Hacker News Reader

sganeshon GitHub Spark lets you build web apps in plain English

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41804291

We are building a similar thing for non technical users.

sganeshon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024)

An app that creates web, mobile and background apps via voice / text requirements.

https://www.tiram.ai

sganeshon Show HN: Build Apps via Voice

You can use code HNOCT24 to bypass the paywall for 2 months to export the user stories, till Oct 31st.

sganeshon Texas’s Power Market Is $1.3B Short After Energy Crisis

Electric Retailers in Texas are stuck with this ask on ancillary charges. On an average 300x - 400x on a seven day spend. ERCOT chose to keep lights on in some areas, and take it down in other areas to prevent a grid collapse. All these utilities and generators who are now waiting for $2 billion payouts ( not because they actually incurred the cost, instead the algorithm designed to run at peak load kicked in ) instead would have been waiting for the grid to come back up and running up losses. Legislature/ ERCOT / PUC, needs to declare this as ‘act of nature / whatever’ , backdate a clause in the ancillary charges declaring a minimum load based on QSE (Qualified Scheduling Entities that ask for the buy the previous day or before) forecasts to be on the grid. Generators / Utilities now have learnt they can make money on such event, will trigger this a lot more in the future, every minor excuse they can find.

sganeshon Ask HN: How do you watch for health emergencies for elder family members?

https://getcarealert.com/

sganeshon Ask HN: What are you working on?

SETaaS - Software Engineering Teams as a Service

Trying to find out if the bootstrapped productized service at http://www.thinkbridge.us/setaas.html is viable.

Targets are businesses with software systems and applications that are to be developed and maintained at a smaller scale but need continued access to technical talent.

After being a Software Developer for 15+ yrs, learning marketing & sales :)

sganeshon Ask HN: What up with these startup salaries?

I ran into this issue couple of years and have been iterating on a model, that seems to be working. If you're interested in hearing more about it, ping me please. My email is in my profile.

sganeshon Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion

Have you heard about Arimaa?

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/

sganeshon Ask HN: How to identify a website built with Bootstrap?

Checkout http://builtwith.com. If the css is not renamed, merged or minified it will be listed in the technologies used. Else, you have to do the one of the other suggestions here.

sganeshon Ask HN: Applying to YC as foreigners. Visa advice

The visa guide is available at

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.749cabd81f5f...

B1 visa may be enough. Check it out.

sganeshon Ask HN: Who Is Hiring? (May 2012)

Austin, TX

Audingo - (www.audingo.com)

Full Time - (Intern, no REMOTE, H1B for right candidate)

Audingo is helping radio stations and other verticals connect with their listeners via different messaging mediums and helping them monetize it. Checkout the service through www.mix947.com.

Our platform runs on Windows Azure. Asp.NET MVC 3, RESTful WCF services & most of windows azure's capabilities power our backend. UI is done using HTML, CSS, JQuery & a bit of flash (this is currently being stripped out). We also have an IOS app & an Android app.

We're looking for (i) UI/UX Designer/Developers (ii) .NET Developers with ASP.NET MVC 3, WCF , (Nice to have - Windows Azure Exposure) (iii) Product Manager and (iv) QA - Selenium & Other Automation Tools

Benefits:

* Competitive salary (we’re funded)

* Stock options (in a pre series A company)

* Medical Insurance

* Nice Private Office

* Equipment Of Your Choosing

* Well Stocked Pantry

* Relaxed, Fun and Passionate Co-Workers

* We're on 360 south of Bee Caves Rd

Please send a mail to "saig AT audingo.com" with your accomplishments and/or resume.

sganeshon Ask HN: How do I go on holiday/vacation as a single founder of SAAS app?

