tom_rath

I don't think there's any problem with third-parties putting together support forums, Q&A pages or the like. It's when they snatch the look-and-feel of a company's site to try and pass themselves off as an official part of that company (without permission!) which sends my alarm bells ringing.

Is that really Get Satisfaction's doing, or was it a 37signals fanboy who put that together without permission?

Snagging the look-and-feel (graphics, colours, etc.) of a target's site is particularly sleazy and it seems very odd if Get Satisfaction has chosen to go that route for their business.

Unless Get Satisfaction provides a prominent "request this forum be deleted" link, and actually removes a forum on request, I wouldn't touch these guys with the proverbial 10' pole if site mimicking has become their standard practice.

So, the village decided to use the tools and expertise already at their disposal to perform (at their own expense) a task they wanted to see completed in their community.

What's the problem with that? Why did these people prefer to wait and have The Government to solve the problem for them by having other people work and pay for it?

There are times when one requires federal assistance, and I don't think this (freeing dolphins whose disposition to hang about and get trapped in ice will now be passed to another generation) was one of them.

I think the author is attempting to take the analogy a bit too far.

If "computer wizards" and "programming rock stars" faced the same measure, I would expect them to teleport to their groupie-filled release-parties.

...which likely explains the vendor's 'no' to a dll distribution as well.

Crappy to have happen to the author, but I can understand the vendor's decision in this particular risk/reward choice.

Was the vendor's concern that a customer of yours could just pull your royalty-free license out of your uncompiled source and then gain access to their product without paying for a license? So, you would be distributing their registration key for free use with every purchase?

That sounds like a legitimate concern. If someone was distributing a valid registration key and fully-functioning application for one of our products (in exchange for a single royalty-free license), I'd give a blanket 'no' too.

Currently Google Adwords (Google Search only) and Microsoft's Live.com. Those two are the only options I've found worth bothering with for B2B software at this time.

We tried Yahoo: It's a complete waste of time and money. Ads were always edited by Yahoo staff (requiring frequent e-mails to clarify the service we were paying for), bids may be changed at random, the interface is a nightmare kludge and there is no way to opt out of Yahoo's 'partner network' (which seems to consist only of spam domain landing pages), so bidding a keyword to the top of the Yahoo search results guarantees a load of expensive visitors from click-farms. I would love to advertise on Yahoo's search result pages and will do so the moment Yahoo Search Marketing is taken over by a competently run organization (Go Microsoft!).

We tried Ask.com: You'll receive a tremendous number of visitors on your first day, all from spam domain landing pages. There is no way to specify "place my ads on Ask.com search results only" (which I'd genuinely like to do), so money given directly to them is wasted. Crazily enough, you can cancel your Ask.com advertising and opt into using Google's "Search Network" instead. That will put your ads on Ask's search results without having to deal with Ask.

Atwood is starting to become Emmanuel Goldstein around here.

Am I in time for today's Two Minute Hate?

They've missed my favourite: Tagging groceries for automated billing.

I'm going to love walking out of a store without needing to wait in line for a cashier first.

Only as far as the carpenter's is knowing where the nail goes.

Both cases describe a person who has not learned how to properly use the most basic tool for their profession.

How could that be excused?

I believe that corresponds with comfortable familiarity with and proper use of one's tools.

I view a non-touch-typing hacker/coder much like a carpenter who drives nails using a hammer's handle. (The inevitable reaction from both camps: Hey, what's your problem? I'm using my tools to get the job done!)

Eleven months from empty text editor to 'ramen profitability'. Only one product was developed but about four others were considered before I focused on a clearly defined market filled with customers who were willing to pay for software.

The position I started from was zero debt and about two years of comfortable living expenses saved. That turned out to be essential.

Contract work was offered and was very tempting to accept, but I knew if I took it I'd find it difficult to focus on product development -- so I passed it up. Once you have a steady income (whether from a salaried job or from contracts), it's very difficult to go back to working for zero dollars per hour and an unproven idea you think might work one day.

Yeah, probably. But while you're slogging through it remember this: It will get better.

"The Greatest Generation" emerged from the Depression, the dot.com boom followed the Gen-X "McJob" years and the "something-something" will follow whatever we end up calling this mess.

Ask any unlucky sod who finished school just in time for the last nasty recession and they may tell you how unbelievably bleak and hopeless things felt while they took any odd job they could find just to pay rent and eat (my own situation, fwiw). Still, they were able to enjoy the magical tech boom just a few years later and, during that boom, it was hard to believe there was ever a time of job and capital scarcity.

The economy is cyclical, fortunes rise and fall, and you have to work with the hand you've been dealt. Times will be tough (for some, even worse than you're picturing) but things will get better and the good times will return.

Then, when they do, remember that it'll crater again some day and prepare accordingly, because almost everyone else will have forgotten.

