willheim

The password is the simplest and most straightforward method of authenticating a user. Yes, you could go with a physical key (Near Field, USB, card, etc), thumbprint, eye-scan, or voice but all of those have their failings as well. How many stations have thumbprint scanners? My laptop does but I'm the only one I know and it is more a PITA. How many have cameras for facial recognition or eye scanning? Not mine. How would you access the site when you don't have your physical key on you? Couldn't your voice be just as easily hacked?

There is no better security for common use than the password... and it is just as effective as anything else with the added benefit of being universally applied if it is a decent one.

I think you're going about it backwards. Let me get this straight: You're moving to a new city without a job and getting married in 6 months with 100k in debt? Yikes. You're resume and LinkedIn can wait (or be done on the side at night). Start networking NOW! Job 1 is getting a job. Best way to get a job is to be introduced. Talk/email/call/bang on the doors of everyone in Philly.

Good luck with the reboot.

Why should anyone care? If you base your value of someone's opinion on their karma then you aren't really thinking for yourself. Someone with 1000's of karma points (even hundreds) just means they've been around a while, spent quite a bit of time, and had enough posts that resonated on the front page. Dig through posts that get few comments and you'll find some gems (they've just been overlooked).

And, really, what is the value of karma? Comment first and be insightful or funny - likely to get points if it hits front page. Comment late and be insightful or funny - likely to get a couple of points if it stays front page. Comment on anything not on front page - likely to be overlooked and even if you are insightful you may not get any karma, even from the OP.

Karma is kinda silly and even talking about it is sillier.

Steve Jobs doesn't like milk.

Your problem is one of team building. There's you (non-technical) and a "co-founder" (some technical) who aren't really communicating with each other. We've got your side of the story but not the other's. Then there's the lack of a good CTO/technical lead. I know Y-combinator likes to have teams live and work together and that is for a very good rason: it builds the team into a unifying force!

What do you have to do? 1) Build your relationship, first. Go on a retreat together. Get a cabin somewhere, go hiking, escape life, talk, grow, code, design, build, mock, fish, cook, eat, sleep. Do not network, call, email, read news, or communicate with the outside world. Focus on yourselves and your project. Build off that energy and take it to the next level. 2) Either that succeeds or you fall apart. Lesson learned. Move on.

Don't be ashamed or afraid to nag. Fire fast and early. Understand that the project you're working on is only one of likely many they are working on. Give early deadlines but plan them to be weeks/months before you need it. Contractors saying 2-4weeks likely mean 2-4months. You want to see dedication and accomplishments. If you see none of that then fire them. Have someone local to check the code. Get code updates often (should be uploading to a trac). Know your contractors. Are they managers farming out the work or are they doing the work themselves? Does the team keep changing or are they stable? Do they badger you for payouts when their performance has been poor or are they delivering quality work?

Beware of contractors: Many (not all) of them are scam artists who can easily take advantage of those new to the system. They will not be solely focused on your project and by bouncing between projects it means it takes time for them to laser in and be sharp when they do sit down to do your task. Don't hire anyone who doesn't have stellar reviews. Their resumes mean little (ie, they stretch the truth a lot). If your reasonable concerns are not addressed promptly and to your satisfaction: fire them.

Your second point is spot on... almost. It's still too complex. The key part is "Build a better bathroom". The problems with North American bathrooms, as they are used today, is that they are multi-purpose rooms. You got a bath, a sink, a toilet, a cabinet, our toothbrushes and toothpaste hanging out, towels hanging out, make-up, hair products, etc. etc. etc. What a mess!

Look at Japan where a bathroom is just that: A bath in a room. There's a wash area outside the bath. The floors are tiled and the whole room is self contained for the express purpose of washing yourself and soaking in a relaxing hot bath. Then you have a sink room that often doubles as a change room and may contain the clothes washing machine. This is where you have your personal care products. Finally you will have a toilet in a closet. A completely separate and small room with a toilet. The top of the toilet, where the water fills the tank, has a spout where you can wash your hands before that water goes into the tank. Three separated areas each with a designed purpose. Another benefit? You can be making a real stink on the toilet while the wife is taking a relaxing bath none the wiser. Cleaning such a bathroom is easy. Just hose it down and there are automatic products that can do that. Cleaning the sink area/change room is also easy and a robot would be fine for this application (and Japan loves robots!). Cleaning the toilet area could also be handled by a robot but it would have to be small enough to get in behind the toilet. And that is where a better design for a toilet would be valuable. Maybe better to build a "back of toilet" cover that is nearly as tall as the toilet bowl rim and comes out 1/2 the way from the wall... you know, like they are on airplanes.

