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I am currently attending Hacker School and fall in the less experienced camp and can honestly say that the experience has been nothing short of fantastic. The environment is incredibly conducive to learning, no question is seen as too basic and there is always someone that can help with working through a problem. I have grown tremendously as a programmer over the last couple months, much more so than I would have been able to working on my own, and I attribute that to the other programmers I have been able to work with at Hacker School.

You can do much more than just changing the column numbers or width, you can alter any styles.

Very cool, love the visualizations. Is there a way to select multiple subgroups when looking through the data (such as 18-24 and 25-34) or to compare groups?

The Eloquent Javascript book is excellent, thanks for the heads up. Definitely helping to expand my mind as I work through it. For anyone else here trying to learn I have also been using it conjunction with this tutorial here http://ejohn.org/apps/learn/ that has lots of interactive examples but not so much on explanations.

That is definitely the type of role and organization I would like to join. I am in NY right but will be back in the bay area soon and would be interested in an interview. I am certainly open to an internship, do you know if internship opportunities are paid?

Thanks for the insight. I agree ropeadopeandwink.com is an ugly design I will go in and clean it up shortly, font sizes especially need help. Comparing it to the blogs you suggested I honestly do not think my design is that far off from those but definitely needs improvement.

Thanks for the feedback but perhaps you can give me more insight into what is dreadful about my site/portfolio. When you say site/portfolio, which are you referring to? Is it the design, usability you find dreadful or did it crash on you? Developing a web application requires many different skills and this is where I am trying to get some feedback on. I appreciate your feedback that it is dreadful but perhaps a bit more insight into what would make it less dreadful beyond improve it.

Thats a great idea. I am a big believer in/user of open source technologies and would love to contribute.

Thanks for the insight, you really hit upon several things I have been thinking about, namely my shortest path which I also think is javascript/frontend. Been looking into javascript alot more and am developing some couchapps as they let me use javascript/html/css. I am also building some bookmarklets for which I need to use plain javascript as opposed to jquery. I am also interested in mapping/gis so have been putting effort in learning that. Do you think that can be useful or should I focus on javascript right now?

Funny you should ask. I come from a sales/marketing background and can talk to people. I do not need a 100% dev role but also do not really like sales however something that included consulting and really providing value I could be interested in.

Thats where I spend most of my time. NY right now for the holidays.

Thanks Andrew, virtualenv is next on my list as my system is starting to get mucked up with different packages and you are absolutely right that I need to clean everything up. Thanks for the input.

Thanks for the reply, always nice to hear about liberal arts majors that have walked the road ahead of me. I think I need to improve on the confidence as I feel less sure of myself now than I did six months ago, something of a more you learn less you know scenario. I do have a ton of confidence in my abilities to get a job done however so maybe I should tap that part of my psyche during interviews.

I do not think a lawyer have to specialize in patents specifically to support byzantine laws. I think it is the willingness and propensity to accept laws and regulations for everything.

I think you absolutely can. I am actually paying off the debt I incurred while attending a four year college with development skills I have picked up from mostly online resources, some in person classes/lectures, and a handful of oreilly books. I am also working on a tool to help myself track my own learnings and am trying to think of ways to turn it into a roadmap other people can use which seems to be in the area of what you are referring too. I have a rough working version here http://courseslate.com .

I have used Google Analytics in the past and just tried Mixpanel. It is great. Love the visualization. You can try out both pretty easily.

Yes. But depending on your background and skillsets the little "building the web app" part he glosses over could take awhile.

Well you still get to do that when your $10,000 runs out.

I have not yet begun to charge forwards!

What do you technical people think of business/idea guys that teach themselves how to code and begin working on their ideas themselves? Do you find it makes the business guy easier to work and communicate with?

It would create more noise when trying to optimize your site to reduce the bounce rate which is a bad thing.

NY right not but I will back in SF on the 11th. My email is in my profile hit me up.

I like that attitude, I'll buy you a market price beer.

All is fair in love and internet

I have been dealing with this issue myself, albeit I am the 'business guy' so have been teaching myself development and am building out the prototype myself so that I can approach potential cofounders as more than just the 'business guy'. But for someone who already has the technical chops I would think you should start engaging potential partners sooner rather than later. There will undoubtedly be plenty of up and downs for your venture in the future and partners that are only interested after you have a product or traction may not be prepared for the full slog.

I have been teaching myself django as my first foray into development and these tutorials have been helpful http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/django , particularly the Django From The Ground Up series

The end of sales and marketing.

I have been taking this approach as well and at the very least have been able to focus and sharpen my ideas.

Start learning how to code and try and flesh out your idea/app on your own. This will give you a better perspective from which to interact with potential founders and go a long way towards helping you flesh out your idea.

Any success stories of people successfully regaining lost items through your service? What about "losing" some items in popular spots around the country that have been tagged?