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Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

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Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#131

Post by wingerlang »

akerro wrote: post #12
samsnelling wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on shipping. That's the hardest part. Very clever on Amazon links in reddit being the source of truth. That will obviously leave a lot on the table, but gives you really reliable parsing. Honestly, this is a great site. I'd keep it simple, but you could definitely expand on the styling a little bit. Great work!

I like the styling. Clean, readable, works on hi-res screens and small screens like mobile. What would you want more? 3MB of CSS?

Maybe normal people wouldn't trust this site as much as one with some "branding" or at least some other styles. Maybe it could increase conversion.

By normal I mean the general public. And yes I know about craigslist, but that one has decades (?) of background.

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#132

Post by wingerlang »

mynewtb wrote: post #109
nickysielicki wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a USB 10/100/1000 adapter for $13 with prime shipping. Why bother?

It's not about the money but about not having to carry around a fricking adapter for basic connectivity.

Where do you go that uses ethernet ports anyway? If it is at your job, just leave the adapter there, same with at home.

Any other place will use WiFi anyway.

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#133

Post by plankton_sb »

woogiewonka wrote: post #37
ythn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's because most people buy said laptop at apple.com and not amazon.com

Bingo. No affiliate income. This site is biased not to mention inaccurate. More mentions does not equal better.

I took amazon links because: 1. They are most popular links to products on /r/SuggestALaptop and 80%+ mentions of laptops in Reddit comments come from this subreddit (second popular site is Newegg). 2. There is an easy access to product details via Amazon Products API

I wanted to ship it fast, so these are the reasons. Affiliate program is a nice addition to it, but even without it I'd still collect laptop mentions this way, as it's the simplest way for me to implement such a tool.

>More mentions does not equal better.

I totally agree with it, it's only one step in laptop research, but if you don't have time or knowledge to do some more research I think it's quiete safe guess.

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#134

Post by plankton_sb »

tent wrote: post #116
plankton_sb wrote: post #2

Hi all, I want to find a job as a RoR developer, but as I have ~10 years coding gap in my CV (I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) I decided to start some real life projects to build my GitHub portfolio. LaptopHits.com is the first one. Idea came to me when two of my friends wanted to buy new laptops and asked me,'the computer guy', for some recommendations. I'm not laptop expert, so I…

I hate to bring up styling when it's been covered so much, but I think it is critical you make this mobile friendly. There are a few big reasons for this: - Since it's computer shopping, you'll probably have a fair amount of users accessing this site from a mobile device. - Mobile users are more likely to leave your site if it looks even a little frustrating to use. Google offers several mobile friendly sites that re…

Thank you very much for this suggestions. I know it doesn't look good on mobile, will try to fix it.

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#135

Post by plankton_sb »

dovyski wrote: post #24
plankton_sb wrote: post #2

Hi all, I want to find a job as a RoR developer, but as I have ~10 years coding gap in my CV (I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) I decided to start some real life projects to build my GitHub portfolio. LaptopHits.com is the first one. Idea came to me when two of my friends wanted to buy new laptops and asked me,'the computer guy', for some recommendations. I'm not laptop expert, so I…

I would say you did an impressive first step towards your goal of filling up a coding gap. This is spot on regarding utility! Congrats on shipping and implementing such a useful tool :)

Thank you :)

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#136

Post by plankton_sb »

downandout wrote: post #66
plankton_sb wrote: post #2

Hi all, I want to find a job as a RoR developer, but as I have ~10 years coding gap in my CV (I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) I decided to start some real life projects to build my GitHub portfolio. LaptopHits.com is the first one. Idea came to me when two of my friends wanted to buy new laptops and asked me,'the computer guy', for some recommendations. I'm not laptop expert, so I…

Great site. Did you finally crap out at poker or are you just bored with it? I have a theory that most poker "pros" aren't actually beating the game, but rather are making money from sponsorships and selling pieces of themselves at a premium. There are also probably a few that just happen to run lucky for a statistically unlikely period of time - enough to make them think they are "good".

It's both actually. I've never been a big winner in poker, just made enough to have a good living as a single and with time it was getting more and more difficult to win. Besides that I didn't like the lifestyle anymore and couldn't see myself playing poker in my 50s-60s. It was time to change something. I didn't play single hand since I decided to quit :).

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#137

Post by plankton_sb »

sean_patel wrote: post #119
plankton_sb wrote: post #2

Hi all, I want to find a job as a RoR developer, but as I have ~10 years coding gap in my CV (I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) I decided to start some real life projects to build my GitHub portfolio. LaptopHits.com is the first one. Idea came to me when two of my friends wanted to buy new laptops and asked me,'the computer guy', for some recommendations. I'm not laptop expert, so I…

> I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) How did that work out? Like seriously (not trolling). Did you make a lot of money? Always wondered about dabbling in Gambling / online games / casinos. Why do you want back in on software development?

I had ups and downs, nothing spectacular but I had nice living. With time it got more difficult to win good money for me, and I stop loving it as much as on the beginning.

I want to go back to software development because I want regular pay with no variance :), and as I have a lot of ideas for side projects like this I'd love to work with advanced coders to learn more about web development, good practices, tips and tricks :).

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#138

Post by plankton_sb »

drvdevd wrote: post #115
plankton_sb wrote: post #2

Hi all, I want to find a job as a RoR developer, but as I have ~10 years coding gap in my CV (I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) I decided to start some real life projects to build my GitHub portfolio. LaptopHits.com is the first one. Idea came to me when two of my friends wanted to buy new laptops and asked me,'the computer guy', for some recommendations. I'm not laptop expert, so I…

This is great. Useful. Simple. Sharing it. Thanks! [edit: personally I love the fact there's 0 images of the laptops, etc. Just data...] [edit 2: regarding mobile friendly, I had no problem browsing this on mobile. If you do so, try to do it with CSS only and layout, IMO]

Yeah, at the beginning it was looking little strange with no images, but I couldn't see any value for user to put them, so I decided to leave just a text links.

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#139

Post by plankton_sb »

mistermann wrote: post #16
plankton_sb wrote: post #2

Hi all, I want to find a job as a RoR developer, but as I have ~10 years coding gap in my CV (I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) I decided to start some real life projects to build my GitHub portfolio. LaptopHits.com is the first one. Idea came to me when two of my friends wanted to buy new laptops and asked me,'the computer guy', for some recommendations. I'm not laptop expert, so I…

How do you know if a comment/link on reddit is positive or negative?

You can't. But looking more into laptop mentions I see that comments with links are usually recommendations. Submissions are a little different, they can be negative, positive, neutral. And usually are just questions 'I narrowed it down to 3 laptops: LINKS. What do you think about them?'. So I thought links in comments are positive opinions is fair enough guess.

Re: Show HN: LaptopHits.com – see what laptops people are talking about online

#140

Post by plankton_sb »

rplittle wrote: post #77
plankton_sb wrote: post #2

Hi all, I want to find a job as a RoR developer, but as I have ~10 years coding gap in my CV (I played poker, ran poker forum and did other poker related things) I decided to start some real life projects to build my GitHub portfolio. LaptopHits.com is the first one. Idea came to me when two of my friends wanted to buy new laptops and asked me,'the computer guy', for some recommendations. I'm not laptop expert, so I…

Great idea, and I'm also looking at laptops at the moment so I'm finding this useful. My only feedback would be to add a bit more UI / UX improvements - but I do think the default visited link color is helpful as a user. The ability to search by certain keywords (e.g. Linux, developer) would also be nice. Maybe add some HN mentions as well ;)

Thank you for suggestions :)
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