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41,298 | sherman | 2007-08-10T17:20:39 | VOIP Startup Fring Raises $12 Million Series B | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/10/voip-startup-fring-raises-12-million-series-b/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,300 | ivankirigin | 2007-08-10T17:26:19 | The Facebook Generation Gap | null | http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080707A | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,302 | nreece | 2007-08-10T17:46:43 | 230+ Tools for Running a Business Online | http://mashable.com/2007/08/09/online-business/ | 17 | 2 | [
41312,
41432
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,303 | jmpeters | 2007-08-10T17:58:10 | What's the best online payment processing solution? | I'm looking for an online credit card payment processing solution that can handle recurring monthly payments. I'm open to linking off of my site to a hosted provider, so long as I can sufficiently customize the look-and-feel. I'm also open to a lower-level code-it-yourself type of solution. Of course I don't want to spend too much time on this, and I want it to be cheap. :) Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences. | null | 11 | 8 | [
41325,
41350,
41309,
41313,
41329
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,308 | mcu | 2007-08-10T18:44:43 | Inc. or LLC? | What would you suggest for a startup? | 15 | 26 | [
41310,
41353,
41401,
41343,
41366
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,323 | augy | 2007-08-10T19:40:01 | How do you feel about demo day? |
For those of you who just did demo day, HOW WAS IT? What was your take on the day?
| 1 | 0 | null | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,333 | sbraford | 2007-08-10T20:14:33 | Lessons for startup founders from Baseball home run stats? | http://www.arthurdevany.com/2005/09/home_run_hittin.html | 1 | 1 | [
41338
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,339 | transburgh | 2007-08-10T20:31:39 | Pharmacy.com Shooting For Business.com Money | null | http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/10/pharmacy-com-shooting-for-business-com-money | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | WebProNews - Digital Marketing, Technology, and Business News | null | Name |
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| 2024-11-08T03:57:31 | en | train |
41,355 | german | 2007-08-10T22:09:25 | Webbalert - A tech news internet show (in less than 5 minutes) | Maybe all of you know this site, but if you don't in webbalert you can be informed (in less than 5 minutes) of the latest tech news.
:) | http://webbalert.com/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,360 | myoung8 | 2007-08-10T22:34:23 | What are you thoughts on the FishEye menu? | After reading this: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41290" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41290</a><p>it got me thinking that using a FishEye menu (e.g. using jQuery & the Interface plugin) positioned flush with the left side of the screen would be the most useable type of menu for a website.<p>What do you guys think about doing that? Good idea? Bad idea? Good in theory, bad in practice? | 1 | 1 | [
41396
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,362 | guidely | 2007-08-10T22:38:05 | Guidely relocates to Boston to take on Google | Let the startup fun begin! | http://guidely.com/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,367 | ctingom | 2007-08-10T22:43:29 | Finish the sentence... | When I arrive at the office in the morning, everyone else is usually _____.<p>(inspired by <a href="http://www.brainfuel.tv/finish-the-sentence" rel="nofollow">http://www.brainfuel.tv/finish-the-sentence</a>) | 2 | 5 | [
41392,
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41381
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,370 | joshwa | 2007-08-10T22:56:15 | Startup Metrics for Pirates (Redux) | null | http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/08/startup-metrics.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,383 | donna | 2007-08-10T23:52:18 | Rise of Roboethics | http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/07/rise_of_roboethics.php | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,399 | null | 2007-08-11T00:44:31 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
"true"
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,400 | bootload | 2007-08-11T00:46:12 | Hey Google: When Can Matt Cutts Ditch Microsoft PowerPoint? | null | http://blog.insiderchatter.com/2007/08/10/hey-google-when-can-matt-cutts-ditch-microsoft-powerpoint/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,402 | horatio05 | 2007-08-11T00:56:34 | Yahoo May Consider Letting Google Handle Paid Search | null | http://mashable.com/2007/08/10/yahoo-google/ | 2 | 1 | [
41462
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,416 | nickb | 2007-08-11T03:01:29 | JazzScheme at lispvan | http://bc.tech.coop/blog/070810.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,417 | nickb | 2007-08-11T03:02:03 | SchemaCrawler for PostgreSQL Announced | http://python-postgressql-django.blogspot.com/2007/08/schemacrawler-for-postgresql-announced.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,419 | nickb | 2007-08-11T03:02:52 | Learning JavaScript Programming Language through Video Lectures | http://www.catonmat.net/blog/learning-javascript-programming-language-through-video-lectures/ | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Learning JavaScript Programming Language through Video Lectures | null | null |
I decided I wanted to get better at JavaScript. I've been programming in it for a while but I never really developed any good skills in it. I was just mostly copy pasting examples together and adjusting code to get it working.
I recently found a bunch of really good programming video lectures on JavaScript and decided to watch them. These lectures are given by Douglas Crockford who is a senior JavaScript Architect at Yahoo. He is well known for his work in introducing JavaScript Object Notation (JSON).
First four lectures are on the basics of language:
JavaScript Video Lecture Part I
JavaScript Video Lecture Part II
JavaScript Video Lecture Part III
JavaScript Video Lecture Part IV
Sometimes Yahoo Video gives this error: Sorry! This video is no longer available on Yahoo Video. In this case refresh your browser a couple of times!
The next three lectures are on Advanced JavaScript:
Advanced JS Part I
Advanced JS Part II
Advanced JS Part III
Then there are 6 more lectures on JavaScript which should probably be viewed only after you have viewed the ones just mentioned.
Advancing JavaScript with Libraries - Part I and Part II
Maintainable JavaScript
An Inconvenient API: The Theory of the DOM - Part I, Part II and Part III
Viewing the YUI Theater I just found another JavaScript lecture which was published just recently:
JavaScript - The Good Stuff
My approach to watching video lectures
I have been watching various video lectures for almost 4 years now. Mostly mathematics, physics and theory of computer science. My approach to getting most of the lectures is the following. When I watch the video lectures I take notes just as if I were in class.
Even better, when I do not understand a part of the lecture I can always rewind it back and see that fragment again. I can also pause the lecture, think for a while and then continue.
Here is a photo of notes I too while watching MIT's 803 – Vibrations and Waves.
I am serious about physics and maths video lectures, as you can see in the image, all the main results are boxed in red, the results are fully derived (even if the professor does not do it on blackboard). Btw, one lecture perfectly fits on both sides of an A4 sheet.
Here is a close-up of Lecture 13: Electromagnetic Waves - Plane Wave Solutions to Maxwell's Equations - Polarization - Malus' Law.
This approach probably does not work with programming languages and computer tools. Because mathematics and physics is mostly done on paper, watching these video lectures and taking notes is actually doing them. The process of taking notes develops the skills because you work with the new concepts, operators, theorems, and other math terms. Not so in programming languages. You can read a book on a new programming language and you won't even be able to write the hello world program because you have only got familiar with the subject and have not developed the skills. I have experienced this myself.
Here is my approach how I am going to learn JavaScript from these lectures. I might adjust this approach at any moment if I find it not working, I will update this post appropriately then.
I will definitely watch all 11 video lectures. I will start with the first four basic lectures, watch them one by one, take notes as with physics video lectures and experiment as I go.
I will be taking notes lightly to have my mind really think the information I am getting over. But no red boxes around constructs as with physics. That's the experimentation part to learning. I am going to try the new constructs as soon as I see them so they stuck in my mind better.
Update: I dropped the idea of taking any notes on paper, because I am blogging the key points from lectures here.
Also to make this article interesting, I will annotate each lecture if something really interesting catches my eye. As I mentioned, I have programmed JS before so I am not sure how much I will learn from the first four basic lectures.
In my previous blog post I used Windows Script Host to create a program in VBScript. The other language the same scripting host runs is JScript which conforms to the same standard as JavaScript. So I should be safe doing JavaScript experimentation in JScript.
Points that caught my attention in JavaScript Video Lecture Part I:
(00:45) World's most misunderstood programming language - has "Java" in its name and "Script". It has nothing to do with Java programming language and it's a real programming language not some tiny scripting language
(02:38) There are generally no books available to learn JS from - all are bad and full of nasty examples
(02:56) The only book recommended is JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 5th Edition - it's the least bad book
(03:37) JavaScript is a functional language
(08:12) Microsoft reverse engineered original implementation of JavaScript and called it JScript to avoid trademark issues
(09:49) During standardization, the original bugs were left as is without fixing to prevent already written programs from breaking (Douglas slips and says "Sun" but he actually means "Microsoft")
(12:16) One of the key ideas of the language is prototypal inheritance where objects inherit from objects and there are no classes
(12:45) One other key idea is that functions are first-class objects
(13:36) There are no integers in the language, everything is represented as 64-bit floating point numbers
(14:30) NaN (Not a Number) is not equal to antyhing, including NaN. Which means NaN == NaN is false
(15:22) Type of NaN is Number
(15:52) + prefix operator does the same thing as Number function
(16:08) Generally always specify radix argument in parseInt function because if the first character is '0' and there is no radix argument provided, it will assume that '0' to be an octal constant
(17:15) Each character takes 16-bits of memory
(17:56) There is no separate character type in JS, characters are represented as strings with a length of 1
(19:55) undefined is the default value for uninitialized variables and parameters
(20:38) Falsy values are: false, null, undefined, "", 0, NaN. All other values (including all objects are truthy). Everything else in the language are objects
(22:15) Object members can be accessed with dot notation Object.member or subscript notation Object["member"]
(22:59) The language is loosely typed but not "untyped"
(25:19) Reserved words are overused, they can't be used in dot notation as method names
(27:25) Operators == and != can do type coercion, so it's better to use === and !=== which do no coercion
(28:24) Operator && is also called the 'guard operator', Operator || is also called the 'default operator'
(30:16) The bitwise operators convert the operand to a 32-bit signed integer, perform the operation and then turn the result back into 64-bit floating point. Don't use bitwise operators in cases like multiplying by 4 using << 2. It will not.
After having watched the first lecture I decided that there was no point in taking notes on paper because I am blogging the key points here and trying various examples I can come up with with JScript, taking notes just wastes time.
