Why I do my resume in LaTeX - <AUTHOR> http://www.toofishes.net/blog/why-i-do-my-resume-latex/ <comment><USER2> If you're ever planning on sending your CV to a recruiter, don't use LaTeX. Recruiters (reputation for being upgraded estate agents and scum of the earth aside) will want to remove any contact details from your CV to ensure that their client doesn't attempt to contact you except through them. This is why they'll push for word document versions.

You might think, "Oh, well I'll just find a recruiter that won't do this" but depending on your chosen profession this may be harder than you think.

You might think, "Ok, well I'll just create a PDF version without contact details on it" but that's not enough, because some recruiters actually don't put people forward because they sent PDFs, while telling them that they're putting them forward - the reason being that you're at the back of the queue not because of ability but because you're 'difficult' or they're not able to stick the recruiters logo on or easily paste into their template.

Now if none of this is an issue for you, feel free to go ahead and submit a latex generated pdf. Sadly, Word is the lingua franca of recruitment. I've had two guys interview with me independently of a recruiter for positions after said recruiter told them they'd put them forward when they didn't - in both cases the used a Latex CV.

Finally, formatting is relevant only to a point - if you've got experience in your field then that trumps any formatting. I've hired guys who use comic sans in their CV because they were bloody brilliant, not because they were funny.

<comment><USER3> OK, here's a question: why do companies use recruitment consultants? I've never heard a nice word said about them, certainly not in the tech/IT field. Not by people who work for companies hiring, not by jobs applicants. What value do they add, other than going through a big pile of CVs/resumes and turning it into a smaller pile of CVs/resumes (and, by the sounds of things, likely tossing out a whole load of excellent candidates in many cases)?

<comment><USER2> A recruiter would be better positioned to add value than I. I've dealt with recruiters on an employer and employee basis and it generally varies massively as to what you get. Out of all the recruiters I've known, there's only one that I have a long term relationship and would consider a friend. That's not a positive note for an industry, given that I've led recruitment in about 4 different jobs across two industries.

If you imagine a pre-Internet world, recruiters would provide employers value by having a large potential labour pool, searching that pool for 'talent', then (allegedly) doing some sort of screening so that HR gets CVs that are relevant to the post.

In the modern age, much of this could be bypassed but some companies (most notably larger companies) have exclusive contracts with large recruiters, meaning that if you want to work there you have to go through a specific recruiter.

Madness, I know, and an industry ripe for disruption but full of people that would fight tooth and nail against it (and not just the recruiters but the employers in some cases).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> LaTeX needs a modern successor.

Yes, the output looks \bf{gorgeous}. But the underlying toolchain and language are past their expiration date. By far.

Tasks as simple as "let's add an image here" or "let's move this to the left a little" frequently turn into hour-long journeys deep down into the guts of a 30 year old codebase.

There is no reason why a modern tool couldn't use the same algorithms to create equally beautiful output. We're not writing raw postscript to talk to our printers anymore either.

\end{rant}

<comment><USER5> Yes! Here's what I want in a modern successor to LaTeX:

\- Default output is PDF (DVI is a port on my computer :) )

\- Optional DOC/DOCX output (even if it supports just a subset of the program's capabilities)

\- Bibliography management built-in (no separate ancient BibTeX)

\- Command-line searching and importing from Pubmed / Google Scholar / etc. built-in

\- Bibliography styles can be created/edited by normal humans

\- Syntax closer to Markdown or reStructuredText, to enhance readability of source file (and maybe shrink the learning curve)

\- Program is smaller than 1.6 GB (the size of the default MacTeX distro).

I've played with writing something like this for a while (in Python). The hardest part for me has been dealing with bibliography data - there's always one more weird Pubmed record that breaks my XML parser. Makes me really appreciate Knuth/Lamport/Patashnik and their successors.

<comment><USER6> Some answers: \- Default output to PDF has been there for years.

\- The base .tex syntax will probably never change, but there is no reason why some tool/plugin/luatex extension couldn't read something else and convert as necessary. I used Deplate and Pandoc for a while.

\- AFAIK ConTeXt has some integrated replacement for bibtex

I don't think we need a successor to LaTeX. The base is solid and ready to be built on, especially now with a sane programming language in the core of LuaTeX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice to see that others do it too! The real problem I have seen with resumes in PDF format is that most companies (actually mostly agencies) tend to ask for .doc files. In fact a lot of their online application process requires .doc files.

I have a very simple solution - avoid applying there! Often people who tend to write their resumes in LaTeX would find most of these jobs less than acceptable anyways.

When exceptions are required I extract a text version of the resume latex2 rtf/txt/html (or combination) tend to work ok. The rtf and text can easily be saved as .doc. Of course thing are never going to be as pretty as the PDF (but then again these job applications are rarely priorities)

Here is a sample derived from my resume: <http://ranchev.net/latex>

<comment><AUTHOR> _"...a lot of their online application process requires .doc files.

I have a very simple solution - avoid applying there!"_

Amen to that.

If more people voted with their feet when companies pull this sort of crap, the world would be much better place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use ASCII. Everyone can read it, I can paste it into emails, and I waste no time fiddling around with formatting on a document that will just be scanned for a few keywords and discarded.

<comment><USER9> When I was applying at many of the big engineering firms last year, several of them wanted a copy pasted, text only version of my resume. Maintaining a copy of the resume in good plaintext form is always a bonus. Well worth the slight bother when updating.

<comment><USER10> Another advantage to keeping a plaintext copy is that it can be quickly formatted however an employer may require it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I'd like to know is why not just do up the resumé in HTML and style with CSS? I'm not a web designer by any means, but getting a simple style up and running is no big stretch (especially if you're capable of LaTeX markup).

To be fair, I still don't have a resumé in HTML (I'd use Markdown), but I haven't needed to update mine in a while. Next time I do, I'm going HTML with a print stylesheet.

<comment><USER12> 1) HTML pages are not inherently printer-friendly

2) LaTeX is a text formatting language. It can be argued HTML is (fundamentally) also a text formatting language, but if you submit a resume to me _styled_ with HTML and CSS using colors and graphics and drop shadows, I will personally _burn_ your resume, damn the consequences.

<comment><USER11> You're right, HTML itself isn't printer friendly, but it's really only a semantic document. It's up to you to style it with a print stylesheet.

And of course, I wouldn't use CSS to colour everything and add gradients and all that junk. The goal is simply to create a nice layout in a format that doesn't depend on MS Word or LaTeX (which, nice though it may be, is alien to most and also not as commonly installed as a web browser).

And naturally, I'd print-to-PDF before sending off to a recruiter. Mac OS X Print-To-PDF is really quite lovely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Before my most recent job search (~4 mo. ago) I finally invested the time and effort to break free of Word docs and switch to LaTeX.

Honestly, I spent about a week relearning the basic syntax (it's been years) and learning how to do much more advanced formatting than I had done before.

The effort I put in was worth _every_ single minute. I started with a fairly advanced template and tweaked the hell out of it until I was satisfied with the end result. I now have a resume that is:

1) version controlled in git as text/code (don't underestimate how cool this is)

2) very simple to update or add sections to without worrying about breaking Word's formatting

3) looks stunning, imho

4) got me callbacks from nearly every place I applied to. I feel like the eye- catching resume was a huge part of this

You write code all day long.. formatting a document with it just makes so much more sense once you make the initial time investment.

If a recruiter or job site can't handle the PDF, I don't want to work with them anyway.

</comment><comment><USER14> I do it because: It looks baller, I get positive comments on it in my interviews every time, and it's easier than using Word. Why typeset when computers can for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've never fretted over and spent so much time on minutia of typesetting as I have with LaTeX.

I suppose it's fine if you're satisfied with some default look that someone else has come up with for your document. But for me that's never good enough.

I want my documents to look a certain way, and it's virtually never the case that any LaTeX class or document style looks good enough with the default settings. So I wind up doing endless tweaking until finally it looks the way I want it to.

Of course, by then it does look brilliant. And the time spent is well worth it. But you do have to put in the time to get these kinds of results, if the default settings don't suit you.

<comment><USER14> See the section _"Format once, change the content a lot"_ in the article. ( _particularly_ important with resumes) If that's not true in your case, you're almost by definition using LaTeX incorrectly.

<comment><AUTHOR> _"Format once, change the content a lot"_

That assumes a number of things:

First, it assumes that at some point you'll settle on some perfect formatting for all time. That's really unlikely (especially for me).

Second, it assumes that the same resume format is appropriate for each prospective employer you'll be sending your resume to. There are many who feel you should tailor your resume to the employer you're sending it to. That could certainly include tailoring the format, depending on how different the jobs you're applying for are. A resume for a web design job might look very different from one for a programming job. And many people do both.

Third, it assumes your LaTeX skills will never improve and you'll never discover new styles or fonts or tricks you'll want to apply to your resume to make it better in the future. Things you didn't know at the time you first wrote it.

