

Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.) - mikegreenberg

Hello HN!<p>Every once in a while, I like to offer my time to help other passionate people be a little more successful with their goals. If there's anything I can help you with, just ask here. No strings whatsoever. I've done this before a few times now, and it's worked out well for everyone. Check out some of the previous "No strings" sessions I've done to get an idea of how I can help. (http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mikegreenberg)<p>A few requests: Be specific about what you're trying to fix/solve/accomplish. The more details you provide, the better I can help you out. I will try to help all requests made before the end of today and will attempt to complete by the end of Sunday. Be patient and check back. Please keep requests to tasks I can do in ~15 minutes. I'll spend more time willingly, but smaller requests lets me help more people! Thanks. :)<p>An idea of some of the things I've helped others with recently:<p>- Led an interview for a non-technical entrepreneur looking for a tech co-founder<p>- Advising two startups-to-be who currently have no technical lead (pro bono)<p>- Helping my dad how to use the internet to teach his skills to others<p>- Regular feedback on projects that people are working on in my local community<p>I feel like I should do something a little special for this one since its the holidays. So the person (other than me) who helps "most generously" in this thread will get a copy of Eric Ries "The Lean Startup" shipped to them from Amazon. (If you already own the book, I'm happy to substitute it.) This will be subjectively chosen by me, but I think you all know how to be generous. I'll use any information in your profile I can find to contact you for delivery info. If I can't contact you, I'll broadcast on Twitter (@mikegreenberg) to try to reach you there. If you're not listening and I can't reach you, I pick someone else.<p>Cheers!! (And happy holidays!)<p>PS: If you'd rather give than receive: Go find someone else to do something nice for...like give them a back rub. Or leave your $0.02 for someone in this thread.<p>PPS: If this sounds too good to be true, here are some of my thoughts on why I do this: http://nobulb.com/2011/10/on-manufacturing-your-own-serendipity/
======
Random_Person
Well, since you helped me to find an awesome webhost last time, I figure I'll
bite on some more generosity. :)

I have a product that will be completed soon. I do not plan on selling this
product through my site, but I do want to drive traffic there before and after
release. I have kept myself socially detached on the Internet in the past and
I do not have a Facebook and only recently embraced Twitter and G+. I am
slowly trying to build a brand around my name so that I might have traffic for
future products.

Since launching my site, I have been working on learning HTML/CSS and it has
slowly come together between work, school and children. Now I am venturing
into the world of PHP. I built a little script that I use for people to
register for my newsletter. It is driven by a form with one text box and a
submit button. It takes whatever is in that box, throws it in a flat file,
then redirects to a thanks page.

I like working with flat files, I always have, but I am currently up against a
wall where I either need to dive deeper into PHP or look into a service like
MailChimp. What I need to know:

I'd like for there to be more feedback to both the user and myself that their
submission was okay. I'd like to generate a subscription email that is sent
after the completion of the form which would also CC me. I am really not
interested in a service that convolutes this process if it is something I can
manage myself. What do you recommend? If you say PHP is the answer, are there
any resources out there that you suggest that would put me on the right path?

~~~
mikegreenberg
Really happy that they are working out for you!

PHP has been my world for many years and recently I've begun branching out.
After playing around with the likes of Python, Ruby, and NodeJS; they are all
just tools that you can use to get the job done.

That said, there are much better tools than others for specific tasks. And I
were to suggest a language that you should start learning in regards to web
development, I would probably not recommend PHP. The language has hit a bit of
a slow trough as they (the PHP gods) decide on an appropriate roadmap going
forward. PHP will be around for a long, long time so there's not much worry of
it becoming legacy too quickly.

But other languages are much better maintained and have more activity in the
community. (My current favorite being Python.)

Regarding your problem at hand, PHP can do this quite simply and the only
resource you'll need would be <http://php.net/mail/>. That said, I wouldn't
use this for high volume traffic as the mail implementation in PHP is not
efficient. (Read the notes on that link.)

Email on the internet is a bit tricky, especially when ensuring your message
is delivered appropriately, well-formatted, readable in both text and HTML,
etc. And as soon as you start hitting these problem, it's a much more
efficient use of your time to go with these services over rolling your own.

This is just one person's opinion who ended up using a perl script to handle
mailing functionality instead of PHP's native function in a PHP app he wrote.
_blush_

~~~
Random_Person
Excellent reply sir, might I ask another?