Points that caught my attention in JavaScript Video Lecture Part II:
(00:20) Break statements can have labels
(00:41) Iterating over all the members of an object with for (var name in object) { } syntax, will also iterate over inherited members
(06:10) There is only global and function scope in JavaScript, there is no block scope
(07:40) If there is no expression in a return statement, the value returned is undefined. Except for constructors, whose default return value is this
(08:29) An object is an unordered collection of name/value pairs
(21:10) All objects are linked directly or indirectly to Object.prototype
(23:42) Array indexes are converted to strings and used as names for retrieving values
Points that caught my attention in JavaScript Video Lecture Part III:
(00:29) Functions inherit from Object and can store name/value pairs
(02:00) The function statement is just a short-hand for a var statement with a function value
(02:35) Functions can be defined inside of other functions
(03:08) JavaScript has closures
(07:29) There are four ways to call a function: function form, method form, constructor form and apply form
(10:00) this is an extra parameter. Its value depends on the calling form
(10:30) When a function is invoked, in addition to its parameters, it also gets a special parameter called arguments
(11:53) Built-in types can be augmented through (Object|Array|Function|Number|String|Boolean).prototype
(14:09) The typeof prefix operator returns 'object' for Array and null types
(15:23) eval() is the most misused feature of the language
(21:57) In web browsers, the global objects is the window object
(22:51) Use of the global namespace must be minimized
(23:11) Any variable which is not properly declared is assumed to be global by default
(23:45) JSLint is a tool which helps identify weaknesses
(24:21) Every object is a separate namespace, use an object to organize your variables and functions
(27:15) Function scope can create an encapsulation
Points that caught my attention in JavaScript Video Lecture Part IV:
(03:30) The language definition is neutral on threads
(11:20) When the compiler sees an error, it attempts to replace a nearby linefeed with a semicolon and try again
(12:51) Do not use extra commas in array literals. Netscape will tell you that length of [1,2,3,] is 3 while IE will tell it's 4
(18:48) Key ideas in JavaScript - Load and go delivery, loose typing, objects as general containers, prototypal inheritance, lambda, linkage through global variables
These four lectures gave me much better theoretical understanding of JavaScript but just a little better practical skills. I should do a project entirely in JavaScript to become more skillful.
I can't wait to see the Advanced JavaScript lectures. At the end of the 4th lecture Douglas said that they will continue with theory of DOM which I will follow and only then continue with Advanced JS.
Points that caught my attention in The Theory of the DOM Part I:
(03:31) A scripted web browser, Netscape Navigator 2, was first introduced in 1995
Best thing happened to have standards work was Mozilla abandoning the Netscape layer model in favor of the W3C model
(10:03) List of browsers Yahoo! wants their JavaScript library to run on are FireFox 1.5, FireFox 2.0, Safari 2, Internet Explorer 6, IE 7, Opera 9
(12:11) The <script> tag first appeared in Netscape Navigator 2
(13:05) <!-- --> comment around script was a Netscape 2 hack for Mosaic and Navigator 1.0
(14:51) W3C deprecated language=javascript attribute in script tags, don't put it there anymore
(18:48) If you call document.write before onload it inserts data into the document, if you call it after, it replaces the document with the new stuff
(20:25) name= is used to identify values in form data and to identify a window or frame
(20:45) id= is used to uniquely identify an element so that you could get access to it
(20:59) Microsoft introduced document.all as a super-collection of all elements with name or id
(21:39) W3C instead said use document.getElementById(id) and document.getElementsByName(name)
(23:41) Document tree structure is different for IE than for other browsers because Microsoft decided to depart from W3C standard and not to include whitespaces as text nodes in the tree
(25:02) document.body gets you to body node of the tree, document.documentElement gets you to the html root tag of the tree
After watching this lecture I decided to add time where each point that caught my attention happened so that if anyone is interested in any of the points he/she could just fast forward to that place in the video. Eventually I will go through the videos up to this one once more and add timestamps.
Points that caught my attention in The Theory of the DOM Part II:
(04:32) The guy designing CSS chose a not so appealing names to a programmer for CSS style names. JavaScript guys converted those to camel case in JavaScript which is probably the least compatible with CSS style names
(08:31) Replacing a child is done with "java oriented, model based, nothing in common with reality sort of api" through old.parentNode.replaceChild(new, old) where you specify old twice
(09:03) It is important to remove any event handlers from the object before you delete it
(10:10) Microsoft and their Internet Explorer were the first to realize that it is convenient to provide access to HTML parser and provided innerHTML property which can be assigned a string containing HTML directly
(10:50) There is no standard describing innerHTML property
(12:12) The browser has an event-driven, single-threaded, asynchronous programming model
(12:55) There are three ways to adding event handlers - classic mode (node["on" + type] = func), Microsoft mode (node.attachEvent("on" + type, func)) and W3C mode (node.addEventListener(type, func, bool))
(14:50) Microsoft does not send an event parameter, they use the global event object instead.
(15:58) There are two ways how events are handled - trickling and bubbling
(17:23) The extra bool parameter in W3C mode of adding event handlers node.addEventListener(type, func, bool) tells whether the events are processed bottom up (bubbling) or top down (trickling)
Points that caught my attention in The Theory of the DOM Part III:
(01:26) Hugest memory leaks happen in IE 6
(01:33) Because of that you must explicitly remove event handlers from nodes before deleting or replacing them
(06:49) self, parent and top are aliases of window object
(08:10) A script can access another window if and only if document.domain === otherwindow.document.domain
(10:10) There are three ways to get cross browser compatibility - browser detection, feature detection, platform libraries
(11:20) Internet Explorer 1.0 identified itself as "Internet Explorer" but many sites refused to serve the contents complaining that it was not "Mozilla" so in version 1.5 IE identifies itself as "Mozilla"
(12:16) Browser detection cross compatibility is the least recommended way
(15:37) Platform library cross compatibility is the most recommended way
(15:35) Platform library cross compatibility is the most recommended way
(18:48) No browser completely implements the standards and much of the DOM is not in any standards. If there was a 100% standards compliant browser, it would not work!
(19:19) When programming DOM: 1) do what works; 2) do what's common; 3) do what's standard
Okay, I watched the whole Theory of DOM course and have gained good theoretical knowledge but basically no practical skills. To get better with the JavaScript and DOM will require me to do some interesting practical projects with both of these guys.
Now I am off to watch Advanced JavaScript lectures and then the remaining.
Points that caught my attention in Advanced JavaScript Part I:
(01:20) In prototypal inheritance objects inherit directly from objects, there are no classes
(01:30) An objects contains a "secret link" to another object. Mozilla calls it __proto__
(03:36) If looking for a member fails, the last object searched is Object.prototype
(07:50) When functions are designed to be used with new, they are called constructors
(08:13) new Constructor() returns a new object with a link to Constructor.prototype
(09:40) Always have your constructors named with a capital letter so you at least develop reflex for putting a new in front of it
(09:48) Forgetting the new still makes code work but it does not construct a new object. This is considered one of the language design errors
(10:00) When a new function object is created, it is always given a prototype member
(10:49) "Differential inheritance" is a special form of inheritance where you specify just the changes from one generation of objects to the next
(17:24) JavaScript doesn't have an operator which makes a new object using an existing object as its prototype, so we have to write our own function
(18:50) A "public method" is a function that uses this to access its object
(21:55) Functions can be used to create module containers
(25:01) "Privileged methods" are functions that have access to "secret" information and they are constructed through closures
(28:05) "Parasitic inheritance" is a way of creating an object of an augmented version an existing object.
Points that caught my attention in Advanced JavaScript Part II:
(06:30) Pseudoclassical patterns are less effective than prototypal patterns or parasitic patterns
(09:06) Inner functions do not have access to this
(09:32) In JavaScript 1.0 there were no arrays
(10:31) When arrays got added, arguments object was forgot to be converted to Array object and it continues to be an array like object
(15:47) There are debuggers for IE - Microsoft Script Debugger, which is bad and two debuggers built in Visual Studio and Office 2003. Mozilla has Venkman and Firebug. Safari has Drosera
(17:30) funny instruction on how to get debugger working with Office 2003 :D
(24:29) All implementations of JavaScript have non-standard debugger statement which cause a breakpoint if there is a dubgger present
Points that caught my attention in Advanced JavaScript Part III:
(04:20) Array join() method is much faster for concatenating large set of strings than using operator +
(07:03) Just have the server gzip the JavaScript source file to minimize the load times, avoid tools which can introduce bugs such as minificators and obfuscators
(07:19) JSON
The advanced JavaScript lectures provided lots of idioms and patterns used in the language. I did not do much experimentation and have really grasped just the concepts and overall structure of these advanced concepts.
Now I am going to watch "Advancing JavaScript with Libraries" by John Resig, creator of the jQuery JavaScript library and author of Pro JavaScript Techniques. He's a Mozilla technologist focused on the relationship between Mozilla and the world of JavaScript libraries.
Interesting points from Advancing JavaScript with Libraries Part I:
(08:20) In IE7 basically the only change to JavaScript was to XmlHTTPRequest object
(25:14) There are two standards for querying the DOM document - XPath and CSS 3 selectors
(26:13) IE doesn't have very good CSS selector support, because of that users have been using the very minimum of CSS selectors which almost equates CSS 1
(27:30) jQuery allows selecting elements from the DOM by using CSS 3 selectors which is done in one line of jQuery code instead of 20 - 25 lines of just JavaScript DOM code
Interesting points from Advancing JavaScript with Libraries Part II:
(05:15) Users are expecting the DOM selectors to behave more like CSS, that is like when a new CSS selector is added, it propagates to all the elements affected. The users expect the same to happen when a chunk of HTML is added to the DOM, that the handlers get added to them without re-running any code
(12:30) Object Relational Mappings
(14:50) Libraries create new patterns on top of existing APIs
There were not that many points that got me interested because it was pretty obvious stuff. It was just interesting to see that the DOM is not perfect and there are many bugs which one or the other browser fails, why they fail and how to solve these DOM related problems. Also typical programming meta-problems were discussed such as JavaScript trying to get elements before browser has loaded the DOM, how the white spaces are treated and what methods to use for navigating the DOM. Later the lecture went on how to query the DOM tree using jQuery and mix of XPath and CSS 3. Then it is discussed how injecting HTML in an existing document is done, what's tricky about it and what problems can arise. Finally the lecture continues with FUEL and object relational mappings.
