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iwaffles

90 karma · joined June 21, 2011

Lived in a toy room. Former Apple software engineer, CTO of Sidestep, engineer at Brightroll/Yahoo and various other tech companies.

hi@mattgardner.com

Currently accepting new work!

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iwaffles··on Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features
What’s the advantage to using this over the official tesla app?

Typing “please lock my car” seems like so much more effort than tapping “lock” in the app.

iwaffles··on Stripe Terminal – Programmable point of sale
I don't think the fees stack like that. The terminal page says 2.7% + $0.05 per transaction. I believe that Stripe Connect doesn't take an extra fee, at least not in my experience.
iwaffles··on Stripe Terminal – Programmable point of sale
We spent a lot of time building a terminal at Sidestep on top of Stripe (and a few other processors). Everything on the in-person payment level was done through an iOS or Android device. The hardest part wasn't managing devices (they could log in on almost any device), but the hardware integration for accepting credit cards. It exists in various places, but none of it could do exactly what we wanted to do. CardFlight was the closest to being a stripe friendly api for swiping cards. Usually the devices for swiping cards were too expensive and the failure rate was high. I don't think swiping hardware has gone down, unless you're using Square.

But hardware costs aside, the ability to fully integrate with the API on a terminal level is the most powerful thing here. It allows for so many cool POS integrations like the one we building at Sidestep.

To me, the coolest thing about this is that it supports Stripe Connect so you can create a POS that's used by others without having to deal with any money transfer yourself. Customer swipes card -> your software -> client's bank account.

iwaffles··on Leaving Apple and Google: /e/ first beta
Not entirely true. They shifted focus on mobile to continue making mobile software for other OSes.
iwaffles··on Musk’s Money Mystery Intrigues SEC
He even made a public comment "Ford is trying to kill SEX"

https://jalopnik.com/ford-killed-sex-1585513454

iwaffles··on Mozilla Project Fusion: Tor Integration into Firefox
It is. For both legitimate and nefarious uses. Bigger software/game devs still use bittorrent to distribute patches and updates—World of Warcraft is an example.
iwaffles··on Show HN: Pickle – a smarter address book for you and your startup
So in my last company, we tried so many different CRMs. Salesforce, Salesforce IQ, Close.io, Pipedrive, and more. What we discovered that none of them allowed us to work the way that we wanted. Integrating with some of their APIs was more work than we wanted to do, they were expensive, and entirely closed source.

Pickle is designed to help you stay lean, allows you to create multiple projects (so you can use it at home, work, side projects, etc) with one login.

For example: People are using it to manage guest lists, for an event/wedding/party, using it to be transparent with their clients (see: https://picklecrm.com/home-buying-timeline.html), to manage personal affairs at home like they children's clubs and groups.

You're definitely right: we should add more screenshots!

iwaffles··on Show HN: Whats New – A hosted way to let your users know what's new
Awesome, thanks for sharing and thank you for the feedback!

Whomever implements Whats New into their website/app can pass in any data they'd like as the identifier (hash, email, id, nickname, etc) as long as it's unique. Great suggestion to hash it with regards to GDPR and unnecessary data collection. I should definitely work on encouraging people to shy from using email addresses.

iwaffles··on Show HN: Whats New – A hosted way to let your users know what's new
Hi everyone, I've put together Whats New App to scratch my own itch. It's a simple way to let your users know what's new in your app/website by copy/pasting a javascript snippet.

When it detects an existing user (identified by a user id, email, or whatever you'd like to use), it'll show them the new updates since the last time they visited.

It's helped me in a few of my projects keep users up to date. It's very new/beta. If you don't ant to sign up to check it out, here's a slightly older video demo: https://youtu.be/n4vmIsw2N3k

I'd love to know what you all think and I'm happy to answer any questions.

iwaffles··on How to Find Consulting Clients
I'd love to know how you end up with this! I'm in the process of accepting new work myself. Feel free to reach out – email in profile.
iwaffles··on Apple unveils new iPad 9.7“ with Apple Pencil support
For those of you with kids:

1. Do your kids prefer using an iPad over a computer with a keyboard?

2. Do you prefer them to use an iPad over a laptop?

iwaffles··on All I Want for Christmas Is a Revolutionary Apple TV
One of the things I like the least about all of these boxes (Apple TV, Xbox, Roku) is the need to type in a password in front of everyone in the room using a joystick or the arrows. The whole concept of a keyboard on a screen that's used by only 4 buttons reminds me of the parody onion article when they discussed removing the keyboard on the MacBook in favor of a click wheel. It doesn't make sense.
iwaffles··on Bringing Documentation to Life on Expressjs.com
Interacting with documentation is such a cool way to actually learn. I know many people–myself included–that learn from trial and error; reading simply doesn't cut it.

