Donito

Thanks for the suggestion

Thanks for the suggestion!

"The Open Startup Project is about giving you total access to what happens behind the curtains of a newly minted startup."

How is that total access/open if you don't disclose what you're building. It would much much more interesting, in my opinion, to be able to relate to your stories if we have the proper context.

"High performance" is usually required when performance becomes a bottleneck to your applications. In the case of web apps, there's server side, and client side.

* Client Side: Rich/interactive application, which usually involve lots of Javascript. If not properly architect-ed and developed, inefficient code will run slowly and make the application hard to use. That's where "high performance" is needed. An example of such client-side applications could be Facebook. You client is handling the chat list, conversations, tickers, navigation (e.g. does not refresh), auto-scroll, and many many more client-side features. Having them all working seamlessly and smoothly running together is not a trivial task. Besides optimized javascript, there are other server-side details used to improve client-side performance such as using css sprites, caching whatever can be cached, minimizing/packing javascript, etc, etc...

* Server side: A lot of things are happening on the server. Again, depending on your application, performance bottleneck will appear that need to be fixed for the server to be able to handle the load in a reasonable time. Here are a few example of what those bottle necks could be, which would call for "high performance" measures: - A "really high" number of visitors on your site, generating a massive amount of requests to your server. - A "really high" amount of data is being stored/read in your database. - A "really high" number of simultaneous connection is required for your real time application. There are many more cases, but all the above will require careful selection of server-side technologies to allow your web application to function as intended, while minimizing cost, time, and processing power. (or whichever other variable your business cares about). An example of application faced with all the challenges above is again Facebook. They have to handle millions of users online potentially chatting (real-time), looking at pictures (high requests), and posting/reading comments non-stop (read/write to database).

Hopefully I've explaining "what are those application". Now when you ask "where are they used", I would reply "when they are needed" :)

My stale side project (haven't worked on it for a bit), a fun way to chat anonymously with other random Facebook users -- http://www.letschattr.com. If you want to try it, you'll need a friend to use it at the same time as well (or use two windows).

If your application doesn't have special requirements (e.g. heavy computations, graphics, etc..) then using C# + WPF (or Winforms) is very efficient in the sense that you can get a lot done quickly. Visual Studio is a great IDE, MSDN documentation is not bad, and because a lot of people use those technologies then whenever you hit an issue it's pretty quick to find someone who had the same one and solved it (e.g. on StackOverflow).

According to msdn, it is possible to create marketplace apps using C++/DirectX which is pretty much what games need:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br22958...

If you have no designer in your team, it's quite useful to learn to become a bit of a designer yourself (good skill to acquire). Truth is, first impression matters, and no matter how good your algorithm or service is, if the site doesn't look attractive customers might never get to even try it.

So while some design polishing sounds like "chores" with low ROI, they can actually increase convergence rates with subtle touches (e.g. rounding corners) resulting in a great overall ROI.

"It's not just you! http://quora.com looks down from here."

Funny thing is, it's actually up for me :D

The title should be: "Gabe Newell Wants to Support Linux, Because Windows 8 is a 'Catastrophe' [for steam]".

Steam is, from a user perspective, a video game marketplace on PC. In Win8, they will have to compete with the built-in windows marketplace, where most games will published directly. In other words, Win8 is a catastrophe for them as it's endangering their business.

Link to portfolio?

I don't mean to be rude, but in my opinion, your second paragraph describes a "power user" or "web hobbyist" rather than a developer. It's one thing to know "how things work" (reading wikipedia can teach you that much), and another to make things work (experience).

Most businesses look for people who can deliver a product (technical skills), work in a team (human skills), and improve over time (potential). I think your application should be able to show you got those points covered:

1- Deliver a product:

Easiest way is to use previous experience at a different jobs. If you don't have that, it's as valuable to show personal projects you brought to completion.