The other lecture I watched was "Maintainable JavaScript" by Nicholas Zakas. He is an engineer on the team that brings you My Yahoo!, one of the most popular personalized portals on the web. He is also the author of two books on frontend engineering, including Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, one of the best tomes of its kind.
Interesting points from Maintainable JavaScript:
(01:15) It is estimated that as much as 80% of time is spent maintaining existing code
(04:30) Maintainable code is understandable, intuitive, adaptive, extendable and debuggable
(16:20) There are three layers on the client side - JavaScript for behavior, CSS for presentation and HTML for structure
(23:42) Programming practices
(26:30) Namespace your objects
(32:10) Avoid null comparison, use instanceof or typeof operators
(37:15) Write code in separate JavaScript files and use a build process to combine them
(40:47) Summary of writing maintainable code - code conventions, loose coupling, programming practices and build process
There are not that many interesting points anymore because most of the stuff has been covered in the previous lectures. Apart from that these lecture did not teach me much new because this stuff was pretty obvious. The only point to watch this lecture is to refresh all these obvious suggestions - agree on indentation and naming conventions in your team, comment difficult algorithms and large sections of code, don't write obvious comments, comment hacks, loose coupling, careful use of complex code and design patterns, etc.
| 2024-11-08T11:17:11 | en | train |
|
41,422 | nickb | 2007-08-11T03:07:42 | How REST won over WS-* | http://blogs.concedere.net:8080/blog/discipline/web/?permalink=Sharing-vs-Services-or-Why-There-is-No-Me-and-There-is-No-You.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,430 | pg | 2007-08-11T04:09:15 | Study users by letting them design your UI | http://svenfoo.geekheim.de/index.php/2005-08-24/paper-prototyping-for-fun-and-profit/ | 5 | 2 | [
41514,
41445
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41,431 | goodmike | 2007-08-11T04:15:32 | 4 Things I Hate about the Internet | http://www.michaelharrison.ws/weblog/?p=37 | 5 | 3 | [
41435,
41583
] | null | null | http_other_error | WordPress › Error | null | null | There has been a critical error on this website.Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress. | 2024-11-08T13:44:14 | null | train |
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41,447 | vlad | 2007-08-11T05:50:53 | Texty: Dead Simple Content Creation And Editing | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/10/texty-dead-simple-content-creation-and-editing/ | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,451 | nickb | 2007-08-11T06:04:28 | Why Is Hollywood Making A Sequel To The Napster Wars? | http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201400131 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,460 | vlad | 2007-08-11T06:37:38 | Was Dell.com hacked just a bit so most wouldn't notice? How would you detect that? | If you visit www.dell.com/smb , you will see that Dell proudly states that they're the #1 PC of Choice in the US? (with a question mark.)<p>Google's cache shows a + at the end, instead of a question mark. Since this is an image file, and not text, how do you propose this happened? Surely, it's supposed to say ".. in the US*". | http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/6162/dellhackedquestionfn1.png | 5 | 4 | [
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41,473 | jamiequint | 2007-08-11T08:00:32 | Facebook Homepage Code | null | http://facebooksecrets.blogspot.com/ | 14 | 7 | [
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41,477 | nickb | 2007-08-11T08:38:11 | Supermarket 2.0 - Web2.0 Parody (vid) | http://www.glumbert.com/media/supermarket | 2 | 2 | [
41494,
41519
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41,486 | thinkingserious | 2007-08-11T11:31:42 | Save Time With Development Templates | This resource is for web masters who often create small projects. | http://blog.thembid.com/index.php/2007/08/11/save-time-with-development-templates/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,487 | thinkingserious | 2007-08-11T12:13:11 | A Tool for Digg Submitters | The private beta starts in a few more days. If you submit stories to Digg.com and like getting to the front page, then you will want to play with this. | http://blog.notifir.com/2007/08/11/no-more-private-beta-invites-after-august-15-2007/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,489 | farmer | 2007-08-11T12:40:55 | Google Is Closing Its Video Retailing Operation | null | http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/technology/11google.html?ex=1344484800&en=46bd635315147da0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | bot_blocked | nytimes.com | null | null | Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker | 2024-11-08T09:22:55 | null | train |
41,496 | davidw | 2007-08-11T13:32:55 | Q&A: Jonathan Schwartz on Sun's open-source business strategy | http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9757417-16.html | 6 | 7 | [
41512,
41509
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41,500 | danw | 2007-08-11T14:10:43 | Five Points to Consider before Expanding Internationally | null | http://blog.seedcamp.com/2007/08/five-points-to-consider-before.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,502 | amichail | 2007-08-11T14:15:09 | Creating "booster" apps to increase the popularity of your serious Facebook application. | It seems that to get a popular Facebook app these days, you need to create a game or fun toy of some sort.<p>So if you would like to make a more serious app popular, perhaps you can create fun booster games/toys that direct traffic to your more serious app. | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,504 | null | 2007-08-11T14:38:44 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
"true"
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41,505 | transburgh | 2007-08-11T14:39:29 | Is Google's Closure of Paid Video a Sign that the Merge is Imminent | null | http://www.centernetworks.com/is-googles-closure-of-paid-video-a-sign | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | timeout | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T17:50:00 | null | train |
41,511 | jcwentz | 2007-08-11T15:05:48 | Fred Wilson: Time Is On Your Side, Yes It Is | http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/08/time-is-on-your.html | 21 | 1 | [
41680
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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41,516 | farmer | 2007-08-11T15:23:53 | Friday Morning at Matrix Partners | null | http://www.innoeco.com/2007/08/friday-morning-at-matrix-partners.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,531 | jkopelman | 2007-08-11T16:40:30 | BijanBlog: Woulda Coulda Shoulda | null | http://sabet.typepad.com/bijanblog/2007/08/woulda-coulda-s.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,532 | sharpshoot | 2007-08-11T16:42:13 | Knowledge is power, 30 books every young entrepreneur should read | http://blog.seedcamp.com/search/label/europe | 29 | 25 | [
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41,565 | lkozma | 2007-08-11T22:31:14 | Distributed karma: an idea for fixing recommendation systems | http://lkozma.net/idea.php?dea=16 | 13 | 18 | [
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Entries Tagged 'Ideas' ↓
Nonlinear speedometer
October 4th, 2013 — Ideas, Visualization
As everyone knows, excessive speed is one of the main causes of traffic accidents. One of the reasons for reckless speeding is that when we think of the possible impact of a collision, our intuition fools us. We tend to assume that if we go twice as fast (say, at 80 km/h instead of 40 km/h), then the impact of a collision will be twice as large. In fact, the impact of a collision is proportional not to the speed (V), but to the kinetic energy of the vehicle (m/2 * V²), which is transformed to work as the car decelerates to zero. Here m is the mass of the vehicle, which we cannot do much about, but the other term is the square of the velocity. This means that the “impact” of hitting a wall at 80 km/h is four times as large as that of the same collision at 40 km/h.
To capture this intuition, the idea of this post is a speedometer design, that scales as the square of the velocity, to give the driver a more realistic view of the effects of speeding.
(larger image)
Notes:
after sketching this drawing, I found that in 1995 Goetz Kluge was thinking along similar lines and produced a similar design. There are however some differences – see next.
besides showing the speed in the more familiar, circular layout, I also made the decision to draw the smaller lines at uniform density (i.e. they are spaced proportionally to the kinetic energy, not to the velocity). This design might make it harder to estimate the exact speed, say between 40 km/h and 50 km/h, but it makes the increased kinetic energy easier to grasp – when we speed from 120 km/h to 130 km/h, the hand crosses more “small lines” than from 20 km/h to 30 km/h.
while I haven’t seen a similar speedometer in any real car, some of the existing speedometers are in fact nonlinear. Unfortunately, they seem to achieve the exact opposite effect to the design shown above. See this example. On the linked image, and in many other modern speedometers, the manufacturers try to put more resolution in at the lower half of the range, dilating the velocities between 0 and 80. My guess is that car makers do this, because the car accelerates faster at low speeds, so dilating the lower range makes the hand movement seem more uniform at all speeds – this is probably aesthetically more pleasing, but it might come at a cost of an increased (false) sense of security, and in effect a reduced safety.
(I got this exactly wrong – thanks Tobias for pointing it out – it is actually the opposite, on the proposed speedometer design, the hand would move more evenly – so besides being safer, it would be more aesthetical as well, the only downside seems to be the reduced resolution in the low range)
Quick web app ideas
July 9th, 2011 — Ideas
A few quick web app ideas, to get the ball rolling.. Some previous ones.
1. Your English is so 1890.
There was a popular widget some time ago, in which you paste some text that you wrote (or it processes your blog) and through a statistical analysis of word frequencies it tells you whether you write like Hemingway or more like Virginia Woolf or like Edgar Allan Poe or whoever. Then you get a badge you can put on your blog or on your wall in your favorite social network. It was quite nice and popular, although I can’t find it anymore (EDIT: here it is).
Mine is a tweak on this idea. Google has released a data set with the frequencies of words in books throughout the years (ngrams.googlelabs.com). Say, you might find that “computer” appeared in 5% of the books in 1970 and in 15% of those in 1985 (I am making this up). So, given any year, you can easily find out how likely a certain word is to appear in a randomly picked text. With Bayes rule and some reasonable assumptions we could reverse this and for a given snippet of text, compute the probability that the text was written in 1800 or in 1850 or in 1900, etc. We would pretend that a priori the text is just as likely to come from any year. This is not exactly true, since we know the text comes from the present, or at least we know that the amount of text available from any year grows as we get closer to the present, but let’s ignore all that for a moment. It would be more fun than exact science anyway. However, it could still generate interesting comparisons between the style, choice of words, favorite topics of different people, or the styles of different authors from the past. For example we might discover that some authors had a language that anticipated (or influenced) the future, while others were stuck using the language of the past.
