List of YC companies that use GoDaddy - <AUTHOR> https://raw.github.com/jpf/domain-profiler/master/ycombinator-companies-using-godaddy <comment><USER2> I hope moving away from GoDaddy, rather than stopping SOPA/etc, does not become the focus.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Whilst I agree with making a stand against GoDaddy, all of the effort going into the Anti-GoDaddy campaign could probably be better spent directly at SOPA.

<comment><USER4> I _strongly_ disagree. Anyone and everyone is already spending lots of effort opposing SOPA. If a company that supports SOPA would suddenly go out of business (one can dream) that would send a _vastly_ bigger message than a bunch of useless online polls and blog posts.

<comment><USER5> I believe the goal is not to see GoDaddy go out of business, but instead reverse it's stance on SOPA. And quickly.

<comment><USER6> Probably won't happen. The head guy at GoDaddy is right-wing and is outspoken enough not to work against what he sees as his own interests.

At best, it will probably turn out like the issue at Whole Foods, formerly as seen as a very left-wing-friendly food store. The CEO gave a right-wing statement on some social policy legislation and got excoriated for his view. Eventually, after enough flaming, he backed down on the statement, but his views didn't change, just the official company line.

Call it cynicism or whatever, but I don't think Bob Parsons is capable of a real change of heart on this matter unless it seriously affects his pocketbook, and even then, he would be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We started our migration process for AeroFS yesterday (I actually looked through email chats with Weihan, my co-founder, and every few months we've been talking about moving away from GoDaddy; yesterday was the final straw)

Still, I'm wary of moving the domains until we're all back at the office (many of us are taking time off for holidays for the next few days).

</comment><comment><USER8> Why any startup would use GoDaddy for DNS is baffling. Route 53 is amazing. However, must confess we currently use GoDaddy for domains (switching) and SSL certificates. Can anybody recommend some good alternatives for SSL certs that are about the same cost as GoDaddy?

<comment><USER9> SSL Certs: I got all my SSL certs from <http://www.startssl.com/> They offer FREE SSL certs (just requires a simple email verification). Name-verified SSL certs cost $59 for 2 years, EV certs go for $199 for 2 years. I'm very happy with their service.

DNS: Like you, I switched to Amazon Route 53. Now that it's available in the Web Management Console, it's a no-brainer, especially if you use other AWS services.

Registrar: I finally got my ass in motion and just bulk-moved all my domains to Namecheap. I wanted to do that for quite a while, and their SOPA support was the final nail in the coffin.

<comment><USER10> My only problem with Route 53 is the cost. Just about any web host offers their own DNS servers as a free service. I can fully manage zone records at SoftLayer or Linode with unlimited queries at no extra cost.

10 million monthly queries on 20 domains would cost me $15/month at Amazon.

It'd only be $5 per month at DNSMadeEasy, a company with a far longer record of reliable DNS service than Amazon.

<comment><USER11> The advantage with Route 53 is really when you are already using AWS stuff. At that point sure it costs a bit more (but still less than the amount of change that I lose in my sofa in the same period of time), but it's the same place as everything else. Same bill and stuff.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. Using just AWS Route 53 'standalone' probably doesn't make much sense, but when used in combination with EC2 and their Elastic Load Balancer it starts to make a lot of sense. And the fact that you can use their APIs to make programmatic changes (say quickly change a A or CNAME record to point elsewhere) is fantastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As soon as I arrive home for the holidays tomorrow, I will have two tabs open. GoDaddy and Namecheap...

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking forward to getting a pull request from you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, nice work. I wonder how difficult it would be for Dropbox to switch out their SSL certs and reinstall on their servers.

One problem I ran into was having Go Daddy when I registered my domain via Google Apps. Even though I unlocked the domain and got the auth code, because the way Google uses privacy, the transfer was rejected. Any advice there would be much appreciated.

<comment><USER14> I moved my GoDaddy domains to namespro.ca who have excellent support. The transfer went smooth as butter.

<comment><USER15> I think his point was that the Dropbox software installed on users' machines contains SSL certs, which may make it hard for them to switch.

<comment><USER16> Yes, that would a huge pain to require all Dropbox users to force-update to get new root certs. It will probably take a while until they are due to expire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ha this is great, over at Embedly we plan to move away from Godaddy, our domains are not on godaddy, just the ssl cert (for the short term). I started moving some one-off domains we own last night to namecheap, <http://twitter.com/#!/artgibby/status/149995036677910528>

</comment><comment><USER18> Our DNS is in the process of being moved to Route53 (as it has been for a short while) and we're planning to move our domains to Namecheap or another reputable registrar shortly (which we have actually also been thinking of doing for a short while as well).

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a borderline witch hunt.

<comment><USER20> My neighbor uses GoDaddy for his domain registrations. Should I move?

It's one thing when Ben Huh moves 1000 domains off of GoDaddy in protest. It's another thing if you're going to avoid doing business with a company that does $10-$100/year worth of business with a company that supports SOPA.

Here are a two things that should be higher on the list:

* Call your congressperson. It's a lot easier for a lot of us to push a few buttons on a web page than it is to pick up the phone and talk with someone.

* Avoid dealing directly with companies that support SOPA. How many of us are reading this list from a Comcast IP? Those of us that do are giving Comcast 10-100x more money than these YC companies. I'm going to be looking into switching to FiOS after the holidays (unfortunately, I know many don't have that option, but you should at least take a look).

For what it's worth, I moved all my domains to Namecheap after the elephant incident earlier this year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> To be fair, there are a bunch of people who have been considering migrating from Godaddy for any number of reasons anyways. The SOPA stuff is just the icing on the cake that's pushed them over the edge. This migration has been coming for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER22> Has one of it's competitors whipped up and a SOPA easy/quick transfer service? Seems like a great opportunity for one of it's competitors to jump on!

On a different note I have everything on GoDaddy; all my domains and hosting. In the past 4 months my sites have been hacked and I've been thinking about moving away from them. Yet I have so much there, SO PLEASE TO ANY of it's competitors whip up a SOPA easy/painless transfer your Web businesses to us page.

<comment><USER23> What do you mean by "a SOPA easy/painless transfer your Web business to us page"? There isn't something a competitor could do to make the transfer process any different than it normally is - you just have to do it.

<comment><USER24> They could make a browser extension that did it.

<comment><USER25> Hover has a valet transfer service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm honestly not interested in spending hundreds on moving domains. I stopped using godaddy for registration after that big game hunter bs a while back.

Comcast supports SOPA right? Is there a place to find alternative phone landline and Internet providers?

<comment><USER27> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3383891>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't have any domains at GoDaddy, but this has been a reminder that US- based registrars can be forced to pull domains by the DOJ (<http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/November/11-ag-1540.html>) -- and the potential for that only gets worse under SOPA.

So I was thinking of switching all of my domains to a non-US registrar. I see lots of recommendations for NameCheap, but they appear to be US-based. Any recommendations for registrar (+ DNS) that aren't under the jurisdiction of the US DOJ?

<comment><USER29> Gandi.net. Some people say their support is mediocre, but I haven't had to use it. Good luck.

-molo

<comment><USER30> I have contacted gandi.net support several times. I usually receive a response within a day, and always had my issue resolved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I honestly cannot understand why, in this day and age, smart people still buy domains via GoDaddy. There are so many options, all of which are more simplistic and just as inexpensive.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm not sure that people just with SSL certificates should be the easiest to move.

Depending on what type of SSL you've got, it could be a huge pain, or just a lot of money.

We've got an EV SSL Certificate, moving that would take some money, a big chunk of time, and more money to pay our lawyer to write the fancy letters they require. The process is several days long (likely longer now, our lawyer is on a beach somewhere I'm sure), and will require us to restart all our webservers.

<comment><USER33> Now imagine how much time and grief you'd lose down the road if you were hit with a massive SOPA compliance problem that you can't even contest...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> In the case of SSL, I had believed it also implied GoDaddy was their registrar as GoDaddy forcibly required me to use a purchased SSL cert against a domain already in my account. Boy was that a bad experience when I found out post- purchase.

How are the top few companies getting around this?

<comment><USER35> Therein lies a great example of GoDaddy's shady sales tactics. Purchasing a domain from them is an exercise in dodging their high-pressure checkout sales tactics. It's page after page of "Would you like to add _thiiiiiis_ lovely service to your domain purchase _wink, wink_ <HUGE GRIN>?"

None of the additional services are required. You do not have to buy your SSL through GoDaddy if you are registered with them. You don't have to buy _anything_ other than the domain through them, but they go out of their way to make it feel otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The change history for this list will appear here: [https://github.com/jpf/domain- profiler/commits/master/ycombi...](https://github.com/jpf/domain- profiler/commits/master/ycombinator-companies-using-godaddy)

</comment><comment><USER37> These companies should NOT switch from GoDaddy. Let's just make sure that everybody starts using Namecheap or Gandi (or something else) and if they have the resources available do the move only then.

</comment><comment><USER38> Seems like the focus is shifting in the wrong direction. Hackers, put your energy into SOPA not Godaddy.

This kind of "link bait" or "HN point bait" is not helping the situation.

<comment><USER39> Fox news just did a piece outlining Godaddy's support of sopa in glowing terms through all this boycott uproar. Today I am enjoying the delicious proof that fox news is a state run brainwashing machine. We need link bait to get the word out on internet censorship and net nutrality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Not to personally attack at all. Honestly. But, JF- your profile says you are a developer evangelist for Microsoft. Which is one of the biggest supporters of SOPA.