Its all about communication with your current and future clients. Depending on the no of clients you have, send them all an email or call them individually. Let them know, that you're going on adventure, why that matters to you, and you won't be available for that period. Thank them for their patronage and give them a 10 to 25 % off of a future bill. For the future clients, set an auto reply message doing the same, and contact them personally when you get back. In short, be honest, prepare and execute.

sganeshon Ask HN: What should you do with non-technical cofounders who're quite useless

You should manage perceptions. You should give them "preemptive updates" - Tell them everything and anything, before it happens. Here's a sample template :)

Things I plan on doing today (Send it the same every day, as early as possible): (i) Homework - Required by school (ii) Reading 'X' chapters of a book, or Reading blog, code etc - Knowledge Acquisition To Help With The Project Or Personal Improvement (iii) Chores - Things that need to get done to live your life (iv) Thinking About The Project - This is how most "Features" get done. (v) Coding - Like 'Planning on adding approximately 100 lines of code'. To be clear, this is a fake measurement that is of no use to any developer, but for non-technical people, this is worth a lot.

And just before ending your day..

"FYI - I added 120 lines of code. This makes it 400 lines of code for this feature :)"

P.S: "e1ven" idea is much better :)

sganeshon Ask HN: Any great books on Sales and Marketing?

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive : by Noah Goldstein & Robert Cialdini - Short Read.

Your Marketing Sucks - Mark Stevens - Short Read.

Persuasion Mastery: 500 Practical Lessons In The Psychology Of Sales - Stephen Thieme - Long One:)

sganeshon For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

My girlfriend's first reaction to "iCloud" was "Is Mobile Me free now?". Its indeed fascinating to watch , a branding exercise & marketing effort doing it's job with the media & the bloggers to sell an under used platform with a bad rep.

sganeshon Ask HN: I am a founding engineer leaving a startup

I have been there before. I walked away. I did a contract for about a year then took off for a few months traveling and is part of a new startup as a technical founder, that went live this Monday.

If the other startup is wildly successful financially, I stand to gain a bit financially, but I also believe, my contribution to the old startup will always be with me. I learnt a lot about people, process, growing a company, building a product, making connections, hiring, management etc. And I believe those are the things that will enhance my career.

Such an experience also brings an odd predicament in the form of infallibility and also may cloud your judgement about other non-technical people you're going to be involved in the future. My suggestion, is to keep an open mind, have well-defined expectation of business partners and their roles, learn & use delegation and trust & verify people.

sganeshon Ask HN: How can I (illegal immigrant/programmer) get legal status in US?

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b...

sganeshon Ask HN: How can I (illegal immigrant/programmer) get legal status in US?

Have you ever witnessed or reported a crime? There is a provision in the US immigration law that lets illegal immigrants to get legalized if that's the case.

Edit: or a victim of a crime. There was an investigative news story about this topic, in a la or a sf news paper about a month or so. I am searching for it.

sganeshon Ask HN: GMail Username Issue

FYI: I created my gmail account on 8/28/04. And the other one I started receiving it on 11/13/04.

sganeshon Ask HN: GMail Username Issue

Thank you for the advice. I have not logged into any of his accounts, but definitely have to reply to some of the "marriage proposals" he received, from another account saying that is not the right address.I'm in the US and I'm very sure he is in India. (All the banks, job sites, mortgage quotes, ecards, marriage proposals, friends sending stupid jokes are all from India.)

sganeshon Ask HN: GMail Username Issue

I registered 'sai.ganesh@gmail.com' when GMail was in the invite stages. And a few months later, I started noticing these other emails that are being sent to 'saiganesh@gmail.com'. I ignored those, and slowly over time, all my Google stuff have been associated with this email address, and I'm getting password reset emails, almost every week lately :( Hence, this request.

sganeshon Ask HN: GMail Username Issue

Thank you. Been There. Done That.

sganeshon Ask HN: GMail Username Issue

This exactly is the issue I'm running into. I am getting emails for 'joenone@gmail.com' sent to my inbox. I have that person's bank details, most usernames and passwords, and his attempts to reset the password on the account. When I registered, I got the "joe.none@gmail.com" email address. And everyone (including the GMail forum as someone else mentioned) seems to point to this link, saying GMail does do that. That I understand. But I need those emails to the other person to stop. I have personally replied to lot of people saying they have reached someone else. And it's been annoying. That's why I'm asking for help, posting here on HN, if i can reach one of those GMail folks, lurking here.

sganeshon Ask HN: moving to Thailand for 2-6 months, any advices? Anyone join me?

