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Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

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Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#131

Post by georgieporgie »

thefreshteapot wrote: post #130
prbuckley wrote: post #98

Skype for the sick, create a service that does scheduled calls (ideally video calls) to the elderly and infirm for a fee. I had this idea because my father suffers from Parkinsons disease and gets quite lonely in the house during the day. He lives in Florida and I life in California and I can't call him as much as I would like to given the time difference. I know he gets lonely and would love to just have a conversat…

when I am an old man, I hope my family make more of an effort than to plan for strangers to call me. This seems more for your own guilt than helping them. That said, I would have loved the chance to skype with my grandad or tap into his "what I am doing" view. Knowing how many older folk play crosswords, I think an async game you can play is far more meaningful.

when I am an old man, I hope my family make more of an effort than to plan for strangers to call me.

That's a really rude statement. Also, you have no reason to think the parent commenter's father enjoys games, or even to think that an aged person with health problems is interested in puzzles over human interaction.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#132

Post by shimon_e »

spiredigital wrote: post #119
damian2000 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to differentiate yourself from the plethora of eCommerce sites around is to have really good customer service and delivery. I once setup a small online shop selling one particular hot form of consumer electronics at the time, and what gave me the edge over drop-shipped competitors was overnight delivery to anywhere in the country. We always had stock on hand. People are willing to pay extra for good servi…

You're exactly right - outstanding service is a GREAT way to differentiate yourself. And it's often some of the best marketing you can do, too. I'm constantly amazed at how many companies will make you send something back to get a refund / replacement, even if it only costs a few bucks. If our customers receive a defective item that costs less than $20, we simply ship them a new item immediately, without asking them…

Does no one send faulty item back to the manufacturer so they can prevent the same fault from happening again?

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#134

Post by gouranga »

damian2000 wrote: post #117
gouranga wrote: post #44

Buying shit on Cragslist (or Gumtree in the UK) and selling on eBay and vice versa. My better half manages 500-800GBP a month with this quite happily. Persuaded some muppet to sell her a Korg Triton for 80GBP and got 580GBP on ebay for it :) Unfortunately it got converted to clothes and shoes pretty quickly :(

who the f k sold it for that price - beaker? ;-)

Not far off :)

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#135

Post by thefreshteapot »

georgieporgie wrote: post #131
thefreshteapot wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when I am an old man, I hope my family make more of an effort than to plan for strangers to call me. This seems more for your own guilt than helping them. That said, I would have loved the chance to skype with my grandad or tap into his "what I am doing" view. Knowing how many older folk play crosswords, I think an async game you can play is far more meaningful.

when I am an old man, I hope my family make more of an effort than to plan for strangers to call me. That's a really rude statement. Also, you have no reason to think the parent commenter's father enjoys games, or even to think that an aged person with health problems is interested in puzzles over human interaction.

I stand by it, I dont think it is rude.

I think it highlights the focus we as technology advocates hold that technology can solve society based problems. Turn back the dial 50 years, we held our elders in far higher respect than we do today.

That said, I want to show you an example of something a bit more meaningful with skype and the older generation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17870178

Clearly this is not for all people, yet I feel it is more interesting than just to ring up and hold a "30 minute" conversation because someone is paying you to do it. Not only that but I would bet it gives some of these ladies focus, purpose, still have something to give to society.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#136

Post by philk10 »

avojro wrote: post #113
rhspeer wrote: post #49

QA, testing web sites in late development and logging bugs. Most developers hate doing this, & PM's are not good at anything. I usually pay $40/hr for this, however it only takes a few hours, and that rate means the bug report is reported in a way that it's easy to read and recreate without having to have a conversation about it.

I would also love to get into this. I am teaching myself programming but I'm far off from making a career out of it. I believe I can usually communicate well with programmers, but is there anything else I can do to make myself qualified for this type of job? Also, are there any recommended sites or places to look for these types of job postings besides the 99tests one mentioned? Thank you.

There's also uTest - http://www.utest.com

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#137

Post by ephan172 »

rhspeer wrote: post #49

QA, testing web sites in late development and logging bugs. Most developers hate doing this, & PM's are not good at anything. I usually pay $40/hr for this, however it only takes a few hours, and that rate means the bug report is reported in a way that it's easy to read and recreate without having to have a conversation about it.

Is this still available??I would love to do it,for both the money and the experience.ephan17 [@] gmail.com ..I can show you my background and a site I have done.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#138

Post by manmal »

prbuckley wrote: post #98

Skype for the sick, create a service that does scheduled calls (ideally video calls) to the elderly and infirm for a fee. I had this idea because my father suffers from Parkinsons disease and gets quite lonely in the house during the day. He lives in Florida and I life in California and I can't call him as much as I would like to given the time difference. I know he gets lonely and would love to just have a conversat…

That's not only for the sick and elderly, but for all lonely people. I have actually thought about such a service a while ago, because I read about those online leeches who pretend to be poor girls from a developing country (actually they are mostly middle aged men). They keep in contact for years, urging their "host" to send them money to support them, and sometimes even help the host find a job when he is fired. The hosts readily send even huge sums just so they can connect to somebody emotionally. This clearly shows there is a lack of warmth and connection for people in our society, and I can think of better ways to help them than through online leeches.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#139

Post by Tichy »

adventureful wrote: post #37
Tichy wrote: post #32

On TV they always do this phone sex thing :-)

Not the most appropriate response to a husband. This isn't Reddit.

On TV these wives are usually shown doing the laundry or changing diapers while talking on the phone. Last I saw was a movie with Anne Hathaway doing that job while dating her new boyfriend or working her boring job as a secretary. In the end her boss from her "proper" job takes over the phone customers for her. Sorry if I did offend, judging by all those movies I didn't think it was such a big deal. No idea if it would be a viable job thing (reality is probably different from TV after all).

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#140

Post by mad44 »

Mz wrote: post #43
a3camero wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contract programming? Try advertising on Kijiji/Craigstlist. There's always people out there who will pay you to make a website. Takes away the risk of not making anything from the site.

I don't happen to be a programmer. I have skills at doing things the world says cannot be done. There appears to be no money in either doing the impossible nor in trying to share information on how to do so. But thanks anyway.

You made me curious (about your skills at doing things the world says cannot be done). Can you elaborate?
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