym often but I don't have any motivation to bore myself to death that way. Playing wii games like the three I named above helps me because they're entertaining and I'm more likely to go to the gym when I don't have flab bouncing around everywhere.Diets never work for me, so I don't consider them. The only thing I do if at all is drinking tea in lieu of soda and switching white rice for brown when I can (and since I eat a lot of rice, this is pretty significant, but whole grains in general are awesome). I also eat smaller portions spread throughout the day, and since I love baking and making ice cream, I try to go "healthy" with my favorite but most unhealthiest part of meals (dessert!). I think the way I eat is massively influenced by my diabetic dad (who I have to cook for occasionally), cause he eats like that as well.Lastly, I live in LA. It's a pretty big city but it's really hard to walk/bike around because I have to travel a lot (think as much as 100 miles/day). I try to walk to the market and take the bus to local (read:convenient) areas, but other than that I can't do much. But I do notice that every time I take a trip to San Francisco I end up walking a ton. Dunno what it's like in NYC but if it's convenient enough, you should try to walk around where you can, it's a really simple change that can have a big impact. |
How do you stay healthy? | LPTS: I don't. :) I like to hike and do yoga, but only because it feels nice to do, not because I care about healthy.I'll live 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 years and die. You'll live 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 and die. Maybe I'll die a little sooner then you. So what? Maybe you'll get hit by a bus and I'll laugh at all your wasted exercises. I'll have more fun. |
How do you stay healthy? | alanf: I've been pretty seriously interested in natural health for a long time. To condense what I've learned into a few of the most important ideas:- Research what a good vitamin is. There's a HUGE spectrum in quality. Expect to pay $1-$2 per day, and take more than one capsule. A good indicator of a high quality vitamin is that it packages b12 as hydrocobalamin, not cyanocobalamin- Exercise in the first part of your day. Your metabolism is then boosted all day.- Read the label on every food product you buy: the ingredients list is the least dishonest part of the label.- Avoid high glycemic sweeteners: sugar and corn syrup. Excellent substitutes are agave nectar and stevia.- Diversify your grains: Try quinoa ("keen-wah"), amaranth, buckwheat, spelt- Diversify your oils: coconut oil (often a good substitute for butter when baking), avacado oil (can be fried at high heat), flaxseed oil (do not heat!)- Reduce/avoid: sodas (the acid causes your body to remove calcium from your bones!), homogenized cows milk, hydrolyzed or hydrogenated oils, monosodium glutumate (or "yeast extract" which always has MSG in it), artificial flavors and colors, and American style cured meats (nitrates.)- Increase consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, raw nuts, berries, etc. The smaller the berry, the better it is for you.- Seek moderate exposure to sunlight without sunscreen.If you stick to the above, you'll have to prepare most of your own food. It's fun, creative, and a socially useful skill. With practice, it's often less time consuming than going out. Essential supplies include a high end blender, good cutlery, and pans without teflon.Find the health food store in your community. Sometimes you'll pay much more for the food. The bargain is your long term health and quality of life. |
How do you stay healthy? | stillmotion: I workout at home, 6 times a week. |
How do you stay healthy? | noodle: since you're in NYC, i would HIGHLY suggest taking up sport/olympic fencing.its really quite similar to tennis, except it requires less space. NYC is one of the best locations to do it. its both physically and mentally challenging and is competitive enough to suck you in, if you enjoy competing, so that you'll want to exercise and train to become more fit so that you'll do better.its how i stay healthy. for reference, i'm an ex personal trainer, ex lifeguard, and ex professional martial artist. |
How do you stay healthy? | timr: The Grad School Diet!During the time I spent in grad school, I completely changed my body. Today I weigh about the same amount that I did in high school, I can run for miles, and I have a lot more lean body mass than ever before. But after my undergrad, I was overweight (by about 50 pounds), and something as simple as walking up a long flight of stairs would wind me.By far the most important thing that I ever did to get in better shape was to change my eating habits. Thanks to grad school poverty, I cut soda out of my diet entirely, stopped eating out frequently, eliminated most booze and learned how to cook. As I became more aware of what I was eating, I found that my caloric intake went down, and the amount of "real" foods that I was eating went up. Nobody seems to believe it, but you can consume calories far more quickly than you can burn them through exercise, so if you can do nothing else, eat less crap, and your body will still thank you.The second most important thing (again, thanks to grad school poverty), was to begin walking everywhere. I'm no longer in school, but even today I walk to most of the places that I go. Most people don't realize how little they walk/move around on a daily basis -- my first job out of grad school, I was climbing the walls because the daily car commute didn't afford me a great deal of exercise (I had to start running daily to make up for the loss).Finally, and least importantly, I got in the habit of going to the gym regularly (I do cardio and lift weights). This probably isn't very important in terms of calories burned, but it keeps me sane, and the weight lifting has definitely improved my body over time. I'm in the habit now -- I actually feel "scummy" if I don't work out every day -- but if I had simply jumped into a gym routine with the expectation of becoming "fit", I'm sure I would have failed. The key ingredient was that I started to go to the gym to deal with stress, and it gradually became a healthy habit. The benefits of the habit took years to become apparent, but like I said...now I'm an addict.So there you have it -- the Grad School Diet. I should write a book... |
