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abdels

130 karma · joined June 2, 2009

Lover of stories, creator of Said.fm, tech guy at The Super Times (http://thesupertimes.com) & maker of things!
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abdels··on What we ended up doing about a potential trademark infringment
I think the 'We came up with something better' comment is interesting as we really didn't see that coming - but somehow everything seemed to fall into place.

(Btw I'm the other Co-Founder :) )

abdels··on YC NYC, September 26
+1 for london! Do it :)
abdels··on Ask HN: TED like sites/videos?
Hey,

If ur into audio, try http://said.fm/. The content is like a cross between TED and Fora.TV. Brilliant for on the go listening.

abdels··on Show HN: Said.fm now with Semantic-ish Search
Always nice to hear from a listener! Will definitely look into making the results clearer :)
abdels··on Ask HN: Recommend me a Podcast
As one of the said.fm culprits I would totally also recommend checking out http://blog.said.fm for some listening ideas, we've got tons there.

We love discovering new stuff to listen to and our theme of the day is a simple showcase of this, incidentally here's a very basic RSS feed I use for testing: http://rss.said.fm/v0.1/themes/theme_of_the_day.xml - this might disappear in the long term but for now feel free plug it into ur iTunes and go!

We're finally ready to rumble again after recently running out of cash. Our next priority is to make the app mobile and very developer friendly (and slightly more fun and social). Watch this space!

abdels··on DataMapper 1.0 Released
Just wanted to say...I <3 Datamapper, it rocks. When work with pre Rails 3.0 code I really feel that I'm missing the Datamapper Kool Aid a lot!!

Well done guys.

abdels··on A Job Ad that is Ideal for a Budding Startup
Simply, I hold it as a good example because I'm working on my own startup and the Ad does a good job of summarising what a software engineering role should be advertised as.

No false promises of using technology X or Y, and no over inflated expectations of the kind of knowledge expected from a candidate. A startup is all about learning and using the best tool for the right job with a hands on approach.

abdels··on Simple website builder Weebly (YC W07) goes international
That makes more sense :-)
abdels··on Simple website builder Weebly (YC W07) goes international
I really dig that a company with only 3 employees can achieve all this. Well done guys.
abdels··on Stuff
I love this article.

My wife and I came to the same conclusion when we wanted to start our own thing. We needed to be flexible enough to live from anywhere a frugal life style would demand and our stuff was just weighing us down. Even storing it was going to cost alot of money - in the end we got rid of must of it.

Our books were the biggest culprits. Through bargains, we accumulated tons of novels that we've never read. Those were the first to go. The only books left were mostly references.

abdels··on Ruby & WebSockets: TCP for the Browser
Very clear write up on WebSockets in general and Ruby/EventMachine in particular. Loved the examples!
abdels··on MongoDB (is) For Rubyists
oops!! forgot the link. here it is: http://github.com/danlucraft/presentations/raw/master/denorm...
abdels··on MongoDB (is) For Rubyists
here's a link to a related talk given by Daniel Lucraft during the Ruby Manor 2009 on how #SongKick denormalised their rails application to make it more responsive using MongoDB. Interesting stuff.
abdels··on NYTimes Has Gone LOD (Linked Open Data)
yup they do, in the form of DBPedia, http://dbpedia.org/About
abdels··on NYTimes Has Gone LOD (Linked Open Data)
I think they're working with the people at Freebase to release more in due time. In fact this podcast goes into more details about how Freebase is working with people like the NYTimes. Podcast: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/audio/download/ITC.INNO-... Podcast source uri: http://bit.ly/4zJPB1
abdels··on Shan Zai and open fabrication
Very excited about the ideas expressed in this article. There is a quite open hardware revolution that's about to tip.

The open source cheap tools mentioned are very readily available, http://bit.ly/LvFB9, and they're getting even cheaper by the second. Hacker spaces, http://bit.ly/DRTYB, are springing up everywhere so knowledge is definitely being passed down globally.

Its always bottom up innovation that manages to disrupt. Open Source software paved the way, I can't wait to see what Open Hardware will do. Very exciting indeed.

abdels··on Do you patent?
This is an interesting discussion. We're working on a startup and patenting is something a lot of people with a traditional business view keep asking us.

I love open source and patenting doesn't sit well with me. The idea of a'commercial secret' is more appealing because IMHO its more about competition and as a startup you can always out innovate your competitors.

abdels··on Compiling Ruby: From Text to Bytecode
Wow, Rubinius that's certainly a blast from the past. Its great that the project is still ongoing.

I especially like the link at the bottom of the post to the Rubinius book tour http://bit.ly/1wVU4 aka what you can read to fully understand or design a Rubinius.

Faster speed is always good. However, my interest in Rubinius is more of a learning thing. Its really cool to be able to check the implementation of class 'Class' http://bit.ly/fCyIw when you need to or fully understand how some underlying algorithms implemented in the language are put together in just plain old Ruby code (not C).

abdels··on Handy Tips for the Arduino/Electronics Hacker
This tip has seriously helped me get my XPORT back on track: 'Arduinos can be substitute USB to serial devices'.

The magic is here: '... I hooked up the Arduino’s RX/TX to the XPort’s RX/TX pins (must be reversed, a.k.a. RX to RX, TX to TX)...'

Enjoy.

abdels··on Web.py, a python micro framework
Web.py reminds me greatly of Sinatra http://www.sinatrarb.com/, a minimalistic very agile ruby web framework.

These sort of frameworks are ideal for developing APIs or stand alone (RESTFUL) services, anything that does not rely heavily on forms or a proper UI experience. Sinatra for example can only have one controller, so any app you develop will naturally do one thing (and do it well).

They're also perfect for prototyping ideas!

abdels··on Ask HN: Whats the coolest thing you've seen/done with Arduino?
>> The micrcontroller community today is analogous to the personal computer/homebrew computer clubs in the early 70's...

I totally agree, in fact I was harping on this to great lengths just a few days ago :-))

abdels··on Ask HN: Whats the coolest thing you've seen/done with Arduino?
I was lucky enough to work on this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/12/the_rockterscal...

The hat of rock was my invention :-)

Abdel A Saleh, https://twitter.com/abdels