

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

Hi again! I'm back for another "No Strings" session. I like this community a lot and want to see if there's anything I can do to make you a little more successful. There are no strings attached. (Hense, the name.) To give you an idea of what I might be able to help you with, let me tell you a few things I've done to help others...<p>- I've helped consult with non-developers about their idea to help them understand what it'll take to implement,<p>- I'm currently building the control panel (front and back-end) of an embedded (ARM-based) wifi access point,<p>- I'm planning educational workshops for our community to learn (cram) on different technologies and how they can be quickly used for different benefits,<p>- I read approximately 600+ different articles, blog entries, and stories each month about what the tech world is doing. (I'm pretty informed!)<p>- I understand good design from bad design. Aesthetics are not lost on me.<p>- I have a family (two kids) and juggle a hectic work-life balance (volunteering, full-time gig, forming a startup, social life?) that's gradually improving.<p>If you're interested, there's some more information about me at http://nobulb.com/personas/.<p>So if there's something I can help you with, just ask here or @mikegreenberg on Twitter. Be specific about what you're trying to fix/solve/accomplish. The more details you provide, the better I can help you out. Also, I should be able to do your request within 10-15 minutes (a soft time limit so I can spread the love a little quicker).<p>Last time, the response was overwhelming and I was still answering questions days later (because I wanted to). If you want to get your question answered sooner (rather than later) your request should be thoughtful, sincere, researched and considerate of other people who might want help, too.<p>Cheers!<p>PS: This is how it went last few times I did this:<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2767448<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649226<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2544886<p>PPS: I'm not asking for anything in return, however, there IS one way you could show your appreciation if you felt the need. I'm working on a project and currently doing some validation. If you would consider taking a short 2-minute survey, I would be quite appreciative.<p>Survey: http://idjump.wufoo.com/forms/online-identity-and-you/
======
doctoboggan
Not sure if this is the kind of question you cam here to answer, but I am
going to ask anyway. I need some life advice.

I am a 22 year old senior at a fairly well respected college. I will be
graduating within the year with a degree in electrical engineering, and I do
not have the best grades. That is where I run out of ideas.

When I decided to major in electrical engineering I was in highschool. I
didn't really think about it that much, and I guess I planned on graduating
and getting a normal office job doing what I thought was electrical
engineering stuff. Currently this is the thing I am most afraid of doing, but
it seems like I am getting pushed in that direction. Soon, like some of my
friends who graduated last year, I will get job offers at large companies with
nice bonuses.

I made that decision before I realized how much I love problem solving (and
programming is a great tool to solve problems) and creating things myself. I
learned python at the beginning of this summer and am currently trying to
learn django and javascript/coffeescript. I also plan on making some
contributions to the IPython project. I've been teaching myself computer
science concepts as well, but no matter how much I try to learn, I still feel
like I know much less than the average startup founder/employee.

Now I know this is because I have only started studying and learning, but I
still probably will not be with a knowledgebase I would feel comfortable with
by the time I graduate. And once I graduate my student loan bills will start
coming, so I can not afford to sit around self-studying.

I guess my question is this: Is there any viable way for me to enter the
start-up game, or are my only options to get a entry level job at a large
company or go to grad school? I really do not want the former, and I would not
mind the latter, but it seems people on here often rail against grad school. I
do think I could do without grad school as well.