How do you stay healthy? | Frocer: Ah... there are tons of things you can do in NYC! Besides the normal gym routines, here are a few things I recommend:- There are excellent bike trails all around Manhattan. You can bike along both East River and the Hudson on the west side, there are also excellent bike trails in Central Park- You can run along the bike trails, too, of course- There are always pick up soccer games in Central Park, especially when the weather is nice -- very common in the summer time- Great place to play basketball is Stuyvesant Town (14th and 1st, they have 5 outdoor courts, lots of people playing)- ZogSports runs sports leagues all year around, from basketball to dodgeball. It costs money but keeps you committed, they also have happy hour after each match :)- Diet is important of course, I would subscribe to Men's Health, one of my favorite magazines. Great exercise routines, and also tell you various ways to eat healthy for cheap.- Oh, NYC also has a ton of events throughout the year. Look into the 5 boros bike tour (just passed, but def do it next year), the JPMorgan 5k Corporate Challenge, etc. Look into them! |
How do you stay healthy? | hbien: Nightly visit to the gym. At first it was tough to get into a routine, but it got easier when I started bringing my iPod loaded with podcasts. And of course, the podcasts are usually about hacking with Cocoa, Django, or Rails.Quitting soda helps a lot too. |
How do you stay healthy? | giardini: Cut back on sweets (limited to one oatmeal cookie per day) and work out 2 hours 6 days a week. Nothing else works.Good news:
I'm stronger than ever - on a moment's notice I can help someone move a piano or push a car down the street; I can work all day and not hurt the next, I don't get hurt, and my old back injuries don't bother me anymore.Bad news:
Less time. So I read while on the treadmill or recumbent bike.Luckily my wife works out with me. |
The Secret Sauce of Angel Investment? | LPTS: Your story sounds inspiring. I'm just about to pull in some money from an angel kind of like you are. We are in a very similar boat. My start up in not software related though.In the spirit of helping you to make your business better, I was much less inspired by your name. officezilla? Really? Maybe one problem of working by yourself is that there is no one to tell you when you are making a huge mistake you are blind too. Officezilla? You are pouring your life into something you are calling officezilla? You want that on your tombstone? The thing that was your life's work is officezilla? You can't find a better name for what will be your customers primary way of mentally representing you? This will have more of an impact on what people think of your product initially than almost anything else you do. I would suggest you use a little bit of the money to find a good person to help you pick a better identity for yourself. This is just an unacceptable name. I'm sorry, thats what I think. It's not the same skillset as the work you do for a website. But it's important enough you should change it, before your next round, in consultation with an expert, even if it's a really big pain in your ass to do.Good luck with your funding and your business. You sound like the type who will be successful. I hope you change the name though. It is really bad. I'm sorry for being so harsh, but it really is an epic fail, and you really should recognize your limits and hire someone talented to help you change it. Good luck. |
How do you stay healthy? | snewe: Start going to gym or running or "insert activity here" regularly. One of these things has to be something you like or will like when you get good at it. Personally, I find the gym boring and...vain.It will suck at first, but eventually you will reach a point where you feel guilty not going to the gym or running or "insert activity here". This has worked well for me in San Diego (running my second half-Ironman in a week). |
How do you stay healthy? | pavelludiq: I play soccer a lot(who came up with this stupid name for football anyway) And basketball and sometimes volleyball, when there is nobody to play with i run, jump, climb and stuff. Its called parkour and if you are careful and concentrated it beats gym and its more fun too, and it requires creativity. I eat a lot of unhealthy food, i think that if my body slows down when i get older, i will get really fat, now im just skinny and stringy. |
How do you stay healthy? | adr: skateboarding :) |
How do you stay healthy? | tyn: I play soccer. Not only good for health (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20893097/), it's also fun. You have a bigger risk of injury, though, than e.g. jogging. |
How do you stay healthy? | mightybyte: 1. Eat right
2. http://crossfit.com |
How do you stay healthy? | jrockway: Cycling 30 miles a day, and avoiding processed foods. |
How do you stay healthy? | hunterjrj: Find a gym that is on your route home. The days when you skip your workout, you will walk/drive/ride by and feel extremely lazy for not stepping in. |
How do you stay healthy? | coglethorpe: I run. I ran 3 miles this morning.When I'm at my best, I'm eating nearly vegan and I feel great. I also avoid sodas and get lots of sleep.I'm not at my best right now. :-) |
Ask HN:What e-commerce package should I use? | tstegart: I would look into Amazon Webstore as well, just to see if it meets your needs. It is less customizable in terms of changing the code, but it definitely encourages purchases, which Amazon has down pretty good, and you can also probably get a few products that you might not want to stock, and sell them on commission. You can always build the social part over the store, with people only going there to purchase something. |
How do you stay healthy? | fortes: I too live in NYC, recently transplanted from Seattle. I coughed up the (not insignificant) cash in order to get a gym and make sure to work out every morning as a start to my day. Do at least 30 minutes of cardio at a good clip (most machines give you numbers, so try to burn 400 calories at least). Lift some weights too, because it increases muscle mass, which will increase your metabolism.If you're really into something prescriptive, I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Core-Performance-Revolutionary-Workout...I know the cover looks cheesy, but it's actually really well written and very detailed (it tells you on a daily basis what to do). Workouts are an hour long, six days a week, and they incorporate flexibility and injury prevention exercises, which are quite important.For diet, here in NYC I stop by Whole Foods or something similar right after the gym and make my own salad. Almost always, it's purely vegetarian. Make sure you get a lot of greens in there, and as many other colors of vegetables as you can.Dinner is a highly social meal, and I end up messing it up often.I do miss all of Seattle's outdoors though ... |
How do you stay healthy? | pistoriusp: I eat food, not much, mostly plants. And for exercise I do offroad cycling. |
How do you stay healthy? | shutter: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."Throw in regular exercise, and that's how you can maintain a good healthy lifestyle. Don't obsess over it; just learn to enjoy the healthy stuff. There's a lot of great, healthy food that tastes good. I'm not an expert on getting away from an unhealthy lifestyle, but once you're to the place you want to be, it's dead simple to maintain. |
