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ct

760 karma · joined November 22, 2009

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ct··on I'm worried it might get bad
The wealth gap and wages not keeping up with inflation is a large part of the problem.

There's no trickle down just trickle up. Giving Bezos, Zuckerberg, Benoiff, corporations more money isn't going to create more jobs.

If there's no money for consumers to spend these B2C companies will have less need for B2B software that most of us build.

ct··on TikTok Says It Will 'Go Dark' Without US Court Intervention
Or it could be that TikTok is just getting started which it seems it is and selling it off to a US company would just be giving away a lot more potential future profits and close the door completely to operating in the US again.
ct··on Ask HN: How can we open-source a 7 year old SaaS codebase and build a community?
I don't have any good answers for you re building a community as usually people will only come if there's money. So if you could create some kind of marketplace where customers could ask for things to be built and then devs could build and make some money from it then that might work. But starting a two-sided marketplace is hard ... or so they say.

But I mainly wanted to comment and say I started learning F# recently getting a bit into Elmish and think F# is a pragmatic language and would love to learn more but there is a lack of large F# codebases to learn from. So would be interested in taking a peek at how one would construct a large F# codebase targeting the enterprise if this does ever get released.

ct··on Is Windows Phone Dead?
The main problem IMO was the Metro UI which while different from other mobile OSes was too different. It was too cold and futuristic. Games on the platform run really slow compared to other mobile platforms. And games are the number one apps that is carrying iOS.
ct··on My low-paying, early-morning, exertion-requiring job
I loved cutting grass but don't have a yard anymore as I live in an apt :(
ct··on Microsoft Names Scott Guthrie as Permanent Enterprise Chief
Totally agree WPF is awesome. And WinRT/Silverlight don't hold a candle to it. Only thing is WPF performance and verboseness could be better.
ct··on Ask HN: Any good investments for those saving a substantial portion of income?
Look into selling covered calls or vertical spreads for part of your portfolio as recurring monthly revenue.
ct··on Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
Chrome Version 33.0.1750.117 m on Win 8.1 doesn't show text either.
ct··on Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
It would be adding several more months to project completion, and then recurring maintenance costs that overtime costs much more money.
ct··on Microsoft Said to Be Preparing to Make Satya Nadella CEO
The biggest priority for new CEO is to get the two major divisions OS and Devs on the same page instead of bickering and reinventing the UI several times over from other groups. Secondly, he needs to put focus on UI design and usability instead of having engineering lead the way.
ct··on How to stop feeling lonely
Kind of like learning to love yourself before others can love you.
ct··on Ask HN: What's the best way to get 5% on a million dollars?
Yes please do send the white paper: carbtrader at gmail

Thanks!

ct··on Our Recurring Payment Pricing Was Rejected
Unless you have an excellent track record with a more compelling UX/workflow that works better than existing non-hosted competitors selling a SaaS subscription to a business and expecting them to feel their data is safe will be a hard sell.

One way to get an established track record to sell as a SaaS is to initially start out as a non-SaaS like Adobe did. Once users have confidence in using your product then transitioning to a SaaS model will be easier.

ct··on Microsoft hires designer behind "The Next Microsoft", Andrew Kim
As long as Ballmer is at the helm with minimal understanding of technology, design, and dev relations I concur that he'll just be a cog in the giant machine that's just been moving forward due to it's past momentum with deceleration.
ct··on Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista
Win8 main problem is there's no killer must have app(s) that decimates similar apps on other platforms. The Metro Mail app is almost a complete failure, and the store is not user friendly for discovery of apps. If they can't get their first tier apps to show what Win8 Metro can do, then what hope do third party apps have?