So maybe I am asking an impossible to answer question, but you did say no
strings attached. If you do want to answer and would rather contact me
directly, you can reach me at jack#minardi,org

~~~
mikegreenberg
First, stop second guessing yourself. (You did it at least three times in your
question.) Second, CARPE DIEM! (Seize the day.) You will NEVER have the same
freedom tomorrow that you have today. (Figuratively speaking.) Time and
responsibilities have a way of accumulating over time and now, when your time
is your own and the world is at your feet, is when you should be experiencing
life even if you're not certain of your direction.

It's said that "time is wasted on the young and wisdom is wasted on the old".
I realize it's hard to know what the right direction is and making the right
choices ultimately means a "leg-up" against the competition. But honestly, the
competitive spectrum is WIDE and there's plenty of room for someone to rise to
the top no matter how late in the game they make it. So don't worry to much
about this.

As far as your personal situation, i almost did the Air Force thing and I've
gone through their OTS summer programs. I'd argue that their office jobs are
NOTHING like the private sector. If you're eager to try out the startup game,
there are people hiring like crazy right now and I'm positive you could land
any of them (even as an intern). Express your desire. Drop the uncertainty
act. Try it out and see.

Here's an intern gig in NY that I HIGHLY recommend:
<http://www.skillshare.com/careers/jobs>

Here's a great intern site for a bunch of startups all over the country (still
young and might not have stuff in your immediate area):
<http://www.internmatch.com/>

And in the way of getting that first job, here's a post I wrote for someone
who was in a slightly similar situation: [http://nobulb.com/2011/05/wanted-an-
entry-level-job-that-doe...](http://nobulb.com/2011/05/wanted-an-entry-level-
job-that-doesnt-suck/)

~~~
doctoboggan
Thank you for all the links, I will certainly check them out.

It is hard for me to stop second guessing myself, as I always like to be
certain of my decisions before I act. Maybe I just need to jump sometimes.

~~~
mikegreenberg
As someone who also over-analyses, I completely understand. Don't let
analysis-paralysis get you!

------
mikegreenberg
Clickable links:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2767448>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649226>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2544886>

<http://nobulb.com/personas/>

<http://idjump.wufoo.com/forms/online-identity-and-you/>

------
swanson
So I used to have problems starting projects - I would plan/read/design etc
and then never actually get around to doing anything concrete; I have overcome
that issue. But now I find myself not being able to finish anything. I end up
with little software projects that are half-done and abandoned because I lose
motivation once I solve the 'interesting' challenges. When there is a clear
path to the finish, I suddenly become disinterested.

I have been reading and listening to some podcasts related to productivity,
motivation, etc etc and I am aware that "Tips and Tricks" style advice is not
the best thing and that I should be trying to build better habits, but damn is
that hard to do.

Any advice for how to Get Things Done now that I have gotten past the Just Do
It hurdle?

~~~
mikegreenberg
I thought this was a REALLY great question. While I think all of the advice
already given is important to consider, I have a slightly different
perspective: <http://nobulb.com/2011/08/just-do-it-and-actually-finish/>

~~~
swanson
Thanks for taking the time to write that up Mike. It is a new perspective that
I hadn't considered.

Reading it made me realize something: On most of my projects, I am more
concerned with how others will view it. I see developers with several
successful projects and think to myself 'I want that, I want to show people I
can do that too'. That has enough force to get me to start ('Look at me,
starting another cool project!') but not to see it through because I am only
personally interested in a subset of the problem.

Maybe I need to re-order my process. `Start -> Finish -> Tell` instead of
`Tell -> Start -> Finish`.

Best of luck with your online persona project and thanks again!

------
vyrotek
You have quite the resume. Could we tap into your network connections in some
way?

Our startup could use some help today with winning an opportunity to present
on stage at Dreamforce in San Francisco this month. Our company has built an
app for their platform and has made it into the final 8 of the contest. We're
a little disadvantaged since the contest is based on votes and some
contestants have thousands of employees.

We've setup a link to help spread the word on how to vote for us.
<http://iactionable.com/contest>

You can imagine what this sort of visibility could do for a small company like
us. We'll be presenting in front of 40k people. Thanks for your help!

(Contest details - <http://developer.force.com/appquest11> \- We're Engage by
IActionable.)

~~~
mikegreenberg
First, I wish you the best of luck on your success. But, quite honestly, I
loathe these popularity contests. These contests are thinly-veiled attempts at
free marketing which are easy to game and indicate no real social proof for
those who won. I feel badly for individuals who get caught up in these multi-
round competitions because a lot of energy typically gets spent on spreading
the word for this contest instead of spreading the word about their product's
value.