All these are potentially incorrect assumptions. There are some great reasons to keep tinkering with the formatting, even in LaTeX.

That said, I never implied in my original post that the reason that I spent a lot of time futzing with the formatting in LaTeX was because I was re- formatting stuff I'd already formatted to my satisfaction once. No. In fact, it took a long time to format it in the first place.

Yes, it's true that maybe this will save me time and grief in the long run (if I can let sleeping dogs lie, and not try to improve the formatting once I've settled on one I like), but maybe not.

Anyway, I'm not trying to convince anyone to ditch LaTeX and switch to Word. I love LaTeX. And I hate it. It's a love/hate thing. There are some really great things about it. It can make your documents look marvelous, and you can do some amazing things with it.

But it can also be very frustrating (especially if you want to do stuff that's non-standard, and varies too far from the defaults that the (often broken) document classes had in mind when they were written).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have to admit, when I saw this I went looking for resume examples in LaTeX and I was impressed. I'm downloading Lyx right now(Linux high-level LaTeX front-end) and intend to redo my resume...and I'm not even looking for work! Its that appealing.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a great fan of latex, I would LOVE to use it to format my CV. But here in Britain there are far too many HR departments and agencies who will look at your pdf and say "I'm sorry, could you send the original Word doc?"

Not that recruiters are always the best way to get a job, but it would be silly to write them out of my searches

<comment><USER17> I've had that before. I sent them the latex source and they've been able to handle the rest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In the same idea, there are the nice looking resume template from Dario Taraborelli: <http://nitens.org/taraborelli/cvtex> (Typesetting your academic CV in LaTeX).

If you want your CV _not to be seen in the crowd_ : the Europass CV LaTeX template [http://www.ctan.org/tex- archive/help/Catalogue/entries/europ...](http://www.ctan.org/tex- archive/help/Catalogue/entries/europecv.html) ....

</comment><comment><USER19> I just use Word. It's easy, I know it already, and it looks nice: <http://readlt.com/r.png>. Template if anyone's interested: <http://readlt.com/resume-template.doc>

<comment><USER20> It looks decent, I agree, but from typographic point of view, it looks lower visual quality than LaTeX-produced text. Look at how the letters seem to be unevenly aligned to the line, and the spacing between them is also not quite right. See for example [something cool] in your screenshot. The first bracket is miles away from the s, the closing bracket is stuck to the l.

EDIT: another issue further down: compare Sed and Vestibulum. In the latter the e looks way too far from the initial letter. More careful kerning would push the e a bit under V's wings.

I realize it's not the most important thing in the world, but still :) Anyway, I don't claim to be an expert in typography at all, that's why I also use LaTeX for my CV:

<http://www.lkozma.net/cv_kl.pdf>

<comment><USER21> No wonder you became a computer scientist -- with that name! ;-)

<comment><USER20> Not sure I get the joke, do you know someone famous with the same name or does it just sound weird to you? :)

<comment><USER21> The first Hungarian digital computer was designed in 1957 by someone with the same name, if I'm not mistaken.

<comment><USER20> Ah, yes, you are right :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> He posted a follow up with a LaTeX resume template here: <http://www.toofishes.net/blog/latex-resume-follow-up/>

I must confess that I don't understand it well but it has inspired me to actually try LaTeX for the first time.

(EDIT - fixed dumb typo. Thanks, RiderOfGiraffes)

<comment><USER22> Er, s/temple/template/ ??

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If his résumé is so good, why isn't it available on his web site?

"Contact me by email and let me know a good reason you'd like to see it and I'll be happy to send a copy along to you."

Sure, I will try to convince you that I want to see your résumé because your skills look like a good match for a position I'm trying to fill. Except I don't know your skills because... I don't have access to your résumé.

Talk about some ego.

<comment><USER24> He is perhaps trying to avoid aggressive recruiters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I do it because I can add my papers to a global bib file and then just \cite them easily

</comment><comment><USER26> The last job I applied to, I sent a plain text resume and they were impressed. Since then I've just kept my LinkedIn profile up to date and get a PDF from that to send out (believe it or not, I need to send a resume to HR if I want to change departments within the company).

</comment><comment><USER27> Personally, I find a latex resume comes across as pretentious if it's your only latex publication, which is usually easy to determine from its contents.

<comment><USER28> I don't think that word means what you think it means. I might consider it pretentious if the resume was written with a dip pen on parchment embossed with the family crest.

Taking a simple task like writing a document in Word and using it as an excuse to learn a text formatting language sounds perfectly reasonable for a hacker.

<comment><USER27> I double checked.

        pretentious, adj.  Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed

Learning latex because you're curious is one thing. Using latex on your resume solely to give the impression you know latex would qualify as "affecting greater talent than is actually possessed".

<comment><USER29> I don't think that many people use LaTeX on their resume as a way to look impressive just because they know LaTeX. I think that many people use it because they find that it easier to control the layout of their document than in something like MS Word or {Libre,Open}Office Writer. I spent a number of years with a MS Word resume filled with tables to space things out correctly. I used to dread needing to make changes to it because of how fragile the setup was. On the other hand, I find it relatively easy to make changes to my resume now that I have it in LaTeX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't understand the appeal. Every single LaTeX-based CV looks exactly the same. The same mediocre serif fonts, the same structure, the same basic layout in every way. I guess there is something to be said for the 'classic' way of doing things -- i'm not saying it's bad per se -- but i certainly don't find it novel or particularly 'gorgeous'.

As far as the ease of use and the typography functions, i find Pages (from the iWork suite) to be more than adequate. The layout that he did would have taken me only moments to re-create in Pages, and although LaTeX has some advanced typography features that Pages and OS X don't, the latter seems sufficient to me for just about anyone's CV.

</comment><comment><USER23> This guy needs to spend a few more years in this industry, he will realize that as long as your résumé doesn't contain typos, nobody cares what it looks like. Hell, I even review résumés that are text files. The faster I can access it and read the important stuff, the happier I am. I couldn't care less if it's using TeX, LaTeX, Word, PDF or HTML, and I will probably even ding you if you brag because you used LaTeX to write it, because you're using tools that are twenty years old.

</comment><comment><USER31> There is a very nice LaTeX class than can be used to make beautiful resume's: [http://www.ctan.org/tex- archive/macros/latex/contrib/modernc...](http://www.ctan.org/tex- archive/macros/latex/contrib/moderncv/)

See sample resume's here: <http://www.math.uic.edu/~hurder/math589/vita.html>

</comment><comment> e-dard Is it weird that I was very surprised that anybody writes anything important in anything _other_ than LaTeX??

</comment><comment><USER32> As this is turning into a "What do you use?" thread: I use Publisher. I can precisely position everything on my resume, align it to a grid, etc. And if an employer only accepts doc files, it's trivial to copy-paste the file contents to Word and reposition them correctly.

</comment><comment><USER33> I use org-mode in Emacs: it's the fastest and most convenient way of editing a document's structure I've found so far, and I find myself doing that a lot with my resume. Then I export to LaTeX, HTML, or plain text.

<comment><USER34> How does the org -> latex -> pdf look in the end? Could you post it?

<comment><USER33> It contains my home address, mobile number and so on, so I'd rather not post it.

But it looks like a plain article class LaTeX document, except that I changed the margins and the font (Palatino instead of Times). If you want a more sophisticated layout you can customize the LaTeX-specific options; they'll be ignored when you export to other formats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So I'm on Linux - specifically Debian. Where do I start with LaTeX? Do I have to use a specially created editor such as Lyx?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, you don't need any special editor. In fact, I wouldn't recommend using one, as all the special editors are really just a crutch. It's much better to learn how to program the underlying LaTeX itself, rather than rely on some high-level tool to do it for you. (just my opinion here)

There are an absolute glut of LaTeX tutorials out there to get you started. Here's one:

<http://www.andy-roberts.net/misc/latex/index.html>

But there are many, many others. Some are particularly good for people in certain specialties. For instance, here's an excellent LaTeX resource for logicians:

[http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/teaching_staff/Smith/logicmatters/...](http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/teaching_staff/Smith/logicmatters/l4llogiciansnew.html)

<comment><USER36> Ha. I remember Smith being ridiculously adamant about everybody using LaTeX for their essays and logic stuff...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I just re-did my resume using indeed.com's resume uploader. It gives you a nice clean formatted resume that you can share publicly, export to .pdf, or email. I don't really see a point in using latex, with these new tools available.

I think linkedin has a resume upload and maybe branchout does as well if you are more of the social networking type.

</comment><comment><USER38> If anyone is interested been doing this for ages.

You can get the template by git clone git://github.com/dscape/NunoJobResume.git

</comment><comment><USER39> I have a latex resume and I run into a few problems. Some companies/agencies only accept .doc formats. The latex2rtf or latex2txt is also error-prone. But, my resume looks awesome and it's easy to move things around/add things without any formatting. I haven't touched formatting in 5 years or so.

