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

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Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#121

Post by mikegreenberg »

brockf wrote: post #23

I'd love if you could try a quick install of http://www.heroframework.com (open source) and tell us (a) how did the install go and (b) do you know what to do next to build your website with the product? :)

Unusual problem for me... I installed it on a MAMP instance and I don't seem to be able to do an initial authentication. At first I thought just didn't remember my username/password correctly. So I dropped my tables and started again. But the same thing happened. I stepped back a few screens and noted what I thought to be just weird typo... but it showed:

Your Account Credentials You can login to the control panel, and throughout the site, with:

Username: or Password:

This is unmodified output from the page. It looks like the username and password should be present here. It was not. So maybe something usual with my installation of MAMP that could be creating this side effect.

The user record definitely exists. I don't see errors in the server logs. Want to help me figure out where I went wrong?

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#122

Post by mikegreenberg »

brlewis wrote: post #66

I have a process for using Dropbox to upload a large number of photos. My goal is to find out (1) is it easy, (2) does it feel easy as you go along, and (3) what unknowns might make users uneasy during the process. (Feedback that doesn't serve this goal is welcome too.) Pretend you want to try a site that automatically organizes your photos into a blog-like format. Share a new Dropbox folder with box@ourdoings.com Th…

10:06p Shared dropbox folder... seriously, what next? haha 10:07p

10:07p Got email describing next steps. I suppose I wait for human intervention to arrive. (PS: So far, none of this is easy. If it weren't for it feeling like a treasure hunt, I'd have probably given up already.)

10:12p Decided to register while I wait...

10:15p Got the welcome email...

10:17p Fell into a rabbit hole.

Sorry, but this is much too complicated. I realize this is a VERY early prototype (I hope) but there is no way a user will open an uploaded html doc to follow a url in order to link my account to my shared folder. Surely there is some other way of doing this via Dropbox's APIs?

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#123

Post by sprobertson »

If you happen to have an Android phone it would be cool if you could try my new app Trollaroid https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sprobertson.trolla... and let me know if you think it's fun, if it's easy to figure out, and if there is one feature I could add that would instantly improve the user experience. If you don't have an Android maybe just check out the homepage http://trollaroid.com and see if there's one improvement I could make there.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#124

Post by mikegreenberg »

chetan51 wrote: post #34

Hi Mike, Thanks for your time and generosity! I just entered the beta phase for my side-project OtherMind, a fast way to take notes and make lists ( http://othermind.me ). I'd really appreciate it if you could try it out and let me know whether you think it's useful and marketable. Any feedback in general would also be great. Thank you so much!

I don't do well with digital notes. I don't know why. Despite numerous attempts, I can't manage my thoughts on a digital sheet. It's not convenient enough...yet. A physical notebook feels better to me... So digital notes and task lists aren't something I typically use.

Additionally, I think there are too many barriers between me and my task list with services like this. I'm launching a similar product which helps individual keep track of people they know within their browser. My burning question is wondering whether the browser is the place where people are asking "Where did I know this guy from?"

In a similar vein, I wonder if people will want to require an internet connection, browser, and however much time it takes for the user to access their account. Reducing the time gap between epiphany and recording seems like a noble goal for your product to tackle. I think if you get this part right, you'll have something that's marketable. (I believe it's usefulness is obvious and without question.) Other companies in this space have reduced this gap significantly by deploying a mobile version of their service.

Regardless of a viable business model, this is really cool. :)

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#125

Post by mikegreenberg »

sprobertson wrote: post #123

If you happen to have an Android phone it would be cool if you could try my new app Trollaroid https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sprobertson.trolla... and let me know if you think it's fun, if it's easy to figure out, and if there is one feature I could add that would instantly improve the user experience. If you don't have an Android maybe just check out the homepage http://trollaroid.com and see if there's…

This is pretty funny. If you could show the live image as it's being "trolled" that might be fun. Otherwise, I think the app is perfect. Simple, straightforward and funny. Awesome execution. (Killed a good 5 minutes with the app...) Might just be worth the dollar and change. :)

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#126

Post by mikegreenberg »

pfui wrote: post #43

Do you think there's still a market for feed readers? I've built one (not public yet) with two somewhat distinct features: 1. you get a river of news with the ability to perform complex search queries against your feeds; and 2. it provides relevance sorting of articles based on your reading history. I've found that search, when accompanied by tagging, provides a reasonable alternative to the folder-based feed managem…

Emphatically, yes!