The reason I used PHP for my little script was because I discovered that you
just ship the output of the form button to whatever.php and it essentially
took whatever values as arguments, then quickly spit me back to the site when
it was done. I am familiar with Python, and have written some utilities I use
daily, but is just as easy to implement Python server side or do I need to
install some extensions that handle this sort of stuff?

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think your solution is perfect for problem. The biggest gripe I have with
PHP is the mail interface. When you outgrow your currently solution, the next
step I'd take is use your PHP solution to pass the mail request to a mail
service provider. That will give you the most bang for your buck without added
complexity.

If you're feeling really brave and really want to roll your own solution, try
to find a way to cheaply create a HTTP POST interface that you could point
your form at to process your request. A python/django instance could do this
but might be a lot of overhead for just a mail processor, for example.

Just don't try to over engineer it. :)

------
QJ
I need some help and advice with my product. My company (www.pyronyx.com) has
recently launched our iPhone app, iQila (www.iqila.com). We envision this app
to help people find and share interior design tips and ideas and post
questions or get advice from professional interior designers. The app in the
current version allows you to take images and post them along with your
question. Other users can then comment on your post or share it on Facebook.
We have another version coming up with more sharing options and better
camera/image UI and layout.

There are a few problems I know are there and I don't have concrete ways to
solve: 1\. Getting the message across. I find it difficult to explain the idea
to people. It's not complicated at all but I think my choice of words is not
correct and people don't understand the idea of the app if I email it to them,
or through the app store. We've got about 300 downloads in the past week but
only a handful of people have used the app. What do you think after reading
the website and app store descriptions? How can I improve it? How can I
convert those downloads to users?

2\. How do I get professionals to use the app? We plan on having professional
profiles where people can search for designers in their areas. That is for a
future release, and for that to work, I need to introduce the app to
professionals in the field who would want to use the app in the first place to
market themselves, answer questions, post ideas etc.. I look up professional
interior designers online and personally them on twitter and through email but
I'm not seeing ANY feedback. I think I'm lost and need help in targeting and
finding the correct users, partners.

3\. Any general advice on the product. We've built the app and the web backend
such that we can change it for other domains and add and remove features.
Initially, we thought of a framework we can provide other companies so that
they can have their own similar apps. Although we aren't going that route yet,
we ourselves can change directions easily, if need be.

About the company: We are just 2 developers with full time jobs and a
shoestring budget.

------
bartonfink
Hey, Mike -

Do you know anyone who needs a software developer? I was just laid off out of
the blue from my latest gig, and I'm looking for something else. I live in
Denver right now, and have had a couple of interviews in the past few days,
but I'm looking to spread as wide of a net as possible. They say it's easiest
to find a job when you have a job, and while the subject of my current
employment hasn't come up yet, it's bound to eventually. I'd just as soon have
many eggs in many baskets in the event that this reflects poorly on me.

My wife has been asking me if we can move to Florida, where I believe you're
from, so I'd be open to relocation as well. My e-mail address is located in my
profile.

Thanks!

~~~
mikegreenberg
I know of a few opportunities here. I'll shoot you a quick email.

~~~
bartonfink
Gracias. Happy holidays!

------
Saqi10
I commented before but guess it hasn't showed up, so I'll comment again lol.

I need an idea for an Individual Project Proposal.

Details: Studying Business Information Systems -- this is Database oriented at
the moment but also includes Decision Support Systems and Artificial
Intelligence next year. I'm also becoming interested in programming and web
scripting although the idea of a web site was not approved by my tutor. I want
to do something with gaming or an app; something that I can easily learn. The
project should be original or an improvement of a system/ combines existing
technology to create something useful.