2. World map with radios.
Online radios are a nice tool in learning any language, but often it is hard to find suitable ones. For learning or practicing a language the topic is perhaps less important as long as it is at least mildly interesting and as long as there is sufficient amount of talking (instead of just music), with a clear pronunciation that is representative for a given language/dialect. So what I would like is a world map with a curated list of online radio stations, placed on the map with pins, and for each station it would be given exactly what language/dialect they use, approximately how difficult are the topics discussed, what is the amount of slang, etc.
3. World map with unofficial regions.
Finding a political map with the official borders for countries/states/counties/etc. is easy. There exist however, many other types of regions:
historical ones (those that in the past might have formed an administrative unit but they don’t anymore)
linguistic regions (the region where a language/dialect is spoken)
geographic regions not necessarily corresponding to administrative units (Silicon Valley, Gangetic Plain, etc.)
regions of scientific interest: (the range of the Neanderthal man, the region of influence of classical Greek culture, the range of the Bengal tiger in 1900)
etc.
It would be nice to have a tool for annotating maps in this way (possibly based on Google Maps) just as easily as we can add locations or paths between different points. Such regions, once drawn could be saved, embedded, printed, used in presentations, news articles, lectures, etc. or shared similarly to how users can share photos attached to places on Google Maps. Then, instead of the usual political/geographic view of the world, we could choose other filters/overlays created by others.
Another type of overlay would not have strict borders like regions, but would be a mapping of values onto geographical coordinates. The function value could be shown in colors or using contour curves or any other visualization, and the values could come from uploaded datasets or from some specified function. These types of visualizations exist of course, but I don’t know of a simple interface where users could create such maps.
4. World map live postcard.
A simple service that shows an empty world map and generates a unique url on demand. If someone visits the url, their geographic location appears on the map. This can be done of course with analytics software, but the key here is that a) this is real-time b) accessible to everyone who has the url and c) starting a new map is just one click with no registration and then the url can simply be copy/pasted and sent to others.
Example usage: I am regularly visiting a forum, I am curious where the other visitors are from, so I put the link in the message and watch the map in real time.
Example 2: I am chatting with a group of friends and I hear that a common friend of ours is ill. I create a new map, and send the link to everyone, so when they click it, they appear on the map. They can also watch as more and more people click the link. They can also leave one liner messages that will be displayed on the map next to their location. As our friend checks the link, he/she can see “get well soon” messages popping up from all over the world. This is all a bit similar to Wikipediavision, but more user-generated and with throw-away urls.
5. Centralized phpBB spam filter.
PhpBB is a robust, well-known and loved dicussion board (forum) software that has been around for a long time. The main aspect in which I find it inferior to centralized services like Disqus is spam. Spam filtering is something that is simply easier to do in a centralized way than for each individual board separately. This centralized filter would be a subscription-based API that I can call whenever I get a message on my board and it returns a spam/not spam flag. This can be integrated into my phpBB installation and the necessary action is taken automatically. This way, I wouldn’t have to bother users with captcha’s, registration, senseless restrictions, and I could still have them use the familiar interface of phpBB. If such a service works for WordPress comments and other blogging software, surely it can be retrofitted for phpBB (?).
6. Name face search.
When picking a baby name, many parents would like to find out as much as possible about it, including the history and etymology of the name, which historical persons have had that name, current popularity of the name, etc.
In this service you type in a first name and it gives you the photos of 100 random people having that name. Looking at the age of people on the photos, you can guess whether the name was more popular one or two generations ago than it is today. Also useful if you hear a name in a foreign language and you are not sure whether it is a male or female name. Images of faces can be found on Facebook or on Google Images, but there are still some technical difficulties: a) all 100 should be different persons b) the images should be filtered so that they only contain photos of people and not other random images.
More random ideas
February 15th, 2011 — Ideas
Another bunch of random ideas off my chest. If interested, check out the previous set also, or the web app ideas before them. The usual disclaimers apply…
1. Facebook downvote button
Obligatory disclaimer: I don’t have a Facebook account. But I did have one for a short period, so I have a rough idea what it is about. Unless things have changed dramatically, what is sorely missing is the dislike button. Of course it goes against the feel-goody nature of the whole experience, so probably it will never be added.
On the other hand, many elements that are “likable” are also commentable in some way. So the idea is a browser plugin that adds the thumbs-down button within the browser (something like a GreaseMonkey script). When the user clicks it, it writes a comment with the text “I don’t like this”. Those who have the plugin installed will have these comments hidden and only see the dislike-count summary of them. Those without the plugin will see the comments, which make sense on their own, so the whole system degrades gracefully.
2. Software feature matrix
This one is a website built around the idea of unbiased comparison of products. It groups existing software or web apps into categories and lists a large set of agreed-upon features, ticking those that a software product implements, with extra information where it does not fully implement it, etc. Such tables have been written for many categories of software, for example this list of CMS software on wikipedia, but the hypothetical website would contain tables for every imaginable category, both Desktop software and web apps, with up-to-date price information and many other features. How to collect the data and how to ensure the information is unbiased, are nontrivial questions, but if done well, such a website could be quite useful.
3. Namespace explorer
There exist very good services that help us in coming up with domain names for a project. However, nowadays you might also want to ensure that you can find a matching account name on Twitter, Gmail, Facebook and who knows what other services. This application would suggest names that are available on all these services and would automate to some extent the creation of accounts. Some intuitive navigation interface or visualization of these namespaces to help find available names.
4. Paper airplane simulator
Software for modeling paper airplane folding and simulation of their aerodynamic behavior. Additionally, a system that comes up with new folding designs, evaluates and improves them using genetic algorithms or other optimization techniques.
Karl Sims’ evolved creatures meet Robert Lang’s origami work.
5. Juggling tricks optimizer
And you thought the previous idea was childish and useless. This one supposes a rich language for describing the mechanics of juggling n balls. Basic siteswap notation (although beautifully compact) doesn’t capture the full range of possible patterns. The hypothetical language could describe throws, catches, multiplexes, hand movements, the anatomically possible range and speed of movements and the physical plausibility of every ball trajectory, possibly including collisions.
Using this language we can describe any juggling pattern ever performed in the past or in the future. Now all we need is a pair of scoring functions. The first function tells how difficult a pattern is (described as a string in our language), based on the speed of movement, the resting time between throws/catches and various physiological considerations. The other function tells how interesting the pattern is. I am not even speculating on how such function would look like. Interestingness is related to difficulty, but there are some easy tricks which are very nice (and vice versa), so there is something more happening here. Having these components in place (a big if, I know), we can start optimizing using our favorite genetic algorithm from the previous idea.
The system then invents the most interesting, most hard to perform (but possible!) juggling trick. Then it designs the most interesting – yet easy pattern. Tweak the two functions, optimize again, invent, juggle, etc.
6. Car parking game
A simple game (mobile or desktop) with realistic mechanics but extremely simple graphics and control. Actually control would not necessarily be simple, but it would instead resemble the control of a (manual) gear shift car with the 3 pedals and all. The cars are basically rectangles, but the acceleration, steering, braking, collision are realistic as much as possible. Possible tasks include parking in some small place, side-parking, turning in 3 steps in a small place, etc. etc.
Also suitable as a programming project for children.
7. Song illustrator
This plays on a misconception I had when I was 4 or 5. I was familiar with audio cassettes, from which I would listen to stories and songs for children that my parents would put on for me to hear. I had heard about video players before, and I vaguely understood that they are playing moving images (I was familiar with TV already), but I seriously misunderstood something: I thought that video players could play the same audio cassettes I was listening to (say, “The Little Prince”, being read by someone). As they played the audio cassettes, I thought they would render the moving images on the spot, creating vivid animations similar to those I imagined upon hearing the text (or more interesting). It never crossed my mind that in order to have a video version, a bunch of actors would have to go through the trouble of acting it all out in front of a camera. That is so much worse than the way I originally imagined it.
So this idea is a modest version of the original concept: take a song together with the lyrics, feed it into this program, which then creates a video for it automatically and synchronizes it to the music. As a first approximation it finds Flickr images corresponding to the words from the lyrics and makes a slideshow out of those. I know, reality is not so interesting sometimes.
8. Visa matrix
Back to more realistic waters, this one is a useful tool for world-travelers and world-citizens. If there are 200 countries, make a 200-by-200 matrix, where the column shows your citizenship, the row shows which country you want to travel to and the entry shows what document you need to travel there. For a summary view (for example as a printable poster), the entries can be color-coded: from green to red showing “no document needed”, “passport needed”, “visa needed”, “entry not allowed”, etc. In the online version the cells contain links to the embassy websites where more information is available and the visa application can be initiated. All the necessary information is publicly available already, it is just not collected (as far as I know) in one place like this.
9. Online store where you can negotiate
Extremely half-baked, I am thinking this out as I write it down. They say “everything is negotiable”. While that holds only in a limited way, say in a usual mall in North America, it is very true in a bazaar, in the other side of the world. The price you get depends on how much you need it, how desperate the seller is to get rid of it, your and his/her negotiation skills and many other factors. While not all of these can be captured in an online store, certainly some subset of it could be. Currently the online stores give “offers” to you, which is too rigid. They might even give personalized offers, knowing your shopping history, personal data, etc.
In many cases, however, they might be perfectly willing to sell the product at a cheaper price if they knew for sure that I was not going to buy it for anything more than that. On the other hand they want me to pay the maximum amount that I can afford and that I am willing to pay. Probably there are legal restrictions on the exact ways to perform such price segmentation, but in theory there could be an online store where I can make a counteroffer: “oh no, I’m not buying that e-book reader for $129, I’ll pay $99 maximum, and that’s it. At most, I can spend another $20 to buy some books, but that’s all I can spend today. Take it or leave it.” Once an offer is made (from either side), it is binding. The online store would have my purchasing- as well as negotiation history, so it could decide whether it would take my offer or would rather make a counter-counter-offer and so on, ad-infinitum.
