Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

#481

Post by ChristianGeek »

Liru wrote: post #211
rsync wrote: post #71

Altavista. I miss it every single day. Searching for technical (unix, programming, etc.) content is so much easier when you can use nested parens and proper boolean language. This is in contrast to google where searches return things that don't even contain your keywords. This is in contrast to google where the modifiers like allinsite: and '+' and "quotes" are not respected or change their behavior over time. Man I…

> This is in contrast to google where searches return things that don't even contain your keywords. This has become so frustrating as of late, especially when you search for something like "c++ map" and it decides to completely ignore the "c++" part of your search, leaving you with pages of actual maps. Slightly exaggerated example since I can't remember any concrete ones off the top of my head, but the actual situat…

I just did a Google search on “c++ map” and didn’t see the behavior you describe.

Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

#482

Post by ctack »

The Next Thing - are the makers of CHIP and PocketCHIP. Such cool retro products. I still use my PocketCHIP daily. A tiny linux machine with a full keyboard. Products that are open to hacking and extension and give a feeling that anything is possible.

Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

#485

Post by lasagnaphil »

kgc wrote: post #342
wishinghand wrote: post #202

The Macbook Pro chassis before the OLED touchstrip. I'm a web developer and learned on MBPs. The touchpad was the right size, the keys had the right amount of travel, the form factor and weight were perfect. Right now I'm considering moving to developing on a Galaga Pro and using Windows/WSL. I've got most things setup on my desktop how I like using HyperTerm (I had too much trouble with Cmder), VS Code, and ZSH. I c…

WSL is very, very slow. Be warned.

Yes, it felt quite slow in certain situations (the last time I’ve tried). Because the WSL works by emulating syscalls from Linux, anything related to I/O can be quite slow...

Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

#486

Post by padraic7a »

fphhotchips wrote: post #6

Google Reader. Now I have a mix of HN, Reddit and GMail, and none of them work really how I like.

I was going to say Google Reader too but have just reconsidered. I do miss it, and the idea that this was a popular way to consume news / content etc. However I can still use RSS on feedly, inoreader and a bunch of self-hosted alternatives. By moving away from Google I am also escaping their all-seeing eye, albeit to some minor extent. In the time since Google retired Reader I have begun to see them as a negative presence in the world. I have moved from Gmail and Google Calendar to Fastmail, self-host my contacts and will move on from Android as soon as Ubuntu Touch or another alternative become fully featured enough.

Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

#488

Post by krono »

ChristianGeek wrote: post #481
Liru wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is in contrast to google where searches return things that don't even contain your keywords. This has become so frustrating as of late, especially when you search for something like "c++ map" and it decides to completely ignore the "c++" part of your search, leaving you with pages of actual maps. Slightly exaggerated example since I can't remember any concrete ones off the top of my head, but the actual situat…

I just did a Google search on “c++ map” and didn’t see the behavior you describe.

What if I told you Google search results are partially based on behaviour data, meaning the results you get for a search potentially differ from mine

It doesn't happen to me so it doesn't exist does not apply in this case

Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

#489

Post by wiz21c »

The Print Shop : that tools allowed to print lots of stuff like cards, banners, etc. But what set it apart IMHO, is that it was soooo easy, so rewarding. Kids could use it. And it had a style of its own (that's so much cooler than printing stock internet photos).

All 4th gen languages efforts such as powerbuilder, dBase, etc. I still feel like they were on the right track.

Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?

#490

Post by dpflug »

lgbr wrote: post #455
benjiweber wrote: post #243

Nokia n900. Portable linux box, real keyboard. http://neo900.org/ doesn't seem to have gained much traction. https://www.planetcom.co.uk/ seems to be the closest thing we have now.

Have you tried Termux on Android? You essentially get a Linux container, complete with package manager. I have actually used it for development on the road.

That's a far cry from a full Linux install with X, though. Not to mention the hardware keyboard. I've not seen a phone in 6 years that had one.
Post reply on HN