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autalphaon Ask HN: Do You Still Read Comics (And Do They Inspire You)?

I still read Japanese graphic novels or Mangas. I hope that counts.

Growing up in Vietnam, my parents generally forbid us kids from reading comics because they're not... smart materials. I don't know, but I tend to disagree with that.

I find graphic novels/comics fascinating because it seems like the writers can get their messages across with just an image an a short bubble/line of text. On that front, I think web creator should learn a thing or two from comics writer :)

I love the older cartoons. I think waking up Saturday mornings or rush home from school to watch cartoons was so good back then.

That's why I archive a lot of my favorite cartoon series (Arthur, Life with Louie, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, etc.) for my future children :)

My hope and inspiration to make the web a more positive experience in my daily work definitely has something to do with the simplest stories which come from some cartoons I saw as a kid.

autalphaon Writing Maintainable JavaScript

"Doh! Your browser doesn't seem to support Silverlight or HTML5 video or we don't have an HTML5 video for this one."

that's what I get when I clicked play. I'm using FF4 on Mac OSX.

autalphaon Writing Maintainable JavaScript

FF4 on OSX here and I can't view the slideshow without installing Silverlight. Didn't know I would offend people with my stance on Microsoft's Silverlight. I am peeved at Microsoft's stance on Flash or other open solutions. And don't get me started on their "web standards" implementations.

autalphaon What is the best editor for web development?

I usually go with an Eclipse variant.. Eclipse PDT and Aptana have worked out well for me. Currently using Aptana now. But really, anything that makes you more productive is good I think. Getting into IDE holy wars is pointless. Nobody wins and everyone ends up feeling the other person is retarded :)

autalphaon Writing Maintainable JavaScript

I refuse to install Silverlight :P

autalphaon The #1 Killer of Meetings, And What You Can Do About It

I find meetings are only effective if you are there to make a decision together. Even then, I would keep the meeting exactly and arbitrarily 21 minutes! Any longer, then you'd have to bring in alcohol :)

At the meeting, turn up the heat and makes everyone stand up. In front of a group of sweaty and impatient people, let's see how long others can tolerate you should you ever go off topic.

autalphaon Favimon: web game in which you battle and collect website favicons

lol: "bing.com used Search, but google.com was not hurt!"

autalphaon Ask HN: Feeling Sick

I think you will find your answer or at least some breadcrumbs leading to it in stillness.

Every time you're feeling the way you are, as I suspect your post was written in a heightened state of your emotion, drop everything at hand and go to a quiet space. Grab a cup of tea and just sit and look at the smoke coming out of the cup. Clear your mind and purge yourself of all negative thoughts.

I understand the feeling every well as I think many here will say the same. We all want to do a lot of things, and sometimes that myriad of "things" we want to do can get overwhelming. When it gets overwhelming, just drop everything and regain your footing. I do make it a point to do "nothing" sometimes :)

When I say stillness, I really mean it. No computer, cellphones, electronics nothing but your collected self and perhaps a cup of tea. No watch either. You are the master of your self, space and time. Everything is as you say and execute.

autalphaon 37Signals website in 2000 when they had 4 people and no DHH

heh, cute: <blink>12:00</blink> (http://37signals.com/03)

autalphaon Ask HN: How to learn more about the A in the LAMP?

I am pretty sure a lot of people, myself included, learned things by actively messing with it. Books are helpful for basic, but for everything else, just installed a Linux distro (I like Debian!) and then proceed to play with it. Read a few online articles (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=141...) and just build your experience slowly. I use VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) to install Debian on my Mac/Win boxes.

Good luck and as always there's #apache on freenode.

autalphaon I'm a designer who learned Django and launched her first webapp in 6 weeks

Congratulations on your success. The site demonstrates a lot of your characters and it's all looking good :)

My (sincere) question is regarding the help you had. I noticed you credited extensively to a few folks and your boyfriend. Other than Django/Python, there's also server setup (BitCould?)--did you do that yourself as well? Did you work on this full time for 6 weeks or was this an after 9-5 hours project?

