Ask HN: Am I the only one who's not in love with Google Instant? - <AUTHOR>

Let me make it clear that I do like the idea of Google Instant. And, YouTube Instant. And, HN Instant. Edit: Now iTunes Instant too.
But can someone give me an official reason why it's better? I think it's safe to say that I prefer the old Google better than this...being instant and Ajaxy is nice but for now it's tacky.
I really did just prefer the Search Suggestions more than anything.
What am I missing? <comment><USER2> I hate it. I'm very precise with my queries, so it's faster for me to type the whole thing in. I particularly hated how the search field grabbed focus when you pressed a key anywhere on the page, because if you did it unintentionally it would register in the textbox and the search results would change. I dunno, maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but I had no problems whatsoever with my previous search workflow.

</comment><comment><USER3> No, I don't like it. I know exactly what I want to type, and I don't like the jarring flashes of intermittent guesses of results on my way to 'just typing what I want'.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like it a lot. It just seems to me that this is how all searches should work, i.e. displaying their results immediately without initiating the search. Most of my desktop programs already work that way, why shouldn't Google?

<comment><USER5> _Most of my desktop programs already work that way, why shouldn't Google?_

I think there's a difference.

Most desktop apps return structured results in tabular format. Those are much easier to skim because you know what to expect in each field, and you're usually looking at only one column anyways (e.g. the "title" or "filename").

Google results are not tabular (perhaps they should be?) and I find it rather hard to keep track of what I had already skimmed while the display shuffles furiously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think we are in the target demographic for these 'features'. If you know how to structure queries, and can touch type the usefulness is greatly diminished.

However there are a lot of people out there that can't touch type and have to reformulate their query multiple times before they get 'acceptable' results. So Google instant actually has a meaningful increase of their iteration time, and thus enables them to find better results faster.

<comment><USER7> Oh God, there are people who click on the words in the autocomplete box, aren't there...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought it was neat when I first came across it, and thought, 'well, why not?' but the fact is that the only time I am typing into the google search bar in the webpage, and not built into my browser's address bar, is to tweak the results that I have gotten out of a search. And I tend to do that while reading the results themselves. After I had those results pulled out from under me while reading several times in a row, I turned it off.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, I appreciate that it's still possible to turn it off, which I did immediately. I think it probably serves a purpose on mobile devices where text entry is difficult and slow, but I don't see the point otherwise.

My main gripe with it is that it limits the number of results returned to 10, which I find to be unusable. I have it set to 100 (the current max) and wish it could be much higher so I didn't have to keep hitting 'Next'.

I can see why Google would want to return only 10 results (more ad impressions, less work for their servers) but anyone here actually prefer getting so few results? I've almost never seen anyone else's browser set up to return anything but the default, and have never known whether this is ignorance, acceptance, or conscious choice.

<comment><USER10> Usually, if the result is not in the first 3 or 4 I try a new search, so changing the default doesn't do much for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I turned it off. Maybe I'm a luddite but nothing that Google does of late is very interesting.

<comment><USER12> Turn off JavaScript altogether. NoScript makes the web sane.

<comment><USER13> Also, largely unusable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Bing is making them nervous. Instant has gotten them a lot of attention and Bing doesn't have the infrastructure to imitate it.

<comment><USER15> There was a bing instant a few months ago. It was a 3rd party site made via the bing API, but it had very similar speed.

I'm interested in how you know that bing does not have the infrastructure to support it?

<comment><USER16> Here's the Bing Instant: <http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch/>

It's actually from a year ago. It doesn't automatically search for a predicted query, just uses what you've typed in so far. But you can mouse over the query suggestions to search for them.

<comment><USER17> How about <http://www.binginstant.com>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not a fan of it either. It feels like fool's gold to me. Partial searches don't get me the results I need but the screen updates seem to trigger me to read the results anyway. I know searching for "Barack Obama" isn't going to help me find the text of a speech he gave 5 months ago on HCR but I'm profoundly optimistic somehow it will. I recognize this isn't Google's problem but we all want to believe in magic sometimes. The parallel that jumped out to me was tab completion in command lines or CLI history. Sometimes you spend more time mucking around with this than it would have taken to just type the command manually.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't like it either. I think it falls into the category of technically impressive, but real-world silly. The small decrease in search time is completely offset by feeling like I'm having a seizure.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't even like the idea of it.