10. Random wiki image as wallpaper
Wikipedia has a nice “Random article” feature, that can easily take information-addicts on an hours-long semi-pointless article-hopping ride. Something slightly less addictive is the WikiMedia random file feature:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Random/File
The results are mostly images. You clicked it? Now click it again! A slideshow of these would make a nice, educational screensaver or periodically-updated wallpaper. There should be some check to filter out images that are too small, that are obviously uninteresting (such as portions of maps or flags of countries), and some context would be nice also, such as title, description, maybe titles of a few of the linking articles.
EDIT: I made this: http://lkozma.net/blog/random-wiki-image-wallpaper/
Random web app ideas
July 27th, 2010 — Ideas
Here are some more web app ideas. As I am not implementing any of them right now, I’m posting them in the hope that someone else will find them interesting and build something similar. They might not be useful in their current form, but maybe they can be further iterated and inspire someone to come up with something else. Let me know in the comments what do you think, especially if any of these exist already.
You might find interesting the seven web app ideas I posted previously.
1. Wikitravel itinerary
The way I travel might not be the most typical, but here is how I usually prepare before leaving: I download and print all the relevant articles from Wikitravel and Wikipedia. These include the place where I actually go, nearby sites worth visiting, places I will pass by on the train, generic articles about the region, country, etc. I then usually read all this while traveling or whenever there’s nothing better to do during the trip.
To reduce the amount of paper I carry, I slightly edit and compress the articles before printing, removing some sections or pictures, text that is common between articles, etc. For the places where I stay longer I leave most of the information, for places I just pass through on the train I remove the restaurants, hostels section, leaving just a short description of the place. If I travel with other people we often share some of this preparation, but it still takes a few hours of work that could be easily automated. In particular it takes some effort to hunt down all the relevant articles, because when you don’t know much about a place, you won’t know what is in its neighborhood either, that might have an article about it.
By the way, Wikitravel is great, this method has given us so far more up-to-date, more interesting and more reliable reading material than most traditional travel guides. So the web app would do the following: I enter where I will go, possibly a few other places that I pass by and it fetches all the possibly relevant articles from Wikipedia and Wikitravel using geographical location of places and returns a small, ready to print document. It can also ask what languages I understand and look for articles written in those. Possibly other sources could be added, such as maps or train timetables, but this alone would be quite useful already. If not for printing personalized travel guides, it could work as a mobile app: download the articles on a mobile phone to allow offline browsing while on the road.
2. External sites analytics
There is a trick described here that uses the different styling of visited links to sniff whether the user has visited some other websites or not. It was suggested that this hack could be used to customize the social “share” buttons, in order to show only those services that the visitor has used in the past. The same technique could be used to find out more useful information about the visitor: which search engine they use, whether they read the NY Times or the WSJ, if they are a Gmail or Yahoo mail user, whether they use the competitor’s product, etc. The technique does not allow reading the full browsing history, it just gives yes/no answers for a predefined set of websites.
The user of this analytics service would choose which other websites they want to follow, and for each visitor they would get the list of websites from this set that the visitor has actually visited before. Combined with the traditional analytics data: referring site, browser version, length of visit, this could be valuable business information.
Some immediate disadvantages:
the technique can raise some privacy and ethical issues, although the information is leaked by the browser anyway, it is considered a bug, so it might reflect negatively on a website that wants to exploit this data. Also, most users would not be aware that this type of information can be collected. On the other hand many users are unaware of traditional analytics as well, which doesn’t deter websites from collecting it.
the method is not 100% accurate, and it does not work if the visitor has deleted their browsing history
it could potentially be embarrassing for a website to expose the list of other websites they care about (acknowledging competitors, important news sources, etc.)
3. Related page 404
Larger web sites such as those of big corporations or universities suffer inevitably from the deterioration of links. Pages often change addresses, and even though the material is still available, it can not be found at the original address. Services like Google Cache come in handy sometimes, but they might not have indexed a correct version of the page or they might contain outdated content (often the page is available somewhere else with more up-to-date content, for example a university admissions page).
A quick solution would be if the “page missing” message would be followed by suggestions of pages which are similar to the old page that used to be there. This could be achieved by a site search engine that stores important keywords of indexed pages and would search within the domain for those keywords, if the page is currently missing. This could be a feature of site search engines, either hosted on the server or managed remotely. This is similar to the second idea in this list.
4. Stacked source widget
World map widgets that show where your website visitors are from used to be very popular. Also, there exist real-time widgets that show where the last 5 or so visitors are from (both geographically and also from which site they were referred). One combination I haven’t seen yet is a stacked graph visualization of traffic sources in the past week/month or year. This would show how total traffic numbers have changed, and also when certain sites were sending more traffic than others. It could be interesting for example to see how at some point your page was featured on reddit, later on slashdot, how traffic was picked up by other sources afterwards, etc. Of course, all these can be visualized by existing analytics packages, but I am thinking of a widget that would make this information available to the visitors of the site. The various sources would be clickable and the visitor could discover related interesting material by going to the sources. I am not sure there would be an incentive for site owners to use this, however, which is why this idea is half-baked :)
5. Unicode obfuscator
This is a very simple service inspired by this post. I enter some plain English text and it returns a set of unicode characters from other languages or special characters that visually resemble the latin letters (ignoring the actual pronunciation or history of the letters). It can be specified how much distortion should be added to the text:
at level 1: hello -> hello
at level 2: hello -> ⱨěłļō
at level 3: hello -> ɧԐԼ˪◌
While I don’t have a specific use case in mind for this, it could be used wherever you want text to be human-readable but not searchable. Otherwise it could be just a fun and useless way to write on forums, not unlike metal umlauts in band names.
6. Comment whiteboard
This one is simple: instead of the usual text comment box after a blog post or article, have a whiteboard on which visitors can draw whatever they want. This would need just the minimal tools, such as picking colors, drawing, erasing, perhaps zooming. Visitors could draw at the same time and they could overwrite each other’s drawing anytime. The history of the whiteboard could be played back, so nothing would be actually lost. Obviously, most of the time nothing would happen so the playback could be sped up significantly to include only the times before something was erased/overwritten.
I am trying really hard to think of a scenario where this would be useful. Articles on math, where formulas would be difficult to type in comments? Nah, there are ways to let users type LaTeX or just dumb down formulas to plain text. Blogs for children who can’t write yet? Hmm, maybe not. Perhaps this one really is useless. Although it could feel quite natural on touch-screen devices.
7. Rotor game
This is a game idea which I couldn’t actually make to work. If anyone would pick it up and make something out of it, I would be super happy. It is based on the rotor-router model where each node is in one of a number of states. Let’s suppose it is actually a checkered paper and each cell can be in one of four states (indicated by an arrow pointing in one of four directions). A walker is passing through these cells, following the arrows, but after he passes a cell, the arrow in that cell will turn clockwise by 90 degrees.
This set-up leads to very interesting, seemingly chaotic behavior which is of interest to mathematicians and physicist, but I am curious whether some interesting board game could be designed from this premise. My first attempt was to have the user design the initial configuration of arrows such that they will guide a ball from start to finish. To make it more difficult, there can be several balls with intersecting paths, and the arrows have to be configured such that each ball gets to its destination. The problem is that this way the puzzles become either trivial or impossible to solve. If several balls can be moving at the same time, there are additional complications: can they pass through each other? What if they get to the same cell at the same time? etc.
I still hope some interesting game/puzzle could be designed from these rules, perhaps slightly modified (hexagonal field?), but I have given up searching for it for the time being. Well, this is not strictly a web app idea, but if the game turned out to be interesting, it could be implemented as one.
8. Zooming GUI for web
Zooming GUIs are a beautiful concept and there are some uses when they feel quite natural in practice (exploring graph data, browsing photo collections, certain data visualizations, mindmap-like tools, calendars, etc.) but somehow they didn’t become as widespread as they could have. There are many websites (mostly flash-based) built on zooming UI concepts, but I don’t know of a JavaScript based toolkit that would allow quick prototyping of zooming web-apps (using vector graphics, not bitmaps). I’m thinking of something similar to the Piccolo project for the Desktop, but in JavaScript. With proper controls, this could be most usable on touch-screen devices, although I’m not familiar at all with the current best native systems on those devices.