.

.

.

What are you waiting for? It's not going to upload itself!

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#127

Post by brlewis »

mikegreenberg wrote: post #122
brlewis wrote: post #66

I have a process for using Dropbox to upload a large number of photos. My goal is to find out (1) is it easy, (2) does it feel easy as you go along, and (3) what unknowns might make users uneasy during the process. (Feedback that doesn't serve this goal is welcome too.) Pretend you want to try a site that automatically organizes your photos into a blog-like format. Share a new Dropbox folder with box@ourdoings.com Th…

10:06p Shared dropbox folder... seriously, what next? haha 10:07p 10:07p Got email describing next steps. I suppose I wait for human intervention to arrive. (PS: So far, none of this is easy. If it weren't for it feeling like a treasure hunt, I'd have probably given up already.) 10:12p Decided to register while I wait... 10:15p Got the welcome email... 10:17p Fell into a rabbit hole. Sorry, but this is much too compl…

Thanks for the valuable feedback on this process. 57 users have gone all the way through it, or an even more complicated previous setup, but 19 abandoned it in the middle (including you). I've looked at the Dropbox API before, and at the time it didn't seem as good as the shared-folder method. I'll have another look, keeping in mind what a big UX difference it could make.

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#128

Post by mikegreenberg »

mikegreenberg wrote: post #126
pfui wrote: post #43

Do you think there's still a market for feed readers? I've built one (not public yet) with two somewhat distinct features: 1. you get a river of news with the ability to perform complex search queries against your feeds; and 2. it provides relevance sorting of articles based on your reading history. I've found that search, when accompanied by tagging, provides a reasonable alternative to the folder-based feed managem…

Emphatically, yes! . . . What are you waiting for? It's not going to upload itself!

Seriously though, (don't take this personally, but) being concerned about the hosting fees is probably one of the single worst reasons I've heard to NOT launch something. As mentioned, there are HUGE swaths of services which will host you for less than a dollar a month. Clearly, you won't be relying on them to give you five 9's of uptime but will certainly give you enough of an indication if your product satisfied enough paying customers to make it worth your while.

Hell, if you want, I will put you up on my reseller server and not charge you a red cent until you hit your 100th paying customer. And I'll even help you migrate to better hosting when you're ready. No, you won't get 24/7 technical support, but you'll get a control panel to handle 95% of what you'll need. Let me know if you're interested.

Anyway, yes. If you feel like this is something you want to invest more time into and want to offer it to the market, then by all means give it go. Worst case scenario, you'll experience the sweet stench of failure. (At which point you'll dust yourself off and try again.) :D

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#129

Post by JoeCortopassi »

This would be a huge help to me: I make 40k a year as a web developer, and it provides for my family, but we definitely have to cut corners to make things work sometimes. I feel like, given my work history, skill-set and ability to learn, I am worth more than this. But when I apply for tech jobs, it seems like my lack of a degree prevents me from even being considered.

Can you look at my LinkedIn profile(which is basically my resume), and tell me how I can better show people that I can be a great asset to their team?

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joe-cortopassi/24/76b/5b9

(more info in my profile as well)

Re: Ask HN: Can I help you be more awesome today? (No strings.)

#130

Post by tarekayna »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #129

This would be a huge help to me: I make 40k a year as a web developer, and it provides for my family, but we definitely have to cut corners to make things work sometimes. I feel like, given my work history, skill-set and ability to learn, I am worth more than this. But when I apply for tech jobs, it seems like my lack of a degree prevents me from even being considered. Can you look at my LinkedIn profile(which is bas…

Joe - one thing I would point out to help you out here. Every listing under your experience section is written like a story. People, especially recruiters, don't have time to read all this. My advice would be to remove the story format and have just bullet points that highlight accomplishments and business results. For example "designed and developed xx project using php/mysql"... "led the technical vision of xx".
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