I think it removes an important aspect of UI that has until now been so entrenched that we take it completely for granted: pressing 'enter' signifies the completion of input.

In a conversation between humans, it's considered rude to begin responding to someone before they're finished talking. This behavior is more than just an interruption; it ignores the full thought intended by the speaker in favor of an assumption.

Interacting with software is no different; even if the conversational dynamic doesn't directly apply, we still have similar subconscious expectations. I don't want a response until I press enter. Before that, I'm in the process of constructing my search terms as I type them, often revising them, expanding them, and correcting typos.

Besides all of that, Google is now executing several queries for every single query that would have been provided previously. Most users are probably not even going to look at the results until they're done typing, so this is probably a significant waste of bandwidth and CPU cycles that could be put to better use.

</comment><comment><USER21> The rationale is that it makes searches faster, but turn it off if you don't like it.

<http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=en> and search for "Google Instant".

I haven't quite made up my mind yet. I don't mind it, but then again most of my searches come from the Chrome address bar.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't like it either. That said I don't even like the autocomplete suggestions in the search box. I don't like intellisense or anything else that actively throws completions in my face.

I do like tab-completion e.g. at a shell prompt for filenames, but that's something I initiate. It's the automatic kind I don't like.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm the same. It is nifty and a cool trick... but didn't deserve to enter the mainstream (in it's current form). But there are underlying motivations that warranted the change before it was ready for mass deployment.

</comment><comment><USER24> I turned it off in Firefox because it seems to capture EVERY key press and apply it to the search, obliterating assorted navigation shortcuts I have in place via some add-ons.

But, every without that, there's a noticeable lag in handling my typing, which is annoying, and I've yet to find a result I wanted before I was done entering all I intended into the search field.

It's an issue with many AJAXy UI items; they are so busy trying to second- guess my every keystroke that my every keystroke becomes a burden to enter.

</comment><comment><USER25> It doesn't impact me as I use <https://encrypted.google.com/> (automagically via the wonderful HTTPS Everywhere firefox plugin.) which doesn't have the instant feature turned on by default.

OTOH, it's a very smart move for G from technical POVs, since their cache hit rate would be much higher as the queries are normalized in greater portion, so that the real impact on their backend is small in comparison (of the overall search volume.)

</comment><comment><USER26> I find it very useful when searching for the answer to a programming question. If the MAN page for the language/framework/whatever doesn't provide me with enough information, and I"m looking for an implementation example, it's great. Sometimes it takes a certain keyword or multiple to find the specific result I'm looking for, and I love that I can just keep playing around with the search query until I find something that looks right.

</comment><comment><USER27> I love it. It is a great tool for finding literary references,for instance, recalling part of a quote or a poem you have in memory, and correcting based on results, turns out to be a great time saver for me.

When my search is exact, I don't use it, and since I search google primarily through chrome or the search bar in firefox, this feature is only visible to me when I actually require it.

</comment><comment><USER28> I do not like it. Until today I couldn't get Google to use my saved search settings. It kept using Instant and giving me 10 results per page.

I have developed my Googleing technique over a long time. This was a major interruption and for no benefit to me. Maybe if all you do is enter searches that always display the result you are looking for in the top 10, this is something good.

</comment><comment><USER29> I like it for certain searches. If I'm trying to debug something, putting in the full error message doesn't always help. I start typing in part of it though, and I may get someone with a similar, but not exact issue. so it's useful for things like that. But if I know what I'm looking for, I can just as easily use the Chromium address bar.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm mostly indifferent to it. I like not having to have a noticeable delay after pressing enter or whatever, and this doesn't affect my autopager addon, so I'm leaving it on unless it makes me mad somehow later. Most of my searches are in the google-bar anyway rather than through their homepage so I don't get it much.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think they should make a slight change so that when you delete all of the text, it keeps the previous results visible until you start typing again. Sometimes just as you clear the field you catch a relevant result in the corner of your eye, but a moment later it all vanishes, with no 'back'

</comment><comment><USER32> I only now have begun to use the I'm feeling lucky feature. I will type in my specific query, or rather begin to and as soon as it brings up a match I hit the down arrow and then I hit the right arrow. This has already become muscle memory and I recommend that everyone give this a try.