Thanks a lot!!

~~~
daniellicht
Why don't you start with a problem you or someone you know faces and then work
backwards to an idea to solve that problem.

I find people often build things because they are possible and interesting but
unless you solve a problem they don't add a lot of value and therefore don't
get used.

~~~
FameofLight
I think thats really simple and excellent piece of advice. I think we as human
are very good at ignoring simple things.

~~~
Saqi10
Thanks a lot for the advice guys!!

Yh I've been keeping an eye out for problems to solve and I keep telling
myself to buy a notepad to jot down any ideas I come up with or a problem I
discover. There are problems although big that's why I was ignoring them as
they are way put of my league lol but I will listen to your advice and look
into it, Thanks again! :)

------
adbge
I'm trying to find a mentor. I need help finding potential candidates.

I'm 19 and I'm really interested in doing systems-level work in either C or,
more recently, I've been looking at Erlang. I'm just picking stuff up on my
own.

The thing is, I don't know any professional programmers. I don't really have
any idea how one finds a mentor. I don't know who I should contact. If anyone
knows someone who might be interested in this kind of relationship, my contact
info is in my profile.

~~~
mikegreenberg
You need to surround yourself with the sort of people whom you want to
emulate. And no matter where you are, there's sure to be a community of
programmers who are interested in getting together and talking about their
trade.

Colleges are obvious hotspots for this sort of activity, but also consider
approaching some local tech companies for possible internships (even if they
aren't looking for any). Seek out people online and get in touch with them.
Most of them are quite friendly and will usually be happy to help any way they
can.

Lastly, get involved in some open source projects. Sometimes, finding a
smaller project with fewer contributors will give you the opportunity to build
a relationship with them. Generally, contributing to open source projects will
give you easy, real-world experience without any of the overhead/commitment of
having a job or internship.

If you're interested in moving to South Florida, I know a few internship
opportunities that I could point you toward as well that would be right up
your alley!

~~~
adbge
Thanks, I might be interested in moving to South Florida. I'd love to hear
about those opportunities.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Sent you an email. :)

------
technology
Hi

I have 2 questions:

1) If you are being overwhelmed by the amount of books you are being suggested
by mentors, entrepreneurs and others, how do you tackle this information
overload so that you only read and implement the ones which would have the
most impact in your life ?

2) What would you do if you had recent failure and now you don't have enough
clarity about goals, life direction and the skills you wanna learn to succeed
? I'm 22/non-technical and got little bit of savings from sales commission I
earned through online stuff after dropping out from my undergrad program. The
money that I made from online sales was higher than the money I could had made
from the job in next 10-12 yrs after getting my undergrad degree. So that
sales thing is now busted and I was naive enough to believe that the sales gig
would last long but it lasted only 1.5 yrs. I had no team at the time, didn't
knew much about marketing, startups etc. It was just self employed thing. I'm
living in asia. Although I could still start that sales thing again cuz now I
know alot more, but it would be just like a commission you get. Should I work
on some other idea/startup or get some skills before I do something. Right now
I know little bit of sales/marketing. What do you suggest ?

~~~
mikegreenberg
Apologies for the slow reply. I had an unexpectedly busy weekend.

Much as has been said, information overload is a real problem we subject
ourselves to. The way I help cull this wicked overflow is by using
"systems"... or any method or tool which helps regulate flow. It's important
to realize the fixed set of resources we each have available to us. The king
of these is time. Managing it is topic I'll leave to experts. But we
consciously decide to use a portion of our available time to improve ourselves
in various capacities. And the trick is to use systems to maximize the
efficiency of our learning during the time we dedicate.

Some examples: We browse an ungodly amount on the web. Usually without
purpose. I use an RSS reader to improve my efficiency. Not only does it let me
control the inputs by subscribing only to the content I'm interested in, but
it lets me eliminate most of the distractions that being on their website
would introduce (ads, links to other parts of their site, comments, etc). And
as a bonus, my RSS reader tracks my usage...so now I know which sites I really
read so I can regularly trim the fat and optimize my reading schedule around
the parts of the week when the interesting content gets published.