<comment><USER40> I used a latex class to format one of my papers. At the final date of submission I found out they except only .doc format. I am still looking desperately for a latex2doc converter. Anyone here knows about this?

<comment><AUTHOR> You could try asking on #latex on freenode. But, from what I remember, there aren't any. Or at least not any that do a passable job.

One sort of hackish thing you could try is simply printing out your resume and scanning it in. Then import the scanned pages as images directly in to the Word document.

It will technically be in Word format, and may even look nice when printed (assuming you've scanned your printouts in at a high enough resolution). Though, of course, the text won't be editable.

<comment><USER41> Under the assumption that the paper in question is being published in a journal, that might be a bad idea. In my experience, journals will typically take your content and then reformat it themselves to fit in whatever their constraints are (page size, number of columns, possibly starting in the middle of a page, etc, etc). For journals that take LaTeX submissions, they will generally just apply their house style file. For journals that take Word submissions, they will generally just apply their house Word style. For journals that accept either one... see above. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen You can use <http://www.scribtex.com> to design latex documents, too.

</comment><comment><USER42> I use jobspice.com and call it a day.</comment>


Ask HN: Aren't Ember and Angular a "wrong" kind of framework, similar to J2EE? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking at the new wave of Javascript frameworks (Backbone, Ember, Angular) and can't shake the feeling they are much more similar in style to J2EE than to more saner Rails or Django. They take you out of control of your code - <USER2> call you and you must fit their world view. They are "everything" and "nothing" at the same time - they offer you "everything" to build a web app, but at the same time it's hard to say what concrete functionality they really offer. There is little "meat" inside their code: it's just an abstract model that you MUST work with.
Compare it to Django where in view functions you can do whatever you want - <USER3> are in control of what's happening, and functionalities you need are available as "library style" calls. Can't Javascript frameworks work like that?
I'm asking the question because these frameworks receive much praise nowadays with little to no critique, so maybe my all-or-nothing-framework hate (I began career as J2EE programmer) is inappropriate here. <comment><USER4> It's really hard to answer this question when Backbone is lumped together with Angular and Ember. What Backbone offers is a light layer of structure over your code. Yes, it doesn't give you much, but I believe its sole purpose is to avoid the jQuery spaghetti that forms once you start writing more than 100-200 lines of JavaScript. Backbone doesn't give you many opinions, but I personally agree with you in that Backbone gives you a few opinions (not many), but not enough meat to justify those few opinions. It's basically a guideline as to how to structure different components of your app and how to communicate and share data between components. That being said, as far as I'm aware, you can more or less do anything you want to the DOM in Backbone Views. And Backbone certainly does offer some features: routing, an event system, and a data syncing system.

Backbone is probably several times less restrictive and controlling than something like, say, Ember or Angular. I've only used Angular, so let me comment on that. I think Angular definitely offers some powerful features that justify its structure. Two-way data binding, a system for reusable components (directives), a structure for organizing animations, a system for managing data from RESTful APIs, a full testing scaffold/system, etc. _It 's not uncommon for jQuery and even Backbone apps that are rewritten in Angular to cut their codebase >2x._

I've heard that Ember is even more restrictive/opinionated than Angular, and perhaps it is more powerful as a result - I don't know. I've been satisfied with Angular.

That being said, there are tradeoffs for using frameworks. For example, you should only do DOM manipulation inside Angular directives. Honestly I think this is a positive, due to various powerful structural features of directives (reusability, modularity, customizability), but for some this can be a negative.

Moreover, because these frameworks are just contained in JavaScript files, you can selectively apply these frameworks, where necessary, to different parts of your web sites.

Ultimately, I think frameworks like Angular or Ember _are_ as restrictive _and_ as powerful as frameworks like Rails and Django. Backbone would be like Flask or Sinatra.

<comment><AUTHOR> > What Backbone offers is a light layer of structure over your code.

It is strange to me implement a design pattern as concrete code. It's like implementing MVC pattern as "Model" "View" and "Controller" classes and forcing everyone using MVC to use your code package. Design patterns are knowledge and are not in 1:1 relation with code.

<comment><USER5> I kind of think of backbone.js as a set of patterns to write your code in, but then someone went in and abstracted the common pieces out so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

A simple example is the Backbone Events module. Sure, you could wire up your own event handling code, but why would you want to? Using a common library like backbone means that all of the bugs are fixed in a common place and you don't have to worry about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't forget to have a look at HTML5 Web Components e.g. Dart's Web UI. [http://www.dartlang.org/articles/web- ui/](http://www.dartlang.org/articles/web-ui/)

I'd say that, being simply linked HTML5, CSS and JS, is about as lightweight a view-controller system one can build. It's like a Rails/Django where you can skip the ERB, because it's all HTML. Personally, I can't wait for it to catch on (and get refined with further implementations and bug fixes, particularly for server-side, progressive enhancement or non-JS approaches).

For pure JS, have a look at Polymer. [http://www.polymer- project.org/](http://www.polymer-project.org/) (Dart's looking at using most of this itself in future, perhaps AngularJS 2 and Ember will follow...)

<comment><USER7> hah, yeah I agree with lstamour, that's what I wanted to link too. WebComponents are THE HIT! I translated many W3C specs into German some months ago for a friend's thesis and these people literally know the future of the web.

Comparing today to what is possible with WeComponents and CORS and WebRTC is like comparing the Stone Age with 2045. Ok enough enthusiasm, now let's all get back to work again.

<comment><USER6> Good news. Polymer.dart continues the Polymer web components goodness, more closely following the standard: [https://groups.google.com/a/dartlang.org/forum/#!topic/web-u...](https://groups.google.com/a/dartlang.org/forum/#!topic/web- ui/6laXXxRtA7k)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> (Slightly related..) I like AngularJS, but I very strongly disagree with the idea of the one page app. I don't know what else to say. It just seems wrong. Javascript was meant to make the page more dynamic and responsive, not take over the entire experience and (possibly) slow everything down. It's supposed to be a layer, not everything.

</comment><comment><USER9> These days it's all about modularizing and separating concerns.

Angular let's you create a front-end completely decoupled from a backend and backend agnostic.

Angular is also in fact completely agnostic about your model. You can plug in any kind of model as long as you can parse it in javascript.

With this kind of architecture, it's a lot easier to do things like re-use a backend for multiple front ends, for example a mobile-site and a desktop site and a native iOS app and a blackberry app. It's also easier to maintain and change each individual piece.

JS frameworks are only a front-end though, you also need to adapt your backend into a modern API style, rather than a html spitter-outter.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Angular is also in fact completely agnostic about your model. You can plug > in any kind of model as long as you can parse it in javascript.

Why Angular has to know my model? I can make it decoupled from other parts of my code by using standard programming techniques available for many years (modularity, layers etc.).

Maybe the problem is that Angular actually implements design patterns as code, and it should be just knowledge?

<comment><USER6> It might be easier to conceptually think of these view-binding models as "View Models" or presenters. A longer article I plan to read on the subject is [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/magazine/hh580734.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/magazine/hh580734.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> J2EE was very verbose - both Ember and Angular make it a key priority to make it quick and easy to do very powerful things.

However, I agree with some of your premise. Both Angular and Ember have very opinionated and restrictive world-views. That's what allows them to create an environment where you can do great things quickly. But it also makes it harder to create things that don't fit into that world-view.

</comment><comment><USER11> Frameworks help you build a system on top of the web. Rails and Django are systems underneath the web.

Building up or building down, none of these technologies are inherently web themselves, they are their own self-establishing bias.

Look at Polymer or Custom Elements if you are interested in building web technologies that are themselves truly of the web.

<comment><USER6> And now, Polymer.dart ;-) [https://groups.google.com/a/dartlang.org/forum/#!topic/web-u...](https://groups.google.com/a/dartlang.org/forum/#!topic/web- ui/6laXXxRtA7k)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Comparing JS libraries with web server frameworks is pretty apples-to-oranges, first of all. But MVC frameworks pretty much have to be "everything". Can you use a desktop UI library without going with it completely?

<comment><USER13> Further, who has ever advocated for building desktop apps _without_ a framework? The comparison of client-side frameworks to server-side frameworks is the wrong comparison. If I'm going to build a sufficiently complex Mac app I'm going to use Cocoa, no question. If I just need to automate something and don't necessarily need a UI, I may look at AppleScript or even a simple shell script.

This is more of an apt comparison for web front ends. The choice of Backbone (or, in my case something that provides a little more value like Flight) vs. Ember/Angular is like choosing to build a CLI app vs. a full-on desktop app.

There are perfectly valid reasons for choosing either and in the right context, the right tool is worth its weight in gold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think Angular is pretty declarative and doesn't do any "magic" unless you ask it to.