I don't think first ideas suck. First executions may suck, but first ideas? Not neccesarily. I've had loads of great ideas over my lifetime that I never followed through on. Energy drinks and juicebars (me: 1994 now: everywhere), Hooters in Japan (me:2003 now: someone is doing it just now), the design of the "Chrysler 300C" (me: 1992 in art class, Chrysler: 2002ish). Proof that ideas are cheap and if you're thinking of it, someone else probably is, too.

The real value is in execution and then only good execution.

What are your technical skills? How do we get in touch with you?

I'm in the same position you are in... except was hoping to get word out and invites out at an event on the 1st. Just going to have to bite the bullet and let it slip. The tech is good but still has bugs. Not every hole has been plugged. Forgetting that code hasn't been optimized and speed is suffering, I just don't feel comfortable releasing a private beta yet. Next BIG launch target is in January and I'll open up an extremely limited private alpha/guinea pig site in the meantime.

I'm of the opinion that it doesn't mater how many (or how few) features you have, or even if what you have works, but what is paramount is that the UX is perfect. Not a single thing can be wrong with what you release. Anything that is will just scare away potential customers and give yoyu a rep for building crap.

So did Mozilla when they came out with "Bespin" as in the "Cloud" city. Ah... so witty... immediately every Star Wars geek knew what they were doing.

You raise the single greatest most valid point yet! It's not about those who download it and try it. It's about stickiness. Now, Angry Birds apparently has its fans (I'm not one just because I find the whole genre bland) but I know from experience that I'll down lite versions on my iPhone, often ad supported, try them out, and maybe purchase 5% of them as full, ad-free versions. The rest get dumped off the phone. Same goes with XBLA (Xbox) games. I've downed many trials but purchased only 1.

It's all about live installs... not just downloads.

I've seen several companies working on this but this is one of the smoothest productions I've seen so far. Not sure of the value of implementing it in an action sequence. It's too hard to miss what should be seen by facing the wrong way. I can see this as being valuable in a virtual tour sense.

Another company i saw had you put together the videos and then direct the final production. The end user (viewer) could watch it as an edited movie or spin around freely. I see that as the best method. They'll watch twice: Once as the directed and the second time freely.

It was precisely because of Bell Labs that I invested in Lucent back in the mid-90's just as the bubble started going. Their partnership, I imagined, would lead to great things. Did well in the stock (heck, you could do well in any stock then) despite the partnership never really achieving anything.

Bell Labs was a great story. This dark tale of innovation burying and cover-up is even more incredible. One must wonder what other great discoveries lie boxed up in some warehouse.

Here's what stands out for me and they are lessons repeated time and again:

- The founders had experience and backgrounds. - The founders were a team. There were two of them. - The founders worked on several projects that failed. The YC application was for something before they were successful when they were young in the game and basically inexperienced. - The founders both quit their jobs to get serious on their start-up. - They were committed to starting something. - Canada is very difficult to do anything in from a scene/support POV. - SF is great for a scene/support POV. - SF didn't work out for them financially but they learned a lot and a return to Canada rescued them through RIM betting heavily on the team (which had seasoned and matured by then). - They smartly exited to better positions taking the bird in hand (Google).

This tale is a walking, talking start-up lessons learned. Be smart, know when to pivot, be committed, learn from mistakes, and never stop banging on doors because if you do all that someone will eventually let you in.

Was this posted by Ryan of The Office while he was supposed to be selling WUPHF.com?

So... do we get to take a day off?

V1 is not important as far as design aesthetic goes. It can be totally rough and made of standard components. Function is much more important. Then you can test it out in the field and go for customer acquisition.

Once you've gathered feedback and have a proven (somewhat) potentially successful product you can work on design.

Then, once you're in a position that says "Hey! This just might work!" you should have a list of designers you've already identified through their portfolio sites to contact about working for you. Really good design isn't cheap. It's an art. Mediocre design is cheap which means it's really expensive since you'll just throw it all away anyways.

Actually, more like "shell assembled in 6 days". To build it they needed to first prepare the foundation which can take several weeks prior just to get it solid and firm enough to support such a structure. While that is happening they need to be crafting the panels and components in a factory. Then they can bring it to the site and start assembling. With enough labour on site it can be done. Pre-fab is far more advanced in Asia than here and in places like Japan a house can be assembled and ready to move in within 3 days (fully finished). Toyota builds AWESOME steel frame homes that are earthquake resistant and insulated for sound and energy efficiency. Still, the land has to be prepped first and that takes the most time (no good to have an earthquake proof structure on a poor/soft/shifting foundation).

Now... what we need to see is what that hotel looks like in 5/10/15 years (doubtful it was built for a lifespan beyond 25 years as most prefabs are built with short life expectancy and planned replacement).

