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>>Why stage? Git’s flexible: if a, b and c are changed, you can commit them separately or together

This is the saver I would say. More often than not it so happens that once I am done with an implementation/issue, I get carried away (I am working on fixing this habit) and continue writing code in order to get as much out of me as possible and then suddenly realize that one of the earlier fixes should already be in the repository. Thats when git staging comes into picture.

uast23on The one slide your startup should never have in its deck.

The advice is more apt for B2C services where the users don't care about the features - for example I don't care if Grooveshark lets me write a 140 character review for an album or not as long as it lets me listen to my playlist; but for B2B, features are the core, aren't they! - for example if there are two invoicing solutions, one which supports time tracking and one which doesn't, I will definitely go for the former.

uast23on Why I Want Google Offers And The Entire Daily Deals Business To Die

>Bad for business

Bad for those who were already profitable and could not make much out of the deals. Not for those who were alienated in some part of the city and got the kick-start just because of deals.

>Bad advice

While the link posted by author http://blog.agrawals.org/2011/06/06/best-practices-for-busin... gives some great advice, the allegation on Google asking the merchants to tell their customers about 'Google offer' more and more does sound true.How does the advice for posting lots and lots of photos and a blog post relate to telling your existing customers about 'Google offers'!

uast23on [dead]

>content is user generated

This is the biggest excuse. Thats how everyone escapes, isn't it? Even funnyjunk does that with oatmeal and claims that it's user generated content http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/funnyjunk-vs...

uast23on Prediction: Facebook Will Surpass Google In Advertising Revenues

Oh.. I tried to predict that almost an year back :P http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1474763

uast23on [dead]

This totally reminds me of a recent incident where someone suggested me to file for patents just because I am not getting success with the products/business I am building/trying to build. I did not get the point!

However I have to admit that I find it difficult to totally deny the existence of patents when I think about it from a specific angle such as "stackoverflow vs scrapers". What if stackoverflow had filed for a patent years back!!

EDIT: oh yes I am aware that content protection is a copyright issue and has nothing to do with patent. And thats why I said "thinking from a specific angle"; which means that it is not the exact analogy, it's just a picture how it might happen in the patent ground. And I am not trying to defend SW patents because they do not make sense, I am just bringing up the point that due credit should be given to original author and if he wants to patent it, it should be respected.

uast23on The reverse brain drain

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/world/asia/07iht-letter07....

This article is an apt read here; but in a little different context. The article talks about Indians fighting against real India which is undeniable, but the flip side is that this is the same fight which is enabling people in India to work the way they want. Sans the economic liberation, if development was left in the hand of Govt. (a job well done in China), we would not be seeing this spur. If that little percentage of Indians were not fighting against the real India to create their own work, India would not be where it is today. I am not trying to claim any top spot and I know that almost nothing has been done till now, but the improvements cannot be ignored. Talk about the IT companies; irrespective of the quality of work they do, they have definitely achieved something (USD6-10 billion in revenue) which looked impossible few years back, and when you see them operating you will find that they have hardly anything to do with the Govt. support, they manage their infra from tip to toe and sometimes they contribute to the surrounding infra too.

uast23on Ask HN: If you think ideas are not worth a dime then post yours here

Tailoring it for a niche segment sounds like a feasible solution, or else it's a redo, isnt't it?

1. invoice - freshbooks, curdbee 2. online interviews - interviewstreet 3. video for webapps - can't recall the names, but I got more than 5 proposals for creating a demo for my site theaterex.com

I understand that everything has a room for improvement, but the ground breaking ideas have far more value than we see

uast23on Ask HN: If you think ideas are not worth a dime then post yours here

>>Calculate which mobile subscription on the market would be cheaper based on your mobile activity of previous months

Is there a way to do that? From what you are saying it is like tracking the number of incoming and outgoing calls and keeping track of the bill. Wouldn't that be a privacy issue, and also do the service providers agree to provide such data ?