Unfortunately, I'm not interested in doing promotions for Salesforce so I
won't be sharing or subjecting my friends to the contest. Don't take it
personally, please. But I'll at least throw my own vote in the pile for you.
:)

~~~
vyrotek
I appreciate that. You have no idea how much productivity this competition has
killed for our startup. It's most definitely a popularity contest and the
tactics most companies are using make you feel like you're back in highschool
voting for Prom Queen. Unfortunately it's out of our control. Within the next
hour we'll find out if we make it into the top 4.

~~~
mikegreenberg
The best of luck. I really like the idea. Not sure if the gamification thing
will catch on in the long term, but anything to improve productivity with fun
is something I can buy into.

------
markkat
Hey! Just want to say thanks for the advice last round:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649787> (<http://hubski.com> is my site)

I took your words to heart, cut out some functional fluff, simplified
terminology, and focused on hubski's UX. It seems to be having a positive
effect. We now have what I like to call a decentralized social aggregator: A
vote shares a story with your followers. Popular posts propagate across the
community, rather than rise up a shared page. It makes sense.

Still work to be done, but your feedback was valuable. It really pushed me to
rethink and focus. Thanks!

~~~
sixtofour
<http://hubski.com/about>

I'd recommend that you don't rely on only color for the post and following
telltales. Use color plus something else.

    
    
        u->oscar
        oscar->u
        u->oscar->u
    

For the not shared, shared, and yours icons, in addition to color you could:

    
    
        Not shared: only the center circle, no surrounding dots.
        Shared: center circle plus surrounding dots.
        Yours: center circle, surrounding dots and a line circle around that.
    

Extra fancy if Yours icons only get dots (inside the line circle) if they're
shared posts.

EDIT: Formatting.

~~~
markkat
Thanks sixtofour. I'll test how that looks. Do you think the colors confuse?
Or are too close?

~~~
sixtofour
Honestly I don't pay attention to specific colors. A designer (I'm not) could
answer the "too close?" question better. A great book for choosing colors is
Color Harmony Compendium.

Although I don't pay attention to specific colors, I like having colors, they
break up the tedium. I just think they're a poor choice for a sole
differentiator. For example, I always like colors while programming in a text
editor, but I never use color as an indicator for what I'm looking at; the
code does that. :) Colors in a text editor just break up one thing from
another a little earlier than my brain would anyway, but they never tell _me_
what I'm looking at.

------
p9idf
I make silly knick-knacks by swirling paint around in bottles and I've been
thinking about selling them. Will you tell me if you find them attractive, if
you would like one, what swirl and color patterns you think would be neat, and
what you would consider paying for one?

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R1dPFGJyk5w/TVBJndoh53I/AAAAAAAAAB...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R1dPFGJyk5w/TVBJndoh53I/AAAAAAAAABw/Mhvovn87YZg/s640/2010-11-05.143902.jpg)
[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R1dPFGJyk5w/TVBKOp0ly4I/AAAAAAAAAB...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R1dPFGJyk5w/TVBKOp0ly4I/AAAAAAAAAB0/c0sttd-
oP_w/s640/2010-11-05.150203.jpg) (The green one has a really cool wood grain
pattern.)

~~~
mikegreenberg
Search through auction houses, antique shops and old warehouse for unique
looking bottles. Make sure your paints are high quality and won't scrape off
when putting flowers or other things inside. Sell them for $15-20 depending on
their uniqueness.

If you found a nice bottle for holding flowers, I'd totally buy one for
Mother's Day or an anniversary. This is a great niche to be selling to and you
could probably come up with some other interesting things to add that would
"add value" to your knick-knacks. :D

(I personally like blues, greens, purples (cool colors) and really go for
bottle designs that are more striking than utilitarian.)