I don't mean to pry; just simply want other folks out there who are also self-taught and are working on their own projects to understand the extend of your hard work with great assistance from experts in achieving this great result. In other words, could you explain the "magic" a bit so we can have a deeper understanding of your process?

A lot of time, people gloss over the hard work parts and in some way that perpetuates a misunderstanding which says: "it's easy to create something good." I don't that is the case. Even in The Social Network, Zuck seems to somehow create Facemash or even Facebook in matters of hours while drinking beer. But I digress.

Thank you for sharing.

autalphaon How do I get a startup noticed?

You're seeing this error because you have DEBUG = True in your Django settings file. Change that to False, and Django will display a standard 404 page.

In other words... DEBUG = False when you're exposing the rest to the world.

autalphaon Show HN: My first coding project ever (unnamed)

It's neat. I do recommend you make some rules about when to fire off the ajax request. On every keypress/keyup/focus is a bit much because you're making necessary requests even if the value didn't change. Maybe make a cache that remembers the last search term.

autalphaon Ask HN: Please Review FavoriteThing.Me

My dear friend, since it is Valentine's Day, I say this with a lot of "heart" and love for you and your partner/friend:

I am not a security expert but security is a very important issue. I am not sure what framework you're using (most likely no framework), but being anonymous AND able to post as ANYONE is a serious issue (well, your user list only goes up to about 6 people--0 being unknown and 1-5 are somewhat real users; user # 4 user is deleted perhaps). One thing you can do is to check if the user posting is actually authenticated and really who s/he claims to be.

Your infrastructure is too fragile and amateurish. Obviously, haters are gonna hate, but believe me when I say, this hurts me more than it hurts you. Take (all) your apps down and then do a security audit on all of them before you hurt yourself.

Happy Valentine's Day.

autalphaon Ask HN: How do you maintain long-term focus

I understand exactly what you're going through. Over the year, I tend to "put all my eggs in a basket" so-to-speak on one project or another. It becomes overwhelming at time because most problems I try to solve are (at least to me) complex.

Naturally, when problem gets harder, it's easy to let your mind wander and it's much more difficult to get things done. This year, I am approaching things a bit differently. I plan to work on a few smaller projects at a time instead of focusing on one big project that never gets done and spirit-draining. It will at least cure my "mind wandering" issue for the time being.

I don't think there's any negative side to working on multiple projects at the same time. As a one-man band, you can definitely work on different phases of projects to keep your mind sharp and interested.

I am actively coding one project, designing for another and thinking about/planning another project :P

autalphaon Google's logo dives 20.000 leagues under the sea

I thought this was cool so I looked at it. Other than moving the backgrounds up/down left/right there's also -moz-transform and -webkit-transform. Their attention to details is impressive each time :)

autalphaon Show HN: My startup, Compilr, an online IDE & compiler. Has over 30,000 users

Congratulations. As a developer, I am still a bit skeptical about writing codes online. Still I will take a look. Again, congratulations.

Oh btw, have you ever written about your experience (lessons learned) from launching with sites like Reddit?

Thanks

autalphaon Do I Owe My Employees a Career Path?

As someone who worked in a lot of environment (factory manual labor, meat packaging, tech), I find that good employers are those who care for the growth of the employees as much as they do the company growth. Even a perception of "care" really goes a long way to create employees' loyalty. I think this video says a lot about this point: http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/animate/rsa-animate-driv....

autalphaon Show HN: Real-time Team Collaboration on top of your LinkedIn Social Graph

nice. django. I approve!

autalphaon The Type of Employee You Really Want: Porn Star

I like humour and satire; but somehow, this one just didn't do it for me. In the back of my mind, it feels a bit sexist and degrading. Perhaps it's the stigma the porn industry had created. As a developer, I feel conflicted :/