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matvozon Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

I build so I can learn new skills. So until now outsourcing wasn't a part of the master plan. But you are correct, delegating the right way is also an option to boost development.

matvozon Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

(never only) 40hr/week job (project manager), a wife and a year old child

I am just about to launch my second big(ish) side project.

When outside my "real job", the priorities are with my child and my wife. So the time for anything else is scarce and the most is done after both of them go to bed.

- limit your TV

- limit your distractions on the computer (I use RescueTime)

- learn to differentiate between motion and action (http://jamesclear.com/taking-action)

- automate everything you can

- motivation, motivation, motivation (when sitting on the toilet you aren't thinking about your side project, you don't want it bad enough)

matvozon Should I use delegated or native comments for my niche community site?

Auto-approve - comments in blog show up immediately without moderation or approval.

Good luck with fighting spam. There are never enough of you!

matvozon Should I use delegated or native comments for my niche community site?

No problem CoreSet. Look at it this way. You will learn something. Oh, and have a kill-switch readdy if Murphy comes (disable comments, non auto approve, something like that). @stevekemp also has a valid point in another comment of his. If you write your own functionality, you store the comments. If you use 3rd party app, they store your comments. This can be the tipping point for some people.

How the spammers work. Really short and banal explanation: - dear program, find wordpress blogs (in a certain niche, or any blog - I am not picky today) - footprint of the day will be "powered by wordpress"

- thanks for the list, now check each url if that blog has a form for comments enabled

- great, now, because you were programmed to know which inputs (name, e-mail, content) (and with what names/IDs) needed to be filled, use my predefined texts and submit

- oh, and if you see a capcha, would you be so kind to OCR it and fill the right text there also? thanks

- check after one hour if the comment is visible (yes? woohoo - we found an auto-approve blog! - no? ok, check in one week)

Hmm, that gave me an idea for a honeypot webpage. One single page with footprints of many blogs and forums, some forms on it and IP logger. Every IP that would like to submit anything on this page, goes to the sh.tlist.

matvozon Should I use delegated or native comments for my niche community site?

Did you have auto-aprove comments? AA is a spammers heaven, and they will walk the extra mile if they find that kind of a CMS. Even if you have no-follow links. Very nice initiative for the spam-fight though. How high is your success rate? Do you use any blueprints for spun comments?

matvozon Should I use delegated or native comments for my niche community site?

Don't worry about spam bots. One of my websites has more than 2500 visitors daily and I am still waiting for the first spam comment. Spammers don't search pages by hand. Their programs look for "footprints" of the usual software (ie Wordpress) and try to automatically add comments. If you build your own commenting system from scratch and use the good practice for building (preventing XSS..), you are ok.

Or put it this way, if your website becomes so popular, that spammers will customize their programs to try to automatically post on your page, you have bigger problems :)

matvozon How much do you make from donations for your website?

I have a donate button on one of my projects. The site gets 1k+ visitors per day but in the last 4 months since I have the button I only got one donation. It is not as high on my priority list, so I haven't fiddled with it yet.

matvozon Why the last 20% of work takes the same amount of time as the first 80%

True. I may be the best driver in Slovenia, but when I want to drive to Manhattan, I will have a bad time (pun intended). I will learn to drive there faster than somebody who is also bad in Slovenia, but I will still need my time.

matvozon Why the last 20% of work takes the same amount of time as the first 80%

I would say the same. You need to be a local to know your way around. Until you become one, you are going to miscalculate your arrival time. This is why good developers are exponentially better than bad developers.

matvozon Why the last 20% of work takes the same amount of time as the first 80%

This is what happens if you think in one language and write in another. :) Yes, I am from a bit south of Germany, from Slovenia.

matvozon Why the last 20% of work takes the same amount of time as the first 80%

Sorry about that. I don't get so much traffic usually.

matvozon Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?

Use all 8 directions (4 walls and 4 corners). Number them from 0 to 7 or 1 to 8. Pull out one hair with the root. Use that root as an arrow. Throw the hair and watch till it lands on the ground. Use the number that the root is pointing to. Repeat. For a better effect try to blow at the hair while in air so it spins more.

matvozon Ask HN: What's your startup or product?

Working on "helping you drive economically, everywhere". http://www.mylpg.eu

matvozon Ask HN: who started something in 2012 which is already profitable?

I launched a web site about alternative fuel LPG, mostly about fuel stations in Europe (http://www.mylpg.eu). At first it was a test to feel the market, but now I found out it has potential.