I went through similar crap when re-installing QuickBooks after a PC-Upgrade / Windows install.

The registration key wasn't accepted by their server (different hardware) and I was instructed to call their support line. After a brief time on hold, I was then subjected to about 10 minutes of up-selling and scripted 'intelligence gathering' ("[customer name] what is it your company does [customer name]?", "[customer name] what is your annual revenue?" "[customer name] we appreciate your business and would like to offer you [some crap-assed product] at a discount.")

After declining to answer all questions and (politely -- mentioning to the call centre staffer that I knew it wasn't their fault) asking for them to just give me the damn validation code for installation, I was then allowed to use the software I paid for.

It would have been easier to pirate the product, which is what I made clear to them in my (ignored) letter of complaint.

Idiocy.

I paid around $150 for Jasc's Paint Shop over five years ago. It gave me 90% of the features of Photoshop at around 15% of the price.

It's worked fine from day one through to today and I've not had to torture myself with mysterious config file adjustments every time I upgrade my o/s.

The hassle saved has been worth every penny.

Personally, I'd prefer someone not be 'with it' whilst poking about my guts. Of the skills I'd be seeking in a surgeon, multi-tasking tweet-master is not among them.

Aren't brief audio-notes (or a full video) enough reference for composing a detailed account of the operation after-the-fact?

Checking the root http://www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca/ they're currently doing maintenance on their web site this morning. It looks like I could have chosen a more opportune time to submit this!

If you're Canadian and looking to build a Start-up, you may find this seminar helpful (it's not just in Toronto and Vancouver -- they're doing a road-show in different parts of the country). If this crawls off the HN front page (which it probably will before the site returns from maintenance), you may want to bookmark the page and check back later.

Wait a second... Cringely is concerned about Microsoft screwing up Yahoo?

Yahoo. The company which has been incapable of implementing business-friendly search advertising after more than a decade of trying? _That_ Yahoo?!?

Heck, if Yahoo's Sponsored Search provided the same limited functionality Microsoft Live delivers today, we'd be happy to shovel buckets of advertising dollars their way. Yahoo is definitely not the zombie one would want in charge of that business partnership.

Getting equity is pretty spiffy. It also implies you're taking on risk to receive it.

Would you be willing to forfeit your salary for a few months if things didn't work out and revenue dried up, or are you only interested in an arrangement that rewards you with ownership and a guaranteed salary regardless of performance?

Add an 'exclude weekends' option for reports on a given date range.

Whatever the merits of that article, the ridiculous multi-page presentation makes it unreadable.

The Dam Busters (1955 - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046889/ ) is excellent. You can see real-world examples of the hacker problem-solving mindset right from the start of the movie and it continues on throughout.

(PC Warning: One of the main characters has an unfortunately named black dog, which I suspect is the reason this superb film is only rarely seen).

If what you love is building finance-directed B2B desktop apps then, yeah, you're golden.

I think the key is directing your passion in a broad enough way that you can satisfy an unaddressed market demand. If you love building challenging software, there are many ways you can pragmatically apply that passion if you cast your net wide enough.

On the other hand, if you love building socially directed news-ranking sites with clickable arrows, your options will be somewhat limited.

...but it wasn't pessimism, the post was addressing motivation.

One gains money as a side-effect of being successful at something in demand. You don't become successful by becoming a millionaire.

If becoming a millionaire is the goal of your software startup, you're facing some pretty big problems right off.

Sorry snowflake, the world doesn't work that way. You'd think the inability of any of you to find a single real-world example of an entrepreneur working on someone else's payroll would confirm that reality for you, but I see you choose to cling to a dream-world instead.

You're an entrepreneur or you're an employee. You cannot mix the two, and if you find the pills to start a business yourself you'll understand why.

Well, gee, if it's so awesome to empower one's staff to start their own business while working on your payroll, I'd expect employers of software developers would be trumpeting their fine examples from the hills to attract the best staff possible!

Why the silence? Because starting a business while working full-time for another employer does not work, and any person who has started their own software development company would understand why.

Good use of someone else's life-affirming stick-figure profanity! As The Man in this case, I feel totally stuck to, dude.

I'm still waiting to read of even a single example of a full-time employee who is working on (not preparing for) a business of their own while collecting a full-time salary. If it's such an awesome thing, there must be dozens of examples to choose from, right?

Why the silence? Because that employment arrangement does not work, and any person running their own full-time business would know why.

Working as a contractor while getting your business up and running? Great! That'll work fine.

Working as a full-time employee while starting a business? Doesn't work.

If you walk the talk and start your own company, you'll understand why you wouldn't want to be paying a person out of your own pocket while they're going through that process.

Find me five examples of where it has worked. Can't be hard if it's true.

Cute idea, but it sounds like a nasty way of introducing non-native microbes and insects to new places and would likely do far more long-term harm than good.