A diploma/degree is just a piece of paper. It's what went into it that will give it meaning. Make sure your diploma is meaningful.

I'm probably going to take heat for some of my choices: The safe ones: Apple (for their hardware, Industrial Design, aesthetics) but really only for the iPhone. Lenovo/IBM for the thinkpads (bulletproof! and the tablets are better than anything out there), Wordpress (there's a plugin for that!).

The risky one (here): Microsoft (winge all you want but Windows7 is awesome, XBox is what Apple and Google hope to build beyond the games with all the video/media center/music stuff and Kinect adds a whole new level of communication and interaction, OfficeLive blows away Google Docs in many respects, the entertainment systems in the new Ford vehicles, Zune music subscription (wish it was on iPhone!) and Ballmer is far more fun to laugh at than Steve Jobs is to laugh with.

There are many others that I use but they aren't as well known, local, or very niche. Things that they all excel at are customer service, product updating and reliability, and the intagible "fun" factor. I'd include MyRealPage (real estate IDX and site host), Panago Pizza, Japadog (street vendor of hotdogs with a Japanese twist), and the Ninja Tunes crew celebrating their 20th anniversary this year (weekly solid steel show is excellent and never (almost) disappointing... wish I could have attended their recent tour).

They're already working on Gran Turismo 6 when GT5 hasn't been released yet... a victim of the "just one more thing" syndrome.

+1 on the Keepass/Dropbox combo. You can also get an iphone app that syncs up with your dropbox keepass database called iKeepass.

Living in Canada is not living abroad... unless you're Michael Arrington (judging from last nights post even if it was tongue in cheek).

Scratch that... maybe living in Quebec City could qualify. Ha!

I'm not sure people would hate Ticketmaster if their service charges were hidden in the ticket price. That they break it out and show you how much their "service" is costing you is what brings on the hate. We're talking 50% of the ticket sometimes. ($30 ticket plus venue $8 plus service charge $7).

Thankfully, I don't spend much time with Ticketmaster. I go to more indie productions and they almost never use TM. I prefer smaller, more intimate venues. Arena shows? Acoustics are horrible. I also can't stand the scalpers that inevitably come with any big show (thank you American Express and Front of the Line for saving me on a few "Big" shows I've gone to).

Define "unacceptable". I much prefer flying in Canada (or anywhere else) as opposed to flying anywhere in the US. I've found the whole process post 9/11 to be unacceptable, disrespectful, uncomfortable, tedious, and just plain unpleasant. The only people I feel more sorry for are those who work in the airports because they have to deal with regulations and procedures that create hostile attitudes amongst the cattle (erm, I meant passengers) and they have to become desensitized to the whole malarkey on the off chance that a bottle of breast milk might be some liquid explosive.

Why do you want/need an MBA? That's one of the first questions asked on entry essays.

Yes, you can work at a start-up without being a coder or having an MBA. Right off the bat I see sales as your potential fit. Don't expect much in terms of compensation. You're likely looking at commission plus bonuses for meeting targets. Could be a very lucrative fit if you a) pick the right start-up for you, and, b) really rock at sales. BTW, sales could be in the customer service branch in which case you may be able to wrangle a small salary with bonuses for upselling.

I don't get this "ask friends and family" approach. Unless your friends and family are on the bleeding edge of tech I fail to see how much understanding and enthusiasm they could give you. Friends will often be supportive no matter the idea. Family will often shrug and say "interesting" without having any idea what you're talking about. Not every idea has mass appeal. You likely got the same kind of answers when explaining any number of successful start-ups. Imagine if the Farmville folk had "tested" their idea on friends and family. Yeah! A virtual farm! Forget about FPS or puzzle games... now you can virtually plant peas! (My mum would say "why don't people go plant real peas or have a real farm?").

What it really sounds like is that you have too many ideas and not enough focus. Sounds like you need to pick one and stick to it. Even a failure is a completion and that is a success.

I ran it with silverlight. A couple of points:

I was using my thinkpad and could not zoom in/out (a problem with some sites) using the scroll (nib+middle button).

Could this not be done with HTML5? Canvas? I was thinking while this is kind of inefficient on my laptop it would be pretty cool on an iPad or large format touch device.

You're answer is in the true form of your question. You say "your efforts seem the opposite of marketing triumph" so you view a HN review as a marketing exercise. I don't believe that asking the HN community to review your site is a good marketing ploy. It is asking for a review. Reviews should be honest. Good sites/ideas will be praised. Bad ones will be ripped. And some sites will just not be understood.

In any case, when you ask for a review you better expect a mix bag.