Can't say the same about Ember though.</comment>


SourceForge Down from DDoS Event - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sfnet_ops/status/1188311653726580736 <comment><USER2> Shrug? I can't remember the last time I needed source forge. What is there and why is it important to preserve that business model? I'm genuinely curious.</comment>


Study Says Most IT Guys Are Ignorant - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/it-comptia-study/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=twitterclickthru <comment><USER2> Actually, it doesn't. It says "most IT guys are not capable of all the tasks that the higher-ups would like them to perform." - in other words, could the higher-ups possibly wish that IT would support anything from fax machines to cloud to hardware troubleshooting to all mobile platforms to e-mail to app programming to POTS to website design; after all, "it's all computers, right?" (not uncommon AFAIK). Well, good luck trying to hunt _all_ those rabbits; of _course_ there will always be some skillset lacking.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best personal websites of people in tech? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> VP and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services and his personal blog about boats [https://mvdirona.com/](https://mvdirona.com/) (also some stuff about tech on [https://perspectives.mvdirona.com/](https://perspectives.mvdirona.com/))</comment>


In Its First Funding in 14 Years, 1Password Raises $200M Series A - <AUTHOR> https://news.crunchbase.com/news/in-its-first-funding-in-14-years-1password-raises-200m-series-a-led-by-accel/ <comment><USER3> This isn't really a typical Venture funding, and is definitely not a "Series A". Traditionally, at this point, 1Password would probably have just gone Public, without any need for venture funding. But, why go to the hassle of doing that when you can get most of the same benefits ($$$) without any of the pain (public reporting, SOX, etc...).

The VCs at this point would be happy with a 3-4x return, because the risk is minimal - companies at this level of maturity, profitability, market dominance, and growth are highly unlikely to fail. So, if they picked up (for arguments sake) 25% of the company, giving it pre-money valuation of $800mm, all they really need to do over the next 3-4 years is build an $3.2B company, which, given 1Password's dominance/quality of product - should be relatively straightforward.

Their killer organic entry is: "Everyone" is already using them for personal password management, which means cost of training/installation/use is trivial to add the Enterprise element.

As a personal user, I consider 1Password the GitHub of password management - sure, there are lots of GitHub competitors, and you can roll your own - but, when there is one product that has completely nailed it - why bother going with anyone else.

<comment><USER4> If you asked me about 1password a few years ago, I would agree with you. Ever since they went to the cloud, I stopped using and recommending them to friends and family.

I now use Keypss, which is free and doesn't require the cloud.

The only reason they went to the cloud is because most people were buying one copy and sharing it with multiple people. It's a way for them to make more money, which is fine, but I really don't think a cloud-based password solution is necessary.

Edit: The 1password employees must be down voting me. It's ridiculous that I get down voted for a specific opinion about the topic.

<comment><USER5> > Ever since they went to the cloud, I stopped using and recommending them to > friends and family.

The _whole point_ of using a password manager is that the passwords I create and use on my {desktop, laptop, work machine, phone} are immediately and seamlessly available to me on all of the other platforms.

As far as I know it is Cloud integration which enables this absolutely necessary and table-stakes functionality. Is that not true? Does e.g. Keepass provide this essential functionality without a Cloud integration of some kind?

<comment><USER6> 1password had (maybe still has?) integrations with services like Dropbox where your vault would be stored on a 3rd party service like Dropbox to achieve the cross-device syncing your describing.

IMO this was the more secure implementation (assuming 1password was only storing fully encrypted files on your 3rd party cloud preference) - even if someone broke in your Dropbox, they can't decrypt your passwords without your master pass.

An end-to-end cloud solution provided natively by 1pass is much more user friendly and easier, but requires putting an order of magnitude more trust in 1password's security architecture (which of course is closed source).

<comment><USER7> The fundamentals are still the same, everything is encrypted with your master password before being sent to 1Password's cloud. So even if someone infiltrates 1Password's storage, all they get is encrypted files, same with Dropbox.

<comment><USER6> If that's true, than the point I made about better security with Dropbox is moot.

As an end user, it's abundantly clear that all encryption/decryption is done locally when using the Dropbox integration since you can see the files directly in your Dropbox. I guess I didn't make the same assumption about the 1pass cloud service for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1Password needs to rename their service. I have told non-technical people "oh you should really use 1Password", have have them respond "Oh I do!", only to later find out they meant they use "one password" for every service, the exact opposite of the right thing to do! It is seriously some "Who's on First?"-level bullshit that leads me to have to be incredibly meticulous and careful when recommending their product.

Imagine naming your product "'password'-as-your-password" then telling people "Oh you should really try using 'password'-as-your-password!".

<comment><USER9> Great point that I hadn't thought of, but is so true! It communicates ok in text, but verbally not well at all.

Maybe they can rebrand to "123456"

<comment><USER10> They should call it hunter2 of course.

<comment> caleb-allen How would you pronounce that? "star star star, star star star star"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Am I the only one who considers this a good thing?

I recently started using 1Password, and I love it. I finally jumped in because a colleague gave it glowing praise _and_ my company gave us corporate accounts. After using it for a week through my company account, I created a separate personal account for myself. I happily pay a monthly subscription because it is a service I benefit from daily. It also lets me neatly manage personal and company accounts easily, from the same interface, while still keeping the vaults separate.

I see this as a good thing because _someone_ will become the password manager for large companies, and that someone will likely become _the_ password manager. I'm glad to see it's likely to become a service that I think is a good one.

I understand people are worried that the personal use will suffer, but I don't see how. (I understand _why_ people say that - less emphasis on a smaller market - but I don't see _how_ since the corporate offering is basically the same thing as the personal one, to an individual user.)

<comment><USER12> > Am I the only one who considers this a good thing?

This company over the years has, multiple times, basically ripped the rug out from under its users (moving to online vaults, hiding native app, switching from a single fee to monthly charge) so I really don't see it as a positive.

From comments in here it seems like they'll be focusing on Enterprise. That just leads me to assume they'll listen to consumer feedback even less.

<comment><USER13> Aren't all your examples things that happened at the same time or basically because of one shift? The switch to being a SaaS? So that's just one time really. The events may be spread out a bit, but it's really just one event to me.

<comment><USER14> You're correct that these changes all happened contiguously. The "multiple times" argument isn't very accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been a customer for 10 years (coincidentally, I checked email and I downloaded it from the iOS app store 10 years today) and very happy. The two things I'd love for them to fix are:

1/ Make the Windows version feel more like the macOS one. I switch between the two OS's all the time and it always feels jarring to open the Windows one after using the other.

2/ Add an option to cache everything locally. My phone has plenty of storage and there have been a few times where I have been with cell service or wifi and unable to pull down a document or credential I have stored there.

Mostly though I love it and can't imagine what life must have been like before password managers.

<comment><USER16> Personally I like that macOS and Windows apps are different. Those are two different platforms, with their own design paradigms, human interface guidelines, etc. They should have different versions, tailored specifically for the OS they're running on. I don't like apps, usually Electron- or something like that-based, that are exactly the same on all platforms, because they feel out of place on all of them, IMHO.

<comment><USER17> Thats fine and all but there's some things the windows app just doesn't do or do well at all compared to mac. Searching is one of them, along with being able to use 1pass x with the desktop app for auth.

I'm just amazed that they have so many employees yet their window and browser apps are still really lacking.

Side nitpick: it's annoying that they're moving to 1Password X. I really don't want to run the desktop app AND an independent version in my browser. It's not as bad on mac since it can communicate with the desktop app to unlock, but on windows... ugh.

<comment><USER18> I use the desktop app and browser companion extension on both Mac and Windows. AFAIK, it's not going anywhere, even though they are promoting 1PasswordX pretty heavily.

<comment><USER17> I know they're keeping it around but when you ask for a feature/bug report they push over to 1pass x, pretty defensively too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a long-time user of 1Password, this is worrying. I hope this turns out well, but I'm not optimistic.

<comment><USER20> You could try Bitwarden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like I've spent an absolute fortune on 1password over the last decade. I'm pretty sure it was, what, $70 when I got it 6+ years ago? Now I'm paying monthly (2.99 or 4.99/mo x .. 3-5 years?) which is pretty ironic considering a lot of us initially left LastPass to go to 1pass because it was 100% offline (I'm aware you can do local vaults still). At least the QOL updates have been coming faster lately, especially with Android.

Anyway, very curious what this means. I'm sure there's a ton of features I've not thought about in years it could use (like LastPass's IP/region blocks) but 1password has never felt like it was a fast moving feature company. Maybe this will get us that.

<comment><USER21> Very frustratingly, there's no Linux client and they recommend 1PasswordX for Linux users, which doesn't allow offline vaults, pretty sure it _requires_ 1Password's online service.