>>Offer a service like square with the distinction that once a cent is converted to a online cent

I like the idea, but what do you mean by online cent? Square takes the payment by credit card, so it goes directly to merchant account. Isn't it? So where does it get converted to online cent? Correct me if I am wrong! This can be compared better to paypal; that is where the money gets converted to online cent.

uast23on Ask HN: If you think ideas are not worth a dime then post yours here

>>You seem to believe that people don't value ideas enough and therefore are testing them.

Kind of. While I am a programmer myself and agree with the fact that ideas might have little value compared to execution; this is more of a case where the person with idea does not know how to execute it. If the person is executioner himself, then I think that ideas are equally important.

uast23on A Year After Diaspora Another “Facebook Alternative” Emerges

The world does not seem to be getting over the "Facebook alternative" syndrome soon. Or in other words I should say that Facebook is being seriously underestimated.

While it's absolutely right to try and build a better social network; calling it a Facebook alternative is wrong. It's like calling Greplin and DuckDuckGo an alternative to Google. Facebook has done way more than any other social network till date. Don't we know about the Warner Bros. deal and didn't we read the article about spotify+facebook on HN yesterday!! And what an amazing achievement it has called as Facebook comments. No one has been able to find a spot in as many major blogs and websites as Facebook comments has (and Disqus). Not to deride anyone's effort, but it takes time to build a Facebook, and replacing it ain't easy. I believe Internet is big enough to accommodate more than one Facebook and its types.

EDIT: A little story. I live in India and it's known to everyone that most of the marriages here are still arranged. One of my friends was getting arranged recently and her mother wanted to see the picture of groom; and out of nowhere she said "why don't we check it on Facebook". I am pretty sure she has never used Internet before and probably never going to use it, but she knows what purpose Facebook can solve. I say that is a huge impact for any website.

uast23on Mozilla Labs: The Location Bar Has To Go

I wonder why no one is considering auto-hide mode! That sounds like the most feasible option.

uast23on Miro 4, the open source music and video player, is released

Oh I just read the heading 'iTunes replacement', installed it and plugged in my iPhone to see how it behaves; and ta-da nothing happens! My mistake that I did not read the features, but whatever, why do we want to call it an iTunes replacement when it can't even sync

uast23on Glossy vs matte screens: why the PC industry’s out of touch

Oh I get it. You meant the screen/cover which goes till the edges, as in MBP. Yeah, compared to that, matte sounds more touchable.

uast23on G8 agenda calls for "civilized Internet": monitored, governed, controlled, taxed

Every time such thoughts come up, I am reminded of how difficult it is to bring the world to a consensus. Easier said than done, it's pretty comfortable putting a regulation on paper but bringing it to practice can take a toll. Internet regulation does not stop at content policing and stopping malicious activities, it rather extends to creating difficulties in doing online business globally and taking a toll on innovation. China is regulated; how many websites coming to China from outside do a successful business there (enlighten me)! I really doubt if all the members would agree for such pact at the cost of business and innovation; unless there is a pressure from corporates (anon attack on master and visa).

uast23on Glossy vs matte screens: why the PC industry’s out of touch

I did not understand seriously what kind of robustness you are talking about? Do glossy screens last longer than the matte ones? At least from the look of it, matte looks less fragile compared to glossy, although I am not sure if either of them is less fragile than other. Looking at matte is much easier to eyes. And as far as cleaning goes, cleaning the glossy one with towel will leave scratch everywhere! Isn't it?

uast23on Glossy vs matte screens: why the PC industry’s out of touch

Isn't laptop a PC? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer

uast23on A year on: Flash still not on the iPad, and that's still a good decision

=>"A few minutes later I suggested that my co-worker buy his mom a netbook."

