Hacker News Reader

6twentyon How to host your Jekyll blog on AWS EC2 [Part 1]

I actually found that GitHub Pages didn't scale well at all -- during peak traffic, response times slowed to over 10 seconds. This was my main motivation for the switch. Nginx (even on a micro EC2) should be able to handle very high load without the need to scale. S3 is definitely a viable option as well (and I'm not suggesting you shouldn't use it) but I find that an EC2 was a better fit for my needs.

6twentyon How to host your Jekyll blog on AWS EC2 [Part 1]

It's not free, that's true. But it's very cheap, especially when paired with Amazon's 1-year free usage tier. But the main benefit is the added control over the web server.

6twentyon Use Google Analytics on your blog? Check your bounce rate

Posted an update with the new bounce rate (~10%) thanks to a flood of hits from HN: http://drawingablank.me/blog/fix-your-bounce-rate.html

6twentyon Ask HN: Who's in Tauranga, New Zealand?

Feel free

6twentyon Ask HN: Who's in Tauranga, New Zealand?

Ha, so far I like it here! Nicer weather than my hometown (Dunedin) :)

6twentyon My first year freelancing

No I haven't, but that brings me back to the first question - how do you research which companies to contact?

6twentyon My first year freelancing

Great article. One thing I'm struggling with as a freelancer is finding clients - I'm based in a small town in New Zealand, so I'm a long way from the opportunities in the UK and USA. How do you track down and approach new clients (who are likely to be happy with your rate)?

I also feel like being in New Zealand hampers my ability to charge a higher rate. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that companies here are used to paying lower rates simply because there's less talent here than overseas.