<comment><USER22> It also does not allow you to export, so unless you're willing/can use the osx/windows version, you won't be able to migrate away from it. I personally solved this by writing a short bash script that uses the 1password cli client to dump the json of everything for my backups.

<comment><USER23> What is the draw to pay a subscription for a product that you have to write scripts to use, when there are free/open-source alternatives that offer a full client (like KeepassXC)?

<comment><USER22> I pay for 1Password to have the sync to work between Android, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Windows and macOS which is the systems I usually use. KeepassXC and alternatives mention nothing about syncing passwords or tells users to self- host their syncing. I'd rather pay a company to do that for me, at least because they will probably be able to do and maintain that setup better than me.

Although, it does carry the trade off of me being reliant on a third-party for my password-sync and that I have to pay. Currently it's worth it for me.

<comment><USER23> Bitwarden offers sync and have a Linux client.

I currently use KeepassXC hosted on Dropbox, which takes care of the sync for free. And mobile apps like Keepassium or Strongbox integrate them directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This may become another example of a good company catering well to a specific niche, then taking on money until they are unable to cater well to their original niche anymore.

Solving a specific problem well in a market worth $X is not compatible with taking 10 * $X in funding — you will be forced to start doing something else so you can make ROI. Along the way you'll probably alienate your existing market by price gouging (like switching to a subscription based service model for a simple app), so there won't be any turning back either.

<comment><USER25> So what you're saying is someone had better start working on a competing password manager today.

<comment><USER26> There are several competing password managers today of course! My take is that like Dropbox (disclaimer: paying Dropbox customer until iCloud Files is just a bit better), this is a feature, not a product (unless you need team or cross platform functionality, but for teams you should probably be enterprise grade with SSO instead of sharing creds).

I'd switch from BitWarden to a native Apple solution the moment the Keychain UX reached parity with BitWarden, n=1.

<comment><USER27> Why or why is Apple keychain so limited.

It is strictly for website address/passwords, so doesn't work for a more diverse robust security password manager.

And the sync is very flaky (when I create items within the setting application, they don't show up on my phone). And its multi steps to simply launch keychain since its not a true native app on MacOS nor iOS.

<comment><USER28> I like that keychain is limited, at least it makes me feel like there's fewer possible vulnerabilities.

KeepassX and minikeepass on iOS are my go to for secure notes. I don't see the need for super convenience with my credentials, I'm willing to do some work to access them.

Either way, I'm not handing over a database of login info to a SaaS company. Might make sense for large companies though.

<comment><USER29> Except it's not limited? Have you ever opened "Keychain Access" on your Mac?

<comment><USER28> No! Wow, didn't know it had more capabilities. But I use keepassX as it's easier to create shared databases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hope this isn't a bad sign for the future of 1Password. I've been a customer as a consumer for about ten years, and my team has been using it for four years.

The nice thing about them is that they have always had a great consumer product (and the teams product has also been excellent). Since they didn't _need_ to take on the funding, I wonder if having a fund on board will result in focussing on the wrong things (e.g. growth-at-all-costs).

<comment><USER30> Wanted to piggyback on this thread since I've been thinking about using a password manager for awhile and have never gotten around to it.

What's the best service level for 1password for a small office, like 10 people or so, that want to just share basic passwords for things like social media accounts, mailchimp login, adobe password, and stuff like that?

<comment><USER31> Thank you for asking! 1Password Teams is the best option for smaller teams: [https://1password.com/teams/](https://1password.com/teams/)

You can always change it to 1Password Business later if you need more permission controls, user groups, etc.

If you need help with anything, please get in touch with our business team: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Seems like a very weird thing for them to do.

The article mentions all the things that 1password succeeded in doing on its own: bootstraping themselves, shifted their product to focus on subscriptions, even made their product work well with more enterprise-y needs. All while working out pretty well financially.

And now they need capital funding. For what? The quotes in the article seems to say that a developing a go-to-market strategy and hiring a sales team to do telemarketing requires 200M.

<comment><USER33> They don't need the money, I assume this is a CEO/founder cash-out. They have an established revenue stream, and have established an enterprise presence, they will be an attractive acquisition target. There's so much VC money floating around that a sure bet like this can attract that kind of money, and who would turn it down?

I'm still on the pre-subscription 1Pass and kudos to them that it still works, but like Dropbox this will become an enterprise service that will be too expensive for consumers. The good news is that password managers are now effectively a commodity, like cloud storage, so there are plenty of options.

<comment><USER34> [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-the- secret-...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-the-secret-is- out-torontos-1password-raises-200-million-led-by-us/)

Indeed it seems like only like $70mio go into the company, rest is cashout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I moved away from 1password when they switched from license to subscription pricing.

There's nothing wrong with subscription pricing, especially when paired with cloud syncing. Bandwidth and cloud storage aren't free and the app is definitely worth the $2.99/mo.

It was a great move for them, just not for me since I don't sync my passwords over the cloud.

<comment><USER36> I believe they still support buying a single license from within the app.

<comment><USER37> The process is increasingly convoluted to figure out. I'm still clinging on to their 1Password 6 license and it's now broken in Safari on Catalina. Life goes on.

<comment><USER38> it's also broken on all Windows, and for Chrome on Mac. I also have my 1Password 6 license using Dropbox to sync and I just cut and paste my passwords now. I don't want to pay subscription since I paid $80 already for something that doesn't substantially change.

<comment><USER39> I use v6 on Mac/Chrome and it works as expected. When did it stop working for you? And have you found a work around? I'm dreading the day this stops working. I'll probably bail on this company if they prevent me from using software that I have paid for unless I upgrade.

<comment><USER29> You can't expect them to keep updating old versions to work with new operating systems. I agree they should not turn off old versions, but thats not whats happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm happy for them, but I'm worried about what this means for the product and its future. They now need to hit $1BB or die trying. And most of the time that means die.

Maybe they might have some life-changing enterprise thing up their sleeves. I don't know. We don't know. I'm wishing them well, I just am bracing for impact.

<comment><USER41> > They now need to hit $1BB or die trying

What are you basing this off exactly? The only case where failing to hit valuation targets can kill a company, is when the company is reliant on continued funding to operate. A profitable company is free to disappoint it's investors in any way it chooses.

<comment><USER42> >A profitable company is free to disappoint it's investors in any way it chooses.

...until those investors are not satisfied with those low returns, and installs a new board/executive focused on milking their existing customers.

<comment><USER41> I didn't read that Accel had acquired a controlling stake. Can you point me to the source that makes that claim?

<comment><USER42> "Accel" wasn't even mentioned in my original comment. Quit putting words in my mouth.

<comment><USER41> You said:

> They now need to hit $1BB or die trying

And alluded to "those investors" being able to take over management of the company.

As 1Password is already profitable, and has not been acquired, I'm just trying to figure out what reason you have to make those claims.

<comment><USER42> >You said:

>> They now need to hit $1BB or die trying

I didn't, actually. Note the usernames. My reply was regarding the more blanket statement of

>A profitable company is free to disappoint it's investors in any way it chooses.

Also, it's not too unreasonable to assume that a controlling stake was obtained considering that the article said "[this is] a gigantic Series A even by today's standards", and "The company declined to provide its valuation". Elsewhere in the comments someone mentioned that almost 2/3rds of the money was a "cash-out", rather than an investment to the company. Both statements suggest that a large stake was acquired.

<comment><USER41> I see, so the discussion has simply devolved into pointless generalities.

I don't see any sources claiming the company has been acquired (other HN comments don't count), even if it was I haven't seen any evidence that the investors are interested in undermining the sustainability of the business model.

All of the doom and gloom comments in this thread are completely unsubstantiated, and seem to be mostly based on misunderstandings of how businesses actually operate. A company reliant on funding to operate needs to be very concerned with its valuation, a profitable company doesn't to be to anywhere near the same level. Comments that amount to nothing more than "VC bad" should probably not get a free pass in a community supposedly devoted to "gratif[ying] one's intellectual curiosity".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Ugh. I have been a happy paying customer for many years now. I went all in on 1p specifically because they didn't do shit like this. When a CEO says things like "we need to grow aggressively" I hear "we need to find ways to foist new trash features no one asked for upon our users and then ignore them to get the big enterprise bucks". Time after time I see great products get ruined by that mindset. See Dropbox. See Evernote.

There are open source solutions that are nearly as good as 1p. I guess its time to start evaluating. Man I _just_ got my partner to starting using 1p too...

<comment><USER44> Check out Bitwarden. This[0] event sealed the deal for me that I wouldn't use 1Password again, and Bitwarden was a great alternative.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417832)

<comment><USER45> Will add that my experience using Bitwarden has been nothing but positive so far! Happy with the product.

We are also considering using Bitwarden for Business at my company

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Why? They're not cheap as it is. What's the extra cash for?

Edit: they have 174 staff!