How do you stay healthy? | azsromej: I live in Atlanta and have essentially been sedentary since graduation a few years ago (I average 1 or 2 30 minute workouts a week). This isn't enough to keep the creep off.I moved right into the middle of the city so that walking opportunities would be more prevalent and that's helped as a lifestyle change.I had a hard time keeping up with going to the gym on my own and recently joined a sort of group exercise thing. There's a little more accountability with this as people expect me to be there in the morning. So far that's working well, and it has motivated me to start running in the afternoon so I don't suck so much in the class. |
The Secret Sauce of Angel Investment? | mediageek: Great work. This is a great advice for folks like us who are looking for some heads up. I know its hard, you have proven that with confidence and passion, nothing can stop you from acheiving what you want to |
How do you stay healthy? | Tamerlin: I live in a fairly large city (Seattle), but it's not QUITE like NYC...I walk a fair amount, mainly to and from the bus, and within downtown Seattle when I go to after-work gatherings and events.I also spend a lot of time in the dojo, both as a teacher and as a student. I tend to take advantage of being a teacher to raise the level of intensity enough to give myself a workout, but I also carry that intensity to other styles where I'm a student. It makes for better training overall.I also do a lot of hiking, nearly every weekend, usually in the mountains, and with a 50-pound pack full of, in addition to the usual supplies, my large-format camera kit. The camera gear accounts for around 30 pounds out of the 50.Other less obvious things I do are eat a healthy breakfast (almost) every morning, do a lot of my own cooking, and drink herbal tea rather than a lot of caffeinated beverages. That is not to say that I avoid caffeine; I do like to have a cup of coffee in the mornings, but I try to avoid caffeine beyond that, mainly to avoid dehydration. |
How do you stay healthy? | noelchurchill: I surf as much as I can. |
Stats/Monitoring Sites you admire | ScottWhigham: We like Clicky. |
Carbon neutrality for a startup? | lux: Another question I didn't include in the original post but is also important: Are the carbon certificate issuers worth trusting? I'd definitely want to do some research on any company I potentially invested money into for something like this.I wonder if there's a site where you can rate or talk about these companies, so the bad ones can be outed to the public... :) |
Carbon neutrality for a startup? | coglethorpe: Well, Fast Company magazine just had an article about American Apparel's failed attempt at ethical marketing. That isn't quite the same as "green" marketing, but I think it's parallel. They chose to market a sexy young image with ethics as a subtitle:http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/sex-vs-ethics.html |
Stats/Monitoring Sites you admire | alaskamiller: A buddy of mine built this by himself: http://www.statsinsight.com/ |
Carbon neutrality for a startup? | stcredzero: Carbon Neutrality is something systemic. Take any process that is locally "carbon neutral" and you can trace back to some input or prerequisite that involved an emission of carbon dioxide. Right at this moment it's hopeless. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't try. It's millions of small steps that will eventually shift our economy and our society to sustainability. Just don't expect to get there in a day.(Poster drives a B100 Biodiesel fueled car, but realizes he's still part of the carbon economy.) |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | j2d2: Please ask them to tackle the e-meter from scientology! |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | stcredzero: Please have them debunk water-for-gas once and for all! And thank them for improving the science-education aspect of their show! It's gotten much better over the past year/year and a half. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | einarvollset: Ask them if I can have a job. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | jacobbijani: Do girls poop |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | dmateos: Dead body raft like on Rome. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | edw519: Does nickb = pg? |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | yan: They should set up an experiment where different people pray for the same thing using different prayers (and different faiths) along with a control group of people reading poetry and tally the percentages of people that get results, so we know which prayers are most effective. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | jrockway: Ask them for help pluralizing words in your HN submissions ;) |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | froo: I'm only suggesting this because I'm sure there are others out there that are thinking it.... Can you get me Kari's number? :) |
Carbon neutrality for a startup? | alexwg: A number of venture-backed startups I know use CO2Stats Pro. Take a look: http://www.co2stats.com |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | vaksel: ask them to find manbearpig |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | alaskamiller: I remember you! Glad you have an opportunity to make it out here to California! |
How do you stay healthy? | keefe: Time is the limiting factor as I am building my application and working full time. Every morning, I run 1 mile and do 25 pushups. Starting next week I'll repeat that in the evening. I make sure to stretch and do some of the katas I can still remember.I monitor my basic nutrition intake. The only thing that is important to remember is that 3200 calories = 1 pound of fat. Eat 3200 more than you burn, gain a pound. 3200 less? Lose a pound. Muscles are formed by destroyed strands of muscle fiber and letting them be rebuilt (during recovery) with protein. So, I calculate my basic needs (~2800 calories, 60g protein, 15g fiber) and try to stay within that area.As long as you maintain these parameters, you will stay in good condition. If your life is stable, you can of course do all sorts of other interesting things - but if you are time crunched like me, this is enough. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | gunderson: Is the movie JFK2 true?http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=818267521031292324 |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | ynniv: I would like to see if they can melt steel using an open kerosene fire, but I hear they won't touch that because of the politics. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | alex_c: Is there any tech (in the sense that most news.yc readers are used to - software, or computer hardware) that is invaluable to making their show? |
