HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

dan_sim

1,878 karma · joined December 3, 2008

dsimard@gmail.com
submissionscomments
dan_sim··on Ask HN: accounting resources for startups?
That's a fact, pay someone for bookkeeping and at the end of the year, you'll make big savings when it's time to make your taxes. All your numbers will be right and they will not have to make their way in them because they already know them.
dan_sim··on Ask HN: accounting resources for startups?
In my sense, the only way to do it right is to have an accountant. It's his/her job. I know it doesn't sound "lean" (ho buzzword) but how would you react if a accountant would ask 'website resources for accountant?' and saying that he wants to make money out of a website?
dan_sim··on Barack Obama's rant against technology: Don't shoot the messenger
I'm relieved to see that the most rated comments are on Obama's side. Even the "arranged" quote from the Economist sounds true to me.
dan_sim··on Ruby 1.9 made me remember how I hate the concept of encodings
That's the point of the post, we should not have to know anything about encoding. It should just work.
dan_sim··on Microsoft's Quiet Success Story: Windows 7
Plus, it is so hard to use. Sometimes I shake a window and it doesn't work. Like if there was a concept behind it that I couldn't understand.
dan_sim··on Microsoft's Quiet Success Story: Windows 7
During March Madness, they pitched Windows 7 with the feature "shake a window and all the other windows minimize". It's not really related to this article but I just felt it was very odd from them.
dan_sim··on Ruby Access Control - Are Private And Protected Methods Only A Guideline?
I was just writing a bit of code in javascript (http://github.com/dsimard/jskataUndo/blob/master/jskataUndo....) when I saw this post on HN. I was wondering "should I make some functions private?" and the answer is "NO". Why would I do this? Is this because I don't trust programmers? Why should I care if someone messes up with my "private" things? It's his problem after all. If you look at the source, you'll see that I have a private section at the end but it means "you don't need to use this to make it work".

(note : there are some ways to make things private in javascript as I wrote there : http://www.javascriptkata.com/2009/09/23/how-to-create-an-ob...)

dan_sim··on A real person, a lot like you
Thanks a lot. This is a really great comment that I should have had years before. We had our share of problems with that project but the main reason we want to drop it is not because it's not paying, it's because our hearts are not in it anymore. We don't have passion for time-tracking (and even if it's hard to believe, some people have it). We learned a lot but now it's time to let it go.

But thanks fo the great comment...

dan_sim··on A real person, a lot like you
Didn't sell it yet but we had people interested in. We are from near Montreal.
dan_sim··on A real person, a lot like you
That's how I begin to feel about the community here. When I wrote about selling our product for 25K$ (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1212966), some people wrote that it couldn't work and things like that. If I would have been new in business, it would have hurt me a lot. Now, I just say to myself that these people are just bitter. They don't seem to care how much they can hurt others.
dan_sim··on We have an API (Please give us a database)
The main reason why API got that popular is because it's now easy to do them. Rails and most other frameworks has built-in features for that.

The other day, I thought about writing a SQL dump for a project but nobody really did it there's not that much information. Do I "reformat" the database? Is there a breach in security if I provide dumps? Do I keep the current IDs or use new ones?

On the other hand, this article is maybe the kick in the butt that makes me want to answer these questions.

dan_sim··on Ask HN: Best practices for creating unique IDs
You can take a look at this : http://www.rubyfleebie.com/encryption-with-alphanumeric-outp...

It cares more about readability than security but I guess it is safe enough.

dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
Thanks for your question. We tried ejabber but it was just less friendly than Openfire. We used XMPP4R with Starling for the queue to have a fast interaction between the web and IM. Plus, we used the ORM Rails to access the DB from the listener (the bot), written in pure Ruby.
dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
You're right... but still, "startup" is a recognized word. When I use the word "our product", nobody upvoted it. When I changed it to "our startup", it was upvoted.

Use the words that your customers understand they say...

dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
We find the premise of using the web for time tracking a flaw. IM is real time communication instead of ad hoc.
dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
We do not protect it, we just want our buyer to have complete freedom and to give us freedom in return. Keeping TimmyOnTime is part of this.
dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
We learned a lot through these 3 years and it has its value. I could talk about it but it's more or less what we see each day on HN. We lost our clients because, like we said in our post, our heart isn't in it anymore.
dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
We already had some people asking for details. If you're interested, just write us to info@azanka.ca .
dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
We did have clients but, to be honest, we lost them. We're not selling their data, it will be available for them to backup but deleted forever after that.
dan_sim··on We are selling the source code of our startup (time-tracking on IM)
if you have questions about it, you can ask it here, I will answer
dan_sim··on Why most people don't like jazz
Back in the day people would get up and shout when they felt the music. You guys need to give it to us on stage so we can give it back to you, it goes two ways

That's the main problem. Jazzmen are expecting their audience to make the show and only then, they will give them a show back. That should be the other way. Musician are there to make the show, then the audience connect with them and the show becomes a whole.

dan_sim··on Why most people don't like jazz
- The problem with jazz is the people who listen to it.

Yes

- Music isn't art, or at least it's wrong to appreciate it as such.

Music is entertainment and emotions.

- Jazz ought to be revivalist, not innovative.

Things like free-jazz is not innovative. It is shitty musicians thinking that if they play "out" enough, they might get to the point that people feel they are geniuses.

Music is meant to be good to the ears.

dan_sim··on Why most people don't like jazz
I mean, they are not boring in their everyday life. They are boring when they do a show.
dan_sim··on Why most people don't like jazz
You're so right. Jazz musicians are boring. Worst than that, I hear them complain every time that "the crowd was not in it". So, they don't even try to be less boring, they blame their clients for it. Way to go jazzmen!
dan_sim··on Why most people don't like jazz
I'm a musician myself who used to play jazz. The problem with jazz is that is considered by the people who listen to it like "pure art" when it is just a style of music. Jazz (and classical) is elevated higher than other form of music and music teachers will expect a good musician to play jazz.

If jazz lovers would stop thinking at themselves as "higher educated" and jazz would go back to the people who want enjoy a good swinging song (Ella Fitzgerald, Satchmo, ...) maybe then, jazz would be loved again.

dan_sim··on Ask HN: Cool Things You've Done (Brag Thread)
but you didn't figure out about canadian sales tax yet ;) http://www.tarsnap.com/legal-why.html#NOCANADIANS
dan_sim··on TellHN : Go Test It is closing down on 22nd March
At first, I thought that it was closing for a "bad" reason but what you say is logical. But, why would they list alternative services if they would eventually come back?
dan_sim··on Ask epi0Bauqu anything about running DuckDuckGo
Mostly .NET errors that nobody care about.
dan_sim··on Ask epi0Bauqu anything about running DuckDuckGo
I give that guy a couple of year and I think he will be able to compete with Google or Bing. What he's doing is amazing and this search engine is sometimes my default in firefox until I have to search for something really hard to find that only google can find the answer (I tried bing but it's not as efficient as google... yet...)
dan_sim··on Amazon Is Building a Better Browser for Kindle
no... please no... I don't want to be compatible with yet another browser...
← PreviousPage 2 of 8Next →