<comment><USER47> "growth" of course. Which, in context, probably doesn't mean good things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Why? I mean, by all means they've always felt like a true bootstrapping success story (I'm a happy 1Password customer for many years). Why take funding and give up control of your company to an outsider now?

<comment><USER49> Because you can cash millions so you'll never have to work again for the rest of your life?

<comment><USER26> You're not wrong. If the friction is low, user harm is minimal because they can move easily (the import from 1Password to Bitwarden was painless), and you're just burning someone else's VC dollars, I ain't even mad. No extra credit for making life harder than it has to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Yet another sustainable and useful business that'll be undone by Venture Capital. They've had sustainable growth with the support of paying customers who truly love the product, and now they'll be on the path to 100x and/or bust in <5 years.

I hope they'll re-release the standalone version before the last person out switches off the servers.

<comment><USER51> Those looking into a password manager solution dodged a bullet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I can only hope that this doesn't have any bad impact on the consumer product. I'm using it since its first version when it was a Mac only password manager without any cloud integration.

</comment><comment><USER53> I've been using a password manager for almost 10 years now and on the enterprise side there's really none that competes with 1pass. They had some security issues like with their Jira being misconfigured and open to the public, but their marketing and imago is built around them taking security very seriously (for obvious reasons).

personally though, I don't use their offering outside of my work context. Currently, I think bitwarden is maybe the best platform for consumers as its open source, audited by proper security companies and generally very open. I roll with my self-hosted version and I've been nothing but amazed on how good it is to use, even on mobile. Lastpass had way more usability issues (like being totally broken at first on Firefox when they came out with webextensions) and bitwarden's mobile app is at least as good as the one's you'd normally have to pay for. Strong recommendation for bitwarden.

<comment><USER54> I'd say Okta is pretty much the standard corporate "password manager" (SSO) solution. I'm a consultant and probably half of my (very large) clients use Okta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Products that take in VC funding (at any stage) never ends well for the company or consumers.

Such a shame 1Password caved in.

<comment><USER55> I'm no champion of VC backed business, but this is an absurd statement.

<comment><USER51> Why? I am genuinely curious.

<comment><USER55> There are countless examples of successful businesses (and products, if that's your point of emphasis) that have raised VC, both from a company and consumer standpoint.

VC _can_ corrupt product, and I have intentionally avoided VC funding for my products, but to say it "never ends well" is just hyperbole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Disappointed to see so much negativity in this thread. Password management is still an unsolved problem in most peoples lives. Think of your parents - <USER2> they using a good digital password manager, or do they still have a bunch of sticky notes with their passwords written out on them? Wouldn't it be better if they were using a password manager? Most people I know, especially the ones that aren't tech savvy, won't use a password manager until the UX and product experience are nailed. So far, 1Password is the only password management product I see making progress in that direction.

People complained when they upped their prices and moved to a cloud model (and in all fairness that transition wasn't handled perfectly), but honestly, the product is now way better, works on more platforms, and is totally seamless. I hope they use the investment money to continue to make the product better and to get it into more people's hands.

<comment><USER56> > but honestly, the product is now way better

It is not. 1Password 7 for Mac is a UX regression IMHO. Most of my common workflows have become more clunky. There's useless UI elements I can't get rid of taking up prime real estate (Watchtower). And, while this is subjective, I think it's also uglier than 1Password 6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I immediately thought this is the worst possible news about 1Password. In order to let the investors cash in, they'll ruin a good product or pivot completely, like selling online ads.

<comment><USER51> Agreed, to be honest, I was considering them as a password manager for my personal needs, now I am unsure about trusting them with this announcement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> How does 1Password compare to Firefox Lockwise?

I am using Lockwise and it uses the same technology and cross-platform sync. Since I already use Firefox this is a no-brainer to me, and it's free.

Is there an advantage to 1Password over Lockwise?

<comment><USER59> Lockwise isn't very polished in terms of UI. It doesn't have 2FA support, it doesn't check if your passwords are good and different.

You also don't have desktop apps in case you open an app that doesn't support your password manager.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I'm in the process of convincing a business I'm working with to start using 1Password for all of our password management.

I really hope this story isn't the first warning sign that the decision was a mistake.

<comment><USER61> I think that the business use case will become their sweet spot...

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Get ready for a new round of monetization.

</comment><comment><USER63> I never really understood the appeal of 1Password, why would you send all your passwords to a 3rd party where you can't even read the source code?

I'm using KeePassXC in combination with Syncthing, everything is hosted by me and without the need of any cloud. Am I missing something, or is it just the convinience of one package?

<comment><USER64> I have a similar setup and yes, I believe it's a convenience thing. Imagine teaching your non-technical family member how to manage your setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Definitely waiting for Apple to buy them & integrate into macOS/iOS/iPadOS.

Apple use 1Password themselves.

<comment><USER66> FYI, all password managers are integrated into iOS

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> For those who have concern about security, pass ([https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/)) is a good alternative. It supports many clients like Pass for iOS ([https://github.com/mssun/passforios](https://github.com/mssun/passforios)), Password Store Android ([https://github.com/android-password-store/Android- Password-S...](https://github.com/android-password-store/Android-Password- Store)). The good thing is that all are open source.

</comment><comment><USER68> I bought 1Password years ago but balked at a subscription (I pay for tons of subscription software products - this one just didn't feel worth it). Now I pretty much just use MacOS keychain. What am I missing that would lure me back?

</comment><comment><USER69> I quit 1Password for Bitwarden. I don't need to pay $5 a month to store a 10kb database file in the cloud.

I had a paid app that worked fine. But they tried really really hard to force you into subscription service. Thanks but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER70> Can someone explain what 1Password gives that iCloud Keychain doesn't? Is it just the cross platform thing?

Because I use iPhone and Mac and iCloud Keychain works really well, I don't even think about it.

<comment><USER71> For me, 2FA tokens and easy shared vaults.

<comment><USER72> It's actually not recommended to keep your 2FA tokens and passwords at the same place (i.e. your 1Password vault). The whole point of 2FA is the separation (something you _know_ and something you _have_).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> IMO the biggest threat to 1Password is Yubico. Webauthn already works, all that's missing is the adoption.

In the not-so-distant future, the idea of password management will be laughable.

</comment><comment><USER74> Official blog posts:

* 1Password: [https://blog.1password.com/accel-partnership/](https://blog.1password.com/accel-partnership/)

* Accel: [https://www.accel.com/interests/OurSeriesAIn1Password](https://www.accel.com/interests/OurSeriesAIn1Password)

</comment><comment><USER75> Just goes to show that how you sell stuff dominates _what_ you sell. 1Password is a relatively primitive CRUD app with multiple $0 competitors (I moved off it to Bitwarden, which is ugly, but works fine). And yet they have (judging by the amount raised) at least tens of millions of paying customers, if not hundreds of millions.

</comment><comment><USER27> Password managers are still very clunky, and only part of a broader personal cyber security landscape.

I hope they are working towards a more holistic approach for personal security (encrypted drives, cloud backup, monitoring, most things are still very difficult for anyone but prosumer to manager).

</comment><comment><USER76> KeePass + Dropbox is my preferred option. No centralised access to my passwords, available across all devices. There is a great KeePass app on Android that auto syncs with a file in Dropbox, and all my machines obviously just access it via the Dropbox folder. Entirely free.

<comment><USER77> Yup I've been using KeePass + OneDrive (and duplicated to my NAS) on all my devices, across all major OSes, for years now. Never had a single issue and love that it's open source with a selection of clients to choose from.

You can also keep your password database offline (airgapped network, USB key/drive, remote/offline devices), and having control of the client + database means you know you can still access those same passwords a decade from now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I'm really happy for them. I've been using them for almost a decade, since I saw a weird looking icon in Geoffrey Grosenbach's broswer in his PeepCode tutorials and found out it's a password manager.

This app is a huge part of my day and I'm happy to evangelize it.

</comment><comment><USER79> I love 1Password and I used it after I migrated from the terrible LastPass. But I'm happy with password-store/GPG/Github priv repo solution and definitely not going to pay for a mo/yr subscription. Good luck to them though.

</comment><comment><USER80> I can't wait for someone to do web based enterprise password management right, because almost no one has yet. I'm still over here clinging to my keepassxc like a life-raft after the Titanic.

</comment><comment><USER81> I bet the founding team took half of the 200M and put it in their personal bank accounts.

This is called a secondary.

After so many years I am happy for them. But some people think this practice is a sketchy

WDYT?

<comment><USER82> Seems fine to me. They sold some equity, nothing wrong with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> I'm laughing at all these people saying they've paid them money already. WOW. There are completely free alternatives. [https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/) for instance, which has clients and/or client integrations for all platforms and is completely FOSS.

Sorry, but your passwords are some VCs property now, and how/where you use/access them from are a business metric to be sold.