How do you stay healthy? | quickpost: Unicycling (it's an amazing workout). And lifting. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | Infosourcer: Is it true that the North Pole won't have any more Ice by the end of 2008???Twitter: Infosourcer |
How to get started with photography? | eznet: Well, I am far from an authority or expert, but really all it takes is getting a half decent camera with a hand full of manual settings, a half decent tripod and start clicking. Click a lot. Luckily with a digital camera and a 2GB memory card, you can click until your finger is sore and all you have spent is time. You will learn a LOT from doing just this. Play with macros and landscapes, day and night, still and action - just shoot. Load em up in Gimp or Photoshop and go to town (might I suggest playing with Shadows and Highlights (PS) to get some instant gratification).Since you say that you have been interested for a year, but have not taken the steps to start, I definitely would not recommending running out and snatching up a thousand dollar camera - for all you currently know, you might not like the process as much as you do the idea. I can personally recommend the Canon S3 IS as a decent entry level point and shoot with some nice manual settings for under 300 bones - I bought this camera a couple years ago, so if anyone knows a better comparable inexpensive one, by all means chime in. First thing you will want to do is get the CHDK AllBest hacked firmware and familiarize yourself with it - it lets you do a LOT with the camera that the default Canon firmware will not. As a bonus, it will not hurt your camera or replace your Canon firmware - just turn it back off and on and you are back to normal (see CHDK website).My next camera will hopefully be a Nikon D300, but I definitely would not run out and grab one as a starter. You want something that has some nice automatic functions as well as the manual options - without this, it will be easy to get discouraged.Also, a fun thing that will whet your appetite is to grab the aforementioned tripod, set your CHDK settings to take multiple exposures of the exact same thing and load them up in PhotoMatix (Mac/Win) or Qtpfs (Linux - I use this). HDRs can be really fun to work with and you can get some interesting pictures with the modern HDR programs (they do the leg work for the lazy.. coughmyselfcough).Like I said, I am not a pro, just a dude who likes to take lots of pictures. Get bored, check out some of my pics I am most proud of:
http://flickr.com/photos/mattezell/sets/72157601781859375/
http://flickr.com/photos/mattezell/sets/72157605580120812/ |
How to get started with photography? | tjr: Read http://photo.net/ Most especially the introductory "textbook" and the product reviews. This will give you a decent foundation of basic terminology and available equipment.I would suggest starting with an SLR camera, even if financing restricts you to getting a film SLR camera. Add a prime lens, possibly 35mm or 50mm. There are pros and cons all over the place, but that's why you should read photo.net. :-) |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | ulvund: Is there any truth to the "Birds mimicking cell phones" stories.Like this one: http://web.archive.org/web/20031005163144/http://www.ananova...This would also be a great opportunity to talk about tits. |
Terminal Literature? | makecheck: Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, it now has a 2nd edition. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | ericb: I'd like to know if washing colors in cold water vs. hot really makes a difference. Maybe that's not explode-y enough though... |
Terminal Literature? | msg: I went through Classic Shell Scripting by Arnold Robbins and Nelson HF Beebe (O'Reilly) recently. It was a pretty solid coverage that highlighted portability issues and canonical uses of the shell. I don't know if you'd call it advanced, though. |
How to get started with photography? | uzi: What's your end goal? What do you hope to achieve? For me, I wanted to get to be good before I had kids, so I totally immersed myself for a little while for fun. Now I have a 2 month old little girl and I've backed off, but I'm happy with the photos I'm taking of her.The suggestion of http://photo.net/ is a good one. I'd also recommend http://dpreview.com/ for gear and http://photosig.com/ as a place that you can see other peoples' work, critique and be critiqued.The "National Geographic Photography Field Guide, 2nd Ed." was an amazing book that got me started in terms of understanding photography. (And it looks like it's been replaced with the "National Geographic: The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography".) The book essential is in two halves. The first half talks about the mechanics of photography... how shutter speed relates to aperture relates to film/sensor sensitivity (ISO) relates to focal length relates to distance to the subject relates to... etc. All of that is half of what I think you really need to know in terms of the mechanics. The other half is light. The second half of the book talks about a myriad of photo subjects and the approaches to photographing them, rules of photography (in terms of composition) and so forth.As you get to know more, you'll see that your question is kind of like "How to get started with computers?" There's so much to it, it's hard to say. Perhaps your goals warrant a Digital SLR, perhaps they don't. I can tell you this, though... a good photographer with a bad camera can take better photos than a bad photographer with a good camera. |
Carbon neutrality for a startup? | rms: There's a big difference between buying carbon credits and actually reducing carbon emissions over time. You need to investigate your carbon credits to see if they actually are reasonable. The best thing for offsetting carbon is running an environmentally friendly tree farm. It's good to cut down the trees because then they never catch on fire and release all of their carbon again. |
How to fight Javascript memory leaks? | alexk: UPD:http://www.squarefree.com/2006/01/13/memory-leak-detection-t...http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Using_XPCOM_in_JavaScri...http://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance:Leak_Tools |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | notauser: Can you ask them to watch an episode from the first season, then straight away an episode from the most recent season?I hope that the shock from seeing how much the quality has gone down might prompt them to do something about it. The new ADD friendly format is still better than anything else on television... but that isn't saying a lot. With a bit of luck they might fire the producer who believes in the myth of appealing to the lowest common denominator. |
