fhirzall

Of course they can, their whole business is designed around service.

Every single product including the ones that go hockey-stick start out as prototypes that don't need to be prematurely optimized for scaling. That doesn't mean you shouldn't plan ahead with best practices for performance / etc, but the bulk majority of startups will not reach product-market-fit with the first version of their product. It takes months and years of iteration to be able to put up a hockey-stick growth curve.

Offering up a refined, live version of the product is non-negotiable and completely achievable with the tools mentioned in the post, but adopting services that simplify your infrastructure processes gives you the focus that an early stage product needs.

I'm 100% with that you should control your infrastructure if you're an established company, brand, or product, but we're coming at this from a startup's standpoint where speed of iteration & shipping features make a huge difference in the eventual outcome of the startup.

Hey pmlnr, author here. I think what the post is trying to say is that the ops team will still be at the company, but the communication overhead across teams will be less of a burden. Your ops team will still be thinking about cost, scalability - but your developers can focus on shipping features. We also mention that this is a good approach for early stage startups looking for product market fit, i.e scalability and server costs still haven't become an issue at this stage.

Feras from buttercloud here (author is my co-worker).

We have a complex application that heavily interacts with webhooks - that's what prompted us to create StripeTester. We can now easily spec out the interactions and set expectations when a webhook is received. A side benefit is that this can be used without connectivity and really cleans up our test suite.

Previously, we used Requestbin for manual webhook testing, and made heavy use of Mocha for stubbing. This required us to maintain fixtures and test data to simulate Stripe's.

There's also https://github.com/mindeavor/stripe-ruby-mock that provides some testing hooks (although repo says it's incomplete). We're planning on keeping the webhook data up-to-date when Stripe releases newer versions.

Lenovo Thinkpad X220.

You could run something like Autotest for continuous testing & quality control: http://ph7spot.com/musings/getting-started-with-autotest

You can run Capistrano for continuous deployment: https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano.

If you wanted to go the extra mile you could also setup different staging environments on your server: http://cjohansen.no/en/rails/multi_staging_environment_for_r...

I think goals are valuable if you set them right. An overarching goal can be to have 1 of the ideas implemented, and then you can refer back to the goal at the end of each month and evaluate whether or not the tasks you've been setting have gotten you closer to your goals.

This approach combined with having different levels of goals will keep you on the right trajectory in finishing everything you want to accomplish. Something like "Only eat out once a week" can be a goal, it's up to you to choose your level of granularity.

IMO the most important thing is to periodically take a few steps back and reevaluate your current habits in relation to the goals you set.

What about this? http://www.typetester.org/

I've been using Remember the Milk for GTD: http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2008/05/guest-post-advanced-...

I have an x200. The screen isn't amazing but the build quality and warranty are incredible. I got the protection plan, managed to spill water/coffee on my laptop in two separate occasions nad had 90% of the parts on the laptop replaced within 3-4 days including shipping.

Don't feel bad about using jQuery or any other library. These libraries have been built for re-use. Once you get more familiar with the basics and build a few apps, you can start looking into the actual libraries and figuring out how they work.

Think about it this way, you're driving a car but you have no idea how the engine works and that's OK!

As for asking questions on the various tech sites, you shouldn't feel bad about asking questions - these sites were created for that specific purpose. You're actually helping other programmers that might search for the same issue later on.

My only advice would be to hone your search techniques to be able to find answers faster. Mostly everything that involves basic web apps has been answered in one form or another. If you run into a problem with something, just note the issue and move on to the next part of the web app!

I'm not sure why, but the video doesn't load in Chrome.

I think you should have a longer delay on each book preview in the scrolling list of books at the top. I made it through half of one and then it switched over. 5 more seconds would be perfect.

The "How it works" box isn't very obvious to a first time visitor - maybe you can hang this somewhere off the top next to the logo?

I like the arrows on the left and right but I suspect that they would be too far to the sides on a widescreen monitor - I suppose you would know better what resolutions your visitors are using.

Otherwise I think the concept is cool, you might benefit from putting this out in the various book forums online.

Another option is to collect a group of your friends, family, and various non-technical users and just give them a few tasks to do on your website. If the site is usable then most people in the group will be able to complete the tasks.

As a technical user, I'm finding that some users struggle with the most basic things on the web so you should always base your usability tests on your target market. (seems obvious but frequently forgotten)

Sweet, I use the "site" operator a lot but I've never actually used the intitle one.

Bookmarked! My usual approach of finding these was to google for topic + Hacker News + Ask.

Long time lurker here =).

Agreed, I'm doing an M.S now (non-business) and I've always been under the impression that the MBA crowd is a little bit older - not too old, but people that have had a few years of experience in an industry. Don't quote me on this but don't most Ivy MBA programs require 3-5 years of actual work experience for acceptance?

I also have a few friends doing MBAs and most of what they do involves case studies of real companies and problems that they faced.

-- Not advocating everyone go out there and get an MBA, but the title should mention that it's undergrad business school.