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fbuilesvon MongoDB Gotchas and How To Avoid Them

This is one of the first articles I've seen where someone with a lot of knowledge posts a lot of realities about Mongo, thank you for that!

I'd love to read something describing the "perfect use cases for Mongo" from you :)

fbuilesvon :syntax Off

See this code:

  <%= render partial: 'user, collection: @user.followed_users  %>

I see (and write) errors like this all the time. Turning :syntax on saves me a browser refresh/compile cycle/spec run every time. Not sure if I'd need a rigorous test to tell me how helpful it is :)

fbuilesvon Getting by in a technical industry without a degree

Just some advice for the international readers who might be thinking about dropping out: If you want to work in the US you will have have immigration problems if you don't have a degree. Getting a work visa without your degree is semi-imposible (especially if you're in your 20s).

Dropping out was one of the best choices I've ever made but this particular thing is something that has come back to bite me in the ass several times.

fbuilesvon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (November 2012)

SEEKING WORK - Medellin, Colombia - Remote (or local if you pay for the travel expenses).

Hey, I'm Federico B. and I've been working in web applications (mostly Ruby and Python) for the past 6 years. Some of the startups I've worked for are Art.sy, Mentez/Paymentez and MessageParty (YC10). I've participated in the Google Summer of Code (student and mentor) and in the Ruby Summer of Code (student).

I'm a generalist that leans more towards the backend of applications.

This week I launched my two newest personal projects:

* http://makeitpersonal.co

* http://webstripe.co

My GitHub account is: https://github.com/febuiles

My personal website is: http://mheroin.com

You can contact me at federico@mheroin.com or @febuiles.

fbuilesvon We wrote a solid application, made a silly video, and got into YC (hack-free?)

Yes, a week or two after being invited.

fbuilesvon Ask HN: What do you with customers' feature requests for your SaaS app?

I think I read this advice on Getting Real (http://gettingreal.37signals.com) and it's been useful so far: listen to your customers and their requests but don't do anything about it. Important stuff will keep coming back frequently so by the time you get the 10th email asking for custom emails you can start considering to add it as a feature.

Caveat: This works as long as you many small customers. If you have a few large customers you can go for the customization route and just charge them a lot to make it worth the extra effort.

fbuilesvon Ask HN: How do people respond to your .io domain name?

This is just one data point: I was planning to use a .io domain for an online fashion store. I talked to several customers and asked how they felt about a domain ending in .io. ~30% of them thought it looked weird or plain "fishy".

If you're trying to sell something directly to people (especially physical good or stuff where you don't get a trial) I'd try to stay away from them. They seem handy for URL shorteners and techie stuff.

fbuilesvon We wrote a solid application, made a silly video, and got into YC (hack-free?)

I'm not sure if everyone receives the same email but last year we got one from Harj Taggar to setup a video call. They wanted to:

1. "Give you a heads up on the kinds of things likely to come up for you specifically at interview".

2. "Let you ask us any questions you might have about YC".

It was a 5-10 minutes thing.

fbuilesvon Ask HN: How do I go from abstract concepts to a pitch

Thanks for taking the time for this Keifer. I don't plan to include the "big words" in the final description but I wanted to put them into the discussion so people could understand what I was talking about :)

That Google description is amazing and it gives me a skeleton to work with. Thanks!

fbuilesvon Ask HN: How do I go from abstract concepts to a pitch

I also like the idea of exploiting the multiple levels of people's tastes as the selling point of this so I will be basing my explanation on it. Thanks for the feedback.

fbuilesvon Ask HN: How do I go from abstract concepts to a pitch

You're right, I think I chose the wrong words when I used "pitch" and "abstract" when I really wanted to see was how to make a series of ideas more concise.

I hope you don't mind but I'll be stealing your art critic analogy :)

fbuilesvon Ask HN: How do I go from abstract concepts to a pitch

I love the idea of starting with the press release, trying it out right now, thanks!

fbuilesvon How we got a Y Combinator interview but blew it

Not the OP but from our interview: 6 interviewers, two had laptops, everyone else was working from paper or nothing at all.

fbuilesvon Outlawed by Amazon DRM

You're confusing e-books with Kindle books. You can still buy a ton of DRM free books online. You can even buy DRM free .mobi (Kindle) books.

PS: Calling someone "idiot" is never a good way to start a discussion. Especially when you're wrong.

fbuilesvon Watch YC Startup School 2012 Live

A lot of the stuff Spolsky's covering right now is coming from his Strategy Letter I (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html). That's probably my favorite thing he's ever written.

fbuilesvon Keep your tools sharp

Implement a “useless” algorithm like a bloom filter or a skip list...