Another example: Email is burden for everyone. Having a good email client that
you know REALLY well and fits into your routine will help tremendously. My
email client provides me an incredible backlog of my activity on the internet
which I keep for reference. I use filters to automatically sort this
information for me. Important contacts, social activity, purchases,
subscriptions, marketing, spam...all divided up automatically with the
relevant portions being pushed to my phone as needed. (Yep, my phone doesn't
notify me of just any email...just ones on my "VIP" list. Now I can help
emergencies as needed and deal with my regular email zeroing once or twice a
day.)

Books are something I don't particularly deal with because of the long
commitment required to get through them. I'll try to find an abridged version
of an audiobook if it's HIGHLY recommended. I can't think of any particularly
good suggestions on how to get through them quickly aside from scanning them
in the bookstore and deciding if you want to invest a week of your time
getting through one or not.

Regarding your "clarity about goals", I don't think anyone is ever 100%
certain about the direction they should be going in until they have enough
experience to know that's the right way to go. You're young and being worried
about the "right way" is pretty natural. And I've found that the time you
spend "idling" and figuring out the best possible route could cause you to
miss some interesting opportunities. Don't spend too much time on the
decision.

You're looking at the problem from the perspective of "these are my skills,
how can I use them?" Instead, you should be asking "Of the opportunities I
have in front of me, which would I most regret not doing?" It's how I try to
frame my decision making and sometimes it helps make a difficult decision an
easier one to live with in the long run. Worst case scenario, most of the time
you'll be able to double-back and find a way to go down the "other path" if
you're disappointed with results.

Hope this helps. :)

------
solipsist
I recently had my first interview for a programming internship that I was
applying to. It was over the phone, and I more or less "froze up."

I haven't had a lot of formal CS education - most of what I know has been
self-taught. However, I'm looking for a way to prepare for interviews in the
future. I have tried coding on the whiteboard, reviewing sorting algorithms,
reading interview blogs, going over data structures, etc.

However, the interview was nothing like I had expected. It was not about prior
knowledge (which was lucky for me) - and rather about thinking on the spot.
What stopped me from doing my best during the interview was a combination of
the anxiety and time pressure that I felt looming over me.

It would be great to get some advice on these types of phone interviews and
how to stay calm during them. Knowing ways to reason through or tackle
programming problems that are new to you (and can seem intimidating) would
also be helpful.

If anyone's feeling especially helpful, it would even help to have some
practice coding sessions over the web.

Thanks!

~~~
dondi
You can work on your problem solving/programming skills online on a number of
sites: * <http://projecteuler.net/> * <http://www.topcoder.com/> *
<http://www.spoj.pl/> * <http://online-judge.uva.es/problemset/>

As for keeping calm during the interviews, it would help to try to keep the
frame of mind that you are just having a normal conversation with another
person. Take a breath before giving an answer. This should also give you a few
moments to compose an answer in your head. If you feel you need more time to
think you can use a phrase that will buy you a few seconds like "That's an
interesting question..." or "Let me think about this a bit", etc.

Finally, get some practice. Have conversations with people as frequently as
possible. These don't have to be technical conversations, any situation where
you get to practice framing your thoughts into clear, concise sentences will
help. If possible also go on more interviews. Practice makes perfect. Don't
get down on yourself if you do not get the job(s). It is usually not due to a
deficiency on your part. Maybe the interviewer had a bad day. Maybe you
sound/look like a person that the interviewer hates....

------
achompas
I love these things and have wanted to participate for a while, so I'll ask
you (Mike) something and offer other HNers my services.

Mike, what do you think about the technology scene in south Florida? I'd like
to move back home at some point, and I fear returning to a tech-barren
wasteland. It's clear that SFla isn't some tech desert, since you're in SFla
and I hear about a lot of events from you. Still, my friends and I generally
agree that we'll have to _build_ the culture (via starting up or meetups) if
we want it to exist. What's your take? What do you see in the coming years?

And now, my offer: I'm a stats/machine learning student, and I'd like to
answer any questions you guys might have--whether you're studying for finals
(like me), or you're wondering how ML can improve your work. Just reply to me
here or email me (in my profile; don't forget the +hn).

Happy Friday to all!