Do you think it's a little unfair to provide an opportunity to pressure YC companies that use GoDaddy for their domains because of their SOPA stance while evangelizing for a company that has the same stance?

<comment><USER41> You sure about that? [http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57330078-281/surprise- micr...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57330078-281/surprise-microsoft- quietly-opposes-sopa-copyright-bill/)

<comment><USER40> I was basing my comment on this earlier comment from HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3245520>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> What are some similar services to move to from GoDaddy?

</comment><comment><USER43> This post is really starting to make anti-SOPA look like a witch hunt. Why point the finger at startups who use Godaddy's services?

Godaddy itself is just one company on a long list. This attack against Godaddy is nothing but a big distraction from the real issue: fighting SOPA.

<comment><USER44> I don't claim to speak for the OP, but I don't think the point of this list isn't to point the finger at the GoDaddy customers. Instead, it's a helpful reminder to those companies on the list that they still have some services being provided by GoDaddy, so that they can participate in the boycott of a company supporting SOPA.

Agreed on your second point. Raising awareness is a great step toward the ultimate goal of fighting SOPA. A mass exodus from a hugely successful supporter of SOPA seems like a good start to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Let's not get hung up on who uses GoDaddy now. These companies have actual work to do rather than play around with making smooth transitions between registrars. If some of them don't move let's not piss our pants over it.

I think this list being on the front page says we all just lost our focus. So what happens if they don't switch registrars and how long is our arbitrary deadline for it? This seems like some attempt to make these companies look bad rather than do something helpful.

<comment><USER46> Exactly. Their use of GoDaddy is not tacit support for SOPA. It is just a bad coincidence. My good friend Josh at MinoMonsters has a lot on his plate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is getting ridiculous. What next? List of users of companies that use GoDaddy? Shall we hassle those people as well?

If only people put a little more thought into their internet mob protests.

<comment><USER48> Do you have millions to spend lobbying Congress? If not, you can do the next best thing: protest in any way that can hurt financially (even in a tiny way - it all adds up) companies that CAN and DO lobby Congress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I want to particularly draw attention to hellochair.com, just sitting there soaking up the fat of the godaddy land, while the world burns in SOPA's furnace. Hope these guys get the message.</comment>


How I Cured my RSI Pain - <AUTHOR> http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain.html <comment><USER3> Chiropractor, Hand Surgeons, Acupuncture, Massage... what's missing here is a physiotherapist. My girlfriend suffered from career threatening RSI (though RSI is actually a pretty useless term, since it works as an umbrella term for dozens of completely different possible problems). We found her a physio but they didn't really help. Then we found her an excellent physio (recommended by numerous friends) who spent 6 months fixing her. She can now type for 7 hours a day, provided she has at least one day a week with no typing at all. That's going from being unable to type for more than 5 minutes without searing pain.

We've referred a bunch of other friends to that same physio, all with excellent results. If you're anywhere near Brighton, UK drop me a line and I'll send you her details.

If you need to find your own physio, be aware that just like anything you should be ready to shop around for one. Personal recommendations from fellow RSI sufferers are incredibly useful here.

<comment><USER4> No doubt. I had RSI start to creep up on me when I was 25 and the _first_ thing I did was get a referral from my HMO to a physical therapist. I got some simple exercises with a band, and I was cured entirely for a couple years. These past few years it's come back a little bit, but at worst it's mild discomfort, and I keep it in check with weight lifting and mountain biking. In my case I'm entirely convinced that building wrist strength is the key.

What this guy experienced definitely sounds different though, but it's shocking that he never tried one of the most basic solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not actually about "How the technique works", it's more "This book worked for me, but I'm not going to give you even a slight hint about how so go buy the book".

Anyone have a link to the actual "How" part?

<comment><USER6> <http://podolsky.everybody.org/rsi/> has a summary.

The book is worth reading. It worked for curing similar wrist pain that I suffered starting about 1.5 years ago. I actually managed to cure it just by reading about Dr. Sarno's ideas online, as unlikely as that sounds. I bought the book, after, though, to get more details. I think he takes it too far in terms of the types of ailments to which he ascribes a purely psychological origin. But I was definitely impressed with how effective his explanation/techniques were for wrist pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I too, encountered crippling RSI pain, and eventually switched to a kinesis keyboard (<http://www.kinesis-ergo.com>). While the keyboards are crazy expensive, and a bit flaky, they completely cured my carpal tunnel.

The downside is, I'm now stuck hauling around this weird, non-standard keyboard. :)

<comment><USER8> Same here. Had nasty pains in both wrists and tried a lot of things until I finally purchased a Kinesis (the current model is this one: <http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage_pro.htm> ) and a Kensington Epert Mouse trackball. I had to learn to type again, but am now faster and completely pain-free for about 6 years.

<comment><USER9> Very similar experience here; bought myself a Kinesis for home and one for work (I'm sure they'd have paid for it, but I couldn't be bothered). It was quite possibly the best $600 I've ever spent. I don't mouse enough to have yet bothered with the trackball, but perhaps I'll get one to try it out.

The _only_ downside I've found (other than cost, which is a non-issue IMO) is that you get very used to the keyboard and now when I go to a conference room or someplace else with normal keyboards, I might as well be typing with my elbows.

<comment><USER10> I keep a kinesis at work and a standard keyboard at home. Now I'm so used to using both that I can type just as fast on either one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I actually had chronic RSI (CTS) from the age of 16~ due to studying/practicing music (brass/guitar/piano), and a lesser extent computing.

I'd tried pretty much everything in that list, as well as an operation on my right wrist. I won't say nothing worked .. because I was able to go from not being able to hold a pen .. to not being able to hold a plate :)

I'd actually given up (both therapy, and Music/Software Engineering) due to nothing seemingly working, and by chance started hitting the gym. As a part of my regular workout I integrated some basic wrist exercises (initially, I think it was wrist curls / reverse wrist curls).

So fast forward 10+ years and I now have absolutely zero problems. In hindsight I'm sure it was a combination of all the treatments and building significant forearm strength .. but not one Doctor, or Physiotherapist mentioned physical training as part of the path to recovery/prevention.

</comment><comment><USER12> Im still sceptical :)

Less, though, than when I opened the article; I have independently noticed my RSI worsens when stressed. Im not sure I buy the mumbo jumbo about the solution as much as I buy the explanation of why stress could affect it.

I use a powerball daily which has really helped. Saw the same issues with massage that the article writer had (short term fix) but it feels really great so I stuck with that=. But the powerball seems to really keep it in bay (I think it is the rotational stuff that helps).

When really stressed I do pull ups and press ups to stretch the relevant muscles.

<comment><USER13> I think you're talking about the DynaFlex, which helped me quite a bit:

<http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/6a4b/>

Also the powerWeb and the wrist roller:

[http://www.amazon.com/GoFit-GF-WFB-Wrist-Forearm- Blaster/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/GoFit-GF-WFB-Wrist-Forearm- Blaster/dp/B0007W2FJA/)

<http://www.fitter1.com/Catalog/Category/35/HandWrist.aspx>

Also, computer time means the smallest mouse i can find with decent action (Logitech, no model number I can find), and switching between Apple and Matias keyboards (short-travel and long, respectively) and carefully setting the tilt angle of the keyboard and height under heels of my hands (rolled up towel)

<comment><USER12> Yeh that seems to be the one; they are just branded powerball over here.

Really therapeutic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If the author of this article is reading this : can you please provide a timeline of events? Spreadsheet with column A = date, column B = event, column C = number of hours per day of typing at this point.

Events include {Started Acupuncture, Started using ergonomic product A, EtherPad acquired}, etc;

I wish to exclude these 2 possible reasons for the cure:

a) a simple reduction in the number of hours on the keyboard b) the acquisition of your start-up, which may have released a lot of mental stress

<comment><USER15> no wonder your name at HN is _debug_

<comment><USER14> :-))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Assuming that the techniques the author describes really work, is it any different from taking a pill to relieve the pain? I tend to operate under the assumption that when our bodies present us with pain, then we are doing something to deserve it. Instead of attempting to remove the pain we should be trying to discover what we are doing to cause it.

Vacation, chiropractor, surgeons, acupuncture, massage, micro-breaks...but no exercise? A light dumbbell routine and a few walks or runs per week can work wonders on RSI and any other aches and pains we encounter while at the computer.

 _There is a certain "common knowledge" among computer workers that RSI is the result of poor ergonomics. This fails to explain why some people can work for long periods of time under conditions of atrocious ergonomics, but not experience the same pain that I did._

In my experience, an increase in RSI and back pain correlate directly with my level of physical activity outside of the work environment. A combination of fitness and ergonomics have absolutely made the difference.

</comment><comment><USER17> If I had known about this 14 years ago I would have certainly tried it, I tried many things... the ones that I think were helpful for me are:

Ice bathes for my arms: I filled a sink with water and ice and submerged my arms up to the elbows; this was obviously useful for short term pain relief, and might have helped reduce inflammation over the longer term. It was important to wait until the arms were warmed up again before going back to typing.

Keeping fingernails well trimmed; surprising, but it made a big difference.

Massage; I think it was through massage that I started realizing that even though my symptoms were in the wrists the problem was probably more systemic, it's amazing how much pain a good massage can discover in surprising places!

Stretching; stretching the wrists felt immediately good, as did standing in a doorway, arms on the door frame, and leaning forward. Working on the hamstrings probably helped longer term.

