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buckwilson

9 karma · joined November 23, 2009

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buckwilson··on Show HN: Owl, a Spaced Repetition App
Signed up!

I've always been interested in spaced repetition but never had the patience to learn the "right" way to do it. This looks pretty helpful.

Do you think this AI x repetition concept works better for some types of learning than others?

buckwilson··on Blipr: The Story of an iPhone App
It seems like marketing is king on the app store. I'd love to see some success stories that aren't taptaptap (and the MacHeist juggernaut and their 600,000 person mailing list) just to see how one can bootstrap themselves up some buzz.

Have you taken a stab at marketing? Do you have any insights in that area (either successes or failures)?

buckwilson··on Blipr: The Story of an iPhone App
I can't get enough of these types of blog posts. The app store is a fascinating study of marketing, economics and good ol' bootstrapping. Good luck in your endeavors and thanks for sharing.
buckwilson··on WildlifeNearYou.com - built by 12 hackers on a fort in a week (sort of)
I love the idea, and I'm sure it will improve once more people join up and contribute, but I put in "portland, or" and it told me to go to the zoo.

Thanks, website.

buckwilson··on Amazon will be the Largest Company in the World and 1st Trillion Dollar Company
"... in 20 years maybe. They're currently worth 5% of that though". Paraphrasing the article of course.

At current trading, Wal-Mart is worth just over 204B, just for comparison.

buckwilson··on Tablet Musings
The thought of Apple getting a 30% cut of all apps sold on all of their platforms makes me cringe.
buckwilson··on JQuery Code Smells
I think you kind of missed something. The $ by itself in a variable name doesn't do anything. It's simply a notation to keep your DOM elements (and other variables / objects) separated from your jQuery wrapped elements.

$myDiv = $('#myDiv');

Now I know every time that $myDiv is already wrapped in jQ and I won't make the mistake of wrapping it again $($myDiv) in my code.

buckwilson··on Ask HN: What are you working on?
Working on http://herefilefile.com, an iPhone app that lets you access all of your computer's files from anywhere.

Currently doing a UI refresh, planning a big marketing push including ads, contacting interested journalists, designing a web site / blog, planning the support workflow, and other fun stuff.

Things are going really well for us so far. Won a nice iPhone app competition, getting some pretty good buzz building, and looking to launch to a decent crowd of interested parties!

buckwilson··on Version 1 Sucks, But Ship It Anyway
You just need to weigh the scope and reward of individual things. Some things are worth waiting for, others aren't. From a hype perspective a journalist can help you understand what your experience is missing for it to be considered a success to them.

For instance, before we launched a version of our software, we spent two months working on security mechanisms to make sure it couldn't be stolen or pirated or hacked. While security is important, it was a mistake for us to take it as seriously as we did, and we wound up wasting those resources in hindsight.

buckwilson··on Matt Brezina: No One Cares About Your Stupid Little Startup
Enjoyed the slides for the most part. The importance of PR for startups cannot be overstated. Get out there, get to know people, go to conferences, talk to media, be personable. If you aren't this type of person, then hire one.
buckwilson··on SharePics rejected for looking like a Polaroid
You're also using iconography that resembles an iPhone, another no-no in the App store.

Looks like getting rejected is a one way ticket to hypesville, though, so good luck with that part.

buckwilson··on PPK: "Apple is not evil. iPhone developers are stupid."
Yep. And I don't have to bear the time cost of the interface downloading and rendering. As a user and not a developer I will take a native app over a web app any day.

But giving this article any credence is giving it too much credit. It's shock-blogging and nothing more.