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evgeny0

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I like the idea from a technical point of view, but I doubt it would make much of a difference in practice, because most home users log in with administrator accounts anyway. So do most developers. Only the rare, security-conscious power user would typically log on with a restricted account and even then.

Your point about the salary is valid - stating the salary does create some problems. However, not stating it creates much bigger problems.

It would be relatively rare that you advertise for a senior developer and end up hiring a junior one (when you had no intention of hiring a junior at first). It would be much more common that your job ad is ignored by the really good developers and instead you have your time wasted by those who are underqualified.

If your existing employees are paid below-market rates that is a latent problem in any case. Eventually they will figure out that they're underpaid. Even if you don't advertise salaries some of your competitors will.

But the random username / random password / client-side SSL certificate is excellent security.

The SSL certificate is, but not the random username. That's just a maintenance hassle. A username is not a secret - that's what the password is for. The random password isn't so great, either, because it pretty much forces you to write it down and then it just becomes a (poor) version of the SSL certificate. It should instead be a strong password that you can actually remember.

Great story! Hardware manufacturing in China sounds just like software development in India: if you give very precise specifications - so precise that you may as well have written the code yourself - they will usually be followed. However, if you don't say things like "the software should run without errors" you may well find it crashes on start-up.

Agreed. You may also be ruling yourself out of consideration for future opportunities with the same company that you genuinely are qualified for, because you've created the perception that you're incompetent or just don't interview well. (Let's face it, it would be difficult to give good answers at the interview when you're clearly not qualified.)

+1 Perhaps it's their way of dealing with the fact that Office is just too expensive for many people, without acknowledging that to the public by dropping the price.

People who don't use Office for business would struggle to justify $209 AUD (RRP for Home and Student edition) to themselves just to write the occasional letter - even if they're not aware of Google Docs or other alternatives.

Instead of saying "the solution to problem X will actually be available TONIGHT at www.[startupname]ly.com" couldn't you say "the solution to problem X will be available SOON/LATER/NEXT YEAR at www.[startupname]ly.com. Pre-register so we can let you know when it is" ? First, you wouldn't be deceiving anyone. Second, wouldn't it be an even better indication of interest if people are willing to wait for the product?

Yes. I mean, I think the guy is an arrogant, unethical bastard, but IF you can just get past that and keep an open mind I think he does have a few interesting points on productivity, priorities, questioning what you really want, etc. There's actually a lot of stuff in the book that I agree with, but there's a lot that really irks me, too.

It depends on the problem. Of course, I always have a decent shot at it myself first, but if the problem is easy to describe and is most likely just a case of knowing some trick I post it fairly quickly. I see nothing wrong with that - that's what SO is for and it's great at what it does.

If it would take a significant amount of effort to distill the problem to something that can be described on SO then I'd spend a lot more time trying to figure it out first. Not only would it take more time to post, but it's also less likely to get answers and those answers are less likely to be useful.

+1 I think many people like houses as investments because they FEEL so "real" and tangible - you can touch them! Feelings are not a good way to decide what to invest in, however.

Love it! Clean, so simple it requires almost no instructions and it JUST WORKS. I also love the fact that I don't have to wait for the current image (or batch) to finish uploading and can immediately drag more files in.

(Actually, that last feature made me feel stupid for a moment: I wondered how images seemed to be uploaded so "instantly" and only after testing it on a large image file did I realise that you're just displaying the local image!)

The real target audience of that site is people with a poor self-image. That's a perfectly valid target market - and a big one, I'd bet! Of course, they can't just come out and SAY "join if you have issues with your looks" - that wouldn't go down very well with the users.