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spobo

39 karma · joined September 17, 2011

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spobo··on Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purpose is infuriate you
If you plan on gaming, DON'T buy a laptop. This is solid advice. Gaming on laptops is a bad experience in general.

Just buy a decent laptop with great battery life & mobility properties and a PS3/4 or a cheap gaming PC for gaming.

spobo··on Hackulous shutdown
Oh that's cool. Didn't know about that.
spobo··on Hackulous Shuts Down, Taking Its iOS Piracy App Installous With It
The problem on Android is that a lot of countries still don't support payments for apps. In other words, on android you still can't use paid apps. You're limited to the free apps. That's one point where Apple really shines thanks to their already existing infrastructure for iTunes. I also think that's one of the reasons why devs flocked to iOS development in the first place. Millions of active accounts with valid creditcards attached to it is a tempting thing :p
spobo··on Hackulous Shuts Down, Taking Its iOS Piracy App Installous With It
Watch a youtube review or read a review on it. If possible, test it out on a friends phone?

In a perfect world Apple would allow a trial mode for apps which would enable all features for X hours or X uses. But that's just Apple. It'll never happen. I heard though that MS does something like this for its apps? Or is it only for games?

spobo··on Hackulous Shuts Down, Taking Its iOS Piracy App Installous With It
This is definitely a good thing. Support the developers. It takes a lot of time and effort to build an app. Surely a single dollar (usually) is not too much to pay. Im' still surprised how cheap most apps are for my phone ;o
spobo··on Are Rails and Django communities re-inventing the wheel?
I think he's saying Java is recreating what C made.I don't agree since Java allows writing of code at a higher level. (with a garbage collector etc)

Every programming language sort of recreates the basics. They are the basics after all. The neat programming languages/frameworks are the ones that 'reinvent' something. Do something in a completely new way. On a programminglanguage-level it's difficult. A lot of the practices were already invented in early languages like lisp, eifel & smalltalk.

I like Ruby because it's not ashamed of taking the great parts from other programming languages and putting it together in an easily understandable language.

spobo··on Wikipedia doesn't need your money
Just check his TED talk. http://blog.ted.com/2006/08/29/jimmy_wales_on/

He basically says it's dirt cheap to host and operate and that it's one of the best things about it.

At the time of the video their bandwidth costs per month was just 5000$ and one paid programmer.

Aka you don't need millions to run it. So I was a little baffled when I saw his first big campaign to raise money.

spobo··on YouTube Gets Google-esque New Look
I also feel they focus a lot of attention on subscribing and channels. It's now easier to see new content from a channel you love.
spobo··on Poll: Do you use an Adblocker?
Yes. Except for okcupid. They pleaded with me via an ad of theirs (which was locally so it wasn't flagged by adblock) telling me that they rely on ads for income. They also said that I coud just pay 5 or 10$ and pay for my use for life. Which was a pretty cool thing to do :)

Ads should be quality checked by the site's owners. A crappy ad can turn away a visitor. At least I don't run the risk of that.

spobo··on For The First Time Ever, iPhone Owner Loyalty Declines
It's not their lack of innovation. It's their lack of supporting older devices and locking everything down.

The app ecosystem provides the innovation and that's the only reason why I'm still considering an iPhone for my next purchase.

spobo··on Why I love everything you hate about Java
Actually there is a framework: https://github.com/JoshCheek/deject

Have't tested it yet but it makes a lot of sense.

Redefining a class isn't dependency injection it's a hack to get the compiler to stop complaining. It works but it's very unclear to the person reading the program that a class your code depends on was actually redefined somewhere else.

For testing purposes placing this mock class somewhere at the start of your code is clear but only ever practical in that scenario.

I can also imagine that some programmers might not even think of the possibility that some code they depend on was overridden somewhere else.

In real maintainable code where you want to swap out behaviours it's nice if there was a special way of defining your dependencies. This is the same for all languages.

Deject offers a way so you don't have to fiddle with constructors but instead you have handles in your classes that you can override with different behavior if needed.

TL;DR: Yes, Ruby is powerful and you technically don't need IoC containers. But to make it maintainable for everyone it's a good idea to do so anyway.

spobo··on Show HN: findthin.gs - Find where to watch tv series & movies (RailsRumble)
Check out http://theat.me/. Something very similar and 'designy'. And they also index movies on crackle etc. A lot of free to watch sources. (usually only if you are in the US though ...)
spobo··on Sliding door effects using CSS
The door is just a border being resized with a transition. Borders can't be styled that well. So this effect is neat but not very usable imo.
spobo··on Designing for iOS: Taming UIButton
You know about Nimbus CSS, right? http://docs.nimbuskit.info/group___nimbus_c_s_s.html
spobo··on Ibuprofen Is Not A Solution, Only A Buffer
If it's your wrists try a dvorak keyboard.

But I would suggest some exercise and healthy eating (aka Paleo) above all.

spobo··on Disks lie. And the controllers that run them are partners in crime.
http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-exper...

Google did some research on this with their datacenters. There is apparently no correlation between heat & diskfailures.

spobo··on "tree" command on MacOSX
Not only that but it's 10 times easier with Homebrew. So it's an incorrect article imo. Shouldn't make the frontpage. Especially with that title.
spobo··on They are Opening that 100 year old package right now - watch live video
exactly what I was thinking ;o
spobo··on Ask HN: Building a large webapp today - what language for the backend, and why?
A lot would argue that it's a horribly cluttered and slow IDE. People who love VIM will definitely not like Visual Studio.