Weight lifting, particularly exercises that strengthened the back; lots of people have mentioned it here, and I credit this for being the biggest long term help.

</comment><comment><USER18> It may seem small, but adding these lines to my vimrc have entirely broken my habit of scrolling with the arrow keys.

        map <up> <nop>
        map <down> <nop>
        map <left> <nop>
        map <right> <nop>
        imap <up> <nop>
        imap <down> <nop>
        imap <left> <nop>
        imap <right> <nop>

It may seem irritating at first, but in the end I argue it's worth it.

<comment><USER19> That's a good way of training yourself, I weened myself off the left-pinky control key by doing the same thing. I now press it with my left thumb - <USER2> is easy on my new Kinesis keyboard. Moving your hands off home row to hit arrow keys also slows you down. It adds about 500ms latency to your workflow every time you do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Typing in dvorak decreases finger movement significantly. I recommend it.

<comment><USER21> Doesn't work with Vim as well though.

<comment><USER22> I learned Dvorak and Vim at the same time and never noticed an issue. Maybe if you've already learned Qwerty Vim there's a transition?

<comment><USER23> Yeah, it's a brain@#$%. I did it though, and wouldn't look back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Amazon link to book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body- Pai...](http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body- Pain/dp/0446675156)

</comment><comment><USER25> I have tendinitis in my wrists to the point that I need to wear braces whenever I use a computer.

I'm pretty skeptical of his claims, though I too agree with what he notes as useless.

The only thing that has worked for me has been strengthening my wrists. I do about 600 reps a day (variety of axes and loads) and it has stabilized my RSI.

Oh - and I make sure that my keyboard is rather low.

<comment><USER6> Have you tried it? I'm interested to hear from people who tried following Dr. Sarno's advice but didn't have any success with it. It gives me a better idea for how much certainty I should claim when I advise others to try it. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had an interesting experience with pinky finger RSI. After well over a year of pain and experimenting with different keyboards (such as the Kinesis, which I highly recommend), I discovered that part of the problem was resting my elbows on my arm rests. By restricting some of the blood flow to my fingers by pressing on the elbow nerve, I was developing cubital tunnel syndrome. Within a week or so after lowering my arm rests, I felt a ton better. Several months later, pain returns only rarely.

I also love my Kinesis keyboard, too. It is well worth the price if you want to continue programming for decades. After discovering what was causing the pain, it helped me recover quickly and prevent it from occurring again.

I haven't read many posts on this solution, but want to remind people to examine all aspects of their ergonomic setup, not just the source of the pain (e.g., hand/fingers).

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm another guy who had RSI and eventually got better by using Sarno's methods.

Sarno's ideas are a little flakey and a little offputting. But if you have RSI and nothing else seems to help, I recommend swallowing your embarrassment and giving Sarno's approach a real try.

</comment><comment><USER27> This article basically describes my experience exactly. If you have been told you have RSI, do NOT ignore this possibility.

</comment><comment><USER28> I had very similar symptoms to this guy (pain starting in the wrists and then forearms/elbows). I have adjusted my typing habits and daily routine as follows:

* Exercise arms with light weights (~10lbs)

* Adjusted chair height

* Started using a real keyboard (I think typing on a MBP for extended periods was a big contributor to my RSI)

* Drink more water, get better sleep, get some kind of exercise

These days, I don't notice any kind of RSI pains. I think generally, RSI (for a typist) is due to combinations of stress, poor posture, lack of general wellness, etc.

<comment><USER29> The touch pad on the MBP causes me a lot of pain as well. I started carrying around a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer and had the touchpad turn off when a mouse is plugged in. I'm now able to type for long periods of time without killing my wrist or thumb. (It's still hard to break the habit of tapping the pad with my thumb to click.)

<comment><USER30> Avoiding mouse use entirely is even better ergonomically. Bonus: it makes you a lot faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It doesn't surprise me. I know that I'm more likely to put my back out or pull a muscle when I'm stressed. I hold myself differently, and my movements are also less smooth.

</comment><comment><USER32> His experience matches mind as well. Horrible RSI persisting for years, with non of the conventional treatments effective beyond a short amount of time.

After doing a _lot_ of research into this, I experienced an almost complete short-term recovery. It wasn't just lack of pain... muscles that felt perpetually taut and ropey were suddenly softened, and I became extraordinarily thirsty for a couple of days as healing started again.

Unfortunately, I only have speculation about what's going on here medically. As a seasoned skeptic, Dr. Sarno's explanation of psychological causes is unsatisfying to me. My hypothesis is that RSI is caused by a problem in the autonomic nervous system (i.e. the part that regulates your body). Sympathetic nervous system activity is provoked when your body is in "danger" mode: muscles are tensed, ready to act, etc. Now, what happens in RSI is that your muscles are being stressed through use (typing). This isn't normally a problem: when you stop typing, your muscles heal the tiny amount of damage that was inflicted. But if you are stressed out, then your sympathetic nervous system activity is heightened and your muscles don't get a chance to heal.

Now this is the insidious bit: the pain and injury eventually becomes a danger signal to your body. The injury thus provokes further sympathetic nerve activity. This negative feedback loop can thus perpetuate without the person feeling actively stressed any more, but is obviously exacerbated by feelings of worry about the RSI. Every time you try to be careful, you make the problem worse.

For a more medical take, some pieces are conveyed in this article: <http://www.aapb.org/tl_files/AAPB/files/biof_34_2_pain.pdf> . Some people speculate that similar issues underlie more serious problems, like RSDS and fibromyalgia

So that's all well and good, but what about the "cure"? Well, it seems that many people have virtually instantly solved their problems by adopting positive beliefs about the nature of the problem, that it is a problem caused by problematic nervous system signals and NOT an insoluble muscular injury. How does that work, exactly? I have no idea. Obviously, some stress is reduced, but that can't explain the magnitude and suddenness of the change. If anyone has ideas, I'd be very interested in hearing them.

If you suffer from RSI, the advice I would have is to think about this explanation while researching the ideas thoroughly to see if you're convinced. In the meantime, the best thing to do is daily exercise that isn't too intense, but gets your blood flowing for 20-30 minutes. Biking, running, yoga all have good benefits. You can do things like lift weights as well, but it is easy to overdo it, so I don't recommend it if your symptoms are severe. It's worth reading Dr. Sarno's book, but keep in mind that he uses words like "freudian unconscious rage", which made it hard to take anything he said seriously. In my mind, he is inaccurately explaining something which isn't true but corresponds to _some_ true phenomenon.

I've wanted to write this up for a while, but while I'm relatively convinced that I have a better explanation for RSI than most doctors, I don't really understand how "the solution" works (nor for how many people it does). I also realize that it sounds exceptionally hokey, which fuels my reticence. We'll see how it goes over here... ask me anything.

<comment><USER33> Being a medical person, I am skeptical by nature, so I looked into Sarno's academic publication record. According to NYU, at least, he hasn't published in a journal for 7 years. That doesn't mean anything necessarily; it just calibrates my expectations.

His explanation for what is going on is not credible - but that does not mean that I don't find his solution credible. Biofeedback techniques are noninvasive and always merit a try.

In the absence of actual evidence, I cannot conclude that the technique works any better than placebo - but I am certainly glad that your pain is gone. The placebo effect (if that's what this is, which it may not be) is quite real.

<comment><USER5> In one of the articles I read while following links from here ( <http://www.tarpityoga.com/how.html> ) they say:

      You also have to completely believe in the TMS diagnosis.
      That means that you have to completely accept the fact
      that your symptoms are emotionally induced. If you still
      believe that there may be something physically or
      structurally "wrong" with you, you're not yet "cured."
      You're not paying attention to the underlying emotions,
      which means that the symptoms can still work as a
      distraction, and it's likely that they will return.

Sounds like a self-imposed placebo to me. If it works it's still good, of course; it'd be very useful for "standard" medicine to learn how to use the placebo efficiently and ethically.

It also sounds like a good excuse to explain the people who aren't helped by the therapy - if they don't get better they don't believe in it enough and have themselves to blame (or they have the wrong diagnosis).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This was a great article and it sounds very familiar.

On and off for the past two years I've experienced similar pain. (see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=889067>). The last three weeks have been particularly bad: I've taken time off, I continue to wear wrist braces at work and at night when I program, I've started doing rigorous hand and wrist exercises daily, and while it has helped a little bit, I still experience a lot of pain. It scares the hell out of me because a lot of my future plans depend on me being able to spend a lot of time programming; without my wrists, I'd be lost.

What occurred to me reading this article is that about three weeks ago I found out about an incredible opportunity that may drastically change my life. (Stay at my day job or leave and work on a startup full time). I've spent a lot of time dwelling on it, trying to decide what to do. It can't be just a coincidence that my debilitating wrist pain started at about the same time.

I'm going to buy the book. I have high hopes. We'll see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have suffered from RSI repeatedly over the years. I use an ergonomic microsoft keyboard, and this really helps. However what made the biggest difference was when I started using a Logitech Mouseman Marble mouse. The pain in my right arm/wrist vanished. I will never use a normal mouse again.

</comment><comment><USER22> I find it interesting that he got great relief from acupuncture, which has been fairly well studied and found to have no benefit beyond a totally untrained person _pretending_ to stick needles into you. Certainly points towards it being psychosomatic.