2- Work in a team:

They'll usually get a feeling for that in person, just be cool, respectful, and communicate well ^^

3- Potential:

Show passion, you do what you do because you love it. You learn new technologies, try out new frameworks/patterns/ideas out of pure curiosity. The industry is moving and changing very fast, you need to show that you can keep up with it. In a way, personal projects can help point 1 and 3).

If you have those elements already, make sure you're selling yourself properly to recruiters. If you don't, fill in the gaps :P Hope that helps.

I think your demo should be more than an example of signup page. Quite frankly, most signup pages look the same (e.g. resizable background image, centered box with text and maybe a logo, and a call to action). Where you could really differentiate yourself (over existing similar services) is better analytics that you get from your service, and a demo of the admin panel could convey that.

So for example, show that for every signup you know: 1. Where your users come from (e.g. referer) 2. Where your users are from (e.g. geo location based on ip) 3. User Agent, Browser, Mobile vs. Desktop etc...

This information is not only "cool to know" but also useful to understand who your potential customers are.

A few more things. In your "sales pitch", you mention your competitors (e.g. LaunchRock/Unbounce). I wouldn't suggest advertising for your competitor, and loosing potential customers to them, especially if you're value proposition is weak.

Finally, I wouldn't suggest your "call to action" to be to see pricing, that's also a turnoff. Instead, maybe you ask for emails for people interesting who want to use the beta when it's ready :P

3 month free with the only upgrade being 45$/6 month is a total turn-off for me. To me, it seems there really is only one plan called "45$/6month, get 3 months free when you signup".

Are you deriving and coming up with these methods of solving ODE for fun, or is there special about your techniques compared to known existing methods?

Do you have any programming experience, if you do, in which languages?

It's been on Windows Phone for over a year and it's the best thing ever :) Not creepy at all, but rather highly practical.

If you're referring to the way, e.g. Youtube, automatically detects the author of the video or artist upon upload, then this article will give you an overview about tagging "audio":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_fingerprint

Went to Italy last December, and in fact it's no common practice to tip. The reason is most of the time the tip is already included in the bill.

incognito: with the identity disguised or hidden

Google doesn't know who you are, so results are not as relevant.

Had a similar issue with a Facebook recruiter, who was terribly unprofessional.

Looks very nice... bought a Fitbit just now just to be able to try it out :/

I graduated from Mechanical Engineering as well, but started working as a software engineer after graduating (totally outside of mechanical). I know a few other people with a similar cursus as well.

I'd like to add it also allow you to scan books and CD covers, and instantly detect it and give you reviews/prices.

Interesting, I actually use Bing (or at least go there once a day) mainly to see a new picture every day. It's often high quality nice shots from random places, so I feel like I'm learning about a new place every time... makes me dream :/

You're thinking in the wrong order. You don't pick a language first, then solve a problem with it. Instead, you should look at the problem you're trying to solve, and which tools are best adapted to solving it given your requirements (that you come up with).

Are you focused on creating something quick? something that scales? something optimized that needs to run as fast as possible? something portable?

For some Python, Scala, or Clojure will do. For others, C++ is, despite what you may call flaws, the language of choice.

That being said, if you're very attached to a specific technology, find a place (or create one) where it makes most sense using it.

It doesn't sound like you're looking for "obfuscated" code, which is what the links below show. But rather real code that's more complicated than slide examples.

I would look for random code people wrote, for example on github:

https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=sort&repo...

And then just look at the code and try to understand how it works. This result for example seems to implement basic functions and is well commented:

https://github.com/erlide/erlide/blob/6b836bcb0770d23c4471f4...

Hope this helps

Easiest: Back when I was in school and not many had internet, and even fewer had a 2x CD Burner, I'd create playlist for people at school. They give me a paper with ~10songs, download them, burn them, sell the disk. -_-

Fastest: Invested ~10k in Apple stock during afterhours before they froze trading before announcing their earnings. 30minutes later, sold those with an 8% ROI. 800$ (-commission/tax) in 30minutes.

Adding a link to the video for others interested: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83135286/

in Seattle?