</comment><comment><USER84> Congratulations! If i remember it correct, it's written in Delphi, the best desktop development tool for Windows.

</comment><comment><USER85> What are good alternatives to 1Password?

<comment><USER12> Bitwarden will be the most recommended. I tried it to move off of 1password a few months ago, there was a time where 1password kept breaking the extension in every OS I was using. I can't remember exactly what was missing but there were several things I was used to in 1password that weren't available in bitwarden that made it feel clunkier to me.

It's UI is definitely the closest you'll get to 1pass. I think a big reason I couldn't use it was the Android app is built off Electron and doesn't currently support Android fingerprinting.. So I'd have to fingerprint into 1pass to grab my Bitwarden pass..

edit: Err on my part, it's missing TouchID in OSX [https://community.bitwarden.com/t/touch-id-support-for- macos...](https://community.bitwarden.com/t/touch-id-support-for- macos/568?page=2)

<comment><USER27> How mature is Bitwarden? I know its open source, but IIRC the business address for Bitwarden is a random house in Jacksonville, Florida? And that was only found on Reddit or something.

If its open source thats great, but most people are not building the clients for iOS and MacOS at home. We trust the builds that they host to be true to the source.

1password lists its physical address on its home page (and I think every page).

Lastpass is part of Logmein, an established tech company in Boston.

I'm very wary of a password manager trojan horse, similar to the Kaspersky incident.

<comment><USER74> As far as I know, Bitwarden is a one-person company run by a guy who lives in Jacksonville, Florida. So the business address being a random house there would be exactly what I'd expect.

<comment><USER27> I guess it would be nice to have some background on him then, so we can be sure its not a front.

I would expect he actually reads Hacker News, so please provide us your backstory, much appreciated.

<comment><USER86> AFAIK he is involved in one of the BSDs (free or open) in some capacity, so you're not putting your security in the hands of some random Joe NPMbro

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> How Will they adapt if something like webauthn or any other passwordless tech catches up ?

</comment><comment><USER88> I thought Apple had bought them? Am I thinking of a different password management app?

<comment><USER89> No, they just purchased a corporate license which people assumed was an indication Apple would eventually acquire them.

[https://bgr.com/2018/07/10/apple-1password-acquisition- deal/](https://bgr.com/2018/07/10/apple-1password-acquisition-deal/)

<comment><USER88> Aha! Thanks. Thought I was going crazy for a bit there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Priming for a sale to GAFAM huh? Surely it's cheaper just to sell...

</comment><comment><USER91> Well that's disappointing.

<comment><USER92> Another way to look at it is it's a huge success and kudos to the team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Great. Now the company I trust my secrets with needs hyper-growth.

</comment><comment><USER94> Just curious, why would anyone use this over Bitwarden?

</comment><comment><USER95> i fear that if they go public, the service will just turn into a cash grab

</comment><comment><USER96> EnPass is my replacement.

</comment><comment><USER97> Serious question: why does an already-built password manager need 200m?

</comment><comment><USER98> It's somewhat a risk, Apple is trying to Sherlock password management.

</comment><comment><USER99> Rhymes with Github

</comment><comment><USER100> 1Password almost makes me feel like I'm in the Truman Show or something.

It's a company whose founders live in my small hometown and keeps appearing in my life in the most disconnected ways (despite living hours away). Just recently my sister-in-law was hired to the company. All along I'm super impressed by their model and great culture, but at the same time believing that it's -- in the words of Steve Jobs -- a feature and not a product.

Fantastic to see them doing so well.

<comment><USER101> It is a feature in many ways, but its cross-platform nature is what protects it from competitors like iCloud and Google's password sync.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Security slip-ups in 1Password and other

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/28/flaws_in_password_m...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/28/flaws_in_password_management_apps/)</comment>


Is the world really better than ever? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/28/is-the-world-really-better-than-ever-the-new-optimists <comment><USER2> This is the type of article that needs to be highlighted. It's too easy to find bad news. Our news media survives on it so that's what they feed us. Ultimately we choose whether things are getting better or not. I tend to go with Warren Buffett who advocates optimism and says that if it all falls apart it won't matter.

I remember reading in "How to Be Rich by J Paul Getty" about how bad things were when getty wrote the book. Ideas which were directly gathered from what the media was reporting. Yet, he knew that things were not that bad and he says so in the book. He published his book in 1965.

Things aren't as gloomy as the media portrays. The best way to look at the world and the future is to see that there are problems and we need to fix them. But it does not mean that it's all going to fall apart. We have control of what happens in the future and we need to act like it.</comment>


Demographics of Tech Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1127248 <comment><AUTHOR> An interesting quote from the abstract: "But, even though Bill Gates and Steve Jobs founded two of the world's most successful companies, they are not representative of technology and engineering company founders. Indeed, a larger proportion of tech founders are middle-aged, well-educated in business or technical disciplines, with degrees from a wide assortment of schools. Twice as many U.S.-born tech entrepreneurs start ventures in their fifties as do those in their early twenties, as this paper will show."</comment>


Antipersona: Use Twitter from the perspective of another account - <AUTHOR> http://antipersona.co <comment><USER2> Architecture document @ Github: [https://github.com/agermanidis/Antipersona/blob/master/ARCHI...](https://github.com/agermanidis/Antipersona/blob/master/ARCHITECTURE.md)

</comment><comment><USER3> nice idea! but...

why do you need to ask for permission to:

\- publish tweets

\- update my profile

?

A sentence saying "we'll not publish anything" is not enough. Better dont ask for permission in the twitter API or explain why do you need it.

<comment><USER4> Probably because Twitter permissions granularity is very sparse. Last time I checked it was just read the whole account or read/write the whole account.

Thus, to create private lists on your account they need the permission to write.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What this probably does is enumerating the followings for the target user, then opening a filter stream [1] that watches a list of all of those.

[1] [https://dev.twitter.com/streaming/reference/post/statuses/fi...](https://dev.twitter.com/streaming/reference/post/statuses/filter)

<comment><USER6> They actually use the lists/statuses endpoint, but it accomplishes essentially the same thing.

Their architecture is described here: [https://github.com/agermanidis/Antipersona/blob/master/ARCHI...](https://github.com/agermanidis/Antipersona/blob/master/ARCHITECTURE.md)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Finally. I've been wanting to see this for ages. It surprises me Twitter does not have this option.

<comment><USER8> Apparently there was such a feature [http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/26/now-you- can-see-twitter-the...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/26/now-you-can-see- twitter-the-way-i-see-twitter/)

<comment><USER9> The rollout got stopped when a senior executive was following a porn star. I forget whether his wife actually saw that via this feature or whether he was simply just afraid of it happening, but the feature got cancelled.

<comment><USER10> _Unfollow_ wasn't an option?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If this app supports seeing the chosen user's public messages from their perspective, it'd be a great way to experience what it's like for certain high-profile accounts that get trolled and dogpiled all the time.

</comment><comment><USER12> Neat!

I welcome people making applications such as these that show us just how public information is and how little we truly appreciate that fact (I assume many will find this creepy).

<comment><USER13> There's many areas to be concerned about regarding privacy in the 21st century, but not this.

> _show us just how public information is_

Information we choose to broadcast to the world on a platform designed for broadcasting to the world.

> _find this creepy_

Strangers can see my public list of who I follow, and can see the public posts of those people I follow. The people I follow can choose to make their posts not public if they wish, and I can choose to make my profile not public so that strangers can't see who I follow, if I wish. Not creepy, really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The best way use case I can think of is to view my own feed anonymously. It's all public information (whom I follow etc) so I should not need to be auth'd.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the problem here is that many people now use the practice to follow people and than mute them, so their tweets doesn't get shown in the feed (or he doesn't get notified if they like/retweet/comment them). So a person which officially follows millions of people could have muted them all and his feed is always empty. In my opinion is a good idea though.

</comment><comment><USER16> Where's the demo or preview exactly? Do I have to install it on my iPhone to experience it first?

<comment><USER17> I think the GIF on the right is self explanatory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think it's brilliant. We too often look at things from our own bubble. The deeper the experience will be the better. It should not be limited to Twitter to be even more effective. Of course it can be used in a way that someone thinks privacy is harmed. I personally would feel honoured if someone took the time to look at the world trough my eyes! I would normally need to write a book for that to get that much braintime from a person.

</comment><comment><USER19> Use twitter from someone else's perspective... modulo access to private accounts, and whatever filters they may have in their preferred client.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is great and if lists are created on the user personal account, then they will be visible from the Twitter UI itself.

Too bad is a mobile app.

</comment><comment><USER20> Eh, it probably doesn't hide the "disabled retweets", which can be a bit misleading. I doubt that's exposed to other users.

</comment><comment><USER21> That is really clever! I did something similar in the past but I stopped at "simulating" the timeline with at most 200 followers.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if brands will use this to monitor what their competitors are doing. Maybe even stealing potential leads or clients.