</comment><comment><USER36> If you have RSI typing pain and haven't treated it, spend a whole day typing with wrist braces. It convinced me to switch CTRL and CAPS LOCK on my keyboard. I love keyboard shortcuts, and bending my wrist to hit CTRL was causing my left pinkie to go numb.

I also have 'evasive action' that works well. When I feel pain typing, I immediately stop and give the offending hand a workout with a stress ball for 5 minutes. Then I massage the tendons in my forearm and then stretch my wrist on all axes. I haven't had significant RSI pain in a few years, and at this point I'm not brave enough to test which part of the routine helps most :D

<comment><USER37> I've had really good luck with switching most of the shortcuts I use to use ALT instead of CTRL. ALT is much easier to reach with your left hand than CTRL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Unlike him, I find the Mac program AntiRSI to be really helpful - not only for resting my hands, but also my mind: <http://tech.inhelsinki.nl/antirsi/>

</comment><comment><USER39> Well it's nothing new that the mind can cause injuries and even diseases: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosomatic_medicine>

</comment><comment><USER40> _[…]You can eliminate the pain by addressing the unconscious stress and becoming consciously aware that the pain is merely a distraction[…]_

This sounds a whole lot like Dzogchen meditation practices, their way of cleansing the mental palette, achieving "mindfulness". I remember faintly reading a book my one Norbu Chogyal, or a russian translation of said book. I remember it being the only coherent piece of material on meditation that I have ever come across.

</comment><comment><USER41> massage usually only provides a temporary benefit because it releases the tension in the muscles, but does nothing to keep it from returning.

The stiffness in muscles is ultimately caused by poor circulation through the muscle. The sarcomeres pump their own blood supply and if the demand is greater than the supply, the sarcomere can run out of energy in its contracted position.

This contraction shortens the entire muscles when many sarcomeres are affected. New blood cannot enter the sarcomeres until something pushes out the depleted blood.

Massage can do this, but massage will not correct the poor circulation that caused the stiffness to begin with.

And that circulation problem is usually caused muscle sheaths that have not been stretched frequently enough. The body's natural collagen deposition essentially gluing it to itself so that it cannot expand or stretch normally.

This creates a tight situation when you use the muscle inside of this sheath. The muscle is thicker when contracted and pushes out against this sheath. That creates pressure and blood takes the path of least resistance away from your tight muscle.

The tightness inside the muscle must be massaged and then the sheath must be manipulated and stretched. Otherwise, the sheath is too stiff due to the stiff, thick muscle inside it.

Further compounding the situation is the way tense muscles effect other muscles and spread the problem. Muscles work together and communicate that a load needs to be moved. A great system when things are healthy, but a permanent source of stress that will thwart efforts just limited to a muscle and its sheath.

</comment><comment><USER42> The link to "The MindBody Prescription" is broken:

<http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/..>.

</comment><comment><USER43> I believe it. My dad had chronic lower back pain most of his later life and by no surprise, he also had high anxiety and stress. He read something similar about TMP about 15 years ago after tiring of pain killers, this was around the time he began studying Buddhism to help with stress. Ever since he's been in a lot better shape.

</comment><comment><USER44> Comment to SimonW I have been having wrist problems for about 6 months now, i live in Worthing and would really appreciate the details on the physio you recommend in brighton

Thanks .

</comment><comment><USER45> Here's my list of things which helped me: Logitech Mouseman Marble, the flat Apple keyboards, regular Pilates, and a conscious effort to sit up straight while typing.

</comment><comment><USER46> What has helped me is Yoga.

<comment><USER26> I used Sarno's methods to get over my RSI. But I could see yoga addressing some of the same underlying issues (anxiety and chronic tension) and solving the problem from a different angle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> link to book is broken

</comment><comment><USER48> sacrifice of a few chickens will also help

<comment><USER6> Since it seems to be psychosomatic in origin, this sort of RSI is related to the placebo effect. It makes sense to me that it would be possible to overcome it with some sort of placebo. But I think tackling the underlying emotional issues is a better long-term solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> A gripping tale of medical mystery.</comment>


T-Mobile Database Breach Exposes 2M Customers' Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.databreachtoday.com/t-mobile-database-breach-exposes-2-million-customers-data-a-11420 <comment><USER3> I have T-Mobile. 6 weeks ago my phone could no longer access the cell network. The support agent told me that someone went into a store, claimed to be me, and was able to change the SIM card. The history showed the employee in the store verified me by my driver's license. We changed the SIM back and supposedly locked the account.

I use Google Auth OTP for all the accounts that I can, and as far as I can tell nothing was breached or stolen, but I wouldn't rely on your cell phone or number for anything whatsoever, it's way too easy to socially engineer, or have some easily corruptible retail employee steal from you.

<comment><USER4> Similar thing happened to me about a year ago. The creepiest part was - <USER2> happened while I was in the international flight and my gmail WAS on sms "two factory" authentication... Since then everywhere i can I used OTP, but some sites fallback to use your phone number if you can't provide OTP password... So I have to enter some completely invalid phone number there to make it impossible.

<comment><USER5> There are a few sites that won't accept this and won't even accept a Google Voice/VOIP number because they do some kind of check. Very frustrating.

<comment><USER6> Can you provide a number (i.e. POTS) that has no SMS capability?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My favorite part about all of this is that, as a T-Mobile customer, this is how I find out about the leak. There's not even an alert when I log into my account. Why can't companies be more responsible about these situations?

<comment><USER8> If your data was breached, you would've received an SMS message or email.

<comment><USER7> I still think making customers aware would go a long way. And we only have to go back to the Equifax breach to learn that companies are hardly forthcoming about who is and isn't compromised.

<comment><USER8> Your average customer wouldn't care unfortunately. No action to mitigate can be taken by the user, no business repercussions for the data loss.

<comment><USER7> I get your conclusion but that doesn't excuse T-Mobile from notifying customers that their data has potentially been breached. I would much rather be aware that there is a distinct possibility my cell carrier's data on me because I _can_ take some small actions to mitigate any potential damage (change password, update pin, etc). Being aware is half the battle with online security.

I'm not sure that the lack of repercussions is a reasonable excuse. I know companies will use it. I know we might throw our hands in the air and just say its a fact of life. But it doesn't _have_ to be.

<comment><USER8> Legislation is the only solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A while back, I ran into a security hole in T-Mobile. Confidential customer data was quite literally available on the Internet via a Google search. This was due to a half-dozen missing very basic security precautions (forms using GET instead of POST, no CSRF, etc., etc., etc.).

I emailed the CEO. It got moved to a team who assured him there were no problems. The pages got taken down, but the underlying issues were, as far as I know, ignored (the communication to the CEO was essentially that there were no issues, and he believed his team over me).

I still trust T-Mobile more than Spring/AT&T/Verizon as a company, but data security is non-existent.

I'm not quite sure what to do with that.

</comment><comment><USER10> > But a T-Mobile spokeswoman later told news site Motherboard that "encrypted" > passwords were in the batch of data.

T-mobile stores plaintext passwords. They recently invalidated a password I had been using with them for some time because they changed their rules and disallowed special characters (tons of stupid there). They wouldn't have known to do that if the passwords were properly hashed.

<comment><USER11> This isn't necessarily true (and is very dependent on what your password was) - they could have iterated through lists of common passwords w/ special characters, hashed them, and compared them to their DB, forcing a pw reset for everyone that had a match.

edit - just want to state that if they disallow special characters it really is a terrible policy, my point is just that resetting your password isn't proof they are stored in plaintext

<comment><USER10> Not salting passwords in 2018 is also idiotic lunacy.

<comment><USER11> This same exact strategy works with a salt as well.

<comment><USER12> He might have been referring to user specific salts? It would certainly be a lot more challenging for them to test every common password with every user's salt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > T-Mobile's assertion that no password information was stolen - and later > clarification that encrypted passwords were exposed

Call me skeptical considering they said 4 months ago that they store part of their passwords in plain text: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xdeby/t-mobile-s...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xdeby/t-mobile- stores-part-of-customers-passwords-in-plaintext-says-it-has-amazingly-good- security)

<comment><USER14> That was T-Mobile Austria and at the time T-Mobile USA (and iirc a couple other T-Mobile subsidiaries) said they used a different customer account system than T-Mobile Austria and handle account passwords differently.

(T-Mobile Austria has since figured out that storing this is a bad idea and promised to change how they do it. Dunno what they have done as I'm not a customer of them nor live in Austria, I just remember the the shitstorm on twitter about it.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Only 2 million?

Seems low. I wonder if they'll adjust it upwards _like every other data breach that happens every week since I can remember?_

Sadly, I don't even care since I was never a T-Mobile customer and they already have my entire life like f*cking Keyser Soze 50x times over.

</comment><comment><USER16> And it was only 3 years ago that T-mobile that affected 15 million, which they largely blamed on Experian at the time.

"On Sept. 15, 2015 Experian discovered an unauthorized party accessed T-Mobile data housed in an Experian server. Records containing a name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, identification number (typically a driver's license, military ID, or passport number) and additional information used in T-Mobile's own credit assessment were accessed."

T-Mobiles response to that incident was to offer customers 2 years of free credit monitoring service from Experian. That free service would have ended a year ago, just in time for the T-Mobile's next breach.

Clearly nothing has changed at T-Mobile.

[https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/experian-data-breach- faq](https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/experian-data-breach-faq)

</comment><comment><USER17> Anyone have any good suggestions for what a customer should do when their service provider has been breached?

