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NameNickHNon I have a php developer interview? Any advice?

What kind of position is it? Even for a junior developer position two months of experience is very little.

NameNickHNon I have a php developer interview? Any advice?

> I don't know, I would google it

That's exactly what I would answer and that would exactly be the reason why most companies won't hire me.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Found HN in my referrers. Can't find details page

Maybe, but there are not 10 visitors that come from the same city according to Google Analytics.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Found HN in my referrers. Can't find details page

Yes, I suspect so, too.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Found HN in my referrers. Can't find details page

Thanks. Already done that. Didn't find anything. :-)

NameNickHNon Ask HN: One man SaaS apps that are profitable?

I started developing in 2001. The number of customers is less than I would like. There is not much marketing going on. A little bit of content marketing, AdWords, guest blogging.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: One man SaaS apps that are profitable?

http://www.appointmind.com/

Very little support requests and almost all of the development is being paid for by various customers.

NameNickHNon [dead]

Actually, I think it's the perfect answer to an unreasonable, arrogant, and condescending request.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Where does Amazon get the money for growth investment despite losses?

It's the other way around. They make losses because they grow.

NameNickHNon How do you name your applications?

I tend to use keywords as the application name as it makes SEO easier and people know what the app does by its title.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Should i quit?

Being the cautious type, I myself would reduce working time and start developing in my spare time until I have something to show potential customers.

NameNickHNon Marketing your startup: What's on your checklist?

Here are the things that have proven effective for us:

- Guest blog posts - AdWords - Answering questions in forums on other websites - Content marketing - Getting partners that promote or sell our services

NameNickHNon Bugs in web service app before you release it to public, even for beta

I don't know. I almost always fix the bugs immediately (same or next day). If I can't do that in that short time frame, I'll explain it to the customer and ask them to give me a couple of days to fix it.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: What is your news source?

Mostly reddit, HN, some blogs and a local news agregator. And John Stewart of course.

NameNickHNon Bugs in web service app before you release it to public, even for beta

In my experience most customers are pretty tolerant as long as you immediately fix the bugs. If you take your time fixing the bugs they'll start wondering whether you're still working on the software. Not a good situation. Customers want to be sure that you're on top of things.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Weekend project stories

http://www.cakedayreminder.com/

Took two or three days.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: How do you handle auto renew for SaaS?

> This time around I can apply all these lessons learned.

Good luck. :-)

NameNickHNon Ask HN: How do you handle auto renew for SaaS?

> rather than coming to the site or emailing support to > cancel, would simply submit a chargeback on their credit > card. Obviously that did not stop recurring billing

Why not? If I receive information that a payment has been stopped, I deactivate their account and send them an email that their subscription has been canceled. Unless the customer sends a new payment, the account stays deactivated and I make a +1 under "Lost Customers".

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Inspirational books on entrepreneurship

I liked "Founders at Work".

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Computer nostalgia

Around 1990 I wrote Basic programs on an Amiga 500 that moved sprites, draw lines etc.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Do you struggle with getting more customers?

Getting customers directly is actually not the problem. The usual marketing and growth hacking tools worked quite well. Our problem is getting partners that refer customers. I don't mean affiliate partners but real partners that include our service into their service as a complement product. Potential partners happily include Google Maps and phone call back forms but shy away from using our service, even though it would make them money and could be really useful for their customers. The opportunities are there. We've spoken to a couple of promising partners but they a dragging their feet. If they would at least provide some feedback as to why they balk at using our service, that would be great. But that is apparently too much to ask for.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: What would happen if we did away with the patent system?

Do you mean patents in general or just software patents?

NameNickHNon Ask HN: What's your earliest web development story?

Ahh, the good old days. In 1997/98 I created a website for my hometown with photos, cinema schedule and the like. I "designed" it Coral Draw und Adobe GoLive. It was a time when you were hip if you used tables for the layout. And if you used Server Side Includes, you were quite the hacker.

My first real web development project was an appointment scheduler. In 2000 a potential client wanted one but we couldn't license one from the only company that offered that kind of software at the time in Germany. Thus I taught myself PHP and MySQL and within a week I had a working prototype. Users could reserve appointments and admins could manage them.

The deal with the potential client fell through, though, but I continued working on the code. It was hard going because back in the day, there were no PHP frameworks (that I knew of) and no CSS frameworks.

It's been moderately successful and I still have happy customers from that time. I only wish I had done early on what I did two years ago: offer it as a hosted service (or SaaS, as it is now called).

NameNickHNon How can ISPs need more money for service when Netflix charges only $7.99?

The reason is greed and the means is extortion. They have the ability to slow down traffic if a service isn't paying up and that gives them the tool.

NameNickHNon Ask HN – What do you do to stay fit while working?

Golf whenever it's not raining or snowing.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: How to get referrer source of iframe parent page?

You'll need to pass the referrer as parameter of the iframe URL.

NameNickHNon Netflix to expand to Germany, France and Switzerland

> Even watching in English would not be a problem

Actually, that would be the only reason why I would subscribe to Netflix. I completely and utterly despise the German dubbed American and English TV shows and movies. That's why Amazon Prime streams are useless to me.

NameNickHNon Ask HN: Too depressed to continue working. How do I get out?

There is an option that will probably be as hard as continuing working but it'll help you in the long run: counseling/therapy. Grieving can be a very long process and you should use all the help you can get.

Apart from that, the only reason to stay with this company is if you want to avoid burning bridges.

NameNickHNon What started your interest in development?

8th grade programming course at school in the 80s. They taught us Basic back then.

NameNickHNon The future of domain names

> So what is the need of domain names more then search engine optimizations?

There is still offline marketing, for example. And there are important websites (e.g. online banking) where I always enter the whole domain and never trust any suggestions.