Sodaware

The !bang syntax is definitely one of DDG's best features. Being able to access a few hundred site searches with a keyword is incredibly powerful, and saves time on creating quick searches in Firefox.

(The full list of !bang commands http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html)

I get that PHP is not the most elegant language in the World (see kemayo's comment about strpos and in_array for just one example), but I don't understand why people get so worked up over the fact that people use it.

It seems like you can't mention PHP without people inferring that you're a lesser programmer or that you clearly don't know what you're doing.

I'm skeptical that this is only 6 months away (6 years sounds more reasonable), but I'm still curious about the ramifications of synthetic meat.

Would it be more energy efficient to grow meat in a factory than in the fields? What are the energy requirements for a pound of lab meat vs a pound of pig meat?

More importantly, what would happen if it turned out cheaper and tasted the same? How many industries depend on eating meat? What would happen to all the pigs if nobody wanted to eat them?

Felt it in Raleigh, North Carolina. Quite strong, and made the whole house shake for quite a while. Figured it was some workers digging outside the apartment. Apparently not.

I hate to be "that guy", but he's not really an app developer if he paid someone else to do it for him.

I think that's the map loader. Rather than writing a special map format, it reads the map from a standard image, with each colour defining a different type of block.

This makes it easier to make a map in a short space of time (great for contests), although as you said it makes it's not really maintainable in the long run.

It's for Ludum Dare (http://www.ludumdare.com/), a 48-hour game competition. It's quite common for entrants to record their development sessions and release a video at the end, so I'm sure Notch will do something similar.

The biggest problem would be that the £ symbol is not on US keyboards. The # symbol takes its place, but is called the pound sign rather than hash.

Nope, just the way it's consumed is changing. Rather than installing a dedicated reader, people can just follow an RSS feed via Facebook or Twitter.

I believe it was an article called "Shareware Amateurs vs Shareware Professionals". His old Dexterity is no longer available, but he released the copyright on all his material so I mirrored it (and all his old Dexterity articles) on my site:

http://www.sodaware.net/dev/articles/shareware-amateurs-vs-s...

I would imagine because when you're on your deathbed, it's too late to change anything. It brings a little clarity and highlights what is really important vs the stuff that seemed important at the time but turned out to a waste of time.

Currently reading The Power of Full Engagement (after hearing about it on HN). It's not bad, and has already encouraged me to look at my eating & working habits.

What's the litmus test for being a "real" geek?

There are hundreds of ways you could do this, but here are my initial thoughts.

First, look at how other information products like this are marketed and sold. A lot of use the traditional "long form" sales letter. Looking over her website, it's basically what she has now just laid out slightly differently. I'm not a fan of long sales pages, but they get results.

Second, help identify the online market she's selling to. My first thoughts are moms and parents of kids that are about to go to college. I can't see a college kid buying it, but I can definitely see it being given as a gift. Look for blogs in these topics and email them to gauge interest. Perhaps give copies as prizes for their readers.

Other ways to promote the site would be to take the recipes and convert them to articles and publish them on sites like ezinearticles.com (with titles like "how to cook healthy microwave pizza"). Then in the author bio add a link to her site.

It may be worth considering converting the video / book to digital products and offering the DVD & hard copy as an upsell.

I was fortunate enough to see a midnight shuttle launch from across the lake at Titusville. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

1. I started doing custom blog plugins, but have also done e-commerce sites, Facebook apps and custom web applications. I'm a coder, not a designer, but that hasn't caused any problems for me so far.

2. Haven't touched oDesk since my first job there. I might use it again in the future, but to be honest I found searching for work there rather depressing with all the low rates.

I was extremely fortunate in that my first job on oDesk led to everything else.

One thing I would recommend is looking for potential clients that need help with blogs, especially in a non-technical field. If they're at the point where they're paying for help, they probably have a good network of friends they can refer you to if you do a good job.

My first freelance gig came from oDesk a couple of years ago, and since then I've gone on to freelance full time. I'm not an expert on the subject by any stretch, but this is the best advice I can give:

* Don't try and compete on price. A lot of freelancers on the site can go lower, and you'll end up broke. Besides, if a client is more interested in saving a few dollars than paying for a decent worker, you're saving yourself a lot of future pain.

* When you apply for something, say what you'll do and give a rough idea of how you'll solve their problem. It only has to be a few paragraphs, but you'll have put more thought in than 99% of other applicants.

* Look for jobs that mention an ongoing relationship. This usually means they have a lot more work and want to try things out.

All of my work now comes from referrals which in some way originate from the first job I did on oDesk. It was discouraging when I was rejected for jobs despite putting in the effort, but the work paid off in the end. Best of luck!

I've recently used http://feedmyapp.com and it worked pretty well. Within a day or two my site was picked up by several directories and sites.

Very well said. I completely agree with your summary points, especially number 3. Mentioning death by drunk driver is particularly important. It's easy to get the idea that you have 70+ years to achieve all the things you want, but it can all be snuffed out on a drive you take every day.

Here's the patent in question: http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT4197590

When I first wanted to try Linux on my laptop, it took an age just to find a distro that could recognise the display. A few weeks ago I bought some new wireless hardware, and it took longer to get it installed on Windows than it did on Linux. 95% of my time is spent on Linux now, and there are only a few programs (Flash Develop) that I need Windows for.

I don't think it will ever be the year of the Linux desktop, but that certainly doesn't make it a failure like the wonderful comments on that article would suggest.

Try the Hacker News UX extension for Chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chngbdmhgakoomomnn...). It adds dual column support and works really well with Georgify.

I have my email client set up to play a cash register sound every time an order goes through. It sounds dumb, but it never gets old.

I'd change the perspective on the icons so they're flat, rather than at a slight angle. They look a little out of place to me.

Also, the CSS and all images on http://www.addpiks.com/ are returning 404 errors.

Another happy Toggl user here.

I've used RescueTime (http://www.rescuetime.com) in the past, and it's great for automated, general time tracking. Sadly the Linux client hasn't been updated for ages so I don't use it anymore.

I got my first client from a freelancing website (odesk), and after that all my work has come from referrals. As others have said, these websites are a bit hit and miss, and you end up competing with some low prices. They're ok for getting your foot in the door, but I don't think they're sustainable for most people.

Seeing as you enjoy programming, you could consider freelancing on the side. Plenty of people put there need web programmers, and with a bit of searching you can probably find someone that will pay a decent rate. It would help with the money side of things, as well as giving you something put in your work history.