Idea for privacy-enhanced web apps | djm: I don't really understand your idea, but I do have a few comments:1) I'm skeptical that most corporate users know or care much more about the security of the applications they are using than anyone else. They might take more interest in cases where failure on their part may lead to individual criminal liability however.2) I think it's more likely that most companies purchase desktop apps rather than web apps (where there are equivalent versions available) because they don't "get" web apps and because something installed on their PC would appear to the less technically minded as being more of a tangible purchase.3) SSL/TLS connections can encrypt data between user and server. Databases on the server can be encrypted to prevent your hosting provider snooping on your data. You can authenticate your browser to a server using mutual SSL authentication (certificates at both ends) in addition to using log in passwords if you are that paranoid.Would you like to expand on your idea a little? - I don't see what benefit it really provides. |
Idea for privacy-enhanced web apps | tortilla: I like the idea (or at least the direction you're heading).If I understand you correctly:
One reason a lot of companies don't use Basecamp is because they prefer to have the data under their control (regulations, corporate policy, or preferences). So XYZ Mega Corp would pay you a service charge to run it in your environment?Here are my questions:1) What makes your environment more secure and safer?
2) How would this be implemented by the service provider? Install another version in your secure environment or are they hosting everything in this secure environment?
3) I'm still not sold on the fact that this is still outside XYZ Mega Corp's control. So how would you market this to them? |
Idea for privacy-enhanced web apps | bayareaguy: Isn't this already trivial with EC2? What's the difference between what you're proposing and just signing up for an Amazon account, uploading your certificates and launching an AMI with whatever application you want?Also given that corporate types seem to have no problem with Salesforce.com, I'm not sure they would care. But perhaps if you came up with some tricky multi-party protocol that ensured Salesforce.com or no other single party could redistribute your private data even if they wanted to then you may have something worthwhile. |
I'm having dinner with the Mythbuster tomorrow night... got any questions? | BigZaphod: It'd be cool to have a behind-the-scenes style show like I've seen done on Dirty Jobs where you kind of get to know the camera people and sounds folks, etc. that are always behind the camera. |
What do you want in a software PM? | djm: I've never worked as a part of a software project team that had a dedicated "manager", so take this with a big grain of salt. I have worked for good and bad managers though and I have one thing to say:Care about that you do and get stuck in with everyone else.In my experience doing this will solve all of the worries you are hinting at above. If you are a) competent & b) only bug people when you consider it to be about something important then you can bug me whenever you want. I will put up with being interrupted when being "in the zone" etc if I have respect for you and you think it's important.As long as you are pulling the all nighters with everyone else then you won't need to buy them beer at all, though it's unlikely to be turned down if offered! |
What do you want in a software PM? | gaius: A PM's job is to manage the project. If someone's falling behind, find out why and do what you can. But don't ever make the mistake of thinking that because your title is "manager" that you're in charge. Remember that you need the engineers on-side to fulfill your obligations. Remember that the demand on engineers is higher than the supply - they can easily justify working on someone else's "more important" project, then yours slips and slips and you find yourself trying to explain to your boss but you don't know why. But you can easily impress engineers by demonstrating that you are on top of all the details. You've got a plan, you know what needs to be done (and you trust the engineers for the how), you know what everyone needs, you've got all the dependencies figured out, you've chased all the external suppliers, you've chased the internal stakeholders, there is nothing stopping anyone getting right to work. In that situation, your engineers will make you look great to your boss. |
What do you want in a software PM? | pmjordan: Thoughts in no particular order:- Know the limits of your knowledge. This is probably hard. The less of a programmer you are, the harder this will be. The people you're managing probably know more about a lot of the detaily that are part of the project. Try to keep track of who is the expert on what. That's okay, that's what they're there for. Try to make sure you know your limits, and whenever you hit those limits, get the experts involved. Hence leaving alone/bugging. (managers at my last job got that right almost all the time) If in doubt, you probably don't know better. That's not to say you shouldn't make decisions, just genuinely use input from the experts. One of the best ways to do this is to openly admit that you don't know everything.- It should be clear to everyone what it is you do and why you (need to) do it. If the positive impact your job on the project isn't felt by the people lower down, they won't respect you.- Actions speak louder than words.- Meetings without substance should be rare. The occasional "you're doing great, that is all" probably is appreciated, but at my last job it was way overdone. (daily to weekly) If you expect only you to be doing the talking, 9 times out of 10 you don't need a meeting. Of course, if people are likely to be asking questions relevant to everyone, it's acceptable.- Don't lie. It builds resentment, no matter how smart it seems at the time.- Unless you're handing out equity, overtime should be the exception rather than the rule. For some people, longer periods of overtime (1-2 weeks or more) won't actually get more work done anyway, they'll just get more tired and unhappy. Some people do get more done. It's a tricky subject, and I can't offer any great advice despite having been on the receiving end of death march orders. In my case the reason was constant orders from waay up to keep changing key parts of the project combined with bad QA handling of the project early on, causing bugs to accumulate because no time was scheduled for finding or fixing them. |