</comment><comment><USER33> One person its great for is Google.

I bet they save a bunch of cpu resources by 'directing' people to the right search queries (which are cached) instead of dealing w/ misspellings and running searches that the user doesn't really want anyway.

<comment><USER34> How does it save resources for Google? It can only cost more resources, since every time someone searches now, they are actually searching about ten times. Can you explain your logic?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It is slowly my searches down. a-jax is neat, but it still takes time to load. When I query something that is more than five words it just gets annoying. They do let you disable it, and that is better than nothing.

</comment><comment><USER36> I always make my first search from the Chrome address bar, and if I then modify my search on the actual Google page, I finish typing and hit Enter well before seeing any of the so-called instantness.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's a neat-o trick, but in actual use I:

a) haven't found any practical benefit to having it b) feel slightly ill-at- ease with the way it affects impression and click counting for adwords.

</comment><comment><USER38> I tried Youtube Instant first and hated it. Should have opened my mouth earlier...

It's okay; maybe I'll just get used to it, like every Facebook revision, ever.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm utterly indifferent, because for about a year now I've been using the search box in Firefox exclusively. Instant isn't going to make me switch back.

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't like the jump from centered to top. But it doesn't really affect me because most of my searches go through a browser search box anyway.

</comment><comment><USER41> I miss having another search bar at the bottom of the search results.. Turns out, now that its not there, I used it a lot

</comment><comment><USER42> I like it overall, but I miss the second search box at the bottom of the page.

</comment><comment><USER43> I believe you can turn it off. Just do it. They're watching you anyways.

</comment><comment><USER44> I did one search and then turned it off.

</comment><comment><USER45> I appreciate that on many searches, especially simple/common ones, Google Instant may save some seconds.

I think it helps me less than others because as a heavy, technical user, my queries tend to be longer and more unique -- less likely the autocompletes or top-predicted query are what I meant.

One negative for me is that it drops my displayed results to 10, from the 100 I normally prefer. I like to scan several screenfuls of snippets to pick just a few results that are most likely to be best.

The flickering display of interim results is a little distracting -- but not a major problem.

I mostly search from the Firefox search box, so only see it occasionally.

So, I haven't yet turned it off -- still giving it chance to see how it works with more experience.

</comment><comment><USER46> I switched to Bing.

<comment><USER47> Or you could turn off instant search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Sure, it changes the way we will search. But is that a good thing?

It's all about whether we want change. Change can be good, but think about how long (if ever) it could take for more time to be saved than time lost getting used to the change in the first place.

Also think about it this way: people have been searching on search engines for over decade in an very uniform way, regardless of the search engine. Search engines aren't that intuitive, even if they try to be. They aren't that user friendly, even if they try to be. But people worked with what they were given, and got quite good at. Now Google wants to break our habits, and a I don't think I want to. Not only because of the time I would lose changing my habits, but because it works just fine.

Another reason why Google Instant does not work for me is since it only works for "browsing" and not "finding". Sometimes people will go to Google to just "browse" a broad topic. They're not necessarily looking for a specific website or detail. So after entering a broad search term, Google Instant helps them narrow their search query. On the other hand, sometimes people will go to Google to "find" a specific topic subject, point, or answer. Therefore they don't want suggested search terms. They have already crafted a detailed search in the heads and are not looking for suggestions. In these cases, Google Instant just acts as a distraction. And that brings me to my problem with Google Instant: I use it for "finding" 90% of the time and only 10% of the time do I use it to "browse". I have a feeling that many tech-savy people here on HN probably have a similar distribution of their time spent on Google Since Google Instant only works for us the 10% of the time, it's hard to justify using it all.

</comment><comment><USER49> I have Javascript turned off entirely for www.google.com because I don't like the redirects on their links and I have found no other way to get rid of them in Chrome.

I tried instant search in Firefox. I don't like the way the search box changes position and I don't like the big drop-down notification and I don't like the way that when you press Enter, it refreshes the results. I guess it's safe to say I don't like it.

<comment><USER50> May I ask what you are using to disabled Javascript on the Google search pages? That sounds really useful.

