doctororange

This is wonderful. Can't wait to get home and try playing along.

Top work!

Hi Patrick. Great stuff!

We're currently implementing invoice payments with the new Stripe button over at Paydirt (https://paydirtapp.com).

One little issue: in Chromium 20.0.1132.47, the button renders with a line break and overflows the iframe like this: http://imgur.com/88st1

The same page renders the button fine in Firefox and other Chrome browsers I checked. Adding `white-space: nowrap;` via the Chrome inspector fixes the problem.

I'm tristan[ at ]paydirtapp.com if you need it replicated.

Cheers.

The magnifier was built for us by the super talented @taybenlor. You should tweet him to tell him you like it :)

That SO post is pretty thorough!

Yep, it's a canvas element with rounded corners moving around on top of a fairly stock-standard slideshow. It uses a css transform to scale and this stackblur library (http://www.quasimondo.com/StackBlurForCanvas/StackBlurDemo.h...) to make it look like it lifts as it moves from place to place.

Good feedback. Thanks bdunn.

Exactly. There are many ways to alienate potential users (missing languages, missing features, etc). In the early stages we've learned the importance of focussing on the biggest bottlenecks first.

That's good point. Taken on board, and we'll improve the page to encourage IE users to let us know. It's very true that things might change which would require us to change our tack, but as a bootstrapped startup with a hundred things requiring attention, IE support has taken a back seat.

Absolutely. We do dev work on the side, and in those cases take our orders on browser support.

It really makes you wonder how many of the other shining beacons are also working their asses off to stay afloat. Probably, nobody has it easy.

You're right. My recent encounters with IE9 have been pleasantly surprising (and I bet IE10 will be quite competitive), but for us the numbers are so low that, at least for now, a broad sweep feels OK.

True, it's really just a spin. It's a benefit for most of our users because we can use the time more productively to improve the product and support in other ways. In the zero sum game of the 24 hour day, an hour saved is an hour earned.

Thanks for such a candid telling of the Adioso story. Certain parts ring so familiar it's uncanny. Just as you got a boost from hearing that Airbnb had some tough times before the tide came in, we find it encouraging to hear how you've had to battle the odds. Staying tuned for part 2...

Very wise. This post is by no means a prescription for everybody. We're lucky that our demographic tend to use stronger browsers. Actually, when I exclude blog traffic the IE percentage drops further. :)

It's a good thought, and an area that's ripe for all sorts of standardisation. My passwords follow a system which is secure, but doesn't conform to all the password requirements of all sites, so I get caught out with this problem all the time.

I guess that's another benefit: you can more readily take on larger jobs, and that broadens your potential client base.

Hm, maybe it's the border-image. For me, specifying `background-color: transparent;` to `#home article` fixes things right up, at least in firebug.

Hey cool! We're a team of two so I'll be trying this out for sure. Your landing page lured me in perfectly. By the way, your <article> tags are rendering with a white background-color, but I assume they're meant to be transparent/#202020. I'm using FF 7.0.1.

Great site, but I found the interface very confusing. It took me ages to figure out what to do next at every step. The resizing text is an ok idea, but currently it's more distracting than guiding. Hope that's helpful. :)

I put this together a few years ago with some similar insights... http://antiprocrastinator.com/

It's funny how when you're working on something every day you can miss such gaping oversights. Yes - foreign currencies (including Bitcoin) are supported, and you can create multiple customized taxes which are automatically calculated and totaled for the invoice - but there's no indication of that on the home page. An important point.

Regarding price, you may well be right. I'd be lying if I said we weren't testing the waters on price, so it's good to hear some explicit thoughts on the matter.

Which is tougher: pricing higher now for the future features or starting low and having to raise prices (which nobody likes) later?

Thanks for your input.

Thanks Koodoz. They did a great job and wrote a little about it here: http://www.koodoz.com.au/portfolio/logos-branding/paydirt/

Currently, in terms of features, Harvest are obviously way ahead. Our goal is to improve on the time tracking process, which is what we feel is lacking for serious multi tasking freelancers. At the moment this means a sweet interface, and in the future, predictive tracking based on your work/location/history. It was a struggle to launch this base product knowing that there is currently no 'killer feature', but we're hoping that getting feedback early will help us nail it.

Probably it just depends how much feedback the developers have to deal with. If yours is the only feedback submitted this week it'll probably get plenty of consideration.

I imagine that feedback submitted to an organization like Google is handled more democratically, so in a sense you've cast your 'vote'.

Good on you for being gutsy enough to launch to the HN crowd so early! Great openness in your post.

I made a tiny $10 'investment' back at parity with the USD. Lost a $5 best to a friend and agreed to pay him 4 BTC instead. Today I was able to tell him that it had appreciated to $115. He is pleased.

Wow. Have to disagree with every one of his points. Total link bait here - I really doubt the success or failure of bitcoin will depend much on what one guy on the internet reckons.

I love that his final argument is just "Something will go wrong - I dunno what, but something will." Mm. Top notch.

Some friends and I are getting started on cloning Tank Wars with a view to making it an AI contest. Will be sure to submit it to that list when (read: if) we finish.

#8: FastestFox - Browse Faster

Firebug found the pixel!

http://api.jquery.com/event.preventDefault/

That's wonderful! The syntax is beautifully simple too.