What do you want in a software PM? | dazzawazza: * a schedule is to measure progress not to dictate progress. When deadlines are missed it is a failure of planning, not engineering.* Deadlines will be missed and don't always expect me to have a clue either. Together we can nearly always work it out and account for it in the future.* don't make me update the schedule when there are changes. It's not a good use of my time* don't change the numbers I give you for time scales* don't merge the tasks without telling me.* don't change the order of my tasks without a conversation and realise that by changing the order you may lengthen the overall time it takes to complete the set of tasks.* don't be afraid to challenge the order I think is best, you understand the entire project, I understand and focus on my code and sometimes little else!* don't move deadlines without telling me, move them after we've had a chat though.* don't fear me, although I can at times appear to be a right royal pain in the arse I will respect you more if you are straight, consistent and honest with me. Honesty is a big thing with programmers.* there is no compensation for late nights. Over time the late nights build up and I get slower, less creative and less willing to compromise.* when I fail to deliver ask me why and don't accept any bullshit from me. Learn how I, as a programmer, talk and learn to detect the odourless bullshit that comes from programmers at times. Warning, late nights increase the volume of bullshit you will have to wade through over time.* It's difficult to know when to talk to programmers so encourage me to come to you regularly. In general your work
has a lower cost for interruption then mine.* realise that I love to code but that there is some code I love to write more then other code. Make sure I am getting through some of the shit work and not just screaming through the 'cool' stuff first.* Coders may seem like robots but there is a lot of ego in code and breaking this ego barrier down will make code teams work better together. If you can foster an atmosphere where programmers are grateful for bug fixes/reports you are doing well.* Read Peopleware and understand it. Good programmers have all read it and will respect you for seeing them and the project through it.I've worked as a PM and Senior Coder so I've seen both sides of this. Above everything be honest and polite. The fact that you are even asking this question puts you in the top 10% of managers already!Good luck. |
What do you want in a software PM? | DavidSJ: Other commenters have said it but it bears repeating: the single most important thing you can do is be honest and straight. Programmers can detect bullshit, and it's about the worst thing possible for morale. |
What do you want in a software PM? | fuckymcfuckfuck: Sexy legs |
What do you want in a software PM? | gruseom: Well, for starters, don't patronize me: most importantly, how many beers is considered fair compensation for pulling a late night to hit a tight deadline?most importantly: don't talk down to me with cutesy phrases.how many beers: don't manage me with a system of rewards like a laboratory rat. And please don't concoct "fun" activities. If we're not having fun working together, maybe you should think about that.is considered: you sound like an anthropologist asking about the ways of the natives. Or a high school teacher who wants to build rapport with the kids... you know, speak the "lingo" of their "subculture".fair compensation: what you're talking about is not "fair", it's irrelevant. If I want to have a beer with you it's because I like you, not because you're a project manager and I did something you wanted. If there are problems, don't compensate for them, address them.pulling a late night to hit a tight deadline: if you're such a "manager" why is your team in this position to begin with?I hasten to add that if we were working together, I wouldn't talk like this! I'm exaggerating to make a point, which is that I would be sensitive to indications that you are acting like a boss. If I noticed that, I would lose respect for you. Partly because I don't want a boss, but mostly because it would mean that you don't get something fundamental.The most intelligent people I've met as project managers are the ones who instinctively understand that the higher status assigned to their (largely clerical) role is an irrational artifact and don't identify with it. Rather they identify as a teammate whose role is facilitator for the team. |
Importance of Easy Sign up? | sosueme: horrible nameposterior |
Good Sources of Coverage? | gscott: 1. A press release is great, a lot of people pick up on it and it gets indexed heavily by Google. Go to prLeap.com for the best prices.2. Go to adbrite.com and spend $5 a day on a run of network text ad or go into there directory and find sites with about 1000 to 5000 visitors and sign up for the CPM advertising. It will cost you about $.05 to $.25 a day per site. I use it, works good, and is a great price.3. Search for "web2.0 directory" on Google and submit to each one. I did that and from one submission I was blogged 60 times in a span of 2 weeks. I still get good traffic from that experience. Wish they were bigger blogs but the traffic overall combined is not bad.4. Google adwords is usable even on a small budget, I advertise on about 3 keywords and spend about $2 to $3 a day roughly. Just find some keywords where you can get into the top 3 for less then 35 cents a click. You will have to be a little creative but it is worth it. I find even if I am ad #7 it is still fine, not as good as being ad #1 through #3 but more affordable. |
Importance of Easy Sign up? | colinplamondon: I once read that for every question you add to a form you lose 40% of the people viewing it.Putting it into action- currently working on a web development firm with leads gathered via AdWords, and trying to optimize the deal pipeline. At first there was a "Click to Contact" button that then forwarded to a Wufoo form- just email, website, (optional) phone number, and a comment.I read that stat, and put up a "Quick Contact" form (also Wufoo- they rock :) ). It just had email, and website, and said "Plug in your email and website and we'll respond with a full proposal for the project." (We only provide one service so it's pretty standardized.). Whereas before we were getting about one lead every other day, we started getting 1.5 a day, an increase of 200%.We then removed phone number and website from the contact form, since the majority of respondents put that in the actual contact form- immediately, we went from 1.5 to 2 a day. When dealing with leads for development gigs at a couple thousand a pop, that extra .5 helps a lot.Anecdotal, evidence ahoy, but hopefully that helps some. |
Any list where web developers can find development contests? | antiform: 99 Designs [http://99designs.com/] |
Any list where web developers can find development contests? | rokhayakebe: Daylife.com is running an API contest |
What do you want in a software PM? | mattjung: I expect from a project manager to remove all obstacles from programmers. Programmers should be able to concentrate on producing the right code and not to answer support requests, report individually about progress to sales people, write documentation, worry about testbeds, etc.