<comment><USER18> Change your password and make sure you don't share the same password between different sites/services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Ceraolo, who says he was not involved in the breach, says he was able to > confirm that the hacker accessed T-Mobile via a vulnerable API.

I want some details here. Just the other day we had a blog post lauding fairly open API approaches for client UIs (in GraphQL, but I see similar arguments elsewhere). Lock your shit down, don't give the frontend more than it needs, and if you're in a company with some type of ridiculous team separation where the backend has to treat the frontend as a customer that doesn't work for the company it's just a matter of time.

Not saying this was a frontend API, just saying it's a frequent vector due to the lax auth requirements and "internal" query-like approach they often take.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think its about time US passes laws that any company that suffers a data breach is mandated to give a identity theft protection for 1 year to people who's information was compromised.

<comment><USER21> if that were the case, by this point most of us would have lifetime protection

<comment><USER22> I doubt that it would stack, though. It'd simply mean that the data protection companies got lots of money since more than one company would pay for protection for a single customer. If data breaches somehow stopped today, we'd all be without "protection" within a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In looking at T-mobile's home page there is no mention of the breach. Wouldn't the responsible thing for them to do is post it somewhere high profile that their customer's might see it?

Instead the notice is buried here which doesn't even appear to be a linked to on their home page.

[https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/6305378821](https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/6305378821)

</comment><comment><USER23> After being a Tmobile customer for 6 years(and leaving this year), I do not trust a word they say.

Here is a list of unethical things they've done-

>Claim UNLIMITED when restricting people at 10gb hotspot and 50gb data. Their depriortization is unusable, but they claim otherwise.

>They sent their social media marketing team to astroturf in an /r/frugal thread critical of tmobile.

>Their customer service person canceled a plan and added a plan when moving around numbers. I dont know if this was intended or an accident, but after 2 months of paying extra, I asked for a refund, the store wouldnt do it. I had to call. This was a 2 hour process.

So 2M customer data? Says tmobile.

So no passwords stolen? Says tmobile.

I remember when they were 'the good guys'.

<comment><USER24> Name one carrier that has unlimited with unlimited data, no caps, no slow downs. Go ahead I'll wait.

<comment><USER25> T-Mobile ONE for US vets. I signed up three months ago and it is truly unlimited.

<comment><USER24> Still has a cap of 50GB or whatever the current cap is until you get throttled.

<comment><USER25> "640K ought to be enough for anybody" ;) [https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/operating- syst...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/operating-systems/the-- 640k--quote-won-t-go-away----but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Purism's carrier-less phone cannot come fast enough.

<comment><USER27> Sounds like a regular computer but small and with an LTE modem. That should be the future, but, barring making cell networks a free, national utility, I don't understand how there still aren't carriers (ISPs) that map customers to a device (unless they charge a flat, global fee for general access) and possess at least some of their data.

(In general, though, SMS 2FA is a bad idea; device, not SIM-based, things like Google Authenticator are much better and render SIM hijacks toothless as far as 2FA is concerned. You're still hosed with respect to your payment method, address, carrier credentials, etc. of course.)</comment></comment>


Yeti: How a $67M Investment Became a $3.3B Windfall - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/yeti-how-a-67-million-investment-became-a-3-3-billion-windfall-1474714801?mod=trending_now_ <comment><USER2> I bought one of the Yeti tumblers for my daughter, who HAD to have one. $40. She dropped it and it literally shattered. Fast forward a couple of months, and I read online where the Ozark Trail brand at Walmart goes for $9.99 and is actually better at keeping the contents colder for longer. Dropping it did nothing but slightly scuff it, proving Yeti has nothing but mind share. I've told everyone I know to save their money and buy the Ozark Trail tumbler instead, as it's a better value.</comment>


Symbian isn't dead, but will become plumbing - <AUTHOR> http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-symbian-dead-and-if-so-who-killed-it.html

<comment><AUTHOR> (Some of) the comments are quite insightful as well.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there "Upvoted"(podcast) for HN? - <AUTHOR> I wish there was a weekly podcast that summarizes everything important that happened on HN.<p>Do you know if there is something like that? <comment><USER2> YC company One Month did a video podcast about HN: [http://hackernewsnation.com/](http://hackernewsnation.com/)

It was very dudebro.

YC company Heavybit did one too which was also dudebro but less-so since it was audio only. (it appears they deleted the podcast)

Bottom line: there's no reason for a HN podcast. Not much happens since it's mostly a link-aggregator with little meta-discussion.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hopefully, someone answers. But to add, it will be nice to have weekly AMAs also. That will be pretty cool.</comment>


Gmail: Priority Inbox Is Working; Users Spending 15 Percent Less Time Reading - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/06/gmail-priority-inbox-stats/ <comment><USER2> _"Priority Inbox users spend 15 percent less time reading email than Gmail users who don't have it turned on."_

This could of course be because priority inbox works. It could also be because users that have priority inbox turned on are correlated with users that spend less time reading emails. Or it could be that they never see non-important mails. Or it could be something else entirely.

It's hard to draw bulletproof conclusions form statistics, but easy to use them in marketing.

<comment><USER3> 15% sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

You've got to remember, while you may manage your inbox well (through being wary of who you give your email to and utilising email filters), not everyone does. A lot of people simply give their email to anyone who asks for it, whether it's a family member or a company offering them a 25p-off coupon. Now imagine if that type of person turned on Priority Inbox, and all their personal emails from family and friends instantly popped up to the top, they're quickly going to stop scanning the bottom "Everything else" section as well as they used to, aren't they. I know I did, I only check those email once or twice a day now.

<comment><USER4> The issue is not whether the claim is plausible or not, but that in fact it is virtually impossible to verify. We know that statistics like this are not true on aggregate, otherwise we would be many times happier, more productive and more intelligent than a generation ago.

<comment><USER5> "otherwise we would be many times happier, more productive and more intelligent than a generation ago."

Aren't we? I'd argue we're at the very least more productive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My company makes software for car dealers. Our customers strongly believe that the advice and guidance they provide when someone is buying a car is irreplaceable. They can't envision a future without salespeople.

Priority Inbox is just another example of how machines are getting to understand us better than we understand ourselves. Amazon knows what books I want to read before I've even heard of the author, Google knows that I incorrectly spelled my search query and so returns results for the correct spelling, and Xero figures out how much I've spent on coffee this month without a lot of manual entry. Advice is becoming a commodity.

</comment><comment><USER7> How are you guys checking your email? I don't have a single unread message in any of my inboxes. That's my system. Under that system, it's hard for me to find use for priority inbox.

<comment><USER8> Priority Inbox is great for me because it segregates "nice to know but not critical" (sold another copy of BCC, comment on blog, CC charged successfully by one of my dozen service providers) from "attention required" (customer inquiry, metrics hit a yellow alert, Slicehost couldn't charge card and I've got 48 hours to call bank before my business dies). Red alerts, obviously, don't even bother w email.

<comment><USER7> Why don't you filter those messages out into a label and auto-archive?

<comment><USER8> Because if it doesn't hit my inbox I'll never see it at all. The archive is great for looking up stuff ("What did I pay for Slicehost last month? Did Mary Smith get a purchase confirmation?"), but not great for push notifications. Non-priority emails in the inbox are, for me, a good compromise in terms of amount of distraction caused per unit of actionable info gained.

<comment><USER9> I have a bunch of filters setup to archive but also label them as "Skim". So I see in my sidebar when there Skim has unread messages, and I get around to reading them when I have time.

I could just have those filters "Never mark it as important", but those messages are less important than stuff in the not-important part of my inbox. It's stuff like high-volume mailing lists that are never urgent. I'll let Skim go for 2 or 3 days if I'm busy, whereas I like reading all email in my inbox within a couple hours of seeing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Gmail Priority Inbox:_ Complex algorithmic solution that uses your behavior and ratings to determine which messages are important.

 _Facebook Messages:_ Tell us who your friends are -- those messages are important.

Love the contrast, and think each speaks volumes about the company behind it.

<comment><USER11> Both companies are integrating the other's approach to have a more holistic solution. Facebook prioritizes news messages from your closest friends, by measuring your interaction with them. And of course Google Me is going to be something interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> doesn't 15% less time in gmail = 15% less ad clicks for google from gmail?

ok it's not a 1:1 correlation, but I'm sure there's some kind of relationship. there's an intrinsic conflict of interest - the more you make the app convenient to the point the user doesn't need to interact with it as much, the more you hurt your ad revenue.

(that said, I'm sure a dip in revenue from gmail isn't going to end google)

<comment><USER13> You also have to realize that you're training Google's algorithms to better understand the things that matter to you, so that even though you spend less time reading emails, now they can target ads better, leading to more clicks (and higher bids due to better targetting).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of the plentyoffish article that said that that site has purposefully distorted portraits in order to make users spend more time clicking through to profiles...

I guess that's why one company is plentyoffish and the other one is Google.

<comment><USER14> Wow, thanks for brining that up.

PoF is always trotted out on HN as a scaling success and a model way to run a business. I'd say it's more a story of reaching critical mass and doing a mediocre, but good enough job to keep people from leaving.

It's on my a short list of sites I find actively irritating to use. Given that they trade in potential partners, something I and most others find extremely interesting in and of itself, that's quite a feat.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do free sites become self sustaining? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I come up with interesting ideas all of the time. I was just thinking about one of them, but think it'd only really get users if it were free.
This got me thinking about sites like tumblr, posterous, etc. I'm pretty sure most people use these for free, right? I glanced at their sign up pages it looks like they're both free services.
Why are these sites appealing to investors and how do they become a self sustaining, or even profitable company?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> It TOTALLY depends on the type of site/service/product. I'm currently involved in two very different models:

ThatHigh.com - ad driven, completely free, entertainment. There is no chance to pay for anything (well, I sell stickers, but that isn't something that generates much money). This site pays my rent through advertisements.