------
TMK
This is great public service. Filled your survey and left my email address for
more.

I need some advice. I am 21 and I'm studying IT Engineering at university at
the moment, my second year is starting. Though before university I completed
Information Technology 3 years vocational school and even before that I had
been learning about technology and programming since I have been a kid. I went
through the vocational school even though I knew most of the stuff before
hand. Now the same thing is happening in the university. Though the
laboratories are nice. I have three years left to study there for my bachelors
degree.

What I really want to do is start earning money from my programming abilities,
but I don't have the money to start limited company and I don't want to start
the personal business thing, because liability things. I've been trying to
look for programming work locally here in Finland and there does not seem to
be any close to me and I don't want to stop my university to move ~200
kilometers for work. I've been trying to look remote jobs, but can't find
them.

So what should I do? Try still to get some work and while not finding any
work, work on my portfolio. Another option is to focus fully on the school and
live with 20 euros a week for my pack of cigarettes and food.

#define job on_bed

#define my(job) sit(job)

Thanks already and sorry if this is late for your session. :P

------
docmarionum1
Any quick tips for improving the look of my blog(s):
<http://www.justanotherphotoblog.com/> ? (My other blogs are pretty similar
too..)

I don't have a bad eye for web design, but actually creating a good design
seems to be beyond me.

I do like the very simple, basic, minimalistic look, but black courier new on
a white background isn't exactly beautiful.

Or if you know of any good, free templates along the same vein that would
help.

Thanks!

~~~
mikegreenberg
I like photoblogs in general... I also like to see photos in portrait
orientation all at once instead of having to scroll to see it all. Consider
limiting the height of photos to your target resolution. (Or use javascript to
dynamically resize them to the current window height.)

I'm not a big fan of the blue color for links. But personal preferences aside,
this is more than sufficient. With photoblogs, I prefer as little distraction
as possible from the subject. So your minimalistic approach is wise.

I'll see if I can find some good resources for themes/templates.

~~~
docmarionum1
Limiting the height is a good idea. Though it seems like it might look a bit
barren with so much white to the left and right of the picture.

What are your thoughts on sites that scroll horizontally? I find that they
sometimes look nice, but are often awkward.

------
Cyph0n
I've posted this on Twitter already, but the 140 character limit wasn't enough
to fully describe my question.

A few days ago, I thought about how I couldn't purchase many of my favorite
computer and gaming magazines without forking out at least $10/issue (I'm
fairly certain this isn't the price in the US).

Since I'm already aiming to build a startup, I thought why not start an online
service to fix this very problem: one that would allow you to subscribe to
many tech magazines for the lowest prices possible, and across all of your
devices.

What concerns me the most right now is whether or not it is possible to get
major magazine publishers on board (think Gamepro), and what kind of fee would
they charge me (per issue? per year?) to be able to allow subscribers to read
their magazines online.

Thanks.

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think this is going to be a steep uphill battle, but if you're willing to
band your head against a wall a few times then definitely go for it. I just
personally think that publishers are going to be very hesitant unless you come
to them with a VERY compelling product (which I have no idea what that would
have to be).

~~~
Cyph0n
What if I approach publishers and offer to pay them to allow me to use their
magazines? I could at least do that for launch, and then once the service
gains traction, magazines would approach me.

Or am I missing something?

~~~
mikegreenberg
Maybe not. Start calling them and see if they'll budge. You'll never know
until you try! :D

------
jrussbowman
I'm always looking for feedback on <http://www.unscatter.com> you can email me
at my gmail account bowman.joseph

I'm currently redesigning the javascript implementation, moving it towards
YUI3 widgets to make it more maintainable, and am aware I need to eventually
optimize delivery altogether (sprites, css/js files, etc etc) so no need to
dive into that.

I'm a father of 2 (1 and 3) with a time consuming job myself so pretty
impressed you're taking the time to do this for people. My hat off to you :)

~~~
mikegreenberg
Email en route. :)

PS: And congrats on the recent DDG integration!!