| 2024-11-08T11:09:16 | en | train |
|
41,573 | rokhayakebe | 2007-08-11T23:33:43 | Take a Break. No seriously. Free yourself for 1 hour. | Then come back more energized and ready to Rock and Roll | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,577 | AF | 2007-08-12T00:04:25 | Anyone having success charging for something on Facebook? | Also are there any numbers on how much money Facebook makes off the 'gifts' they sell?<p>I'm trying to decide right now between the prospect of charging a minimal fee for something and necessarily limiting my audience vs offering the service for free and attempting to make money off a large(r) audience with ads. I guess it is a question that most startups end up asking.<p>Does it seem like Facebook users are willing to spend money? | 5 | 5 | [
41589,
41591,
41578
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,584 | transburgh | 2007-08-12T01:12:54 | Five Suggestions to Improve PodTech | http://www.centernetworks.com/five-suggestions-to-improve-podtech | 5 | 0 | [
41867
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,585 | transburgh | 2007-08-12T01:13:28 | Apple Gets Into Social Music Scene with My iTunes | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/11/apple-gets-into-social-music-scene-with-my-itunes/ | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,586 | nickb | 2007-08-12T01:16:47 | Coding Horror: The Large Display Paradox | http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000928.html | 2 | 1 | [
41588
] | null | null | timeout | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T02:08:00 | null | train |
|
41,592 | drm237 | 2007-08-12T02:21:46 | YC Demo Day on a Microsoft Site | Y Combinator held its Demo Day in Boston unveiling 19 new startups to VCs and investors. The event was hosted by Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston. | http://microsoftstartupzone.com/blogs/the_next_big_thing/archive/2007/08/10/y-combinator-demo-day-19-startups-with-cool-ideas.aspx | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,594 | drm237 | 2007-08-12T02:22:39 | Advantages of an East Coast startup, Part 1 | Much has been written recently about the differences between the entrepreneurial environment on the East Coast (Boston/New York etc) versus the West Coast (Silicon Valley). I've lived on both coasts, and worked in the tech industry on both coasts. And now I'm starting a company here in Boston. I think that gives me enough knowledge to write some intelligent things on the subject. | http://blog.mypunchbowl.com/2007/08/10/advantages-of-an-east-coast-startup-part-1/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | fetch failed | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:02:00 | null | train |
41,595 | drm237 | 2007-08-12T02:25:31 | Rats, My Startup Just Got Googled!! | The consumer in me says: "I love Google!". I really can't think of any company which has given me so much cool stuff without me taking out my wallet!<p>The entrepreneur in me (a sometimes small, sometimes loud voice) looks at Google with a mixture of fear and envy. Why? Well, imagine you have poured your heart and soul into a startup project over months or years, to find out Google has launched a similar service for free just as your project is gaining traction! This is the stuff that makes people jump of bridges or tall buildings. | http://bashford.wordpress.com/2007/08/11/rats-my-startup-just-got-googled/ | 6 | 14 | [
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41,596 | thingsilearned | 2007-08-12T02:35:41 | Your Good Idea Doesn't Matter | http://davidbosson.wordpress.com/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,598 | danw | 2007-08-12T02:44:27 | The loss of context on Facebook | null | http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/08/10/loss_of_context.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,599 | null | 2007-08-12T02:47:25 | null | null | null | null | null | [
41600
] | [
"true"
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41,605 | danw | 2007-08-12T03:04:01 | We need better web browser history. Here's why and how | null | http://theory.isthereason.com/?p=1790 | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | no_article | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T17:41:18 | null | train |
41,606 | german | 2007-08-12T03:05:19 | Every startup team should read this (in my opinion) | I got a lot of ideas from this blog, it's so bad Katty isn't posting anymore, but I keep reading old posts.<p>What do you think? | http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/ | 6 | 3 | [
41665
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,607 | danw | 2007-08-12T03:13:09 | How Not To Get Noticed: Design and Usability lessons from WordPress | null | http://www.slideshare.net/edanzico/how-not-to-get-noticed | 10 | 1 | [
41799
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,608 | danw | 2007-08-12T03:19:38 | 5 Tips for Organizing Your CSS | null | http://erraticwisdom.com/2006/01/18/5-tips-for-organizing-your-css | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,609 | kyro | 2007-08-12T03:24:52 | GroopVine.com - Like the name? and should I sell it? | Several months ago, I registered the domain name groopvine.com in hopes of starting a project, one I submitted to yc. However, with studying for my MCATS (which are a week away), other duties, and a general change of ideas, I haven't really done much with it. I received an email several days ago from someone offering me $500 for it. I've grown a bit of an attachment with the name, and am having some trouble parting ways with it.<p>Do you guys think it's a name worth keeping and a good name in general? Or is it just another string of letters and $500 is slammin' deal? | 4 | 12 | [
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|
41,611 | vlad | 2007-08-12T03:56:06 | Have You Fallen for these 7 Negative Attitudes Pushed by the Media? | http://johnplaceonline.com/money_management/have-you-fallen-for-these-7-negative-attitudes-pushed-by-the-media/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,612 | brett | 2007-08-12T03:58:47 | TechCrunch on Facebook Source Code Leak | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/11/facebook-source-code-leaked/ | 12 | 16 | [
41620,
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] | null | null | no_error | Facebook Source Code Leaked | TechCrunch | 2007-08-12T02:51:32+00:00 | Nik Cubrilovic |
We just received a tip that the source code for the Facebook main index page has been leaked and published on a blog called Facebook Secrets. There are at least two possible ways that the source code got out – the first is that a Facebook developer has sent it out, or the more likely option that a security hole or other method has been used on either one of the Facebook servers or in their source code repository to reveal the code. The blog that published the code only has a single post on it, so it was created exclusively to publish this code – meaning that whoever is behind this both isn’t taking credit for the hole and doesn’t want to be associated with it. While there is no certain way to verify if the code is actually from Facebook, by taking a quick look through the code and by double-checking some paths that have been referenced, we can say with some certainty that this seems to be both real and also a recent version of the main Facebook page.
There are a number of clear ramifications here. The first is that the code can be used by outsiders to better understand how the Facebook application works, for the purposes of finding further security holes or bugs that could be exploited. Since Facebook is a closed source application, without access to the code security holes are usually found through a process of black-box testing, whereby an external party will probe the application in an attempt to work out how the application behaves and to try and find potential race conditions. In closed source applications it is common that developers rely on the closed nature of the application to obfuscate poor design elements and the structure of the application. An attacker getting access to the source code more often than not leads to further security holes being discovered. It is for these reasons that it is often claimed that open source software is more secure than closed source software, since there are many more eyes auditing the code and obfuscation can’t be used as a security measure.
The second implication with this leak is that the source code reveals a lot about the structure of the application, and the practices that Facebook developers follow. From just this single page of source code a lot can be said and extrapolated about the rest of the Facebook application and platform. For instance, the structure doesn’t follow any object oriented development practices, and it seems that the application is one large PHP file with a large number of custom functions living in the same namespace (they also seem to be using the Smarty templating engine).
This leak is not good news for Facebook, as it raises the question of how secure a Facebook users private data really is. If the main source code for a site can be leaked, then it can be said that almost anything is possible. Facebook has become such a success and has such a high profile that it has become a magnet for attacks against its systems. Most large scale applications suffer a breach at some point or another, since the odds are always stacked in favor of attackers, but companies can respond in a number of ways and the hope here is that Facebook will handle this situation gracefully. I don’t doubt that Facebook will pursuit this case with a lot of energy to both find the cause of why the code has leaked as well as to find who was responsible. They will also need to take some very quick short term measures to mitigate the risk to users since you can bet that right this minute there are hundreds of potential attackers pouring through the leaked code and probing their systems. At a quick glance, I know that I can see some obvious things in the code that both reveal certain hidden aspects of the platform and give a potential attacker a good head start.
Update: Facebook have sent us an official response (and Brandee Barker from Facebook has left a comment below): “A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released only powers the Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further.” It seems that the cause was apache and mod_php sending back un-interpreted source code as opposed to output, due to either a server misconfiguration or high load (this is a known issue). It is also apparent that other pages have been revealed, and that this problem has occured before, but only now has somebody actually posted the code online.
Update 2: I have posted 4 tips on my own blog on how to prevent your server from leaking your application source code
Most Popular
Australian-born entrepreneur and hacker. Currently working in advisory and consulting positions, previously at Techcrunch, Omnidrive and a number of other startups since 2000.
Nik has over 15 years of experience as a developer, penetration tester and solutions architect in industries ranging from finance, manufacturing and real estate through to consumer web application development. Nik has worked for and continues to consult and advise startups, SMB’s, venture capital firms and large enterprises including a number of Fortune 100 companies. Nik has worked and lived in Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, throughout continental Europe and Asia and is now based in San Francisco, USA.
Nik has contributed to a large number of open-source projects and published a number of security vulnerabilities for various platforms and applications since 1996. Nik is an advocate of consumer privacy and security protection, applying cryptography to all communication, the Tor anonymity network, Bitcoin and a number of other security and privacy related projects and initiatives. In 2007, he was named in The Bulletin magazine as one of Australia’s “”Smart 100″”.
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| 2024-11-08T13:11:00 | en | train |
41,626 | oxyona | 2007-08-12T05:35:59 | Holy owned subsidiary, Batman! | http://alumnit.ca/~apenwarr/log/?m=200701#27 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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41,631 | plusbryan | 2007-08-12T06:26:53 | loudr.com: anyone interested in this domain? | I think it'd be a great domain name for a music app. If you have a good idea that this would be perfect for, email me at plusbryan (att) gmail.com. YC companies preferred. | 2 | 1 | [
41677
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
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41,632 | oxyona | 2007-08-12T06:32:59 | I made the Fido lady cry: fanatical support in a bureaucracy | http://alumnit.ca/~apenwarr/log/?m=200611#24 | 1 | 1 | [
41706
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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41,633 | bootload | 2007-08-12T07:01:08 | Encouraging more girls to pursue tech | null | http://www.aquinox.net/blog/2007/06/encouraging_more_girls_to_purs.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,634 | bootload | 2007-08-12T07:01:42 | Visiting TechStars - The Lessons | null | http://www.aquinox.net/blog/2007/06/visiting_techstars_the_lessons.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,635 | bootload | 2007-08-12T07:02:07 | Typical Tech Entrepreneur? | null | http://www.aquinox.net/blog/2007/08/typical_tech_entrepreneur.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,636 | bootload | 2007-08-12T07:03:12 | On Design Thinking | null | http://www.aquinox.net/blog/2007/08/strategy_in_design.html | 1 | 1 | [
41640
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,637 | mqt | 2007-08-12T07:12:40 | VMware readying for biggest tech IPO since Google | http://venturebeat.com/2007/08/10/vmware-readying-for-biggest-tech-ipo-since-google/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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41,638 | bootload | 2007-08-12T07:26:10 | Strategy by Design | null | http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/95/design-strategy.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,639 | bootload | 2007-08-12T07:35:25 | Audio + Slides = SlideCasting! | null | http://blog.slideshare.net/2007/07/24/audio-slides-slidecasting/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,648 | tomh | 2007-08-12T09:32:38 | Learning from Facebook: Preventing PHP Leakage | http://www.nik.com.au/archives/2007/08/11/learning-from-facebook-preventing-php-leakage/ | 6 | 5 | [
41657,
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] | null | null | no_error | Home | 2014-11-14T12:21:18+1100 | JustRacing |
8/11/2024 Horse Racing Tips, Selections and Best Bets – HamiltonOne of the feature Horse Racing meetings on Friday will be run at Hamilton. We take a look at each of the...
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| 2024-11-08T02:57:11 | en | train |
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41,649 | tim | 2007-08-12T09:35:30 | SEO Speak Translated: The Real SEO Glossary | http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-10-n75.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | SEO Speak Translated: The Real SEO Glossary | null | null | Friday, August 10, 2007SEO Speak Translated: The Real SEO GlossaryTadeusz Szewczyk is a freelance search engine optimizer, blogger at the SEO 2.0 blog and journalist. Born in Poland, he’s living in Germany for two decades now.