Djangy.com - Heroku for Python. When we're ready for public beta, it will have a free version: basically enough to get something up and running. The paid features are scaling, addons, dedicated databases, etc. There's no way advertising would work here, for example. The numbers are a little tricky -- only a certain % of apps will be paid, so to break even or reach profitability means that the paying customers are supporting EVERYONE, which can be significant.

You can imagine many different models -- Facebook, for example, and twitter. Then there are subscriptions that give you "credits", and then there's something like Twilio that you pay for in advance, and then your account is refilled automatically once it reaches a certain threshold.

This trend of "pay for what you use" has some implications for the organization providing the value and charging -- namely, your product has to be ultra-efficient in order to compensate for the fact that your users are only paying for what they use, even though there may be lots of remnant resources that YOU are still paying for.

It's definitely getting interesting!

<comment><USER3> @your Djangy thing: I am a Django user and would love to have a Heroku for Django. But making it for free makes no sense. Make it ridiculously cheap if you like to, but to pay nothing for something that actually really produces simple to calculate costs is awkward. I wouldn't use that!

<comment><USER2> Glad to hear your feedback. This model worked VERY well for heroku; now, the Python and Ruby communities are different, so perhaps we should examine that. However, note that it's just one free running app instance. Scaling will require payment, as will background processes and a host of other features.

<comment><USER4> Over time your userbase will form a power law distribution (in terms of success/scale) and you may end up having to support a lot of free users for a small minority of paid users.

Folks already pay for hosting now - so why not charge them for all the added value you provide? This will scale in proportion to your infrastructure demands.

I'm paying $20/month for a VPS slice that runs my blog. I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd be willing to pay at that price point for all of the added value that Djangy will provide, on top of hosting. There's no need to take my word for it though as this could be validated/tested quite easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Several business models come to mind.

This first is advertising, which ranges from MFA (Made for Adsense) pages at one extreme to Facebook at the other. Free benefits for users come at the 'cost' of being exposed to ads.

Then there are freemium models, where basic services and features are free, but additional ones cost money. See Dropbox as one example where the value to a user is increased if there are more users (Metcalfe's Law, though not really a 'law' as applied here) so the service has a free option, and the ability to pay for extra utility.

I would group things like Farmville into this area as well - basic utility for free, pay for additional features, though some of these business models raise concerns for me in that the free utility is ultimately less than it appears at first (ie, you can't play Farmville the same way for free forever).

A final option that comes to mind is the ability to leverage the users of one business into another. Bugmetnot built a large, free user base (indeed, it was built on the premise that people didn't like signing up for so many damn websites), but they then developed Retailmenot and successfully transferred the 'free' community into a 'paid product'. This is the hardest to get right, as there needs to be inherent value in both service offerings - if you only build the free with a view to flipping the audience, chances are you won't create an audience there to begin with.

Any others?

</comment><comment><USER6> So ThatHigh.com is making say $1K a month roughly from advertising. Want to share some more numbers? How many pageviews is that requiring? Click through rate, etc.

Anyone else on HN have a pure advertising supported website and want to share their monthly adrevenue/page views/click through rate numbers? (I'm launching my "November" Sprint App soon and it's just for laughs and will be ad supported so wondering if there is any chance it'll cover my beer tab...)

</comment><comment><USER7> Keep in mind that, except for niche sites, purely ad-supported isn't really a viable business model.

Even Facebook, which can attract brand advertisers who are willing to pay a premium, is generating less than $2/year per active user in revenue.

Do the math for your startup.

</comment><comment><USER8> Free is a fast path to widespread adoption.

With widespread adoption brings the potential for ROI in various ways that would be impossible with a smaller userbase - not least the classic "get big, get bought" strategy.

Turning a widely adopted free service into a sustainable, money-making machine is for the suits and MBAs to figure out after they have acquired said free service[1]. A lot of the time, they fail and in the process burn up hundreds of millions of dollars of value (see: Bebo).

I love this industry!

[1]this is satire. although there seems to be a grain of truth to it...

<comment><USER9> I would say that in that example, "free" is a form of inertia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Chris Anderson wrote an entire book about this: [http://www.amazon.com/Free- Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Free-Future- Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp/1401322905)

</comment><comment><USER11> Advertising works pretty well. Basically you should be able to make at least 10c per 1000 visitors (unless you are in a very bad sector).

Obviously there are plenty of other ways too, but as a general rule the more traffic you get the more money you bring in.

If you shared a few of your ideas people may be able to give more specific advice.

<comment><USER12> This is provided only to give you some numbers.

I have a niche site that aggregates news for users in a certain country ... its not much, but we're doing about $100 a month on about 30,000 unique visits a month.

I wrote it as a proof of concept for the general idea which I'm going to parlay into a much bigger/savvy market early next year ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can offer your base service for free but offer upgrades such as custom domains, custom stylesheets, etc. (wordpress.com does a good job of this).

<comment><USER14> This is also one of the ways tumblr makes money, with premium themes etc.

I am surprised tumblr haven't launched some sort of pro account - seems a no- brainer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Actually, posterous does have a paid product - you can have custom domain with posterous blog and register that domain through them for $25/year.

</comment><comment><USER16> Get alot of VC money.</comment>


From Non-Technical Junior High Teacher to iOS Developer - <AUTHOR> http://www.calebhicks.com/2014/learn-12-week-coding-bootcamp/

<comment><USER2> I'm a full time iOS dev that taught myself. I spent a ton of time working through my struggles via StackOverflow and piece working online tutorials.

Very cool to see what you were able to build in only 12 weeks.

Why did you choose this, instead of learning yourself. Didn't you still have to do all the work to learn even with the program?

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course. No one's going to learn a thing by just showing up and listening to an instructor. Whether that's an iOS Dev Bootcamp or Physiology.

I put in hundreds of hours beyond regular class time. And yes, definitely working through struggles on StackOverflow and online tutorials.

I chose this because, for me, it's a lot easier to sit back and watch TV or play around without the financial, time, and personal commitment of signing up for a class. I had somewhere to be. My wife and kids knew I had somewhere to be. So it was a full family commitment that made it work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I know the point of this post is to show how a non-technical person learned to code enough to build iphone apps in 12 weeks, but I'm really, really excited about "Wired In." Well done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Austen. I'm excited to be working on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Edit: being down voted because of an opinion?

Hey, I want to middle school with Caleb!

On a more related note: It's exciting to see others realize how simple and painless Apple has made iOS dev. It still takes logical chops and a keen eye to make something worthwhile, but the bridge between non-developer and developer is getting shorter and shorter.

The new iOS 8 kits will shorten that gap even more.

Still, as a developer myself with some successful projects behind me, I'm a student of thought that the marketplace is becoming so saturated it will only be very high-caliber apps that survive. Or, I guess, developers who can stick out the rough times as well as the good ones. How new developers fit into that landscape is still uncertain.

As I haven't done any Android development, can anyone shed light on how similar the two processes are (iOS dev vs. Android)?

<comment><USER5> "I'm a student of thought that the marketplace is becoming so saturated it will only be very high-caliber apps that survive"

I may be bucking the 'everything will be mobile first/mobile only' mindset, but I see the 'successful' apps as those that fit in a larger ecosystem of functionality. For many users, the primary/only point of contact with a system may be the mobile app, but there will be other endpoints of the system with more traditional web interfaces or even other endpoints which will provide other value to other parties.

Yes, the instagrams and yo and such are 'successful', but ultimately, they tend to prove the exception to the rule, I think. Outside of gaming, I'd expect most apps to have other functionality that can be processed and accessed with in other ways beyond solely a mobile interface.

To that end, the mobile app experience doesn't necessarily have to be 'high- caliber' over and above all the other competition, as long as the rest of the supporting functionality provides enough value.

I may entirely wrong though...

<comment><USER2> I think you are exactly right. The indie devs speaking out are largely Game developers.

The funny thing about the Unread story is that if he keeps on releasing new paid versions (like Tweetie 2 or Tweetbot 2) and then charges for them, he'll just have that much larger of a base to launch on, and will make more money.

I believe it's not just about the caliber of apps, it's about the caliber of business that releases the apps. They need to consider marketing, pricing, launch strategies, and app store optimization. They need to maintain a relationship with their customers, and constantly ask what the customer wants. There is a lot more to a mobile company than the app, and I think the best companies (and their apps) are the ones that will survive.

<comment><USER4> I'm intrigued by your belief that simply releasing new paid versions of an app leads to more profit. Do you have any evidence that such an approach works?

<comment><USER2> It's a common method for indie Mac developers. Look at anything Panic does, or even someone like Daniel Jalkut with Mars Edit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Caleb did a great job in the iOS class. Super impressed with what he's built and how far he's come.

</comment><comment><USER7> Thank you for addressing the value of individualized learning and for assessing your experience based on the knowledge you acquired as opposed to your employability.

For every person that learns something on their own, there are many more that pay for courses, tutors, and even private coaching, due to some of the reasons you mentioned. I don't understand why programming is any different.

</comment><comment><USER8> After reading those recent financial/earnings from iOS game developers on HN, I'd be very wary of dropping 4,500$ for a 12 week course.