~~~
jrussbowman
Thanks for the feedback. btw after thinking about your email some more, I've
got another idea to try and make it a bit less busy and possibly a bit more
functional for my needs as well. Now to find time to redesign the interface
again. :)

------
aorshan
I was wondering if you had any connections in the media. I helped start a
political satire website (<http://thewashingtonfancy.com/>) and have been
spending a lot of time on our marketing. We already have a fairly robust
facebook and twitter and I feel like the next big step for us would be to get
some media attention. If you have any means of doing so, or any other
marketing tips, it would be greatly appreciated. Also I filled out the WuFoo
form. Thanks!

~~~
mikegreenberg
Thanks so much for helping. Unfortunately, I'm still a little meager on the
media end of the network. I know some local technology writers, but I don't
know if there's an angle there for them with what you're doing. From the looks
of it, you've got some decent content to get running with.

Fortunately, your site is ripe for catching the coattails of big news stories.
If your satire is edgy enough while not crossing the line, you might bring to
light some interesting points of view (through the absurdity of the story).
Sometimes this could get you mentioned in editorials, or other writers who are
covering an incident/event from all sides. (And probably a lot of SEM traffic,
as well.)

Another suggestion is to write specific pieces in direct response to easily
criticized pieces on other beats. Audiences love counter-point (especially
when the topic is juicy at the time) and will flock to your content more
easily.

------
linked
Hey! Thanks so much for giving back! I've mostly just lurked in the HN
community for the past 5 years, but this week, I launched my alpha-beta-pre-
launch phase of my startup, <http://www.srvr.dj> \-- I've already filled out
your WuFoo form, would you mind giving me a few sentences of candid
commentary?

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think what you have here is a good idea. Clearly the PaaS and IaaS markets
as heating up and it would nice to have a one-stop-shop to spin up the servers
you need. However, I don't know that your prices are framed properly. Your
marketplace makes it seem as though I'm paying $12/mo for running MySQL (which
is free to use is most circumstances). This might come across wrong. Instead,
consider developing a "configuration" panel for the type of server the person
wants and point them to a provider who can supply it. Then allow them to add
"free" packages to those instances. In other words, make it clear that they
are paying for server time, not for the packages you're deploying.

------
cfinke
I spent the last month working furiously in my free time to build and launch
<http://typed.it/>, but I'm having trouble getting substantial feedback, even
from the people who inspired the idea for the site. Would you be willing to
give your first impression of it?

~~~
mikegreenberg
I think the value that you're bringing to the table is being eclipsed by other
major players (most notably, Google). If you want to continue this project,
you need to really differentiate yourself in a clear and specific way that
would give your potential users a reason to buy in.

When I look at your homepage, I see you selling me features of your product.
I'm not interested in what your product does. I'm interested in what it does
for me. Read this post from Dave McClure:
[http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2009/08/your-solution-
is...](http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2009/08/your-solution-is-not-my-
problem.html)

Your headline "What are people typing?" is probably not the question they are
asking themselves. I'd suspect it's more along the lines of "Are visitors
mistyping my URL?" It's a subtle difference, but you're facing the user with
the question and making it relevant to them. Your headline is very unspecific
and ambiguous.

Your demo let's me compare specific popular domain names, but I'm not sure
what I'm suppose to be learning from this demonstration. Your value
proposition gets lost and I don't know how this demo provides useful
information to me.

I hope my feedback was constructive.

~~~
cfinke
Great feedback, definitely constructive; thanks for taking the time.

I suppose I'm not 100% decided on which market I'm trying to serve:

1\. Site owners interested in users going to the wrong URL.

2\. Domain speculators wanting to get data on how many people are typing in a
given URL.

3\. The common man, wanting some stats on traffic to different domains,
whether its for curiosity, reporting, or some academic reason.

I imagine #2 has the most potential for paying customers, #1 the most under-
served market, and #3 the largest potential market but probably a low
potential for profit.

------
spobin
What a generous offer! I'm looking for feedback on my site
<http://freeblogging.me> if you have time. It's early days but I'd like an
honest opinion on whether you think it's a good concept.

