Hacker News Reader

12s12mon Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did

Great to see such initiative by Basecamp. This is good for devs around the world. GitLab sits on the other extreme with their "open salaries": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924957

12s12mon Ask HN: What useful Linux (Ubuntu) software should more people be aware of?

For a person who is initially starting with Linux. I'd suggest you to get familiar with the terminal. I'd also ask what your primary use case is. If you are a software developer vs code is a great editor to download.

12s12mon Ask HN: What 5 software tools do you use most for work?

  1. Gnome Terminal
  2. Neovim
  3. Google Chrome
  4. Pymodoro (https://github.com/dattanchu/pymodoro)
  5. Git

12s12mon What Are the Advantages of a Cloud Server Over a Dedicated Server?

A few I can think of:

1. Want to resize your server? you can do it. 2. Want to create a new server and move some kind of elastic IP to point to this new server? you can do it with most cloud providers 3. Want to backup the whole disk, very easy to do it. 4. Want to spin up a 1000 instances for an hour? cloud servers can do it. 5. Want hourly pricing? cloud servers can do this.

12s12mon Ask HN: What API do you wish you had while building your product?

What exactly do you mean by a "task". Just remind you by sending you an email? or actually running a command on your computer?

12s12mon Ask HN: How can I get over my lethargy, lack of focus, and other problems?

One things that has helped me in the past is going anonymous and creating a project and just shipping features without thinking a lot about architecture and code quality. Making sure that I made progress every day.

12s12mon Ask HN: What percentage of HN users are entrepreneurs?

I would say most of us are entreprenuerially-minded, because it rubs off eventually.

12s12mon Ask HN: What did you have to give up to be successful?

I have given up my free time which I used to spend enjoying movies, television etc,. I don't get that much time to do that. Most of my time is consumed in the startup that I am building, my kids and a bit of contracting work. But, I am happy :)

12s12mon Ask HN: What did you have to give up to be successful?

Everyone has different definitions about "success" and "being happy". I can tell you as a father of 2 kids, that having kids has been one of the greatest things that has happened to me. I am really happy when they are around me. I am 32 which is relatively young but even I can't match their energy levels, this is only going to get worse. So, I am happy that I've had kids earlier than most fathers.

My definition of being successful is being happy and content. I make decent money and have a happy life, that is successful enough for me. What are you going to do after you retire with all that money? You should do that thing now!

12s12mon Ask HN: What are the *dynamic* needs for a static site these days?

I don't think GitHub Pages or S3 can support authentication using auth0 for static pages. This could be an interesting service, which allows you to put your website behind authentication from auth0. What use cases would need this kind of a setup?

12s12mon Ask HN: What are the *dynamic* needs for a static site these days?

There are a lot of options available for forms in a static site. A few from a quick google search are: https://www.jotform.com/ , https://liveformhq.com/, https://www.google.com/forms/about/ .

12s12mon Ask HN: Side business – how to get started?

Yeah, The first app that I am building has a lot of competitors. So, it is not really a question of whether the market is there. I definitely need the confidence If my startups are going to be successful :)

12s12mon Ask HN: What are the *dynamic* needs for a static site these days?

I saw the link to it from your profile. Interesting concept. There are variations of this available: https://fieldbook.com/, Airtable, etc. I'll send you an email :)

12s12mon Ask HN: What are the *dynamic* needs for a static site these days?

There is auth0 (https://auth0.com/) for authentication, and many hosts which support basic auth. What kind of use cases are you thinking when you say access control?

12s12mon Ask HN: What are the *dynamic* needs for a static site these days?

You can use the Like button on static websites. Or did you mean something else?

12s12mon Ask HN: What is your process for creating a new static website and deploying it?

Thanks for the links. The blog posts have a lot of useful information :)

12s12mon Ask HN: Is 311 Karma Points good?

Why are you even thinking about it? Do you want to have the ability to downvote? In that case you should probably have a higher karma. Instead try to participate in useful conversations so that you may learn something from it. Karma just for the sake of it is really meaningless.

12s12mon Ask HN: Most important KPIs for first 100 customers

It really depends on your app. I would say the most important metric is the number of customers willing to pay for your product happily.

12s12mon Ask HN: What is your process for creating a new static website and deploying it?

Do you have a VPS where you host them? Why not use Github Pages?

12s12mon Ask HN: What is your process for creating a new static website and deploying it?

Do you use their free plan or the paid one? Everyone seems to love Netlify for building static sites :)

12s12mon Ask HN: What is your process for creating a new static website and deploying it?

Nice, middleman is a well designed SSG :) Are these all your personal sites, or do you maintain websites for customers?

12s12mon Ask HN: What is your process for creating a new static website and deploying it?

What are the friction points in your workflow?

12s12mon Ask HN: What is your process for creating a new static website and deploying it?

What are the friction points in your workflow. Updating SSL manually seems like a tedious thing to do.

12s12mon Ask HN: Which static site generator is your current favorite and why?

I have been watching staystatic for a very long time :) Your commitment is really awesome.

12s12mon Ask HN: What is your process for creating a new static website and deploying it?

square space really looks great. Their pricing too seems very affordable.

12s12mon Ask HN: Should a login be a Username or an Email?

Many people actually change their phone numbers. Especially in India, a lot of young guys change their number to the provider which has a better plan at the moment.

12s12mon Ask HN: Should a login be a Username or an Email?

I would steer away from using a username as a login. A person's default username may be taken on your site, in cases like these people usually use a variation by appending some numbers/characters. Now, when they try to login they'll use the default username first because they don't remember. Using email removes all these barriers.

Why even add a username? I usually don't add them unless they are necessary (in cases where a user's profile, other information needs a pretty url)

12s12mon Ask HN: Did you succeed after struggling to build something people want?

Build a very small thing that would provide value. I've built quite a few products. However, the most successful product to date has been one that I wrote in a week to solve a problem I had for my websites. So, my take away from that is to try and build simple things.

12s12mon Ask HN: How do you manage your personal projects?

One tip that would probably help you find new and interesting ideas: Try to read ask HN threads, shown HN threads (the new ones). Just the other day some guy posted about how he could get notified of remote tasks. I think that is a good problem to solve. You'll find many like these once you start reading comments.

12s12mon Ask HN: How do you manage your personal projects?

Awesome :) Have you started monetizing it yet? For me that is something that should be done in the first 3 months. That gives you an idea of how valuable it is to others. If it is giving a steady stream of revenue then awesome.