In the SEO industry agencies, experts and even bloggers have adopted a special mode of speech not to say slang that might be misunderstood by outsiders like clients, website visitors or the general public. To help you understand what search engine optimization experts really mean I devised this real glossary of SEO speak:
What they say...What they mean...
We offer Search Engine Optimization/SEOWe assume you are the Google bot and want you to index this page for both keywords
We offer Search Engine OptimisationOur SEO company is based in the UK
Guaranteed top positionsWe place Google Adwords for you
We do SEO, SEM, PPC to increase your ROIWe do not want you to know what we do
We stick to the Google Webmaster GuidelinesWe only break them in a way that we assume Google won’t notice
We tell you how to make money onlineWe want you to click on our ads
10 ways of making money onlineThose are our 10 affiliates, please click on the respective undisclosed ads
We offer social media optimizationWe got several accounts banned at Digg
We offer link baiting servicesWe want to put those drunk naked ladies video on your site
Our networkOur link farm
Authority sitesSites that do no SEO
Black hat SEOWe do anything to get rich quick, even if your site gets banned
White hat SEOWe only cheat Google where we have to, others do it too, come on!
We optimize for Google, Yahoo, MSN, AskIf we fail in Google you still have to pay
Search Engine SubmissionWe need your mail address, those guys offered us $$$ for each 1000 verified addresses
PartnersPeople we never heard of until we exchanged links
PageRank optimizationSorry, we just started doing SEO and do not have a clue
SEO IndiaWe offer 1000 links for 30$
Alexa optimizationAll our employess have the Alexa Toolbar installed, it really works!
If you have SEO terms that you do not understand feel free to ask me in the comments!
>> More posts
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This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum! | 2024-11-08T11:00:24 | en | train |
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41,664 | bootload | 2007-08-12T12:53:46 | How to get Your Big Idea into Build | null | http://benbarren.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-get-your-big-idea-into-build.html | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | ben barren - rss'ing down under: How to get Your Big Idea into Build. | null | null |
So Nick Starr is alive, and my Apple iMac, much more important to me than the iPhone (and so it ultimately will be for The Street) is coming out in 14 hours-ish, I'll be pre-ordering the 24" baby the moment it's on streetwise.com.au or whatever other site delivers with wifi superslim keyboard and power/memory boost. Let's hope it's not like the meant to be coupled Tarantino/Rodriguez' Grindhouse flicks which still havent been shown downunder, and now they are talking November and prob separate releases like the UK.So this isn't about the iMac or Grindhouse, but it is about moving from the idea to build stage of Product Development : Given I'm stuck deep in specs, project plans/wikis and contracts - I thought I'd share. Call it therapy. While in a corporate gig you need to be able to do a few things well at select times, make sure your boss likes you, as well as working for the right company in a good industry) : With a few wins, you can get headhunted and more money; In a startup you gotta do all of it well, there isn't "the IT department", "marketing", and "legal". You see alot of people leave corporate gigs, flirt with a startup business for 12-18 months, and then back to corporate land (who like the startup on the resume as it's character building) But if you want to win, thrive, sustain. It's alot harder. But here's my 2 cents.The agile inspired BulletPoint process I'm liking, thru trial and error, and working with a range of 'collaborators' on is :1. A Really Fn Kewl Idea, that has a real purpose. Something you or someone u can objectively empathise with, would actually use the service, for a purpose. It all starts with a great idea (my business school preferred the language : "a financially quantifiable opportunity") Extra marks for non-consumer and enterprise.2. The Backer of Said Idea, who has a pile of benjamins (as few as the Paul Graham 6 gorillas per founder approach) or the $6b Microsoft is lumping down for digital marketing biz's. The Backer says "Yes I want to invest in you. Your Team. The Idea. I love it." They call you up and email at weird times. And you like it. N'Him'n'Her. Especially at the start it's all blue skys : "Look how crap the competition is.. We could do this so much better etc" Nod. But set realistic expectations. No one wants to hear how your last divorce was so succesful.3. Friendraising the Best People Out There - Your generalist specialist friends/linkedin/geek-forum associates that say no to jobs all the time to concentrate on optimising their ad sense/weird photo application and get by on $2k daily rate call-ins from corporates who need critical fixes that can be done remotely. They hear your idea and say "That is the best fkn idea I've heard in along time, in fact I had the same idea a few years ago, and have always wanted to do it." - If they don't say this, maybe there's a reason.4. Now You Find a Really Big Monitor - You mainline every single website in the space, find the leader and join - both as a end using consumer and paying customer (eg advertiser, subscriber) and start delving into every single feature they do well. Screengrab key UI pics like FactoryJoe, and delicious links key research. Delve into open source projects that touch the field. And very importantly look at parallel industries and how it could be applied to your space. There are lots of lesson from the Last.fm's and Wesabes that can be applied elsewhere. Not just music and finance.5. You get your legals and commercials Sorted - Dont get too excited or too cheap that you avoid paying usually 4 figure legal fees to document everyone's role in this world changing idea. This document may well become your best friend, or in lieu of its existence your worse. And get signatures on it. Dot and cross.6. Dont Write a PHd now - Many non-engineers think it prudent at this point to write 100 page functional specs to append to that shining business plan/IM. And lots of digital marketing companies like to sell them. Why not start at the end first and (like I do) design a really bad powerpoint/skitch/photoshop page, and show the person you trust the most. Ideally a front end/UI/producer type who will take your stick figure, bad cutnpaste job and challenge you on what each link does and then after discussion, mockup a schweet photoshop design of the actual page.7. Prototype the Top Level Pages - Spend far too long on the home page, get multiple designers to pitch and do paid work on the home page. Obsess about it. Until you go crazy, take 20% out, sleep on it and if you are happy with it when you wake up go with it. It's months till you launch anyway, so you can iterate, but sometimes the first design is the best. From home page, you know in order what the 5 major next clicks are. Some call this the Consumer Experience. But it can also be the Advertiser Experience. Powerpoint-Photoshop. You almost have a demo of 5-10 pages that is enough to convince the next level of institutional support you need. (investors, strategic partners, your wife/husband) Heck CSS some pages up, make this baby sing, dance and get some more money.8. People Dont Know what they want, but they know which pictures they dont like on a web page - Go back to your Backer, the great team of people you recruited/contracted/email-skyped (incl the ones you really wanted who said no to start of with because they were busy) and say "Hey check this out." Wait for silence, awkward body language "It's good but...." - Don't appear to write too much down here, smile, nod, be constructive - But file away all the responses, and determine which are substantial/real/show insight and which are chasing dragons, one-off opinions you can ignore. The real insights will stay with you and stop you sleeping till you fix them.9. Identify the Technical Storyboards and User "Use" Cases - It can be a bit painful but identify each major act each user of the site/system/product can do. Knock them onto a wiki so they can be evolved, till they are all captured concise. You also need them later for your developer brief. Because obviously you've got your fulltime dedicated engineering team of 1-5 geeks, somewhere in the world, who are going to require basic requirements, designs, wikis, timelines, deliverables etc10. Now Speak to End Users + Experts - Speak to end users of existing substitute services currently (dont tell me there arent any or your business sux) and find out where they spend their money and where the pain is. Also speak to experts in each particular field that is specific to this industry/type of application. Merging this focus group vox pop like data with experts is key to learning. Being able to find the artists + boffins in this area is so important in moving from 7/10 to 9/10. And is esp hard downunder or if u r somewhere regional. It's not like everyone has worked on a Open Social Networking RSS Real Time Widget Analytics technology startup before outside Mountain View. Hence Skype, Blogs etc. And conversely its not like they're all in the land of SoCal and available. Look at Estonia, Moscow, Pune - who knows where the expert you need is.OK I've reached 10 points, I'll stop there, I guess after that you build stuff and you become very successful.
| 2024-11-08T16:28:00 | en | train |
41,667 | DonDodge | 2007-08-12T14:24:56 | How much equity for investors and employees? | http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/08/how-much-equity.html | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,672 | tomh | 2007-08-12T15:16:05 | Web Innovators Group: Boston Startups Come Out & Present | http://gigaom.com/2007/08/11/web-innovators-group-meeting/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,673 | mitch | 2007-08-12T15:17:41 | REJECTED: Microsoft's Open XML standard - TvByDemand | Forums | Microsoft | null | http://www.tvbydemand.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=754&FORUM_ID=21&CAT_ID=7&Topic_Title=REJECTED%3A+Microsoft%27s+Open+XML+standard&Forum_Title=Microsoft | 1 | -1 | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,679 | danw | 2007-08-12T16:24:16 | Surprises on the Bookshelves of CEOs | null | http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/08/surprises_on_th.html | 8 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,685 | rokhayakebe | 2007-08-12T18:30:25 | Where is your startup? (for me Atlanta) | null | null | 21 | 91 | [
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41,689 | nickb | 2007-08-12T18:41:58 | Linux tool aims to cut systems' power use (save some money on server costs) | http://www.techworld.com/opsys/features/index.cfm?featureid=3589 | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,692 | mitch | 2007-08-12T18:56:42 | Hotel in space expected to open in a few years - TvByDemand | Forums | General | null | http://www.tvbydemand.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=750&FORUM_ID=50&CAT_ID=7&Topic_Title=Hotel+in+space+expected+to+open+in+a+few+years&Forum_Title=General | 1 | -1 | null | null | true | no_article | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T04:49:42 | null | train |
41,697 | ordersup | 2007-08-12T19:38:10 | Old media targets the Facebook crowd | http://mediabiz.blogs.cnnmoney.com/2007/08/10/old-media-targets-the-facebook-crowd/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,699 | mcxx | 2007-08-12T19:39:42 | The #1 reason your job sucks and how to fix it | http://johnplaceonline.com/stress-management/the-1-reason-your-job-sucks-and-how-to-fix-it/ | 8 | 9 | [
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|
41,700 | jcwentz | 2007-08-12T19:46:50 | Pligg, The Open Source Digg Clone, Put Up For Sale | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/12/pligg-the-open-source-digg-clone-put-up-for-sale/ | 8 | 0 | null | null | null | missing_parsing | Pligg, The Open Source Digg Clone, Put Up For Sale | TechCrunch | 2007-08-12T15:40:09+00:00 | Michael Arrington | Pligg, a controversial but popular open source content management system that lets developers quickly create Digg-like clones, has put itself up for sale.