~~~
mikegreenberg
There are a few people who have already commented about what is happening in
South Florida. (And there is a lot of activity...) Here is a good thread to
follow as it stood earlier this year:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2545955>

Separately, Brian Breslin (who's been involved here for quite a few years now)
has recently written a blog post about it that is another perspective on it:
<http://brianbreslin.com/on-building-a-community/>

I've also been talking about writing this post for some time now and have
never found the time to dig in and do it, but I'll mention some of the
highlights that I'd discuss:

\- There is an overwhelming interest from many different parts of the
community (even those outside of tech) to grow the entrepreneurial and
technical skill here in South Florida. City development, local business,
chamber of commerce, non-profits, universities, and individual leaders are all
quite active in putting on events and getting really great people involved
here. (Case-in-point: Rasmus Lerdorf just gave two talks about PHP this week.
Zed Shaw was in town back in March for Miami Tech Week. Dave McClure was here
some weeks ago at a Biz Dev/VC conference.)

\- There are people looking for talent and qualified talent is still difficult
to find. I'm personally looking for CTO/entrepreneurs for the two groups I'm
advising. Both have some capital and have a strong likelihood of success,
IMHO. Companies are hiring here as well! Well established companies doing
interesting work! (Senzari, for example, is based in Miami.) It wouldn't be
hard to find work, if you aren't picky. And if you have time, you can find a
really interesting job within months.

\- The community wants to be stronger; to be on par with the likes of NY,
Boston, Seattle, SV; but they don't always get involved. Turn-out at events is
really hit and miss depending on location, timing and topic matter. I
attribute this to a few things: poor city layout making it difficult to get
people outside of a 10-15 mile radius to your event, good intentions and no
follow-up...

\- The tech leadership doesn't support each other as much as I think they
should. If you're well-connected and know the right people, there's sure to be
resources shared; but otherwise, there's a lot of work that community
organizers needs to make to coordinate events and pool efforts across the
community.

\- Despite these things, the leadership here puts together really great events
on a consistent basis: TEDxMIA (<http://tedxmia.com>) , SuperConf
(<http://superconf.net>), Refresh Miami (<http://refreshsofla.org>), South
Florida Hack and Tell (my own meetup) (<http://hackandtell.org>), a whole slew
of events on <http://miamitechevents.com/> and they keep coming!

Overall, I think South Florida could be a really successful area to live in
professionally. The momentum as been positive and people definitely care. If I
had an extra 5-10 hours a week, I would dedicate that to helping the community
become more cohesive and better connected. There's no reason why events
couldn't be cross-promoted and sponsorship within the community be more
prevalent than it is today.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Another perspective from @alexdc (another long-time South Florida leader)
circa 2009: [http://alexdc.org/2009/07/retrospective-of-south-floridas-
st...](http://alexdc.org/2009/07/retrospective-of-south-floridas-startup-
community.html)

Here's more communities which I failed to mention originally:

\- Mobile Miami Monday (<http://momomiami.com/>)

\- Barcamp Miami (<http://barcampmiami.org/>)

\- Social Media Club (<http://smcsf.org/>)

\- The LaunchPad (<http://thelaunchpad.org>)

------
adaptives
Hi,

Some time back I started working on a DIY learning solution for Computer
Science. It is based on the concept of peer based social learning.

The website has courses which are a collection of material, forums, and
activities. Participants consume the information, ask/answer questions, submit
responses to activities, and even review other participant's responses.

There are no certificates, but whatever a participant does is made available
in their profile and is their credentials.

I will really appreciate if you can take a look at the website and offer me
suggestions on how I can offer the participant's a better learning experience.

