Hacker News Reader

terrellmon Young, Single Women Earn More Than Male Peers

Article Title (from WSJ): Young Women's Pay Exceeds Male Peers'

2nd to last paragraph: At every education level, from high-school dropouts to Ph.D.s, women continue to earn less than their male peers.

That's what happens when an editor writes the article title without reading the full article I guess. Maybe it's just me but I don't know I agree with the assumption that two individuals, one with a college degree and the other without, are really in the same peer group when it comes to salary.

terrellmon How Apple Plays the Pricing Game

I'm not sure the author did enough research when he says:

The popular iPod Touch media player has been revamped at three price points - $229, $299, and $399 - all costing more than the iPhone, which does everything the Touch can plus make phone calls.

Articles have stated that Apple is paid for each activation by AT&T "up to $325 per phone"[1] or "$18/month ($432 over 2 years)"[2]

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-gadgeteer/at-t-may-pay-appl...

[2] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9803657-37.html

terrellmon Ask HN: Heroku or Not?

I agree - it's great to get started and get traction with an app but can become costly after a certain point. When I got to a point of needing several dynos, I went to Engine Yard which like Heroku takes care of all of the Amazon EC2 configuration.

Also, with deploy hooks at EY, I have command line deployment similar to Heroku's "git push heroku master" by using a specific command in your commit message 'git commit -am "[deploy myapp_production]" and then 'git push'.

terrellmon [dead]

I wonder if your affiliate program is the source of the problem. Perhaps affiliates are submitting articles with their affiliate link and the mods got tired of deleting them?

BTW congrats on putting together a good bundle of conversion rate tools. I'll be picking up a copy myself.

terrellmon Chrome Dev Hits Version 7; Native Client Part of Release

Geesh they are already on version 7 and Chrome? Maybe someone at Google forgot to include the "1." in front of the version.

It's interesting that Internet Explorer, which came out in 1995, is on version 9 while Chrome which came out just two years ago is already on version 7.

Edits below to address the downvotes:

Maybe I didn't communicate my point clearly. I certainly didn't intend to knock Chrome - I use it along with Safari as my primary browsers.

My point was more to say "come on guys, 7 versions in 2 years while everyone else (FF, IE, Safari, Opera) has had one or two?".

Maybe I'm biased because I worked at a software company years ago who wanted to communicate their product was as mature as the competition's and skipped straight from version 1.0 to version 4.0. An no, I'm not implying Chrome is less mature than others.

terrellmon HN poll result: ~50% have lost at least partially interest in programming.

Seeing as how the question was worded - "Have you lost interest in programming?" and how the OP says he no longer enjoys programming - causes me to place a lesser value in the responses. It's clearly a bias in the wording of the question.

If it had been worded "Most programmers don't lose interest in programming. Have you?" then I'd expect to see a completely different set of results from the same respondents.

That's nothing against the respondents and nothing against the OP, it's just human nature.

terrellmon Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners are the problem

Sorry to hear about wanting a name that a seller refuses to sell. I'm in a similar situation with a neighbor who has several acres that adjoin my ranch. I've offered way above market value for the land that doesn't even have access to a public road, but he still won't sell. It's definitely frustrating.

Defining "legitimate use" is such a slippery slope. With automatic content generation becoming so advanced today, it's become increasingly difficult for both search engines and humans to tell spam from legitimate content. It's even worse when some of the spam and scraping is more useful that someone's 5 year old blog with pictures of their pets.

terrellmon Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners are the problem

I agree 100% on your 2nd point. It's tough to price out a domainer but not price out the small business or startup who probably has smaller pockets. By the time the small business has the money to buy the domain, they have already built a following & links on a lesser quality name.

Cheap pricing like Godaddy's $.99/year .info just pollutes the web with spammy sites - think of it as tons of little Mahalos.

Tiered pricing hasn't worked out that well for other extensions. Originally .tv had a tiered pricing where you paid a premium yearly rate, however, they abandoned that practice this Spring. [1]

[1] http://domainnamewire.com/2010/03/18/verisign-drops-prices-o...

terrellmon Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners are the problem

At the time of this posting, there are 12 references to "squatting". While it may be arguing over semantics, it is an important distinction as there is a difference between "squatting" and "investing".

An individual who saw the foresight and bought a few acres of land that later became highly desirable for a subdivision is heralded as a real estate investor while someone doing the same with domain names is lumped with the shadier individuals in society.