Another important point: the project manager should make very clear on what needs to be done - clear specifications, clear communication, clear tasks. Everybody should know what the others work on and what the progress and difficulties are. |
Any list where web developers can find development contests? | JimEngland: The Weatherbug API contest is open to international entries, you should check that one out. The link was on ProgrammableWeb. I think I'm going to code up an entry this weekend after reading this post! |
I want to add SMS to my service, tips/help/advice? | ivey: I've worked with mxtelecom (it was so-so), mblox (better than mxtelecom) and mindmatics (best experience so far). The whole process will be frustrating from the beginning, and it never gets much better. But it's doable, and if your service is compelling, there's a decent amount of money to be made. |
The Secret Sauce of Angel Investment? | clb22: thank you a lot for sharing this! |
What do you think of my first start-up? | aasarava: I think that currently you have a blog, not a startup business. :)That's not to say that a blog can't be a business, but it seems like you have a lot of work yet to do to form some sort of product offering (which could be content) and a business model. |
Press Release Effectiveness? Advice? | pg: When was the last time you were influenced by, or even read, a press release about a newly launched web app? |
Press Release Effectiveness? Advice? | zacharye: As someone who writes for a blog with a relatively large reach, all I can say is do it and circulate it as best you can. You never know who might pick it up and what kind of links may ensue.As to circulating it, a [reputable] PR company is a good bet but hardly free. There are services such as PRNewswire that are comparatively cheap - and assembling a mailing list of your favorite (and other relevant) blogs / news sources is free! |
Press Release Effectiveness? Advice? | aaroneous: If you have something legitimately news-worthy then I've found a press release can be the "in" to getting attention from big blogs you don't have an existing//personal connection with. Check out businesswire and marketwire (especially Marketwire's "Tech Hotspots") to help get your release into the hands of people who want to write about exciting stuff.Otherwise, I think the core of your question is more about marketing. My first recommendation is to have the link to your co in your news.yc profile + link to it in your story submission. Second, I'd suggest your best strategy should be to find the 2nd and 3rd tier blogs that the bigger blogs look to in order to find new companies not on their radar.Big blogs are like corporate radio: they both want to be responsible for "breaking" a hot new [band//company], but both are unlikely to make that call without others in the "underground" having said it first.An extension of this would be to find who the big bloggers follow on Twitter, and then figuring out ways to get those people talking about your product positively.It's amazing how quickly rave reviews trickle upwards with little intervention.Good luck! :] |
Press Release Effectiveness? Advice? | froo: Hi Mike,Press releases are also thought to be useful from an SEO perspective if you want to help garner some inbound link juice in that manner. I know of a few SEO guys that utilise the various sites in that fashion (I think they use PRweb, but dont quote me on that).My suggestion is that if you are going to write one, try and create some copy that includes some of your key phrases for your particular niche - and remember to make it sound natural, non spammy :)Good luck. |
How safe are unique URLs as an authentication method? | pg: Google didn't guess your url. So the way you've set up the question also answers it: safe unless you happen to expose a link to one. |
How safe are unique URLs as an authentication method? | icey: Outside of the safety of URLs (which, in my opinion are not terribly secure); you really should set up a robots.txt file, so that you don't have a repeat occurrence of this. |
How safe are unique URLs as an authentication method? | mdasen: They can be made pretty secure for those purposes. Most likely what happened in your case was that one of your clients/coworkers/other posted such a URI in a blog/forum/other that Google spiders. As a rule of thumb, GET requests should never add, destroy, or alter data. Spiders won't* follow POST.Here are my thoughts on making these URIs secure:First, always have such a URI on a 72-hour dead clock. You send the URI to the user and it's good until used or 72-hours later. Then they need to generate a new one.Second, make it two factor. Rather than having something.com/reset_pass/12345, have it be something.com/reset_pass/{user_id}/12345. Just another level of protection.Third, use base 62 numbers (0-9, a-z, A-Z). It's something any browser can handle with no special chars. Remember, base is more important than length. A 6-digit, base 62 number will go to greater than 56 billion different combinations. If someone guesses from one of 56 billion numbers, holy sh*t do they deserve to break in. If you're paranoid, make it 10 digits and get over 800 quadrillion combinations. No one is going to brute force that and 10 digits is still small to display.Fourth, you can rate limit by IP address. Set it high - like, 100 attempts per hour limit. Why so high? You don't want to piss off users who are, well, stupid. And to get to 800 quadrillion making 100 