Assets included in the sale are the domain name, website and control over the SourceForge account where people can download the current code.
In an email, Pligg says they have 10,000 registered users on the site and the software has been downloaded 60,000 times.
The Pligg community has grown larger than ever expected, with over 10,000 registered users sharing and trading tips, more than 60,000 Sourceforge downloads and 2 IRC rooms that are active 24/7. It’s become an extremely large project and community to manage. We all have day jobs and struggle to find enough time to keep up the pace. We’ve seen many online businesses develop products to support Pligg recently. Selling everything from custom templates and modules, to support and installation. This is a clear example that with the proper team in place, Pligg.com could easily dominate the other markets in this area. Pligg has even created a shop where users could purchase modules, templates and services. This feature hasn’t yet been launched though.
| 2024-11-08T21:35:37 | null | train |
41,701 | jcwentz | 2007-08-12T19:48:25 | Scrabulous, The Favorite Facebook App of Facebook Employees | http://mashable.com/2007/08/12/scrabulous/ | 9 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Scrabulous, The Favorite Facebook App of Facebook Employees | 2007-08-12T19:36:59+00:00 | null |
[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]A blog from a Facebook employee implies that the Scrabulous Facebook application is a favorite amongst employees. And why wouldn't it be?For anyone that loves to play Scrabble, this application lets you do it your way. There are options to play with other users that aren't even online. This way, you can let your Scrabble game go on forever. Well, maybe not forever, but at least you can play when you want to play. Once you've added Scrabulous, you can choose to host a game, start a game with a friend, see who's online now, find a friend that's currently playing, or join a table.When starting a game or looking for a game to join, you can choose your own settings, such as what game speed you'd like to participate in. Fast means that the players are online and want to play now. Moderate means that you can stretch the game out for a couple of days, and slow means that you'll play when you are free. You can also participate in a regular game, or a challenge, and also choose which dictionary you'd like to use for your game (English, French or Italian).This is certainly a Facebook application on which we can all waste our workdays.
| 2024-11-07T23:31:40 | en | train |
|
41,709 | pg | 2007-08-12T21:24:16 | Henry Blodget: Why Newspapers Are Screwed | http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/08/its-easy-to-say.html | 12 | 18 | [
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|
41,716 | henning | 2007-08-12T21:54:42 | Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook? | All the social networks look like boring walled gardens/roach motels to me. Great if you can get in on the ground floor for the next big one, lousy for all the users.<p>I'm not willing to buy into an application platform that isn't open and vendor-neutral. For networking, I think there are better ways, like plain old face to face talking: the "hallway track" in conferences is often better than any of the talks.<p>I don't get it. And Zuckerberg stole the idea anyway. | null | 36 | 42 | [
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41,733 | yagibear | 2007-08-12T22:41:16 | Sources of sample business plans? | Despite the current fashion of dismissing business plans, where can one find some examples of serious business plans? serious != school assignments. Of course plans from successful companies are preferable, but success can also be related to a tighter corporate hold on plans.<p>Some starting points:
Viaweb: www.paulgraham.com/vwplan.html
Extracts from Yahoo's 1995 plan: <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/class/e145/materials/Yahoo_1995_STVPCase.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.stanford.edu/class/e145/materials/Yahoo_1995_STVP...</a>
.com era from the Business Plan Archive: www.businessplanarchive.org
And another era: Eckert & Mauchly's Business Plan from 1946 <a href="http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Eckert_Mauchly/EckertMauchly.BusinessPlan.1946.102660910.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Eckert_Mau...</a>
| 1 | 2 | [
41746,
41752
] | null | null | invalid_url | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T16:37:59 | null | train |
|
41,751 | nickb | 2007-08-12T23:05:54 | Two-way Video Conferencing for iPhone (trick done with mirrors!) | http://macdaddyworld.com/?p=38 | 4 | 3 | [
41759
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,766 | nickb | 2007-08-13T00:26:50 | Lisp in Lisp by PG | http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/paulgraham/jmc.lisp | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,781 | nickb | 2007-08-13T01:03:51 | Symbolics Open Genera 2.0 for Alpha - complete package with Lisp | http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3769989/Symbolics_Open_Genera_2.0_for_Alpha_-_complete_package_with_Lisp | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | missing_parsing | Download music, movies, games, software! The Pirate Bay | null | null |
All
Audio
Video
Applications
Games
Porn
Other
| 2024-11-08T17:14:17 | null | train |
|
41,782 | rnc000 | 2007-08-13T01:04:12 | Paul Buchheit's idea for better file uploads on browsers -- anyone want to pledge to or develop it? | http://micropledge.com/projects/better-file-upload-plugin | 6 | 13 | [
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,784 | drm237 | 2007-08-13T01:06:04 | Plagiarism: Reprints PG's 'The Equity Equation' with new name and no link back to source! | This guy reprints Paul Graham's 'The Equity Equation' but changes the name to 'The Executive Equation' and doesn't cite the source except by leaving a few links point back to paulgraham.com.<p>Is it just me, or is this not blatant plagiarism... | http://thegies.typepad.com/runtosurvive/2007/08/the-executive-e.html | 6 | 10 | [
41832,
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41,815 | palish | 2007-08-13T02:29:11 | The Entrepreneurial Attitude | My girlfriend works at a little coffee shop called "It's a Grind". Recently a Starbucks moved in right across the street. The owner, John, tacked a letter up on the wall. I thought it was so great and inspiring that I took a picture and decided to share it. Here it is:<p>====<p>To: TEAM GRIND<p>From: John<p>Guys,<p>We have had a lot of questions from customers and friends about Starbucks going in across the street. Here are some things you might share with customers, assuming that you agree with them:<p>1) Starbucks WILL be competition. Will Starbucks get some of our business? -yes. Will we get some of their business? -YES. Our drinks taste better than theirs, our store is nicer and more comfortable and our staff is more friendly. I get a lot of positive comments about our staff-it's doubtful that Starbucks does. These things will keep us competitive in spite of Starbucks brand recognition. An important thing to remember is that many people relate to locally owned businesses. Large international companies like Starbucks have the bottom line (stock price) first in mind and a lot of people don't relate to that.<p>2) We are doing well with speed of service at the drive-thru. This is important because Starbucks is good at that. We need to make sure we keep it up and maybe get a little better.<p>3) Our regulars will stay with us-we have a great core of regular customers that know us and this is important. Our core of customers will grow as the area grows.<p>4) Food-this will be key in differentiating us from Starbucks. We are in the process of getting our menu set up. This will be in place before the end of the month.<p>5) Every business that I've ever been involved with is competitive-that's the way life is. People who put their tails between their legs and pout never succeed. People with positive attitudes that stay focused almost always succeed.<p>6) We will not only succeed but we will be thriving 2 years from now. That's because we have a great crew, a superior product and competitive prices. If somebody comes in whining-"You can't compete with Starbucks"-that's baloney and they have a loser attitude. Keep your chin up and don't be afraid of competition!<p>John<p>====<p>One reason this is so great is because John is in his mid-50's. Even at that age, he still has a startup mentality.<p>Another thing I like is he's rolling out new tactics and trying new things.<p>Don't be afraid of the competition guys! Get things out there and make them work. | null | 26 | 27 | [
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41,833 | brett | 2007-08-13T04:10:35 | Founders at Work - Demo Day | http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2007/08/demo-day.html | 27 | 2 | [
41917,
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|
41,842 | mmpcse | 2007-08-13T04:45:29 | Sanjay Anandaram: 19 Must Read Great Articles for Entrepreneurs A | null | http://hitechstartups.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/sanjay-anandaram-19-must-read-great-articles-for-entrepreneurs/ | 1 | -1 | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,868 | bootload | 2007-08-13T07:26:03 | The death of the dot-com IPO | null | http://mediabiz.blogs.cnnmoney.com/2007/08/10/the-death-of-the-dot-com-ipo/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | bot_blocked | Active domain connection for this domain not found | null | null |
Something unexpected happened while accessing this website. It looks like it doesn't have an active domain connection upgrade to link the requested domain name to the WordPress.com site.If this is your domain name and it has recently stopped working, it's possible that your plan or domain may have expired. Please log in to your WordPress.com account and review the status of your plan and domain.
| 2024-11-08T21:33:59 | null | train |
41,870 | 7media | 2007-08-13T07:27:03 | Scoble booted from PodTech? | Did Robert scoble really get fired from PodTech. One thing is that PodTech did revive under him from the boring website and a startup company. | http://www.irintech.com/x1/blogarchive.php?id=1382 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,875 | holdenk | 2007-08-13T07:59:19 | The future of C++, according to its creator | http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/C%2B%2B0x%20-%20An%20Overview.html | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
|
41,881 | sbraford | 2007-08-13T08:45:11 | Book by an author who has the most popular class at Harvard | Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting<p>(via the Daily Show) | http://www.amazon.com/Happier-Learn-Secrets-Lasting-Fulfillment/dp/0071492399 | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
41,884 | sbraford | 2007-08-13T08:54:22 | Do you have a friend inside Google? | I had a potential startup idea... so I ran it by one of my friends who works at the big G.<p>While he didn't give anything confidential away about their plans -- I could tell from his response that it would probably be a good idea to postpone any work on the idea for a few months ... when Google just might launch some whizbang new technology.<p>Are you worried <i>your</i> startup idea will be Googleized? | null | 2 | 11 | [
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41,885 | c41conference | 2007-08-13T08:58:29 | Is this how the Macintosh developer community wants to be represented? | http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1097058025&size=o | 1 | 1 | [
41936,
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] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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