<comment><USER49> In Chrome, I go to Wrench -> Options -> Under the Hood -> Content Settings... -> Javascript -> Exceptions... -> Add... -> Pattern: www.google.com Action: Block

<comment><USER50> That is perfect, thank you very much!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Sorry, big duck duck go user so I haven't even seen the new feature in action.</comment>


Intuit sells Quicken to private equity firm in management buyout - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/3041032/desktop-apps/intuit-sells-quicken-to-private-equity-firm-in-management-buyout.html <comment><USER3> Doing my taxes this year, I find it amazing how incompetent most financial software is (including Quicken).

For example, take a simple task: download all your financial data for the last year. Log into your bank's site. There is no button for "last year". You have to laboriously enter 01/01/2015..12/31/2015\. Then you're given a choice of formats. Download ALL of them, because sure as shootin', Quicken will only import one of them, and that's one is different for every different account! (Stunningly stoopid.)

Then try to get the statements, just try, my pretty. There is no "get me all the statements from last year." Nope. You download them one at a time, and some of them download to the same file name! So it's clicking around, then rename the file to "January 2015", then repeat for the next one, etc.

Oh, you wanted the tax 1099 forms? That's a whole 'nuther section on the web site.

Buy anything from Paypal? This is the killer. Paypal lists the payee as "Bob". Your credit card statement lists the payee for the same transaction as "Carol". The credit card downloaded data file lists the payee as "Ted". And, Quicken somehow calls it "Alice". Can you believe it in 2016? Naturally, you cannot download the full information about the transaction anyway. Download the CSV file, and Paypal randomly leaves out information you have to manually edit back in, like the item description which appears on the web site but not in the CSV data.

And why does my bank list the payee for a check as "Check 236"? The bank knows who the money got sent too. It's all on a computer.

<comment><USER4> What gets me is when I see software designed this way and then start imagining how much money was spent developing it, and fellow software architects sitting back with their arms folded staring at the screen thinking what a good job they did.

<comment><USER3> Every year I call up one or two of their tech support numbers, and suggest they add a button labeled "download everything I need to give to my accountant for the last tax year." Every year they are astonished at this suggestion, say what a great idea it is, and next year nothing has improved.

Am I really such a unique snowflake that nobody else even thinks of this?

Maybe I should patent it. It's obviously not obvious!

<comment><USER5> The thing is different people have different tax needs. Some people have very tax filings while others are very complex and some things can't be downloaded at all. It would be great but it's just not possible. FYI I work in a related field and I can tell you some tax filings are complicated!

Also not every source generates valid data files :(

<comment><USER6> Just because it's difficult to handle 100% of use cases doesn't mean you can't easily solved 80% of use cases. The suggestion the parent and grandparent comments are making is simply to add a button which combines the previous year's statements (understanding that not everyone's fiscal year matches the calendar year) with all the documents that are already in a separate section named "tax documents" into a single download. More generally, they're just suggesting things like naming the file for January's statement as e.g. "2016-january-statement.pdf" instead of the same generic name as every other month's statements.

Saying that those suggestions aren't valuable or worthwhile just because 100% of use cases can't be accounted for probably isn't the best way of deciding which features should be implemented (and if it were, then it seems like most of their current features should have never been built since they rarely seem to handle even 80% of use cases).

<comment><USER7> My brokerage account allows me to search for statements and then check off the ones I want to generate a PDF for, they then get combined into a single PDF. Of the three banks I deal with it was the only one with this feature made catching up on my statements so much easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If there was one piece of desktop software that I think the world definitely needs an alternative for it's Quicken. I've got about 15 years of my financial life in my Quicken file, and I probably have used the software at least twice a week, religiously, during that time period. I've grown so dependent on it in a way I've never grown dependent on any other software. If it were to stop functioning tomorrow, I'd be screwed.

It's funny because I'm sure I don't even use like 95% of Quicken. I don't use the budget, or the bill paying, or the charts and reports, or the tax crap, or the retirement planning or all the other various bells and whistles Intuit has decided to bolt on to its vast menu structure over the years. I use it as a checkbook register and as a way to plan the month so I don't overdraw my checking account (which would probably happen monthly if I didn't have Quicken), and to download credit card transactions weekly to watch for fraud. That's it. Surely those two functions are the MVP for any alternative.

There is no way in hell I am going to upload 15 years of financial history to "the cloud". Not a snowball's chance in hell. And yes, I've tried GnuCash. It's just not as good. Clunky UI, double-entry accounting, Yuck.