<comment><USER3> Being an indie game developer is very different from being a contract iOS developer. I can't imagine a full-time iOS developer being paid less than a Jr. High teacher + $4,500. I'm looking for one now, albeit with a little more experience than Caleb, and could very well end up paying six figures (in Utah).

<comment><USER2> Exactly. THAT is a door opened to you once you learn to write iOS applications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anybody have a recommendation of a good way to learn the same material for someone who's motivated but unemployed and dead broke?

<comment><USER10> Hey, I've been learning iOS dev on my own since the beginning of the year, try these:

-Stanford's Developing iOS Apps Course (free on iTunes U)

-developer.apple.com (unpaid account), gives you access to plenty of code examples to learn from and programming guides

-check out raywenderlich.com, objc.io, nshipster.com to name a few

-stackoverflow

-youtube(!)

-and if you can gather a few bucks, I'd recommend Big Nerd Ranch guide for Objective-C and the iOS programming version too

-IRC

Good luck!

Edit: formatting

<comment><AUTHOR> The Big Nerd Ranch books are fantastic. Definitely check them out. I know they'll get something out for Swift sometime soon, but the iOS programming one would be a great foundation even with Objective-C as the sample code.

Some of the bootcamps will do financing. I'm against financing things that depreciate, but if you can get a decent job out of, it's not a terrible option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are you planning on moving out of teaching into development?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question. I really love what I do at the junior high. I teach business and teen entrepreneurship. I love going into work in the morning.

But I loved my experience this summer. I love the thrill of writing, building, and seeing my code work. The creator's high.

My current plan is to take a year off from teaching next year and pursue an entry-level development job with a good local company. I'm only 27, so while I'm not sure development is the full-time career path I want to take, I definitely want to try it out. In the end, it will boil down to whether I enjoy waking up and going to work as much as I do now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> DevMountain has produced some great talent from what I've seen.

</comment><comment><USER13> "non-technical".

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I addressed this in the post itself.

>So to say I'm entirely non-technical may be unfair. It just depends on the context. Neighborhood barbecue? Technical. Startup Weekend? Non-technical.

Where does the HN crowd fit on that spectrum? My guess is most people here would still consider me non-technical, even with what I've built so far.

<comment><USER14> I think you over estimate what HN expects from you to be technical. You're technical now, no question about it.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Firefox Has Jumped the Shark - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/161966/why_firefox_has_jumped_the_shark.html <comment><USER2> "the stupid URL bar that explodes into a list of sites whenever I type even a single letter there"

Um, that feature is brilliant, it's the only way I can still handle my bookmarks. Haven't tried Google Chrome, so I don't know if they have come up with a better solution. Have they?

<comment><USER3> I love that bar, I don't even need to bookmark pages I visit a lot any more. All I need to do is type, say, "yc" and up pops this site. "tv" will show me tonight's TV listings. "gu" brings up the Guardian.

If I wanted to come back to this story, "yc firefox" would most likely bring me here and to any other HN stories I'd read with Firefox in the title. And so on. I didn't really like it when it was first brought in (change? no!) but it's grown on me.

<comment><USER4> _All I need to do is type, say, "yc"_

Why is this good? I type the letter "n" and news.ycombinator comes up. (I'm on ff 2.0). If I type "yc" I get this:

<http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html>

It's deterministic, being alphabetic, and superior in every way. I don't want the fricken address bar throwing dice on my input.

<comment><USER5> The key distinction being the ability to find the URLs that you _don't_ know by fishing for the one piece you _do_ remember, that may (inconveniently) not be until the end of the URL.

An example: <http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/> which I inevitably reach by typing "big"; this was un-possible with the previous iterations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use (actually use) about 35 plug-ins, around 50 user styles, and a few Greasemonkey scripts. Until Chrome gets all those, no way I can use Chrome.

I've customized my Firefox experience so much, most people can't even recognize it. No way I can do that on Chrome.

And in Linux, I run Firefox totally in a ramdisk, so it's ridiculously fast:

<http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1120475>

<comment><USER7> Your need for plugins, styles, and scripts are the exact reason why the author claims Firefox has jumped the shark. It definitely can't feel 'right' if you need to customize it so much.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I used to have a similar bloated Firefox setup and then switched to Chrome. I just couldn't go back to the Fox, even missing a few features like delicious integration, the feel of the url/search bar is too good.

<comment><USER9> Same here. I even went to the trouble of building a bookmarklet to handle the only Firefox plugin that I missed (rikaichan - [http://www.tokyomuslim.com/2009/04/japanese-english- bookmark...](http://www.tokyomuslim.com/2009/04/japanese-english-bookmarklet- for-google-chrome/))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "It just doesn't feel right any more" - this point makes no sense at all, and the worst part is that the whole article is based on this saying.

(I suspect the real meaning is "It is not that brand new shiny toy any more, and Chrome is")

<comment><USER11> There is a lot to be said of aesthetics, and I must say that Chrome looks and feels much sexier than the default Firefox theme.

But whatever, none of them are much different from each other anyway. Where is the real innovation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The expression "jumped the shark" has jumped the shark.

</comment><comment><USER13> Little more than linkbait, and less well argued than a Dvorak piece.

</comment><comment><USER14> Lots of handwaving, some ad hominem and plenty of condescension. I like Chrome's speed and stability. I really like the idea that if one tab crashes (beyond recovery), the rest will survive. But I still use Firefox and will go on doing so until Chrome gives me two things I need:

1) a set of plugins (add-ons, extensions, whatever) equivalent to the ones I use

2) a way to decide that yes, I want to have a title bar

The feature #2 might seem laughable to most, but it's important to me. What Chrome devs did there, I can only describe as "arrogance". It's okay to decide that the title bar, in your opinion, is a waste of "screen real-estate". It's perfectly natural to ship Chrome with the title bar removed by default. But it's arrogant not to offer an option to turn it back on. Some of us are actually using that "screen real-estate".

</comment><comment><USER15> Firefox has become the thing it was created to replace, a beast of a browser that seemingly sucks up resources from nearby computers just to open a new window.

Also, the term "jumped the shark" has jumped the shark.

[edit: that said, as much as I like Safari 4 and Chrome, I find it very hard to live without Firebug and the Web Developer extension when it comes to building websites (though the webkit inspector is getting closer with each release)]

</comment><comment><USER16> This guy sums up my sentiments on the issue quite nicely. Firefox just can't hang anymore in the presence of Chrome, and Safari (and arguably even IE). I dig plugins as much as the next guy, but it's not enough to make me open Firefox for anything more than testing these days.

<comment><USER17> > I dig plugins as much as the next guy, but it's not enough to make me open > Firefox...

Then you don't, in fact, dig the plugins as much as THIS next guy. Mind you, it's the only thing that brings me back to FF, but if Chrome supported even just adblock, I'd jump in a second. But the plugins are its killer feature, ^2.

<comment><USER18> You can kinda get adblock with Privoxy (<http://www.privoxy.org/>). Notice that I said "kinda." :-)

<comment><USER17> Actually, I'm using that right now. I've used priv in the past so it's not quite so foreign. I'm finding chrome+priv actually usable.

Still waiting for something a bit more "on the fly right click" configurable, for my ADHD moments. =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I use Firefox at work and Chrome at home. There's no way I could use Chrome for my job, it just doesn't have anywhere near the developer capabilities I need.

But Chrome really is beautiful. And lightning fast. Unfortunately, I regularly bump into things I can't do, like block those god-forsaken flash ads, email a link to the page I'm viewing or Ctrl-Tab to switch back and forth between tabs (as opposed to cycling through all of them), just to name a few. And these things make Chrome not quite "feel right" to me.

Chrome has some things to learn from Firefox, and Firefox has some things to learn from Chrome. And competition is healthy. So I'm sure interesting things are coming.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like Chrome much better. The only thing that I use Firefox for is Firebug. Other than that, I try to avoid most of the plugins Firefox is famous for anyway. I find that they just make it slower. Maybe 3.5 will change that though.

<comment><USER20> > Maybe 3.5 will change that though.

Doubtful. The new JS JIT is only turned on for web content, so extensions don't benefit at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> On the technical side, there's no reason that FireFox should lose out to Chrome, but I think the argument that he is making is that Chrome has a better design, and user experience - an idea he sums into FF not feeling right.

If Chrome add-ons in the future cover the needs for most people, and both are rendering things well, then it may just come down to a design choice for most people.

Personally, I don't care much for google on my personal computer and hope that it doesn't come to be the case. One of the biggest holes in my current set up, is that all of my e-mail goes to Google. I don't trust Google so I consider this a security threat.

</comment><comment><USER22> I just know I never used Firefox again after Safari 4 Beta...

<comment><USER18> +1 - At first I was kinda angry because Safari 4 is essentially Google Chrome by apple (at least in terms of user interface). But then I was happy because there isn't a Google Chrome for the Mac.

<comment><USER23> "Safari 4 is essentially Google Chrome by Apple."

Google Chrome is essentially Webkit by Google.

Webkit is essentially KHTML by Apple.

Why be angry when it's all so circular?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I must admit that I've stopped using firefox completely since I got hooked on Chrome, but I was never a big plugin user. I wouldn't go so far as to say firefox was dead as a result though. The oddest thing is that I don't miss having an ad blocker in chrome, and I have no idea why! Maybe I've just gotten used to seeing ads again, or maybe Chrome blocks popups better than firefox did back before I got the adblock plugin.