<http://diycomputerscience.com/>

Thank you very much for volunteering your time.

~~~
mikegreenberg
This is a great idea in a really crowded market. I browsed through the site
and tested some functionality. Thoughts:

\- The site is quite text heavy. This is probably not a big issue for those
highly-motivated to use the site, you're going to discourage use from the
casual crowd...which seems to be a big attribute that your site promotes.
Casual, self-paced learning. Right?

\- The various functions don't seem to be tied together in a very meaningful
way. They are all partitioned and activity in one part doesn't seem to surface
anywhere else. If you're looking for engagement, this is important. Take a
look at Stackoverflow. Practically ANYWHERE you touch on that site will
surface additional value to others on the site. Votes will bump old questions.
Comments alert the OP that you had something to say. Adding tags expands the
reach of specific questions.

\- I think you want other people to add content to the site as well, but it's
not immediately clear on the best way to do that.

\- Everyone on your site is a Twitter account...and that's probably not the
perspective you want your users to have on each other. Looking at SO again,
their profile tags are quite expressive about the value they add to the
community at a glance. This is the target you want to shoot for.

\- Making DIYComputerScience an auxiliary tool for your resume is a good idea,
but as it stands right now this is not something I would want to use to
represent me professionally. I know this is probably still young, but if this
is going to be one of your value propositions you're going to have to shine.
Again, SO has careers.stackoverflow.com and those layouts are VERY nice and
does a great job of pulling in experience/value that you've added from their
StackExchange sites. (I use them almost exclusively for my online resume.)

I'm going to give advice that I give to any startup who is entering a crowded
market. Your PRIMARY differentiation will be your user's experience. It's good
that you realize this and am making it your goal. Here's a great answer on
Quora which touches on this exactly: [http://www.quora.com/Internet-
Startups/Should-I-focus-on-a-g...](http://www.quora.com/Internet-
Startups/Should-I-focus-on-a-good-user-experience-or-push-something-out-
quick/answer/Jared-Spool)

~~~
adaptives
Hi Mike,

Thank you very much for your excellent feedback and for giving your time and
effort. You have made very important observations. I will address all these
concerns as I move ahead with the development.

------
decadentcactus
Hey Mike

Could you (or anyone) take a quick read of this intro post? It's simply
designed to collect some emails so when I launch, there's people to email etc.
I'm wondering, well, if it sounds weird, or if it is convincing enough to get
people to sign up. First "sales" letter I've really written.

Password is "a"

[http://blog.minecraftsaver.com/2011/11/introducing-
minecraft...](http://blog.minecraftsaver.com/2011/11/introducing-minecraft-
saver/)

Thanks!

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think this is good from a marketing perspective. You've hit the important
points:

\- State the problem \- Show the solution \- Indicate the value-add \- Prompt
for the desired action

Is this convincing enough? I'm not a good person to ask. I don't play
minecraft. Though you juxtapose your solution against Dropbox and that only
benefit I see you offering above Dropbox is a way for users to "display" their
minecraft world on the web. The real question is if people want this. I'm not
sure. But other than that, I think you hit the nail on the head pretty well.

I'd probably test variations of this where you indicate the hassle of the
existing solutions. The goal being to further separate your solution from
theirs as being the "obviously" superior answer.

Hope this helps.

~~~
decadentcactus
Thank you very much, this helped a lot. I'm at least glad that it sounds
"normal" enough, and I do believe that what I've presented is compelling to
Minecraft players.

------
Concours
I run <http://www.feedsapi.com> and I loose too many customers on my funnel
for the trial premium between the subscription step and the paypal payment
step,( which is free to start: Users enter their datas and click on the
submission button, but don't proceed to paypal, which is the next step). How
can I fix this? I'm already runnning a multivariant test on my form to tweak
the call to action text. Any advice? Thanks for the action.

~~~
mikegreenberg
Sure, here are my thoughts:

\- First thing I can tell you is that when you redirect to Paypal, you don't
redirect to a localized version of Paypal. I was sent to the German version,
for example. Probably going to turn off many of your visitors who aren't
German-speaking.

