Show HN: Our video series teaches anyone how to build & deploy a web app | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Our video series teaches anyone how to build & deploy a web app

twifbook.com

23 pointstheli0nheart25 comments

Hey HN! A while back, my co-founders and I were talking about how difficult it is for real beginners to get started making web applications. Between setting up a development environment, learning how to program, configuring servers, etc., the entire idea can seem insurmountable to someone who's never done it before.

We brainstormed for a while, decided we would do a video series, and then went straight to creating videos that would teach absolute beginners how to go from nothing to deploying a site on DotCloud. Twifbook (our silly portmanteau) is the site that everyone who watches our series will launch (live) to their own domain name (we'll walk you through that as well).

I want to give a huge shout-out to CodeAcademy for doing an incredible job getting the general entrepreneurial community jazzed about programming. Our goal is to put a more practical spin on it--and get people using their programming knowledge to actually launch things.

Let us know what you think!

I signed up for two reasons:

- I'm a seasoned PHP dev with an interest in Python + Django

- I appreciate your interesting pricing scheme :)

I'm also a PC user, so I hope when (if?) you release a Windows installer you'll send out an email.

One criticism - I think you should have a 'confirm password' field after signing up.

Good luck with this, I'm interested to see how it works out for you.

Says that I need a Mac to "use the How To Program Installer" (which I don't have), is that a big part of the deal? Do I need a Mac for anything else related to this 'course'?

Right now we only have an installer for the mac. The course should be similar on a Windows machine but some things are a little different (i.e. opening up the terminal). We're hoping to support Windows OS in the near-future, but for right now we only have Mac OS support. If you purchased the program, e-mail us at support AT elmcitylabs DOT com and we can either give you a full refund or help you through the process.

Ok, but say that I figure out how to install Python + Django myself (on a linux box), is there anything else that would be missing from the Mac installer?

You'll also need dotcloud's python library. After that, it should be fine, but sometimes there are unexpected issues. If you e-mail us, we'd be happy to help you through.

Bought the series. The videos are buffering very slowly with many interruptions. My connection should be able to handle this though?

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1871768101.png

It may be related to the mediaelement.js player. Skipping and searching is not working either.

look forward to you fixing this issue.

Sorry about that. We haven't had any issues before, but we might have faster connections. We're currently serving the media from Amazon S3, but we'll switch to Cloudfront to see if that helps. If you're still having issues, e-mail us at support AT elmcitylabs DOT com

It actually looks like Amazon S3 is having some issues serving media. It should be back to normal pretty soon.

See https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=91111

That's an interesting pricing method for the beta period. I'd love to read a post on how that went after the beta sign-up period ends.

Great idea. We'll definitely follow up with something if we get good results.

Agreed. Came here to comment on the pricing method. Call me sheltered, but I've never seen it before. Blog post idea would be great.

I hope you teach people not to deploy Django projects with DEBUG = True ;)

https://twifbook.com/should404

Otherwise it looks great! My GF bought a copy as she was interested in learning how to build "application" websites and not just wordpress blogs.

Nice catch. Just turned it off. Thanks for the reminder :)

Hope your girlfriend enjoys the videos! If she has any issues, questions, comments, concerns, etc, we're around to answer any questions.

Congrats guys. Looking forward to seeing this get huge.

Love the idea! Sent you an email I was having about payment issues a couple hours ago, any word? Looking forward to checking out the videos.

I'd consider offering a sample of the videos, similar to what Peepcode does, so people can get a sense for the quality of the instruction.

amazing price - looking fwd to diving in once i'm done with my udacity course this week.

and thanks for implementing my feedback!

The videos don't seem to play in Firefox. They work fine in Chrome.

Same with Opera.

Good work. will signup soon.

Signed Up.

Do you allow to download the videos? And how come no Paypal integration as I don't feel comfortable giving away my CC.

1. Yep, you have full ownership. You can download them and put them on any device you want to your heart's content.

2. We're planning on Paypal integration soon. We're using Stripe right now, since it's much easier to integrate on our end.

I'd be curious to hear the feedback you guys are getting about using Stripe.

I had the same concern as the grand-parent when I first arrived on the page, then checked your HN handles to check your backgrounds.

I wonder if is a recurring theme when devs use Stripe, and if so, would a simple "secure payments by stripe" icon or logo suffice to communicate that aspect of security.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com