<comment><USER9> What is super sensitive that you couldn't export to something like Mint? They don't store your account numbers on their cloud after you've completed the link.

<comment><USER10> Not a compelling argument, imo. Seems like almost every major website is getting hacked, and finance sites are probably a big target.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm just not going to put all of my financial records in once place under one vendor in the cloud. On the other hand, I'm not going to trust Quicken after years of neglect and no sane way of getting my data out.

I used GnuCash for a few years, and was generally satisfied with many parts of it, yet it was horribly broken in some ways. And it isn't easy to get data out, even though it can use a native XML storage format.

These days I'm forcing myself to use Ledger [http://ledger- cli.org/](http://ledger-cli.org/) The UI is essentially the UI of your favorite text editor (with all the efficiencies and pain that entails), but no one can argue that your data is held hostage! It's a text file!

<comment><USER12> I'm curious how you are organizing your data. Do you have one file per account (checking, credit card) or is it all in one big file? I've looked at ledger a few times and get a little overwhelmed, part of it though is because Quicken is so easy since it downloads everything.

<comment><USER13> There are tools for OFX download and import - there's a larger ecosystem site here: [http://plaintextaccounting.org](http://plaintextaccounting.org)

Ledger supports an "!include" statement that works exactly how you'd think it would and is super handy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Private equity firm, huh? First round of layoffs w/in 6 weeks.

<comment><USER15> From what I've heard, the Quicken team is already pretty trim. It's just not growing and not in the cloud, so it doesn't align with Intuit's overall goals. The private equity basically just bought a discount annuity.

FWIW, they didn't reveal the terms, but they did say that they expected around $500m from all three divestitures, and Quickbase and Demandforce are bigger.

<comment><USER10> Yep. I read that they doubled the size of their Mac team. My first thought was, "what, from 1 to 2?"

Anybody happen to know how big the Quicken team is?

<comment><USER15> Intuit holds an annual internal developer conference (CTOF) and it appeared that the contingent from Quicken all sat at one lunch table. Probably between 10-20 devs, though I guess it's possible some didn't attend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Intuit has squandered the Quicken brand for years with lousy updates and even worse customer support. In some respects it's good to see them sell it to someone who might do something with it.

Unfortunately, the Quicken name is now so tarnished that the private equity firm likely has one swing at a decent update. Anything less than a homerun and they might as well shut it down.

<comment><USER17> Since it is a private equity firm, what makes you think they are interested in doing anything other than gutting the business?

<comment><USER18> I work at a PE-owned company (over 20 years in PE ownership now) and the strategy is to seek growth, not to cut costs by shedding headcount.

Caveats:

1\. This is anecdotal evidence, and many PE firms actually do buy companies with the intention of firing people.

2\. I don't know whether this is the most common activity or just generates the most press/attention. I would be pretty interested in a statistic that looks at PE company acquisitions and compares company headcount at entry and exit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting. I wonder if this is the start of a pattern of desktop companies who have converted to SaaS ditching their origins. It makes sense that there is residual value, and the current owners don't want to be distracted.

<comment><USER20> If the SaaS companies are dumping their desktop offerings, who is buying them? Like you, I'm wondering if this really is a pattern, but it sounds interesting.

<comment><USER19> Generally the companies that gut and harvest (like CA) differ from the builders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> On a Mac, the only software I've been able to migrate to is Banktivity (formerly iBank). The migration wasn't perfect but I eventually successfully ported over more than a decade of transactions including investments.

Every once in a while I look into gnucash or ledger but so far I've always run out of steam before I've been able to ensure that they'd truly give me feature parity for the features I care about.

At any rate though, it is a joy to not be using Quicken anymore.

</comment><comment><USER22> Very interesting. Mint must of been making, a um, mint for inuit. I was always skeptical it was a big money maker for them. This move tells me it is far more profitable.

<comment><USER23> I'd wager acquiring mint was one of their worst decisions ever. A product that's losing popularity year after year and a pain to maintain technically too. Wouldn't be surprised if they shutdown the product in a year.

<comment><USER24> No buying mint and then basically freezing the product was their worst decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is anyone, besides open source projects, investing significantly in desktop consumer software?

<comment><USER26> Slack?

<comment><USER27> Slack's desktop client is really just Electron I believe

<comment><USER28> That's the direction consumer desktop apps should move. Cheaper to develop, maintain, update, etc.