I'm excited to see this go further than just express. It's not only going to be a great way to learn, but a great way to teach, too.

iwaffles··on LG 5K display must be kept at least 2 meters away from Wi-Fi routers
I haven't had any issues with the 5K monitor and it's about 3 feet from the router. At least for me it works incredibly well.
iwaffles··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2016)
Sidestep Technologies | Ruby on Rails Engineer | Los Angeles, CA | http://jobs.sidestepapp.com

We're hiring a Rails engineer to help build out Sidestep. We work with Artists to help them sell merch and VIP experiences to their fans before, during and after a show for easy pickup and delivery. We work with artists including (but not limited to): Beyonce, Fall Out Boy, Selena Gomez and Adele. We're a small team and have a lot of fun. Find out more about our open positions at http://jobs.sidestepapp.com

A few notes about you:

- Work with other members of the team to build new features and update existing ones

- Should be familiar with RSpec and be comfortable writing (or learning how to wite) your own tests

- Interested in music

- Want to work in a small company

- Be an effective communicator

- Come with fresh ideas and an open mind

iwaffles··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2016)
Sidestep is hiring web developers for front end, fullstack and backend positions.

We're a small startup that focuses on the live entertainment industry with much of our footing working with musicians like Fall Out Boy, 30 Seconds to Mars, Jack's Mannequin, Paramore and many more.

Interested? Let me know! matt@sidestepapp.com

There's also more info available here: http://sidestepapp.com/jobs

iwaffles··on Embed Node.js on any website
Great explanation!
iwaffles··on Embed Node.js on any website
Been using Tonic for a few months now and it's been very useful and incredibly easy to test things out.

Tested out an idea quickly with Twilio, demoed an API in another notebook, and prototyped a new feature from my iPad while on an airplane (that's my favorite part).

It's been really useful for me and now that I can embed it into my blog posts or in the documentation is going to be really helpful for the rest of our team. Awesome work guys!

iwaffles··on NHL goal celebration hack: real-time machine learning and hue light show
This is really awesome. I've managed to do something similar, but for the Washington Capitals. When the game starts the lights change to the color of the home team, and when they score the flash. I'm using a little web scraper to pull from nhl.com to get the data, however, sometimes it's quite out of sync with the actual game (streaming or live tv). Usually about 30 seconds to a minute delay.

The best part is when I forget that they are playing and the lights start flashing randomly. Always scares guests :)

iwaffles··on Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft
Swaw reminds me of http://storehouse.co
iwaffles··on Show HN: InvoiceAtOnce – Easy Invoice Creation
Seems pretty neat, like what you're doing here, NubeDeArroz!

I like how simple you've kept it. I built a similar service a few years ago to send invoices to clients directly: http://betterinvoices.com – we were one of the first partners with Stripe. You can hook up your stripe account and accept credit cards – free :)

Looks like one of the philosophies that we both share is not needing to log in before doing anything. I think this is very powerful – especially for people who just want to get things done. But if you're a bit OCD, you can still log in and get more.

Keep up the good work!

iwaffles··on I Don't Know Swift
The article starts off by setting a negative tone.

"If you’re reading my blog, there’s a decent chance that I know more about Objective-C than you do. I have opinions about it. You should take them seriously even if you disagree. "

It's confusing when trying to understand his point and in all fairness I don't think it added to it.

Even the title is a bit self-serving after reading the opening paragraph, "I don't know swift" can be loosely translated into, "I don't know it so it must be new."

He makes a good point that we can help grow swift into a better "fully-baked" language by contributing.

I think the article would have been much better without the first paragraph. I think there would be less confusion amongst readers and would have set a lighter tone.

iwaffles··on Apple Teams Up With IBM for Enterprise Push
The Times They Are a-Changin'
iwaffles··on A Note from the CEO
The good news is that there's no good way that Apple can stop Android devices (or other devices with BTLE) from broadcasting or detecting iBeacons.

Glad to see that the source code is still available to fork.

iwaffles··on SaleInvaders: Rent-a-sales organization
Seems like a cool service, but I don't understand the quality of the sales people. What experience do they have? What have they sold before?
iwaffles··on HippyVM
Seems like an odd way to show off a technology boasting speed when it's cracking under the load. Can anyone confirm if it's running on hippyvm?
iwaffles··on Ask HN: How Did the Outage Affect You Personally?
I went outside. It's bright out there. There were strange creatures walking and making noises.
iwaffles··on Dilbert's creator says you shouldn't have a career plan
"Starting a business that fails makes the comic better."
iwaffles··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (December 2013)
SEEKING WORK - San Francisco / Remote

What I do:

* iOS Development * Web Development * User experience design

Technologies (to name a few):

* Objective-c * Ruby on Rails * postgresql/mysql/mongodb * Javascript, various js frameworks (backbone, jquery, etc). * Bluetooth (and BLE) * PHP

Where I’ve worked:

* Apple * Buffer * Many more…

Portfolio: http://mattg.me

You should get in touch with me here: hi@mattgardner.me

iwaffles··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (June 2013)
SEEKING WORK - Remote/Freelance/San Francisco - Rails/PHP/iOS. Former Apple Employee and most recently working at Buffer. I'm currently accepting work and would love to talk to you!

I build web and mobile apps with tools such as iOS, Heroku, AWS, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Parse, and more :)

You can find out more about me here: http://mattgardner.me or email me: hi@mattgardner.me

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