HN user
1. Part time since May 2008. Full time since June 2009. 2. Never applied. 3. Not yet. Hope to seek Angel funding soon. 4. http://www.social.com
Would actually be interested in a co-founder. It's hard to get everything done by yourself :)
Adding clickable link
I like the concept and the sign-up was easy.
I noted that you can't run a test until you first save it, even though there is a Run button. You may wish to make this piece a little smoother.
I got a little confused by the queueing though. Was I supposed to wait when it said queueing? I did, but nothing happened for a while. Then I selected the browser type again and clicked the button to run the test. This time I had my results.
My problem was that my application requires authentication - in particular Twitter OAuth. Do you have any plans to address authentication in general. I didn't know how to work around it, so I couldn't evaluate the playback.
I tried to leave a comment, but when I submitted it, the message came back "Not Found".
- Scott
I started my search by looking at the providers that offered certificates accepted by Firefox and Internet Explorer. My next level of filtering was to look at cost and the ability to try the certificate for free during a trial period.
I settled on Comodo (instantssl.com). The evaluation period went perfectly. At the end of the period, I paid (I seem to recall $99) for a one year certificate. They required a couple forms of indentification (driver's license, utility bill) and the process went smoothly. I am using the certificate now at bigtweet.com.
I spent a lot of time at the beginning of my project (bigtweet.com) writing some unit tests in the Perl Catalyst environment. I think that it was very worthwhile at the time while I was changing structure, implementing exception handling, etc. Now that the project has stablilized and I'm mostly working on incremental functionality, I've largely skipped writing new tests (due mostly to time constraints).
I still run "prove" before any new release though.
I've also experimented with Perl code coverage early on with good success. Again, time constraints prevent me from pursuing this further for now.
If you have the time, I would highly encourage writing some unit tests for the core functionality.
Nice point about the page not working without Javascript - making it friendlier to those with it turned off.
UserVoice is a customer service site. I'm seeing it used more often and I really like the features. The JS for UserVoice on this page is for the Feedback tab on the right.
I use YUI for layout, buttons and tab controls. I don't think Prototype would help here - however perhaps YUI may have features that could cover the Prototype I use.
Ha! The logo was from cooltext.com Perhaps I need a disclaimer on the page saying that this page was designed by a programming hacker with no sense of style :)
You don't like the black border? That was one of the pieces I actually thought looked nice :(
I definitely got the hint though about the page being ugly. I agree. Please try the bookmarklet though. Of the 5 or so months of part-time effort, 99.9% went into the back-end and .1% on the front page. Yeah - guess I need a homepage facelift ...
Why so much time on the back-end? Catalyst had a big learning curve for me, and I was trying to design a flexible platform.
BigTweet can already do this!
The short URL is automatically created. If you check the checkbox "Automatically append short URL of current page" then the text area is automatically populated with this short URL. The same can be done for the web page title.
Give it a try and let me know if there is something else you are expecting or would like to see. You can reply to me @scott_carter
Thanks
Okay - I see your point now.
If BigTweet were to ever develop into a more powerful application, I would need to get away from its image as a bookmarklet.
Thanks!
Doesn't it depend on what is behind the bookmarklet? In this case the bookmarklet is launching an application within the web page the user is browsing. Does it matter that the (BigTweet) application is "mobile" rather than at a fixed web site?
Granted, the current functionality is nothing that I would expect anyone to pay for.
As an example, what if the bookmarklet happened to open up a full featured word processor with all the bells and whistles? Not sure that you can say that the product wouldn't be worth anything just because the invocation happened through a bookmarklet ...
I did setup an account @bigtweet but do most of my twittering @scott_carter
No offense taken :)
I'm a back-end programmer without much UI experience. I was trying for a simplistic layout. Any specific suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks!
As I improve the application, would it be reasonable to mark some features as "pro", but not charge for them yet? The idea is to let users know that these particular features are free for now, but will eventually require a subscription.
I suppose I could include a checkbox to "enable" pro features rather than label them directly.
I highly recommend Moniker.com. They have an excellent record on domain security (more to say about that) and are priced reasonably. I think I pay $8/year for registration and $1/year for name privacy for Social.com. To get this price, check the domain name forums (Namepros.com, DNForum.com) for forum member discount announcements.
I was originally using Namesecure prior to Oct. 2006 when they allowed someone to use some social engineering to steal my domain Social.com. Took me almost two weeks to recover it.
Besides an excellent track record, Moniker just came out with an additional security product that allows you to specify offline verification to further secure your domain.
GoDaddy I would stay away from. I hear nothing but bad news about dealings with them.
I'll have to take a look at gandi.net. Had not heard of them before.
I'm planning on being at WebInno on Monday. Would love to connect with anyone that would like to chat. I really enjoyed the last couple I attended. I was aware of Ignite Boston, but unfortunately can't make the event.
I was the first person to register Social.com back in 1995.
Perhaps its the fact that I'm in the Boston area (instead of the West coast), but I've had problems connecting with a good hacker co-founder. Most that I've met are looking for co-founders themselves for their own ideas ... I'd join a different startup, but I think I've got a good idea with a rare domain to boot.
But who should come in at #2 versus #3? My thinking is that the business co-founder might end up as CEO, but from what I've learned the simple title of "co-founder" for everyone might work best at the early stages.
Good advice. I had previously focussed my search on finding a fellow hacker, but was passing on some qualified business types. One of them happened to be a VC looking to try something new. I guess I was off track, but better to learn late than never ...
My thinking was to continue to lead the technical vision for the service, with the non-tech co-founder sharing learned experiences and leading other aspects of the company startup.
Quick newbie question: Does a post require a certain number of points to make it into the RSS feed? I noticed that not all threads from HN make it into my Google Reader subscription...
I can't help you here - wish you luck, but ...
I was wondering if it was cool with this list to post a job listing for a cofounder for a startup? I was thinking about doing the same thing, but wasn't sure about the HN list etiquette?
I've used XAMPP with PHP on Windows. Easy to setup and use. Supported toggling between PHP4 and PHP5 (I think the default was PHP4).
Currently I'm using VMWare and Ubuntu 7.x (be careful about using Ubuntu 8.x - I've seem to recall that VMWare tools may not have caught up and play well with that version yet).
I prefer the VMWare/Ubuntu approach for now since it will more closely mirror my intended deployment on Amazon Web Services (already started playing with an Ubuntu AMI).
I program in PHP and Perl (intermediate skill in both) and had to decide which one to use recently for a new project I'm starting. I plan on using Amazon Web Services including SimpleDB and SQS. This made my choice of language a little easier.
Perl natively supports multiple threads whereas PHP does not. Multiple threads can assist greatly in speeding overall access to SQS, etc.
I also prefer the structure that Perl provides. Coupled with the Catalyst framework and lots of module availability on CPAN, I'm happy with my choice for now.
Does anyone else have any feedback on my choice of Perl for its multi-threaded capability for use with AWS - I'd appreciate a sanity check :)