<comment><USER29> that's arguable

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Quicken is good when it works with your bank, I have a bank that doesn't work with Quicken and only exports to an older Quicken file format that is no longer supported.

I remember when Microsoft Money was Sun downed, I thought Quicken had beaten them. But it seems Inuit still has financial problems and sold Quicken.

<comment><USER31> You touched on something I've always wondered about: what's up with all those different transaction data formats? What's wrong with simple CSv files?

<comment><USER32> CSV is strictly a single table, so it cannot normalize the data. You can end up with a lot of them or a lot of columns and empty cells.

<comment><USER33> I'm drawing a blank on the normalization that would be relevant for transactions. Do you mean something like "the sub-sub-account determines the sub-account which determines the account"?

<comment><USER30> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization)

You find that database armatures usually store everything in one table. The professionals break things up into different tables using normalization.

For example you usually have a table with names in it and an ID, and then you have a transaction table that has the ID in it plus the transaction with a foreign key going back to the table with names in it. Could be names of each account or checking or savings account with an ID assigned to them.

Thing is you could be downloading more than one account and you don't want them mixed up into one CSV file. You want them separate in normalized tables. Now you could just have a CSV file with Account ID in it and then have a separate CSV file with the name of the account with the ID in it. But that just gets confusing.

What if you are a business and have several accounts you want to download and process? You don't want them all mixed up together. Yeah there could be sub- accounts as well that have an ID as a foreign key and then another Foreign key to the main account or sub-sub account etc. When you get into accounting and you have sub accounts and sub-sub accounts to track spending you have to have a way to figure out how they work.

Here is an example of tables with sub accounts: [http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t1855...](http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t1855469.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Interesting that it's a management buyout. It sounds like the head of Quicken has a significant stake in this buyout. So, obviously he has some amount of confidence in the company to put his own money into it.

</comment><comment><USER35> There is a lot of complaint about this kind of software, and I have to agree, it's often not well done. But that shows us that the money flows in different directions, right? Maybe there is a value to having a good tax guy.

</comment><comment><USER36> My impression is Intuit worked to make sure the online pay system keep changing their protocol just to force you to upgrade to a new Quicken every 2 years. Can anyone confirm?

</comment><comment><USER37> I think the story here is that it is much better to do business in the web space where the user pays monthly, her data is stored (locked?) in the cloud and she can be costantly upsold features. Compared to the desktop space, where the user pays a one-off price, stores her data locally and in general does not update her software.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does anyone here use [http://www.gnucash.org](http://www.gnucash.org) ?

<comment><USER39> I do. A few years ago I put together a presentation on how to use it effectively for personal finance: [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CUSct3YGvpVdKI_D_jCI...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CUSct3YGvpVdKI_D_jCI8M9nFz462xQMhQxK4GSwWpE/edit?usp=sharing)

The long and short of it is that GNUCash rests upon an ancient bed of Scheme and C, and so isn't quite ready for the cloudz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> All looking pretty good for cloud accounting products like Xero.com - <USER2> desktop is dead!

<comment><USER41> >the desktop is dead

Perhaps I am already too old, but the idea of cloud application sucks and I hope the desktop never dies.

In my opinion the cloud should only be used to synchronize my data between my devices but it should never be the sole source of my programs. If I spend money on software then my main requirement is that I can install it locally and run it independent of the mother company.

<comment><USER42> Recently I replaced the kids laptops with Desktops. They use the desktop and the smartphone when not at the Desk.

Cheaper to upgrade / fix / repair / replace.

I build clouds for a living. There is no cloud. It is just someone elses computer.</comment></comment></comment>


Wireless Power Harvesting for Cell Phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/413744/wireless-power-harvesting-for-cell-phones/

<comment><USER2> Truly wireless recharging (done at a distance) is an exciting technology for which I can imagine plenty of uses.

Still, a large part of me can't help but wonder: how far off is a battery technology breakthrough that will let me, say, run my smartphone for a week? An order of magnitude leap forward in storage capacity would obviate much of the need for an over-the-air trickle of juice and would have huge value in the realm of electric cars.