That said, since the last few years Microsoft has really been on top of their game. Their latest frameworks are easy to grasp and perform very well. C# is also not too verbose and on top of that they are starting to push open-source with initiatives like codeplex and NuGet. In their MVC Framework they even push jQuery and they are core contributors to it. They recently released their WebAPI wich is a pretty smooth way to create a REST-ful JSON/XML API.

It's definitely not a bad choice. Especially if your developers have already mastered it.

It might not be hip (yet) but it's definitely solid. Although still lagging behind after the trendsetters (Ruby community imo).

spobo··on Ask HN: Building a large webapp today - what language for the backend, and why?
Use a higher level programming language and use a standard interface to communicate with the frontend. If you build a REST API for the backend it doesn't even matter what language it is written in. You can always swap parts out for faster performing versions later on. You can even split up parts in different programming languages.

If you want to decrease development cost go with an ecosystem that most of your developers have mastered. Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, .NET, whatever. Pretty much all these languages have great frameworks these days to allow for faster development.

I personally go with Ruby because they were pretty much first on the scene with their gem ecosystem (which is massive), they have a lot of cool and smart developers in the community and it's overal a great experience. Easy to pick up too with all the resources that are out there.

But whatever you do don't force a language along with it's ecosystem that your developers don't like. Listen to the dev team and know that every language has great potential. I'd come back and ask what frameworks should I use to build a high performance site as quickly & efficiently as possible given I work with language X. Maybe the dev team is unaware of recent awesome frameworks in the language they know & love.

spobo··on Wedding Photographer Threatened with Ludicrous $300,000 Lawsuit
I think the main takeaway is never ever do business with lawyers. That guy is not fit to run a lawyer firm imo and he should have his license/privileges/diploma/whatever revoked. What an asshat ... it's surreal.

But some good tips to look out for for people considering this business professionally.

Also, I wonder what FroKnowsPhoto would have to say about this ;o

spobo··on "Shockingly reasonable" cell phone policy announced by D.C. police chief
Not really something for HN unless someone is thinking about doing a startup for recording-equipment to monitor police interactions :p

But very nice change of policy. As it should be!

spobo··on Indie Game: The Irresponsible Movie
It just portrays Phil the way he is. Everybody knows there are 3 sides to a story. Both sides of the parties involved and the actual truth.
spobo··on Show HN: ApiDocco - Manage, collaborate and test on your RESTful API
It works!

"This is the default web page for this server.

The web server software is running but no content has been added, yet."

But it's a cool concept. I'd love a place where I can discuss an API with a team-member or consumers.

spobo··on What Windows 8 Haters Don’t Understand About Windows 8
Windows 8 is designed for touch devices. Using a UI that's designed for touch with a non-touch input SUCKS!

Do we need touch on a desktop or laptop? NO! I'll never touch my screen on a laptop or a desktop. It's tiring and clunky.

Do we need touch on tablets? Obviously.

Does everyone want a tablet? NO! I don't want one to do my main work on. I can't imagine I'm the only one here.

The problem is that microsoft is slowly transforming their main operating system and its application ecosystem to the touch-friendly metro-style.

So what's happening is ... MS is alienating their non-touch userbase. Which is now oooh ... let's say 99%?

I'll never feel comfortable using an interface designed for touch with a mouse & keyboard. And I'll never feel comfortable fondling a standing screen either from a laptop or desktop. So please don't force developers to develop for your touch ecosystem as I won't be using it.

spobo··on I have 6.000.000 RSS articles in a DB. What can I do?
Write an algorithm to match articles from different sources that are about the same story. That way you can autohide news that you've supposedly already read from another source. Clustering news from different sources would be a killer feature for me :)
spobo··on Will 'showrooming' kill businesses?
The solution could be 'showrooming' locations paid for by online vendors that are only accessible to their customers.

It's still a win/win since they won't need to hold stock and multiple vendors can share the same locations. So it will still be a lot cheaper than the current way of doing things.

But you have a valid 'wondering' :p I wonder the same.

spobo··on Will 'showrooming' kill businesses?
Showrooming is done to decide what product to buy over another or get a quick overview of what's current and available. These things are not impossible to do online. If anything they are much more powerful since they can be customized. Amazon understands this and I'm sure they are investing a lot of money to improve the experience. This experience will only improve online.

There will most definitely be a tipping point where the brick stores will see most of their revenue disappear to online shops ... regardless of showrooming happening in their stores or not. Online is just the way to go.

spobo··on Why are Apple laptops becoming harder to take apart?
You don't even need to upgrade your harddrive to an SSD because it is an SSD. Apple's new laptops really are fast and definitely up to the task of powering your work/entertainment for the foreseeable future.

I'm 100% content with my 2nd generation Air. The new one has a faster chipset and disk, so what? It's not like I'm waiting long for stuff to happen on my laptop. I find this while outrage at Apple for making a laptop that's not upgradable a bit ridiculous. And yes, I used to upgrade laptops. No need anymore ;)

spobo··on Microsoft to make 'major' mystery announcement in LA
This will never happen. Microsoft is not a hardware manufacturer. Yes, they make the x360 and some accessories. That's it.

Besides they have invested a ton of money in the x360 and continuously push the x360's OS to handle media. Clearly they'd be stupid to release a TV that duplicates some of the x360 functionality. Nothing to gain.

I do wonder what they'll announce though.

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