

Show HN: HackerBuddy.com - illdave

I built HackerBuddy.com with the idea of helping the Hacker News community get one-on-one help with fellow hackers that know their stuff. It matches up people that are good at a particular skill (Ruby on Rails, Python, beta-testing, general startup advice etc) with people that need that specialist help. All it does is swap your email address so that hackers can give fellow hackers one-on-one advice.<p>I built the site as a way to learn Ruby on Rails, I'm still a bit green when it comes to coding so there's a very good chance that the server will fall over. Any feedback you guys have would be really appreciated - and you can get in touch at dave [at] hackerbuddy.com. I hope you find it useful.
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mcrittenden
Great idea. A couple feedback items:

\- The icons on user pages which stand for areas of expertise aren't really
helpful since you have to hover over them to see what most of them mean
(example: a coffee cup means General Advice and a person icon means
Usability). At the least, these should have titles above/below them.

\- I'd like the hardcoded areas of expertise removed in favor of an
autocomplete freeform box, much like Stack Overflow's tags box. For example,
I'd like to put that I'm a Drupal expert and I'd like to look for node.js
help, but neither of those are options.

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illdave
Thanks very much - those are really good suggestions, I really appreciate it -
I'll work on them both for v2.

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topcat31
I love the concept for this, finding friendly hackers to help you on your hack
project is massively useful

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znt
You should also add Flash/Actionscript to the skill list.

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illdave
Thanks, I'll add that in the next update.

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cooler
Love the idea ... very cool! I need to sharpen my skills before I sign up
though ...

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illdave
You can sign up and ask for help to sharpen your skills :) - you wont be
listed to help anyone until you click 'help a fellow hacker'

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illdave
Clickable: <http://hackerbuddy.com>

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mufti
Interesting and it will very helpful, now I am ready to contact person who
will help me, I already get him email.