\- Second, WHY are you asking for Paypal credentials if you're not asking for
money. To most people, the perception is Paypal == monetary_transaction. Even
if they COULD read what the paypal page was saying, they'll see the Paypal
domain and instantly click away. And let's assume that they even see that
you're not charging anything, this is still a huge obstacle (30-seconds of
diversion is HUGE!) in the way of letting potential customer actually
understand what your product does. I say, let your users kick the tires
without any barriers. If you're really solving a need, people will give you
their money.

\- Which brings me to my next point... what does your product do? I can't
tell? Do you take short-linked RSS feeds and make full-text RSS feeds out of
them? Do you take full-text feeds and perform extraction on them? All of that
text to the right of your signup form should say simply:

"We make RSS feeds easily readable."

I'm instantly turned off when you say anything like "...tool that tries, and
usually succeeds in, separating actual content from other web page elements
such as...blahblahblah". There's no confidence in your product and you take
too long to get the meat of it.

\- Your text is not given any room to breathe. With your text living on top of
each other, it makes it difficult for your readers to scan your page for
content important to them. (And believe me, they aren't reading it...they're
scanning it.) Consider using a CSS framework that will add rhythm and spacing
to your text. <http://blueprintcss.org> or <http://960.gs> are both decent at
what they do and will give you a great foundation to start (even if you have
no design skills).

Please take my criticism with a grain of salt. Hope it helps. :)

~~~
Concours
Thanks for the help Mike, I will try to update the paypal landing page, wasn't
aware of that. We indeed "turn short rss feed into full text rss feed" ,
that's the main title (yellow)

------
leslyn
Hi Mike,

Although I'm nervous about asking, I'm going to bravely step out on the line
and ask your thoughts about the design of our startup
<http://www.uencounter.me>. From the look of your own artwork - you obviously
have a good eye and while our site is more colorful and different in
aesthetic, its clear your opinion and experience is valued. Constructive
comments are always welcome.

~~~
FameofLight
I think a really great idea !

About design * Give feedback button is really hidden, I think in general call
for action button should be clearly visible, they very mixed with other
buttons in your design. Give to some stranger and see how he sees your site,
the first thing he will try to find something to do and if he doesn't find the
right place to click the only person at loss is you.

* The light color over white is really bad combination until you want to hide that thing.The text "Map your life experiences and rediscover your past!" is invisible. Can you good contrast ratio over here.

* Can you put a register button at top also, will be good boost not to find the register everywhere else in page, or simply make it first thing visible on page.

* The color pattern ( the transistion from blue to white where you have orange slowly fading ) doesn't look good. ( Personal Opinion )

~~~
leslyn
Thanks on all accounts! Willing to take comments from anyone else since I
stepped out and asked!

------
helen842000
Hi,

I love these helpful offers. :)

I'd like to add to the generosity and offer a few things.

\- Detailed user feedback on your site/startup/app \- A resume re-write (I
used to be a technical resume writer) \- Discuss your ideas/startup options on
Skype, brainstorm some possibilities.

I'm happy to help in anyway I can! I'm my user name on gmail.com

Thanks all - Happy Holidays!

~~~
leslyn
Helen, would love your feedback on <http://www.uencounter.me> \- thanks.

~~~
leslyn
Helen, thanks so much for the time and comments! They all 'feel' right. Your
generosity is greatly appreciated.

------
ohashi
I am looking for more creative no/low cost marketing ideas to promote my gift
inspiration site (giftlizard.com) before christmas rolls around.

I'd love to hear ideas/suggestions you ma have (or anyone else reading this
may have).

~~~
FameofLight
The best marketing is from word of mouth, do your friends want to use it,
would they recommend to there friends.

Would a stranger using it will recommend it for gift giving to their friends.

On holiday season, people are looking for great gifting ideas, can you provide
them with good ideas by providing a simple choice form ( no more than 3-4
objective questions).

Can you advertise in local bill board and ask your friends in other cities to
get the print out and stick on bill board they can?

------
moustachio
I'd appreciate feedback on the copy on the current <http://moustach.io>
landing page.