According to the United States federal law known as the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting

After seeing how good domain names could help me better market my software as a startup on a tight budget, I became intrigued and am a part-time domain investor (domainer).

terrellmon HackerNewsers now supports Google Talk, Skype, Twitter, Stack Overflow

Congrats on the site - it looks like you are getting some traction.

Just a suggestion, but you may want to clean up the skills list. Letting the community add their own skills (rather than suggest) causes the list to get really messy in a hurry.

Example:

  Ruby
  - Rails
  - webapp development
  --- Programming
  ----- XProc
  --- sinatra

terrellmon Unemployed = 21st century draft horse?

That means that 4-year universities wouldn't work even if they were functioning correctly, which they aren't.

The real benefit of a college degree is that it broadens your horizons and increases your capacity for knowledge. Sure you can do that on your own but most 18-21 year olds have trouble maintaining the focus required for self-learning.

Theory classes like accounting, finance, database, history provide the most benefit and really don't change a lot over time. The more hands-on classes like programming (anyone use Cobol after Y2k?) Internet marketing (did you know you can PAY to be on search engines?) were a waste of time as they did quickly become outdated.

terrellmon Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

I use Engine Yard for an e-commerce Rails app. Deployment is simple with a post commit hook. I simply commit and push to Github and the rest is done. You are on your own unless you fork over at least $250/month for a support plan though.

I've used Heroku for smaller Rails and Sinatra apps.

For my Windows Dedicated running some .NET apps and a Linux VPS for a few Wordpress blogs, I use Liquid Web. I feel they are better than most hosts as far as speed, support, and reliability but not yet a Rackspace.

I use Amazon Cloudfront for content delivery and S3 for backups for all of these sites.

terrellmon Ask HN: What are some good GoDaddy alternatives?

Godaddy is the largest domain registrar by far and often times you can register domains for $8 or less with a coupon. The upselling is annoying to tech savvy people but absolutely confusing to non-techies. I'll admit that a lot of my business's domains are registered there because they are cheap though.

I also do some domain name investing on the side and use Moniker.com and Fabulous.com. Both of these, as well as Dynadot and Enom, offer APIs so you can write your own domain registration code. That's a sure-fire way to avoid upselling :)

terrellmon Historious just got public pages and subscriptions

I'd highly recommend you all secure historious.com while you still can get it at a decent price (read: before you get funding, big name recognition, etc). While domain hacks are cheap and cool in the startup world, they confuse average people like our parents and neighbors.

The potential for confusion is one of the reasons that Yahoo forked over big bucks to buy delicious.com and redirect del.icio.us there. Even if you wanted to keep your domain hack, you could always point the .com version to your domain hack. It sure beats letting someone else show ads and confuse customers to where they think you've gone out of business.

terrellmon Co-founder bailed on my laundry delivery startup. Looking to replace him.

Interesting idea and good luck in your search for a co-founder.

It looks like your web app redirects to the https version. In Safari 4 on Mac, I receive "Safari can't verify the identify of the website www.laundrigo.com" and I see an error "This certificate was signed by an unknown authority". Chrome shows an even scarier message.

terrellmon 1099 will end the world in 2012

Here's an article at CNN Money if that helps.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/09/smallbusiness/irs_1099_flood...

terrellmon 1099 will end the world in 2012

That's my understanding as explained by my CPA a few minutes ago.

terrellmon 1099 will end the world in 2012

In addition to the 1099 nightmare, there's also the S-corp self employment tax nightmare where all s-corp income has the 15.3% self-employment tax imposed, not just the earned income. I predict a mass switch to C-corps.

From http://www.businessbrief.com/feds-take-aim-at-small-biz-loop...

Both House and Senate bills address what some lawmakers see as evasion of employment tax by certain individuals. The Internal Revenue Service has stated that many taxpayers receive nominal salaries and take their earnings through distributions by S corps., limited partnerships, or other entities. The House and Senate bills would change that situation by imposing self-employment payroll taxes on 100% of S-corp. pass-through income when:

- The S corp. is engaged in a professional service business, with the key assets being the reputation and skill of no more than three employees, or

- The S corp. is a partner in a professional service business.

terrellmon PayPal Adding One Million New Accounts Each Month

Sorry if I came across as if I worked for them. Feel free to click my profile link and check out my businesses - I use my real name and have nothing to hide. I sell software to cattle ranchers and horse owners.