</comment><comment><USER23> Presumably this only works for public accounts.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a feature I always wanted from Twitter and the first time I regret not having an iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER25> Downloaded the app and tried it. Links don't work, pictures don't show, there's no conversation view... This isn't becoming someone on Twitter, it's viewing a non-interactive and incomplete screenshot from over their shoulder. That makes it much, much less useful for its stated purpose. Too bad.

</comment><comment><USER26> The fact that I think this is the worst idea in the world might be the very reason this could be huge. I thought friendster, myspace and facebook enabling people with 15min of fame by displaying their personal lives on the net was the worst idea in the world.

I did think the way Google handled search was the best idea in the world, so go figure.

<comment><USER27> It's all about you.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Start-up. Does webpage design inspire confidence, or looks scammy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.adgoggle.com

<comment><USER2> The page in itself does not look scammy and the video is quite professional I think and explains a lot so that's nice.

But it so reminds me of the programs you had to install at the end of the 90s to have ads displayed and you were supposed to be payed if you watched enough/clicked on enough, etc. So this kind of payment by watching ad seems "unreal" for me. Would advertisers really pay you money to fake watch ads? Cause in the end why would I stay watching the ad on my iphone if the only reason I get paid is too "launch" the ad or click on it?

Another strange point for me is the name. Goggle is typically a word you enter wrong when trying to go on google. So adgoggle really seem like you're trying to capture people searching for google ad. Am I paranoid here?

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I hate being required to watch a video to feel like I'm digesting the main content. A lot of times I'm browsing this stuff at work and don't want to put on headphones or I'm enjoying tranquil silence.

So in that respect it's scammy.

So I'd suggest making a big text or graphical blurb with a thumbnail of the video.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback logn. I appreciate it. It's a good point that I did not consider.</comment></comment>


Google Maps Easter Egg: Walk to Mordor - <AUTHOR> http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=The+Shire&daddr=Mordor&hl=en&ll=51.589869,-0.168915&spn=0.150591,0.344009&sll=51.589775,-0.168735&sspn=0.150591,0.344009&geocode=FUBUFAMdU8_8_yElBZuqiYsAVw%3BFaUREgMdIgn-_yGY4m9JE24PHg&vpsrc=0&dirflg=w&mra=ltm&t=m&z=12

<comment><USER2> I didnt notice it at first, the Easter Egg is in the beta tag:

Walking directions are in beta. Use caution – One does not simply walk into Mordor.

I laughed, then realized I misread, when I thought I saw 'This route has trolls.' Tolls. The route has tolls.

</comment><comment><USER3> The map is incorrect -- the route should go all the way to the Balkans: <http://lalaith.vpsurf.de/Tolkien/Grid.html> ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> So.. is Big Ben the Eye of Sauron?</comment>


Biggest-ever ACTA leak: secret copyright treaty dirty laundry motherlode - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/01/biggest-ever-acta-le.html

<comment><USER2> I, for one, do not welcome our new world-government overlord. And I don't think it's treason to say we should overthrow it.

<comment><USER3> A more practical approach: contribute to open source projects that enable privacy and security on the internet (Tor, Truecrypt, et al.). In addition to technical work, these projects need UI work badly. Long term success depends on whether non-technical people can understand how to use these technologies effectively.

If the quality of these open source technologies is high enough, it wont matter what legislation any government passes.

<comment><USER2> Oh, I agree. But as soon as the governments realize this, who are they going to come after? I am speaking out now, before it ever gets that far.

<comment><USER3> I can definitely respect that point of view. My view is that people need to play their strengths. Personally my ability as a programmer is stronger than my ability as a political activist. So I choose to donate my time to free software and my money to the EFF. I also choose to invest my money in companies that have a proven progressive stance on patents and copyright (ex: Red Hat [1, 2]). The only direct political thing I do is vote. Everything else is by proxy.

[1] <http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html>

[2] [http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/blog-entry/red-hat-files- new-...](http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/blog-entry/red-hat-files-new-brief- software-patent-case)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Simple rule of writing: define acronyms with their first use in the text. Come on now, people. :-)

<comment><USER5> This is not the first time that Boing Boing has talked about ACTA.

<comment><USER6> Still: it doesn't hurt to add it for new readers.</comment></comment></comment>


Uber reports $1B loss in first post-IPO quarterly results - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/uber-lost-another-1-billion-last-quarter/ <comment><USER2> In pretty much every city now they pay the drivers less than they charge the customer, so I can't quite fathom how they're making a loss...

Very expensive engineers?

<comment><USER3> probably not. engineers only account for a very tiny portion of their entire employ base. They have a large army of operation people(for recruiting drivers, promoting, etc) and dispute/problem resolution people deployed at every city they are present. They need to work with each municipal govern body on regulations, transportation coordinations, airports, even minor issues like which side of the street pick-up is allowed. They also have to hire PR speciality to boost public image, lobbyist to dissuade politicians from initiating any regulations. They still need to pay some sorta insurance for drivers as they are still contractors. These are all huge costs</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Turning my SaaS into an Automata? - <AUTHOR>

As a solo founder I often wonder how long my SaaS application could survive without me. How long would it take my customers to notice I had been struck by the proverbial bus?
I haven't had to reboot a single of my server/app nodes in months although I do occasionally suffer downtime to one of my nodes due to DigitalOcean issues.
My database backups are automated, my logs rotate before I run out of disk space and hosting payments are on autopay.
I do not however have autoscaling or any service which automatically reboots instances if they go down...if they do.
What are all the little things I'd need to do to turn my SaaS application into a full Automata?
Something that could survive decades without any human intervention. <comment><USER2> Sounds like you're on the right track. I think the philosophy that will get you there is "Solve Everything Twice". I've done that from day one with my revenue generating products, and I can go weeks at a time without even needing to answer customer support mail these days.

The idea is that if anything ever goes wrong, you fix it immediately. But then you figure out what you can change in the software so that that particular thing (or class of things) never happens again.

This isn't just for software errors. It works for customer support as well. If you keep getting mail asking the same question, it's a sign that something's not clear enough in your onboarding or documentation. If people keep asking for an account tweak, you need to either make that into something they can do themselves or, if they already can, do a better job of surfacing the feature so that the next guy will find it.

Over time, your inbox will shift away from panicked customers in need of an immediate response, and towards "thank you" type mails and feature requests, with the occasional oddball request that actually takes a bit of your time.

Sprinkle all the above with a bit of "setting customer expectations" so that your users know ahead of time that two days is a reasonable amount of time to wait for a response for an email.

That won't necessarily get you _decades_ off, but it will let you crew a sailboat across the Atlantic with a reasonable expectation that your business will still exist when you pop back onto the grid a month later.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jason,

That's great advice. I have done this to a small extent with my onboarding and making sure my conversion funnel works, but I need to be more religious about it.

I can definitely see how this approach would lead to a very solid product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your payments are on autopay, but your relatives will close the associated bank accounts within weeks of your passing. It makes more sense to plan how they will communicate the shutdown to your customers for you rather than try to make a VPS account exist forever.

<comment><AUTHOR> While the question was asked in the context of my passing, I find the answers just as relevant while I'm alive.

Going on vacation is always a nerve wrecking endeavor since I don't want to by checking my health stats every day and have to scramble to a shell while on the beach (pun almost intended).

In some ways, building a fully self maintaining application is almost more important while I'm still here.

I'd be very interested to hear what everyone's most common maintenance tasks are they are performed manually.

For example, has anyone written anything to auto detect database corruption and automatically restore DBs from the latest backup? It's rare, I know, but if you want to run for decades without human intervention, it needs to be automated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look at [http://interstateapp.com](http://interstateapp.com)

The company was sold over a year ago and seems to have had near zero work for a year before that. It seems they dropped the price and left it idle.

There's a calendar invite app on the Google apps for enterprise marketplace that's similar. They however officially placed it in maintenance mode rather than "just stopped talking"

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, just by looking at it I can't tell it's not being maintained...if that's actually true.

I guess all these touches such as displaying the latest tweets or automatically displaying system status all makes it look very active and alive.

The copyrights still say 2012.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you looked at Google AppEngine?</comment>


Amazon Unveils Its Own Diapers and Baby Wipes Called Amazon Elements - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/12/04/amazon-unveils-its-own-line-of-diapers-confirming-partners-biggest-fears/ <comment><USER2> Comparing Amazon with Costco, they are almost exactly the same price I pay for Huggies.

From the article: "For years, Amazon naysayers have warned that the e-commerce giant's ambition would drive it to compete ever more directly with the merchants who sell goods on Amazon's popular online marketplace. On Wednesday, the company is introducing its own line of diapers and baby wipes, which will only raise these fears."

Oh no! they are selling a similar product for a similar price! What will we do </s></comment>