<comment><USER3> Another breakthrough to consider is an order of magnitude leap back in power consumption.</comment></comment>


Getting the News — Evan Williams - <AUTHOR> http://blog.news.me/post/18439216464/getting-the-news-evan-williams

<comment><USER2> I'm not worried about the 'old news' problem he talks about, I'm more worried about the combination of groupthink and algorithms that learn what I read and serve me the same stuff. One of the joys of newspaper reading is that there's a lot of stuff in them that I don't want to read (at first), but over time I get trained to look at topics I wasn't interested in.

When recommenders are applied to news you'll get more of the stuff you like, but you're losing out because you are not seeing the stuff you didn't know that you would like.

<comment><USER3> Building a model and personalizing a news stream on a per-user basis is entirely feasible today. Even with very simple ML, you can see some very good real world results.

To avoid the problem of not being able to surface new topics because the user model has converged somewhere, you can use a bandit approach(seriously, who comes up with these names?). By that we mean that you do a bit of exploration by showing news topics drawn at random from some distribution and then adapt your model to what you learned. The naive implementation is "Every random(10,20) news items suggested by the recommender, display 1 drawn at random from the entire corpus. Adapt_Model(user_clicked)"

More info: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I'll occasionally type in the domains of other blogs, but if I find myself > doing that, it's a sign I'm not very focused and should get back to work.

This is so true (for me at least). Especially when you reach that point that you actually checked some site only an hour or so earlier and _know_ nothing new of interest with be there.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _iPhone is a biggie, as mentioned above. I don't touch my iPad much — if so, > it's mostly as an expensive Kindle. I still like the laptop/desktop > experience the most. I wish more content was designed for the big screen._

I can't believe the responsive web design trend hasn't done more to take advantage of gigantic screens. Everyone is pushing for smaller screens on mobile devices, while computer screens are way bigger than the 800-1100px width most sites are built for. Fullscreen apps on OSX are getting people used to the gigantic screen, but news in a 600px column doesn't really take advantage.

Pinterest does a good job with this, where they add columns as the browser gets bigger. Some may find it a little more cluttered, but at least it's using the space efficiently.

</comment><comment><USER6> > _One thing that I find missing is discovery of non-new content. The web is > completely oriented around new-thing-on-top. Our brains are also wired to > get a rush from novelty. But most "news" we read really doesn't matter. And > a much smaller percentage of the information I actually care about or would > find useful was produced in the last few hours than my reading patterns > reflect._

Nassim Taleb wrote about this too in _Fooled By Randomness_ , worth a read:

[http://www.curatedalpha.com/2011/nassim-taleb-minimal- exposu...](http://www.curatedalpha.com/2011/nassim-taleb-minimal-exposure-to- the-media-as-a-guiding-principle/)</comment>


Show HN: Deploy your docker-compose stack with Helm - <AUTHOR> GitHub: https://github.com/linktohack/helm-stack
Blog post: https://linktohack.com/posts/evaluate-options-to-migrate-from-swarm-to-k8s/
I think the the work is simple but idea is quite clever, for swarm hobbyists that may want to migrate to K8s (or K3s) it may be a good start.
Please excuse me for my English. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links, I should have posted the link instead:

GitHub: [https://github.com/linktohack/helm- stack](https://github.com/linktohack/helm-stack)

Blog post: [https://linktohack.com/posts/evaluate-options-to-migrate- fro...](https://linktohack.com/posts/evaluate-options-to-migrate-from-swarm- to-k8s/)</comment>


Why You Shouldn't Reveal Your Royal Wedding Guest Name - <AUTHOR> http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/04/28/why-you-shouldnt-reveal-your-royal-wedding-guest-name/

<comment><USER2> I have started deciding on stock answers for the common questions that are not true. So when it asks my first pet, I know my answer is "Toyota1776" or "1keep2on3rockin4"