attempts per hour would take millions of years - heck, let's say you're so high-profile that they'd put a farm of 100,000 IP addresses on it you're still looking at over a million years.In many ways, these URIs can be made more secure than passwords since most passwords won't be as random or strong. There are some caveats:These URIs will show up in browser histories and your server logs. They are one-time secure things. Once the user has used it, the next time they need such a thing, they need a new URI. If someone gets into your logs, they can see these URIs and reset peoples passwords unless they expire on use. Same with browser history.As I've mentioned, they can be posted. Users post things they shouldn't all the time (including passwords). Have it time out so it's only a breach for a short period.Don't use it as a replacement for user/pass. Just don't. If the same URI stays good, it is insecure.Good luck! |
What is the point of Karma Points? | byrneseyeview: The point is to measure your contribution to the community. The perks are just a way to ration certain features. |
what is wrong with asp.net? | jeremytliles: I think hosting cost is the biggest issue, especially if you reach a point where you need to balance load across many servers. There is also the cost ofthe development tools, although I think MS has some programs that allow you to get Visual Studio .NET for free or for minimal cost. Other than that, I think there is just a huge bias against the MS stack in the "hacker" (yes, ironic quotes) community. Having worked with asp.net, django/python and rails, I honestly don't see a huge difference between the three in terms of development productivity, but there is definitely a difference in hosting and software licensing costs. Because of that, I've lately been choosing not to lock myself in to the MS stack for any projects that have the potential to require massive scaling. |
what is wrong with asp.net? | gaius: Nothing is wrong with ASP.NET if your problem is building websites the same way you build Windows desktop apps.If not however, ASP.NET is simply the wrong tool. |
How does Amazon EC2 compare to shared web hosting? | wmf: Are multiple AMI instances run on the same physical servers?Yes. A physical server is probably 8 cores and 32GB RAM, so an instance is 1/Nth of that.If so, does the load from one customer's server instance negatively effect all of the others on the same hardware?Not much, since CPU and RAM are not oversubscribed. I don't know about the disks and network. |
How important is to invest in DB design from scratch ? | falsestprophet: You are asking all of the wrong questions. Learning a proper web framework is the best way to catch up the the community. I recommend Django (visit djangobook.com and djangoproject.com). |
How does Amazon EC2 compare to shared web hosting? | pskomoroch: 1) yes. 2) no. 3) no. ...there is a minimum guaranteed performance level for each instance type. for small instances (1 core), each user gets a minimum of 1/N of the system resources. If you fire up an extra-large instance, you essentially get the whole box to yourself, including I/O.see: http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/2008-02-01/Develope... |
what is wrong with asp.net? | babul: Why use it when you can use good, free, robust/reliable, open-source tools to do the same things? |
How does Amazon EC2 compare to shared web hosting? | geuis: Thanks for the answers folks. My roommate is talking about needing tens of thousands of dollars of servers for a company he's thinking about starting and and my immediate thought was "why?" I just got my first EC2 instance up and running from the terminal in OS X so I'm doing my little happy dance. Thanks for the help. |
what is wrong with asp.net? | bdfh42: There is nothing wrong with ASP.NET. The guys at Microsoft who write the developer tools are second to none. The wide availability of excellent books and the choice of languages makes this option well worth considering. The .NET framework itself is great with all the functionality you might want.The downside as I see it is what I call the "upgrade treadmill" imposed (I assume) by the MS Marketing types - you will be pushed ever onwards once you start down this road. My corporate customers seem happy with that and we have built some great interactive web sites that scale well but it is a factor that you might like to take into account. |
what is wrong with asp.net? | bayareaguy: Unless you have a specific partnership or business model in mind that requires it, I'd say ASP.NET's advantages are not sufficient to offset the disadvantage of being coupled to Microsoft's decision process (both business and technical). |
what is wrong with asp.net? | ScottWhigham: Reddit, YCombinator, Digg are all rife with anti-MS folks so, if you follow the idea that, "The world must be like what my experience is" and you only visit those sites (or similar ones), then you would absolutely get the impression that ASP.NET is a bad choice. There are as many if not more "hackers" using ASP.NET than all others except maybe php but those ASP.NET folks typically hang out elsewhere. |
does scarcity lead to better design? | ulf: This is something you have to figure out for yourself. As long as you are very aware of the things the IDE does for you, it does not necessarily end up in worse design. As for the opposite, using only a text-editor will not make your software better automatically. You have to find your own balance. |