Hacker News Reader

bcxon LightningJS: safe, fast, and asynchronous third-party Javascript

The funny thing is that this shows that Google Analytics's async loader can actually slows down window.onload in some cases.

bcxon Spreedly doubles pricing.

I know the Spreedly guys personally (and have been using them for years). Honestly, they underpriced their services and need to make more money if they are going to add features and build a better product.

Doubling their prices certainly seems like a reasonable idea, I wonder what other models they looked at.

bcxon I was wondering why there was secret service at Stanford on Sunday

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/10/17/steve-jobs’s-family-g...

May be the link that was submitted:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020447950457663...

bcxon Microsoft adds XMPP support to Windows Live

Sweet Olark (http://www.olark.com) for Windows Live Beta on it's way :-) -- I bet we could release it in a week.

bcxon MailChimp Acquires TinyLetter (ask me anything)

Just out of curiosity (since you said ask me anything) -- How much did you sell TinyLetter for, and will you be joining Mailchimp? (What did the terms of the deal look like for this sort of acquisition?)

bcxon Why Events Are A Bad Idea (for High-concurrency Servers)

That paper is also 8 years old (or at least the timestamp on that page is way off) -- which was before node even existed.

If it was so easy to implement their proposed high performance thread system (disclaimer: haven't read the paper) -- Why don't we see it in production 8 years later?

I'd argue that we don't see it in production, because it lacks some of the advantages they propose in the abstract.

bcxon You can list a directory containing 8 million files But not with ls..

Typically there are on the order of 2000 files in a directory. It was a mistake.

bcxon You can list a directory containing 8 million files But not with ls..

The original onus for the post was python's os.listdir() which as far as I know doesn't stat(). ls, just made the blog post more interesting :-).

I was surprised that the 32K reads were taking so long. It's possible since it was on a virtualized disk ("in the cloud") that something else was slowing down disk IO (like Xen).

But I can assure you that a larger read buffer performed much better in this given scenario.

I'd welcome more tests though.

bcxon You can list a directory containing 8 million files But not with ls..

Developers who only write in interpreted languages :-)

bcxon Motivation: Freedom

I wrote this, but I wasn't ready for prime time hacker news. I think it needs another revision ;-) -- definitely interested in feedback on the first pass.

bcxon You can list a directory containing 8 million files But not with ls..

In this case since it was a virtualized disk and it was reading in 32K chunks, I am fairly confident that this wouldn't have helped.

Certainly find . would have been faster without calling stat().

Does os.listdir() stat?

bcxon You can list a directory containing 8 million files But not with ls..

no need for cache anymore. Word to the wise, make sure supercache is actually caching when copying wordpress installs :-)

bcxon You can list a directory containing 8 million files But not with ls..

I actually didn't try ls -f, but I did try find . and os.listdir and both hung with very similar straces

bcxon You can list a directory containing 8 million files But not with ls..

Should be fixed completely and fast now, SPW was a new blog so the cache config was support wrong :-)

bcxon Our Start-Up's First Trade Show: A Data-Driven Recap

Great post guys, also great to meet you in person at IRCE. We collected a fair amount of data as well (not much as you guys)-- but we'll try to get another IRCE post out there :-)

bcxon Ask HN: What cities in the US have a growing startup/entrepreneur community?

I am heading to San Diego Tomorrow. Anything going on this week?

bcxon Challenge HN: build pg-bot

You could grab Olark, embed it using out setinline option: http://www.olark.com/community/discussion/12

and toss an XMPP chatter bot behind it :-) http://mail.python.org/pipermail/bangpypers/2008-January/000...

Cheers, Ben

bcxon Andreessen Horowitz Leads $1.75M Round In Freebie Marketplace Listia

Congrats guys.

bcxon Github, how Not to release a new version

We used the prioritization feature. Wow, I just noticed it on the website. That's a pain. Maybe we'll have to move back to pivotal tracker.

bcxon Ask HN: oLark or Livezilla?

I highly recommend http://www.olark.com -- but I am biased. If you already use an IM program, it's hard to beat being able to monitor visitors right in your buddy list.

bcxon Olark as a networking tool

Hi Dan, I think you gave Olark before we had solved some of the issues for larger sites. When your in the 150 visitor range it doesn't make as much sense to let you monitor all your visitors in your buddy list -- so we now let you turn that off and only have slots for chatting visitors. As well as a few more options we've implemented for some of our other larger customers.

I'd be happy to offer you a deal to try us out again, and definitely appreciate your feedback for helping us improve.

bcxon Whom am I speaking with?

Do you also block Google Analytics?

bcxon Whom am I speaking with?

I'd like to understand more of your concerns.

Olark just help website owners take the information they already have about you (and that you gave to them), and use it to provide better service.

So if your logged into a website and ask a question the operator doesn't have to ask you for your username again (the website already knows it -- why shouldn't the person helping you)

Most of this parallels what goes on in the real world. If you often shop at the same store the clerks will start to recognize you and give you more personal service -- Olark just lets small business owners do the same online.

bcxon The Inside Story of How Facebook Responded to Tunisian Hacks

Perhaps the article doesn't have enough detail in it. But it sounds like ISPs were just sniffing HTTP packets for usernames and passwords.

It doesn't sound like a directed attack on facebook, though perhaps it was a session replay attack.

The real question for me, is why didn't facebook already require SSL login.

bcxon FaxFresh: Easy Online Fax

http://www.olark.com (for the link) -- appreciate the support :-)

bcxon [dead]

My guess is the poster just made a mistake, but I guess you might know more info than I do :-)

bcxon Ask HN: Side Projects Gone Big

http://www.olark.com was a side project: http://www.hab.la for a few years.

bcxon Ask HN: Best Business Credit Card

What are the advantages / disadvantages of credit card verses charge card?

bcxon Ask HN: Best Business Credit Card

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

"A charge card is a plastic card that provides an alternative payment to cash when making purchases in which the issuer and the cardholder enter into an agreement that the debt incurred on the charge account will be paid in full and by due date (usually every thirty days) or be subject to severe late fees and restrictions on card use"

bcxon Ask HN: Best Business Credit Card

What's the key difference between a charge card and a credit card?