And it seems like Win9 is still sticking with this failed UI paradigm: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-9-Won-t-Bring-Back-th...

ct··on Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista
If you close/open a lot of apps due to memory constraints then you have to leave the desktop a lot and it's jarring. The start screen makes it slower to launch apps when you have a lot of apps you frequently used due to scrolling. I just want a fast way to launch apps.
ct··on Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista
I have like 10 frequently used apps that I had pinned to the start menu and launching them is a pain with having to search or if you pin them on the metro desktop its a lot of scrolling due to the large tiles. Plus there's a contextual switch that takes a user out of the zone with the entire screen switching especially when you have to close and open different apps constantly due to memory constraints, so that's a lot of jarring context switching.
ct··on Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012
After reading that excerpt, that Turner guy is crazy. Putting that on my reading list. Thanks!
ct··on Ask HN: What are you planning to learn in 2013?
Erlang/Haskell

Acoustic Guitar

Drawing

Exercise

Mobile Game

B2B app

ct··on Microsoft Kills Expression Suite
Totally concur about lack of communication to devs which is why despite being primarily a MS dev I haven't bothered to jump on the WinRT/Win8 app store empty bandwagon, and have instead been playing with Objective C recently.

For MS to regain status:

1) Fire Ballmer and get someone that understands technology/design to lead a tech company

2) Be more transparent to devs

3) Put more resources to the core tech that differentiates their OS like Apple does with Objective C API, MS should be doing with WPF (not Silverlight or WinRT or another tech - their thought process of supporting JS didn't really gain much JS devs for Win8/WinRT apps, and just ended up burning bridges with long time MS enterprise devs)

Failing the above I see MS losing more devs and as a result less apps supporting the OS and finally less market share.

ct··on Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
Desktop Windows dev here. I'm not really too interested in learning JS until it gets much better dev wise. Played around with Angular, Node, etc. but meh. Spending my free time learning Objective-C and playing with some Unity3D/C# to stay in my native roots.
ct··on Brython - Python to Javascript translator
Python needs to be natively supported as a scripting lang in browsers. Google, MS, Firefox - make it so!
ct··on Why founders shouldn't be the developers
Nothing wrong with a "lifestyle" company and making a couple 100k for yourself. No need for all the headaches of running a public company and possibly getting kicked out of your own company by VCs, boards, etc. like Jobs did.
ct··on Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users
As someone that really wanted Win8 to succeed being primarily a Win dev, I can't help but agree with the article. MS needs leadership that truly understands usability. Win8 missed most of the boat for what consumers want and drove their core supporters of enterprise devs away with all the HTML hoopla. With Sinofsky out, Ballmer needs to go next and be replaced with someone that's a better speaker and better understands users/developers if MS wants to retain any market share.
ct··on My Product Feedback
There's something called target customer segmentation. If building for consumers, do a website and/or mobile which are great for consumption (hence the name consumers). If building a "creation" app for businesses (ie. payroll mgmt, Photoshop, etc.) then do a desktop and/or website with perhaps a simplified companion mobile app.
ct··on Apple vs. Samsung, and the rise of Windows Phone 8
Best thing MS can do is to not alienate developers -- especially the core enterprise devs that help grow their server OS/DB/Office license revenues. After the whole WPF/SL snafu I'm reluctant to support WinRT for WP8. No devs = no apps. No 3rd party apps = failed OS.
ct··on If i build, will they come?
If it's really good and people like it they'll tell their colleagues and word will spread almost automatically once you drop the initial seeds.

You can try to force a viral marketing campaign, but if you have an inferior product eventually people will see through whatever marketing B.S. you've built.

ct··on Balsamiq integrates with UX.StackExchange.com
People are mainly using Balsamiq to create things. The iPad isn't typically used for content creation, but for content consumption. For a UI editor, drawing tool, etc. like Balsamiq you'd be more productive with a more precise pixel pusher like a mouse rather than a fat finger. Not to say that you can't do any prototype design, while laying around on your couch with an iPad -- just that beyond a few things when you get into the details it's not that great of a form factor.
ct··on Adobe Photoshop Touch hits iPad 2 for $9.99
Tablets are not the future for all types of computing. Someone else can make Photoshop for the iPad but it doesn't mean that it will be a success nor that Adobe will go out of business.

I don't think Adobe has much to gain OR lose by doing this as they have the capital to develop a side mobile app.

ct··on Ask HN: Why do you contribute to open source?
I do it mainly when I find a bug and want future releases to also include my fix so I don't have to patch future versions. So it's kind of selfish in a sense, but overall makes the software better.
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