(Not my real answers, obviously.)</comment>


Apply HN: Classary-Trello for Education, Agile Ed - <AUTHOR> Classary is a Kanban planning and tracking tool for Education, that doubles as a digital learning portfolio.
Schools use an assortment of different educational tools for good reasons. This product puts those tools in one platform. We have developed product similarities that include the best attributes of Trello, Schoology, Edmodo, Remind, PearsonEtextbooks, and (Yeah) even Google, and put them all together.
Designed so parents, teachers and students can make the learning process personal and engaging. We also have focused on empowering PARENT's with knowledge about what their students are learning in school by sharing their student's daily experiences.
The product is designed so that the users never need to leave the cloud-based platform. We focused on keeping it very simple to use. It has a bit of a 'Clever' feel in regards to the user's ability to add/access commonly used tools in the platform. We will amplify the power of the internet in education and make the WebApp accessible from anywhere at anytime.
http://classary.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm a high school teacher and I was wondering if this program was going to have something like a library of lesson plans that we could use? Or sample lessons plans we could look at? This would make the job of being a teacher much easier.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there will be a community of teachers sharing their lesson plans by offering them free to others. The plans will be hosted in our software. A free lessonplan directory of sorts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I see that you reference Remind in your pitch, what similarities to Remind 101 does your product have. How are you planning on using Remind?

<comment><AUTHOR> The code base has similarities to Remind 101. Our goal is to get parents/guardians involved in their student's education. Bring the parents back in the loop about assignment due dates and elements important to the success of their students. We can also share important documents with the parents using the paperless system. The function will also send an sms remind to the student as well to insure that due dates are met.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Curious if there is research regarding the use of kanban planning in classrooms under a general curriculum.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not aware of any formal research. There is a school district on the Indian reservation in Arizona that is having huge success with Kanban planning for the actual curriculum workflow. Also, there are numerous examples in Europe that use Kanban boards in the old bulletin board and sticky note method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What aspects of trello are is classary using? Or rather, what does classary do that trello doesn't?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have designed a complete solution that is designed in Meteor with Agile collaboration at its core. Focusing on the unique needs of schools, teachers and students.

This product also creates a digital learning portfolio with out any additional steps. It is easily shared with anyone, such as college of interest or a future employer..

Classary also seperates the teachers/students classes or periods to match the way it is done at their school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is the card view on your website the actual assignment for the student? What if students do not have access to a computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> The card is the actual assignment. We understand that not all students have a computer. However, we are finding that most have a smartphone. The assignments and digital portfolio are easily managed via the mobile app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is the product free for teachers and students to use? How will it make our job as a teacher easier? I like the linear feel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently, our business model is represented by a Freemium approach to help teachers gain access to our product.

Kanban organization will make the teachers job easier. The teachers lesson plan in the app is the students workflow and assignments. No additional steps needed. I realized that there were no products or tools available that make it easy for teachers.

Trello,and Hansoft have proven that kanban orginization is extremely effective in the business world. I feel that it will be very beneficial for teachers as well. I am a teacher and it works better than any product that I have found.</comment></comment>


Google is creating its own CPUs - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/14/google-said-to-be-preparing-its-own-chips-for-use-in-pixel-phones-and-chromebooks/ <comment><USER2> Intel: This is getting out of hand...now there are two of them.</comment>


Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers - <AUTHOR> https://pocketsquare.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I recently launched Pocketsquare and was hoping to get some feedback from the people who might be the target users.

Pocketsquare lets you create a simple portfolio to showcase your skills (language, frameworks, etc), code snippets, projects you've worked on and optionally your work and education background.

My questions are: Is this something you need/want? Would you use this? Why or why not?

I created Pocketsquare to give devs a better way to showcase their work. A front-end dev myself, I've maintained my own custom portfolio site for a few years and figured it made sense to abstract the layout and concept out to allow other devs to use it. For me, my public Github page isn't a great representation of the stuff I like to work on, and LinkedIn isn't really geared towards devs so it's not ideal either. So I made Pocketsquare to focus on the stuff that I thought devs would want to show: code snippets, projects and skills badges.

Thanks for checking it out and I appreciate any feedback you guys have.

</comment><comment><USER2> This looks good. Please email us at email@example.com if you would like us to send a repost invite. This is an experiment we've been running to give good submissions a second chance.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is great, Kinda like the dribbble for developers.</comment>


Nested, the online estate agent that makes sellers 'chain-free', raises £120M - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/11/chain-free-like-a-bird/ <comment><USER2> In case you'd never heard of the real-estate chain before either: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_(real_estate)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_\(real_estate\))</comment>


Google Percolator - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/24/google_percolator/

<comment><USER2> Can somebody post the PDF? You need to be registered at conference:

[http://www.usenix.org/events/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Peng.pd...](http://www.usenix.org/events/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Peng.pdf)</comment>