This a hundred times! The majority of us are probably working on web-related stuff that usually does not need a lot of CompSci on a daily basis. Picking out an fancy algorithm or a niche data structure and implementing it in a language you're just dabbling with can be a great way to learn a bunch of new stuff in a couple of hours. Set two hours to do this once a week and you'll be amazed at how fast you end up understanding new concepts.

fbuilesvon Adobe's Source Code Pro Font

The 1 in Inconsolata does not have the serif either, and it hasn't for a while I think: http://levien.com/type/myfonts/incoshow.png

fbuilesvon Fed Undertakes QE3 With $40 Billion in MBS Purchases Each Month

Can someone with knowledge of economy explain what's going on here and how does this affect me as an individual or as a company?

fbuilesvon Clarity over brevity in variable and method names

The problem with this is that although your solution might be better while reading the file where `updateOutsideSubscriber` is defined, once you see that method call somewhere else you'll have to go to that other file to read the comment. With the longer method name you don't need to read the method definition to see what's going on.

fbuilesvon Five Best Office Chairs

I'm the same when it comes to typing and I've found out that the Aeron is perfect for this. It leans back enough for me to put me legs comfortably in the desk and due to its robust build, I know it won't be breaking in a year.

fbuilesvon Exercise Does Not Make You Less Depressed

Yes! Common knowledge says that exercise helps you fight depression. If we see that some class of exercise is not as effective as another one (or is not effective at all) then we can start to ask ourselves how they differ.

I think you imply in your comment that "self-motivated exercise" is better than "externally facilitated". If that is true then we can start worrying less about selling the idea of exercising and more about thinking how to motivate a depressed individual.

On the other hand, if both cases of exercising offered the same results then we could say that it's not the motivation but the exercise itself who's helping us.

fbuilesvon Exercise Does Not Make You Less Depressed

This is all my personal experience, but while struggling with emotional problems I tried exercise (cardio/weight lifting at the gym) for a period of 6 months. Although the exercise itself was not helpful in lifting my mood, having something to do (a routine if you would) helped me keep my mind off the "bad stuff". That itself was a plus but I could have easily replaced exercise with WoW, gambling or piano lessons and the result might've been the same.

fbuilesvon Twitter Removes 'Via' Stamp From Web Client

In terms of social interaction it adds quite a bit. Imagine the tweet: "This party's awesome".

Seeing if it was published from Twitter for Blackberry, Tweetbot for Mac or EventualTweet tells me a lot about yourself as a person (and believe me, stuff like this makes/breaks relationships).

fbuilesvon Apple Wins Patent Ruling As Jury Finds Samsung Infringes

Just because Microsoft and Apple are colluding to avoid suing each other

Do you have facts that support this or is this your opinion?

fbuilesvon Releasing Outside The App Store

It's a Mac app., not an iOS one.

fbuilesvon Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives

You could even make a slider with an animation that displays the percent which goes to each part of your business - so 10% or 15% of the donation could goto administration.

This is a great idea. Check the Humble Bundle's (http://www.humblebundle.com/) sliders at the bottom of the page to see how they handle their "Humble Tip", maybe you guys can do something similar.

fbuilesvon Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops

I don't know what the current situation is for Dell, but a couple of years ago I worked at a company that sold laptops like this, mostly targeted towards businesses but ocasionally catering to regular users. The moment they saw a cheaper option of the same laptop (no OS pre-installed) they went for that and then came bitching the same day that their computer wouldn't boot.

I imagine Dell must suffer from the same problem on their online stores.

fbuilesvon I would like to outsource development but can't break the mental barrier

You're a coder so you're already ahead in the outsourcing game, you can judge a people technical skills before hiring them and they won't be able to bullshit you with the typical "The RDBMS has no I/O QPS so the MVC can't connect to the furblong lasers".

In the past I've helped a couple of people like yourself and some of the tips I can think of right now are:

* Use something like oDesk to keep track of the worked hours (at least in the beginning). You'll see screencaps of what they were doing every 5-10 minutes so you know you're being billed for real work.

* Get his/her contact info. (Skype, IM, phone) and keep in touch during the beginning to make sure everything's going fine.

* Use something like Pivotal Tracker, Basecamp or any other PM tool so you know at every moment where the project stands at.

* Try to talk to the person more than once a week if possible, don't let them go rogue.

* Only hire reputable people (either through something like the oDesk reputation system or GitHub account).

* Set them up with small/test projects before giving them the full thing. A 1-2 week assignment will help you both get acquainted and you'll know if you want them to be working on your stuff. Pay them for this!

My email's on my profile, if I can be of any help just drop me a line.

fbuilesvon Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

Same thing happens sporadically in Chrome too.

fbuilesvon Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

Because this is how a lot (most?) people work. They read about something interesting today, buy the book, send it to their Kindle and then forget about it. When they get to actually read a book they enjoy they might start looking for more titles from the same author/genre and at $2 you won't think too much about buying 2-3 at once.