~~~
mikegreenberg
I used your app to type this:

While i think the idea of free writing has it's merits, i'm unconvinced that
the information should immediately published to the internet. Braindumping has
a very private and personal process to it and to expose it without any sort of
recourse will probably prevent new users from trying it out. There might be a
place for something like this as a Wordpress plugin or similar. A tool that
users could rely upon to quickly generate ideas for themselves in the comfort
of their own blog and not have to worry about the impending reprocussions of
not typing for a few seconds.

Overall, I think the idea is neat. Some questions come to mind. How will you
make money? How will people find out about this? This is about all I can think
of off the top of my head.

The look is great! I like the simple design which keep distractions away from
the typing. You should checkout the recent version of Wordpress. Their "full
screen" mode is actually a good example to follow here. Completely blocks
EVERYTHING.

Great work, over all! :)

\--- publish

Fantastic. So it IS private. It doesn't look like there's any way to view it
when you're not logged in. Unsure if other users could see it, however. Either
way, Great work!

\---- publish

------
aninteger
Do you have some more information on the control panel (front and back-end)
that you are building? What languages, technologies are you using? I didn't
notice anything on your personas website about this.

~~~
mikegreenberg
We're developing on Gumstix (an Openembedded platform). The platform compiles
everything for us into the native ARM architecture. I'm building it using
lighttpd, sqlite, and PHP. I've built my own lightweight template/framework
based on the work started at (www.sitepoint.com/beyond-template-engine/). It
needs to handle pretty much everything your typical wifi AP control panel
would normally handle. :)

------
Hisoka
What do you think will be the top 5 trends in the next 5-10 years in the
internet and mobile space?

~~~
mikegreenberg
5-10 years is a long ways to be projecting, especially online. I don't think I
could even go 2-3 years out the way things are currently going. But I'll give
it a go.

Within 5 years:

\- Infrastructure will improve significantly. If the economy doesn't tank so
badly, we will see rapid expansion of bandwidth "to the curb". We're already
seeing the beginning of this in unlicensed spectrum being leveraged to provide
rural "high speed" wireless. And Google is lighting up dead-fiber like it's
money is burning a hole in it's pocket.

\- The cloud will be more federated. Instead of having two or three main
incumbents in the IaaS arena, tools will gradually be released to allow
individuals more authority to maintain their own part of the Internet.

\- Data will be personal again. Projects like diaspora, The Locker Project,
and others will force the API paradigm to shift toward individual users.
Instead of a centralized API, a P2P network of individually managed APIs will
allow web apps to get data where it (authoritatively) lives without users
worrying about 3rd parties doing the right thing with their data.

Within 10 years:

\- Traditional government will fragment. The existing government as we know it
will change rapidly. Today's government paradigms worked for getting things
done for the last century. I think it's clear that there are more efficient
ways of how government could work given today's technology. I think many
people will try to bring their own ideas of government forward. This will
happen in a way that allows people to subscribe to the parts of government
ideology that they agree with and opt-out of the parts that don't benefit
them. Fragmented governments will not exist in the real world, but will be
logical groups of people who self-organize online with the objective of
specific benefits for their group. Traditional government will be forced to
accept these "2.0" governments or will be shuttled gradually into obscurity.

\- The singularity will be a lot more real and a LOT more pervasive than ever.
While it will likely not happen in the next decade, we will start seeing nano-
tech that we will use to improve parts of our biology. Within 20 years, bio-
tech will be in the up-swing of a huge market growth that will easily be in
the multi-billions. Mobile will no longer mean "cell phones", Mobile will mean
"you".

\- Pharma as we know it will die. (This is my own personal wish and completely
unrelated to Internet/Mobile.)

Thoughts?

