Hacker News Reader

jbrkron Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

Let's not forget... Twitter may have made the hashbang infamous, but it was originally championed by Google [1].

[1]: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-...

jbrkron Kottke.org redesigns using private beta of Hoefler & Frere-Jones webfont service

Good to see Kottke still churning out top posts after so many years.

But... a little disappointed that an announced redesign like this does not include support for responsive/liquid/mobile-first viewport width.

>> I made the reading column wider (640px) ...

Hard-coded pixel widths are not friendly to the proliferation of mobile devices and screen sizes these days.

jbrkron Why do self-respecting hackers use Gmail & Co?

Surprised no one has mentioned FastMail [1] already. Excellent service, reasonable price.

It's good to be a paying customer, so if something goes wrong there is a sense of accountability for the service provider to remedy the situation.

With Gmail and other free service providers, remember that you are not the customer, you are the product -- for advertisers.

1) http://fastmail.fm/

jbrkron Yammer moving away from Scala

Also available here: https://gist.github.com/1406238

jbrkron Google says Nexus One too old for Android 4.0

Yes, there's a good chance of such a release considering the history of CyanogenMod [1].

Too bad the update won't be straight from Google this time. One of the key benefits of the Nexus One for nearly 2 years comes to an end.

[1] http://www.cyanogenmod.com/

jbrkron Company employs mildly autistic to test software

Discussed previously [1].

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3026591 (yahoo.com)

jbrkron Ask HN: Launch iOS/Android/Both?

There is offline local storage in HTML5 [1]. It is supported by recent versions of iOS and Android. A local HTTP server should not be necessary.

[1] http://diveintohtml5.org/storage.html

jbrkron Ask HN: Launch iOS/Android/Both?

What functionality do you require that only a native mobile application can provide?

One option is a mobile-optimized web application, with simple native apps wrapping your URL, one for each supported mobile platform.

jbrkron Michael Hart (obituary)

Discussed previously [1,2].

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2971971 (gutenberg.org)

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974212 (oreilly.com)

jbrkron The quick website launch checklist

Piwik [1] is a great alternative to Google Analytics. It is free, open source software, and it is typically self-hosted.

While I do not think it supports Do-Not-Track at this time, Piwik does have configuration options to respect emerging laws on data protection and user privacy.

[1] http://piwik.org/blog/2011/03/piwik-can-be-used-in-complianc...

jbrkron The nytimes they are a-changin'

This is based on an incorrect assumption: ... no one is storing their frontpage layout data.

The Newseum has this covered for over 800 newspapers. A recent front page of the New York Times, for example:

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=NY_NY...

jbrkron H5ai - a beautiful Apache index

Indeed... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684803

jbrkron Google+ is Growing Like Crazy

BBM-type android service

You've described Huddle[1], part of the Google+ app for Android.

"Huddle lets you send super-fast messages to the people you care about most."

Presumably, Huddle will be part of the Google+ app on other platforms, too.

[1] https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.app...

jbrkron Ask HN: Abandoning smartphones?

> The only problem I can't solve is maps...

Recent versions of Ovi Maps by Nokia work offline very well. I used v3.0x when I would have otherwise been roaming without incurring any data charges.