stankal

2015 Silverado owner, my first “American” car. Got it new, now have 75k miles on it. Went with an American brand because of “they know trucks”. So far, replaced catalytic converter, have a driver seat that shifts when I turn right (quoted $800 to fix), have a touch screen that works when it wants and goes crazy switching between views on its own (dealer said they can replace it for $1000, but the new one may start doing the same because they have problems, those were service reps words), just a couple of weeks ago had a brake vacuum pump go bad (lost breaking power luckily just after exiting highway, $630 replacement)

Yeah it pulls a camper well but what good is that if brakes give out.

I've heard on a few occasions from people visiting from oversees (Canada and Western Europe) how a lot of food tastes so much sweeter to them here in the US then back home.

I'm not from Pakistan, but I'm curious about the tech, specifically integration with Amazon site. Do you have a write up? Do you use Amazon Affiliate program? Any of their APIs. This looks really interesting.

Congrats on shipping! I really like this and would use it since we take road trips often with the family. Couple of suggestions: 1) Add the name of the funky place and a link to it in directions header. Instead of just saying "from Ocala Florida" say "from Ocala Florida to Tony's Artistic Taxidermy and Museum" and link to it. I know it's in the map, but scanning the list is easier than browsing the map 2) Add ability to remove/add places and customize the list. I think it's a great way to discover places along the way

Thanks, I just did. For some reason I did not see that option before.

Also, there's nobody to contact at Microsoft regarding Azure billing. I was prototyping some app that used App Service, Document DB, and Notification Hub and for a few months they billed at around $10 - $20, all of a sudden it's $1,200 for a month. The app was not launched, I was the only user. There's no way to figure out why other than it's a DocumentDB charge. There's no way I'd put anything in production with Azure.

I don't see how pitching somebody 24 hours after they covered a topic makes sense. They are not very likely to write about the same topic again at least for a while. And by the time they do won't my pitch be long forgotten?

I have to agree that this is one of the biggest downside of Backblaze as I’m right now dealing with recovering data from an external drive that has failed. According to their support staff there’s no way for them to extend that period which makes me super nervous about getting the data and verifying it’s all good before they delete it (I did not notice the drive has failed until I got an email from Backblaze telling me that they will delete the backup in 15 days) Their 30-day retention policy on external drives defeats the purpose of having the backup.

The second problem with Backblaze is the recovery process: they decrypt the files on their servers and store unencrypted zip archive for 7 days or until you download it. I would much rather see them create a restore process where encrypted data is downloaded and then decrypted locally.

I’m evaluating Arq, and so far it looks very good. Upload to S3/Glacier is super fast.

This looks really interesting and something we could use. However, I'm unsure about the monthly pricing structure. It seems like we would use this every time we have something newsworthy to announce which could be once every couple of months at best. So a fee per pitch would be more in line with how the service would be utilized. Admittedly I know very little about how PR works. Why would I use this on a monthly basis? Congrats on launching!

Shameless plug: I made an iOS app, called Bootcamp, that does that. The app has a library of exercises you can choose from to create your own workout. Check it out: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bootcamp/id398974469?mt=8

I don't think there's one answer, but over all I believe better design (not necessarily just prettier graphics) has better chances of winning. When I launched my first iOS app, I did the MVP and paid no attention to the design. It was a niche product that solved a problem and with no competitor on the App Store it did well. But, when a competitor with a better designed app launched we started loosing sales to them. It took hiring a professional graphics designer for our app to restore the lead position in the market.

Couple of lessons I learned:

- Customers won't necessarily comment on the design - but they care about it very much. - Having sub-par design leaves a door wide open for a competitor.

Of course, there are so many things that make a product successful and just having a great design by itself may not be enough, but it's one important piece of the puzzle.

Thanks. I should have scrolled down to the comments before posting.

Interesting story with a lesson to remember. But can anyone comment on how did his or investor's attorney find that email? Is it common practice to give attorneys full access to all your company's email accounts and then have them search through for any land mines as part of due diligence? Seems a little extreme and very labor intensive. And who pays for it?

One of the issues I've been struggling with is dedicating the time for writing a blog. An entrepreneurs we offer have to: code, test, manage other devs, provide customer support, design features, market, manage business, etc. Everytime I think about starting a blog, and I do think it's very valuable, I am discouraged as I know that some of the other areas of the business will likely suffer. Any advice or insight on now to add blogging to the todo list?

We are looking for a freelance mobile developer. If interested please get in touch at alex@runhelper.com

Does a contractor need to meed all or any one of those 20 points?

How does this relate to contractors hired trough oDesk or Elance?

I see number of points they would meet, for example Payment by Hour, Right to Discharge, Oral or Written Reports etc.