The reason I mentioned Braintree was I've seen their ads on The Deck and came across them being used by several popular Rails SAAS companies. Maybe I've drank their kool-aid. Feel free to substitute any small payment processor (non Paypal/Google Checkout/AuthorizeNet).

terrellmon PayPal Adding One Million New Accounts Each Month

  PayPal’s merchant services business has grown by over 40 percent year over year

The reason Paypal is growing so fast is their rates are extremely competitive if you play by their game. I really feel for the guys like Braintree who are trying to do it right but just can't compete with Paypal's rates, particularly with Paypal offering the same qual and non-qual rates.

I've used Paypal Merchant Services for several years and each year grow more fed up with the practices. Just a few include charging .5% extra if you do not include Paypal Express button in your checkout, keeping the 30-cent transaction fee on refunds, increasing the chargeback fee from $10 to $20, and not letting you export subscription cc info if you want to move your subscriptions to another provider.

terrellmon The Mathematics Stack Exchange Site is Now in Private Beta

How is this different than Math Overflow (http://mathoverflow.net/) which is another Stack Exchange site?

terrellmon Project Natal

Here's a YouTube video that shows 3 of those points...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFAK8ubYtZE

terrellmon Doug Richard: Why do people hate lifestyle businesses?

Yes, I graduated in '03 from the MBA program and '99 in INFO. Drop me an email with your contact info (my email is in my profile). If you are around Aggieland, come out and visit us sometime.

terrellmon Doug Richard: Why do people hate lifestyle businesses?

There's definitely a risk of losing the modest revenue stream that I've had for the last 10 years and hope continues for another 10. It's something that I'm aware and try to prepare for in both my business (branding, continue to innovate, etc) as well as personally (diversified revenue streams).

There's also a risk in losing a business by pushing so hard for a buyout/IPO at the expense of ROI & profit, only to not get that IPO or buyout and be left with nothing. I went down that road several years ago and was fortunately able to get my business back on track before losing it.

You bring up some good points and I think it's helpful for HN'ers to see the interesting discussion on lifestyle vs IPO/buyout businesses.

terrellmon Doug Richard: Why do people hate lifestyle businesses?

Glad to hear and feel free to contact me if you ever want to visit.

As you probably know, being an entrepreneur in an MBA program can be trying as the corporate-minded students and professors look down on your "little business" while your non-MBA friends worry you will become the stereotypical MBA. Having been out several years now, I can say that it was well worth the investment.

terrellmon Doug Richard: Why do people hate lifestyle businesses?

I've owned the same company for 10 years where I've sold software to cattle ranchers and horse owners in almost 60 countries.

My company started out as lifestyle business. Then after I got my MBA I was ready to build it to sell so I could become a serial entrepreneur. After my wife and I had our son 2 years ago, I realized having a moderately passive income stream that gave us more time for family was what we were looking for all along.

It reminds me of the old story "The MBA and the Mexican Fisherman" and I was both... well sort of... an MBA and a Texas Rancher. http://www.keepingitrural.com/mba-mexican-fisherman

terrellmon Hands-on with Hulu Plus: is it worth $10/month?

It's all about perspective - when comparing to actual television sure Hulu's single ad is a welcome breath of fresh air. When compared to Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, DVD, etc ads become distracting whether it's 1 ad or multiple ads - you are interrupted from the task at and either way.

BTW I certainly don't want to come across as sounding entitled. I realize advertisers help pay the bill so that I can enjoy great shows.

terrellmon Hands-on with Hulu Plus: is it worth $10/month?

It's even further cheaper when you place a value on your time spent watching Hulu's commercials. Not to mention the decreased entertainment experience from the commercial interruptions.

terrellmon .htaccess for Word Press

Why not leave the defaults until you are directed otherwise? Wordpress and some plugins will either require write access to .htaccess so they can make changes or give you the text to copy-paste yourself.

Things like your URL structure can be changed inside of Wordpress Admin. Many seem to recommend avoiding using dates in the URL if you are concerned about good content appearing stale after a few weeks.

terrellmon Woot To The AP: Nice Story About Our Sale — You Now Owe Us $17.50

I assumed he was defending TC since he states that he is a writer in his profile here on HN.