I have traveled extensively in Thailand. The one city I love & keep going back is Chiang Mai. It has great coffee shops with free WiFi, an excellent ex pat community, plenty of colleges and friendly folks . I would book your stay at Spicy Thai Backpackers Hostel. The owner Pong is pretty cool, plus it's in a quiet neighborhood. He can also help you find long time rentals. Hope this helps.

sganeshon Ask HN: What are you reading right now?

Being Geek Managing Humans The Design of design Linchpin Switch Drive

sganeshon Ask HN: What are you working on today?

Customizing Fogbugz. Surfing Hacker News. Setting up my new Android Phone.

sganeshon Ask HN: Learnings from Dale Carnegie, "How To Win Friends And Influence People"

I personally visualize & associate them and use them as much as i can:) I believe smiling is the single most important thing of the list.

Here are the first nine principles with Number - Keyword - Visualization Technique :)

#1 Don't criticize, condemn or complain : One - RUN- A horse in a race crossing the finish line with THREE GOLDEN BOOTS on top it, with "C" imprinted.

#2 Give honest, sincere appreciation : Two - ZOO - You're vising a zoo and standing buy a monkey cage. You throw a banana at the monkey and monkey throws back a bouquet of ROSES.

#3 Arouse in the other person an eager want : Three - TREE- You're in front of the Rockefeller Christmas tree. All of a sudden, the tree falls to the ground and there is a WANTED poster with your picture on top of it.

#4 Become genuinely interested in other people : Four - DOOR - You're walking out of a grand hotel, through their revolving door, when the door gets stuck in a stack of 25% INTEREST bearing treasury notes :)

#5 Smile : Five - HIVE - You're out hiking and come across this huge cave, with a gigantic bee hive on it, with bees buzzing around it. Out that bee hive, sticks out a big yellow SMILEY face.

#6 Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language : Six - SICK- You're sick and are admitted to the hospital. The nurse brings the syringe and it is about 10 feet tall with a 3 feet needle attached to it. Out of the needle a NAME PLATE is dripping out.

#7 Be a good listener : Seven - HEAVEN - You look up and see something coming down. It's a flight of stairs. Tumbling down the stairs, is a pair of old HEAD PHONES, that are huge.

#8 Talk in terms of the other person's interests : Eight - GATE - You're about to cross a railway gate. The bells start ringing and the gate comes down on the bonnet with a thud. Attached to the gate is a MICROPHONE.

#9 Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely: Nine - WINE - You're dining in an upscale restaurant. The waiter brings you a big bottle of wine on which is it is imprinted "IMPORTED".

Hope it helps.

sganeshon Ask HN: We're still developing - A competitor has launched - what to do?

Things learned from building a best of class enterprise product and trying to beat out the competitors. We were the last entrant in the market.

(i) List all completed features. - Guarantee these will work now & compare & contrast with your current competitors. Preferably give them a testing environment after the demo.

(ii) List all features currently being developed. - Estimate when they will become available. Make sure you fudge enough, so that you don't shoot yourself in the foot.Share this road map during the sales cycle.

(iii) Request your clients for any features that are important to their business, that you have overlooked.

(iv) Make a list all future features including the ones from the above list - Request your clients to prioritize these and give them a date by which you'll have the estimates done and have built a product roadmap. Share the roadmap.

(v) Be in constant communication with the clients. Keep them aware of any changes that is happening to the roadmap.

With all this we got beaten up on pricing as the clients were comparing apples to oranges.

So we hired sales people with expensive hobbies, and watched them work the magic.

sganeshon How to Stay Stressed

One more thing to add to the list :)

Don’t take advice from others, make mistakes on your own.

sganeshon Ask HN: Where did you go to college?

Bangalore University.