<comment><USER25> I stopped using Firefox as my main browser when I got a mac a little under 4 years ago, and started using Safari. I was using adblock prior to that switch, and while I don't have any ad blocking now, except for the fact that pop-ups are blocked, I am barely ever bothered by an ad. I'm fairly convinced that ad obtrusiveness has gone down in general over the past few years. There are some exceptions (I'm looking at you, weather.com), but in general people seem to have realized that they had to tone down the ads if they wanted people to see them at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The use of the word 'why' in that title is entirely disingenuous - his whole point is "just because".</comment>


Show HN: Osmoar: A Bayesian Suggestion Engine - <AUTHOR> http://osmoar.com/ A friend and I are launching an alpha first thing in 2011. We're trying to gain some momentum and whatnot, so we're opening early registration as of tonight.
We're planning to develop a Bayesian network to derive suggestions. If you're interested in seeing our progress, check it out.
Edit: Any and all suggestions, criticism, advice, etc is highly appreciated! <comment><USER2> why three personal items?

Also, more info would be nice.

<comment><USER3> My assumption is that they will suggest to you other possessions that you might want to buy, based on the three favorites you provide.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good assumption, but we're doing more with it than that. There's also an "activities as recipes of items" aspect we're working on.

We don't want to just push more crap from amazon on users. We want to help users become aware of activities they could be doing with the things they own as well.

"789 users that own a MacBook and a DSL camera are doing photography. Maybe you'd like to try it"

<comment><USER4> Try using a camera for photography?! I might need a better example to see the value proposition :o)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha. Sorry. Pretty much all your activities can be broken down into a recipe of the things you do them with, the place you do them, and a description of what it is you do.

It will help you find something to do with your possessions in the place you live. E.g., if you have a bike, it might suggest you right critical mass on the last Friday of the month. If you have a dog attend the people with dogs party at your local park this weekend. I can't really come up with a great example myself, but once it's in action, I can see some pretty interesting "recipes" of place, items, people and activities arising.

Value insofar as monetization, is obviously affiliate income from retailers. We're planning to establish an API for any retailer that wants to sign up to add their link to an item's page, which is also helpful to users so they can sort by price and compare retailers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does your team run the kanban backlog/board? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for clear examples of how backlogs and boards are run with a mixed "full-stack" developers.<p>We're trying a new process where the backlog contains every ticket from every project we're working on plus bugs from all other services we ownr and the dev just pulls the top ticket regardless. In practice this could mean in a single day I could pull a frontend task in project 1, backend task in project 2 and a bug in a completely different service. To me, this constant context switching gives me nightmares but everyone else says this is normally how kanban is run but I can't find any real world examples of such a process. How does your team handle kanban and do you mix unrelated projects in a single backlog/board? <comment><USER2> Our product/dev team is ~18 but how I like to do these things:

\- "Projects" are set as epics / clusters of tickets

\- Ordering of the backlog/board follows as such:

\-- Critical bugs

\-- Critical "One off" Tasks

\-- Sets of Project tickets by priority.

\-- Uncritical issues if time allows (moves up in urgency as it sits)

Ideally the following happens for us:

\- A group of 2-4 devs work on each project batch of tickets

\- If a bug/task can be done by the person who "owns" that system they should do it, but this should never delay critical work.

We have a 30 min weekly meeting to review the status of completed/in-progress work as well as discuss newly added bugs and one-off tasks. Some times this is as fast as 10-15min. This is where we poll to feel if we will hit the deadlines of the product/engineering roadmap and compensate if needed.

Major projects/epics follow a project kick off meeting and then a technical spec/review phase before tickets are then put into an epic to be executed.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is odd.

The backlog is supposed to be a product backlog, i.e. in general a project backlog.

The board helps you see at a glance the project's status.

So to me it seems that merging everything into a single boards is confusing at best.

I would have a board per project. This does not prevent devs from switching between projects on a per ticket basis but keeps things well organised and managed.

<comment><USER4> But I see the point of the author's idea of mixing all the tasks together: To be able to answer the question "what's the most important thing I should be working on now (across all projects)?".

<comment><USER3> It's not necessary to mix everything on a single board just to answer that question In fact, mixing everything may not even make answering that question easier.

Relative priorities of projects may change. If I tell my devs "project X has priority at the moment" they just need to focus on project X's board.

In any case, if you colour-code you can see at a glance what task looks most critical by looking across a few separate boards.

<comment><USER4> In my experience (but maybe it's just me, maybe other people manage their projects differently), the type of task plays a greater role in its prioritization than the project. For example, we always fix bugs first, even if that pushes back delivery of new features. Stability issues are even more important than bugs. And security issues even more important than stability issues.

Yes you could have multiple boards, each with its own backlog ordered by priority, then use colours to see which tasks from which board are a higher priority. But surely the point of having an ordered list of tasks is to see which is the highest priority?

<comment><USER3> Yes fixing bugs first is sensible, but you still need to prioritise projects as well.

My point is that there is no need to lose the benefits of separate boards in order to solve the (non-)issue of quickly finding out what to do next.

And if you have a single board then try easily seeing how product x is going...

(btw, by colour-coding I meant features, bugs, etc. so you can immediately see what's what)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recommend story mapping[0..2]. It facilitates seeing your backlog across goals and activities, which may span projects. With a more focused backlog, you can then prioritize within specific scopes.

The main downside is tooling. Unless you are using a physical board, you'll probably want/need a SaaS.

[0] [https://www.jpattonassociates.com/user-story- mapping/](https://www.jpattonassociates.com/user-story-mapping/)

[1] [https://agilevelocity.com/agile-tools/story- mapping-101/](https://agilevelocity.com/agile-tools/story-mapping-101/)

[2] [https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/story-mapping- vis...](https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/story-mapping-visual-way- building-product-backlog)

</comment><comment><USER6> It seems like it would depend on the number of projects and volume. If you imagine a paper kanban board in an office, they may be right that you don't have one per project. Digital ones I typically think of (and use myself) as one per project. Depending on the system you may be able to filter and have the best of both. Tag the cards by project and filter when you want to see just that project. Unfilter when you want to see all projects at a glance. At some point it won't scale, but that's almost intentional. If you have too many cards on a board it is a signal you don't have enough resources or have some other inefficiency that needs to be addressed.

Also depends on your definition of "project". Maybe a better phrase would be one board per -product-?

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a factorization problem , like so many in engineering. Putting unrelated things on the same board is expensive, because you have to constantly compare those apples and oranges to prioritize, estimate multi- ticket release dates, and so on.

Splitting things to different boards can also be expensive, because you have to prioritize resources at a higher level across boards. And if you break up dependencies, suddenly you have to flip between boards to answer questions.

It sounds like somebody was sick of the drawbacks in the second paragraph. But maybe the issue isn't that you need a monolithic board, it's that you need to make sure the boards are split in the right way.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you think things would run better if you worked on blocks of things at a time, either see if it's OK for you to focus on one product/tech for a day/week/whatever your preferred timeframe is. As long as you're taking tickets from high up in the backlog, I'd expect that would be fine.

Otherwise, would it make sense to batch them when prioritising? Same effect, but across the team.

Fundamentally, just try things and keep what works. It doesn't really matter if that's not how other people do it (though knowing general approaches is useful to see what to try).

</comment><comment><USER9> We have 8 engineers with different skills stretched over 6 projects. It is a nightmare because all projects are top priority and late. We will be moving towards tracking tasks per project and per engineer. Currently tasks are only tracked per project which gives no visibility to what other projects an engineer is already working on.

</comment><comment><USER10> My current team uses a digital board. We have the stories prefaced with the system so they stay together. Devs typically work between 1 or 2 systems during each sprint with about half of them being full stack. It works ok, but there is a hierarchy of how fun each project is to deal with and people get salty occasionally when they're stuck on old legacy stuff for multiple sprints

</comment><comment><USER11> Our full-stack teams work with stories that are demoable, thin vertical slices of user-visible changes. While they can be broken into subtasks within the story, we see the biggest benefit to full-stack development being the ownership of taking the story to done across the stack.

</comment><comment><USER12> we have 2 boards. Ice box and product board. The product managers control which tickets make it to the product board and what their prioritisations are. We plan projects via spreadsheets in google docs at the beginning of each cycle. It's not perfect and we're constantly working on it but I have faith it's the best approach for us.

</comment><comment><USER13> First, I think this is an interesting question. However, I would recommend not asking directly about a work issue in a public place. It's kind of airing dirty laundry and could possibly upset people unless you have advance permission.

But to answer the question, it really depends on how you want to do it. If you have a single team doing everything and everyone can grab any ticket, then having a single backlog means that the priorities are obvious. I can't tell you how much that improves the planning process and it could very well override the problems with having a mixed board. If you are doing kanban, then having the priority correct is pretty important.

If you have multiple different teams or multiple different roles, then it can help to split out the overall board into streams. However, in my experience it helps to have an overall priority list for as long as possible. If you are using software to display the board, then it might be possible to automatically split it into streams. Once you get too big, though, it becomes impossible to do central planning for everything, so it becomes a moot point afterwards.

Different people react to context switching differently as well. Personally, I have literally 0 problems with it. Some people end up going something like twice as slow if they have to context switch. The normal solution I've found is to allow people who have a problem to cherry pick. If people start to game it, then you might need a manager to intervene, but I've rarely had problems with it.

When in doubt, talk to your teammates and come up with a compromise ;-)</comment>