Since it was for a mom, it had to be Windows but if it's not windows, I would seriously want to defer the idea of buying even a netbook. It's not just the mobile devices and OS. It extends even further. Adobe could probably give genuine reasons for bad flash on Apple devices (they say Apple did not co-operate enough) but what stops them from making it better on Linux. There is no bigger pain than running flash on ubuntu. I run ubuntu 11.04 and my laptop turns off itself within 2 hours of running flash.

uast23on How to Email Busy People

How do you pitch someone while seeking a job/project in 5-6 lines of email? Especially when you are going in as a team rather than sending individual resumes!

uast23on Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (May 2011)

Could not find your email :|

uast23on Why there are so many engineers in India

I meant independent India :)

uast23on Why there are so many engineers in India

The moment I read excerpts from "surely you're joking mr feynman" about Brazil, I thought someone had done a major typo and put Brazil in place of India, because that is how students are taught here; sad part is that Mr Feynman was referring to Brazil of 70's and 80's (correct me if wrong) and I am referring to India of 2011. I assume that Brazil is doing much better now (?). The Indian education is more about serving (read ITES) than leading.

The article is indeed right but it misses few points. Given the fact that India is just 60+ years old, the dreams that Indians see is lot different from the ones being seen in west. People in India still struggle with the basic lifestyle, which includes a car, a house, broadband, smartphones, 3g, air-conditioning (yes I think all of these are part of basic lifestyle). You don't find furnished homes in India very often. Once you are in, you have to manage everything (bed, refrigerator, laundry and what not). When you are asked to survive in one of the hottest part of the world and you cannot afford an AC, doing work is nightmare. So for an Indian guy right out of college, there are a lot of questions unanswered. I don't think this is the case in west, is it? (I stayed in London for an year and everything was there right from the first day). So it's a little unreal to expect everyone to jump into doing a startup or becoming famous.

But yeah, above all the best part is that situation is changing very fast, lots and lots of Indians are taking the unconventional path, trying to make sure that future holds something good.

uast23on Visual Website Optimizer featured in India's national newspaper

This is a very recent development among media housed in India; they have suddenly started realizing that people here are actually earning money by doing a "valid" business on Internet. You can also find lot of bloggers being covered by national newspapers very frequently. I say, this is a very good move because more than anything else it will help in reducing the tabooness of leaving a secure job for doing a startup.

uast23on Review our app. Qwiki like movie information search - theaterex (2nd iteration)

We added the little twitter buzz block followed by someone's advice that we cannot call it an information experience without including twitter !!

uast23on Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (May 2011)

email delivery fails !!! ?

uast23on Ask HN: Can you recommend some directories to list your app?

How about these - http://appuseful.com http://netwebapp.com http://www.feedmyapp.com http://www.webdevtwopointzero.com http://listio.com

uast23on New age movie information experience - Theaterex

We just rolled out our new app - theaterex for searching movie information on Web. It's hosted on Amazon free tier instance and we hope that the instance burns out soon due to high traffic :).

Seeking HN feedback

uast23on Amazon crash reveals 'cloud' computing actually based on data centers

Everything was always a cloud, isn't it!! It's just that now it has become more prominent. Otherwise, except the ease of deployment and maintenance how is the current 'cloud based' setup different from the older 'non-cloud' based setups. For an end user the content always used to come from an unknown place which you can call a cloud or a server based on your whims and it still comes from the same unknown place 'The Cloud'. And for the vulnerabilities, it doesn't care what the weight of the host is. Even a personal hosting setup is equally susceptible.

uast23on Announcing the Founder's Library

Indeed better than tagging. Those who know the 'stuff' might not agree but the 'step by step' is always better for novices (read me). And not to mention, 'step by step' will be a useful keyword for SEO.

uast23on Physical Media Has To Go. I'm Digital Only From Here.

Everything else was/is indeed destined to move to its digital form sooner or later no matter how much the physical good producer regrets it; but you cannot take it away from physical books. Ebooks are handy. They are portable, safe from wear and tear, cheap and what not. But what about those moments when you really need to take your eyes away off the screen but still want to be productive or have some quality time reading. This might be just a personal POV, but over the time looking at screen becomes so usual that you need an extra physical thing to get that kick. In my case it's physical books.