andrewheins's comments

andrewheins | 10 years ago | on: How Esquire magazine is mining its archives

If you thought this was cool, the new Esquire Classic just launched (http://classic.esquire.com/), and Nieman wrote a new, more current article on it (http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/09/how-esquire-built-esquire-c...).

Disclosure: Helped work on the new Classic site. (http://cantilever.co/)

andrewheins | 12 years ago | on: Apple goes Flat

This article was doomed the moment it was conceived. You cannot recreate art or art assets based on an oral description.

Of course the markup looks awful, you can't describe the Mona Lisa over the phone to your editor as "a portrait of a woman with long brown hair, sort of smiling" and capture anything worth telling. Nor can you describe the new iOS7 icons as "kinda the same, with duller colours and flat design".

Don't waste your time.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now

I think we've all recognized the lack of context this actually provides. Something for a scientist's history books could mean jack to the general public.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now

This kind of thing happens often, where you've got "news", but can't disclose until it's final.

In these situations it can be helpful to use some kind of scale or domain reference.

"We've got some pretty exciting news coming up, and we think it could change the world"

vs

"We've got some pretty exciting news coming up, that should really fire up geologists"

vs

"We've got some pretty exciting news coming up, that gets us closer to understanding the history of Mars"

Set a level of expectation.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: Your Rate - A better way to calculate your hourly freelance rate

Nice. I created this exact same calculator in the spreadsheet I'm using for my freelancing. It's kind of amusing how few knobs there are to twiddle for freelancing.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: Please Don't Kill Feedburner

Wow, they tried to jack everything about The Oatmeal's style, but did a poor job of it.

Love feedburner, but you have to wonder why they couldn't be themselves.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: Things I've quit doing at my desk

Actually, I have opposite preferences, so I can't really help, but I don't enjoy drinking water that isn't cold. I wind up having four or five water bottles that I cycle through refrigerating/drinking/refilling. It's kind of annoying.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: How do you sell yourself as a new freelancer to clients?

Instead of conjecture, here's how I got started as a freelance dev, starting 6 months ago.

You need a decent portfolio site

Design and build in in WordPress or something similar. Prove your design chops here by having a well-design, functional, and more importantly clear message to potential customers. You want to let your customers have confidence. It doesn't have to be amazing. Mine certainly isn't. http://andrewheins.ca/

Your first job might be among your social circle

Mine was the Tae Kwon Do dojo I attended. They were paying WAY too much for hosting, so they let me make a site and change their hosting. They now pay 1/10th the hosting costs. Demo that site on your portfolio.

Next, you start bidding for work

FreelanceSwitch.com was the place that landed me the most work, but Craigslist and the bevy of other sites work well too. The ability to communicate clearly with your potential clients and bid within a reasonable range are key here.

Build your portfolio on low-end jobs

You will low-ball at first. That's ok. Raise your rates after each job. Quote by project, not by hour.

Find other freelancers with complementary skills

Being a dev, I latched on to a few designers who didn't want to have to code all their work. They can offer full solutions, I get paid. It's a great relationship.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: Voyager 1 this close to leaving solar system

Apparently not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_shock#Bow_shock_theory_for_...

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: New gTLD Applied-For Strings

See, that's really interesting. I wonder if that's been patched since then.

It just seems weird to have a tld absent a host.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: New gTLD Applied-For Strings

And thus my question about a conventional default. It just seems to me that buying the gTLD will leave users fairly confused.

If you want to access Apple (generically), users will still go to apple.com because even if they know that there's a .apple domain, what's the root host?

My best guess is a conventional default emerges shortly.

andrewheins | 13 years ago | on: New gTLD Applied-For Strings

Is there a default domain for these tlds? Let's take .home for example. How will this work when typing it into a browser?

If you have my.home, it makes sense. If you type www.home, it really looks ugly, but I guess it works, and we've spent the past few years moving away from including "www" as a whole.

Typing "com" into my url bar doesn't get me anywhere, so I'm assuming typing "home" won't either. If I bought "apple", is there going to be a conventional or canonical "default"? home.apple?

I really find this confusing.

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: Joshfire does for connected things what Wordpress did for the web

A site for cross device apps where you can't access the navigation on a screen smaller than 1280.

Another example of a potentially great technology that loses credibility at a critical juncture due to execution details.

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: Codename: Obtvse

Explain to me how this is substantially different than a musician writing a piece of music, someone else taking the sheet music and going on tour with it.

By supporting Obtvse, you're stating that a composer's work (the act of creating beautiful music) has no value.

I honestly don't understand how someone can say that stealing a design is fine but code isn't.

I'm extremely disappointed with the reaction of the HN community on this, and even more concerned about how designers will look at our community moving forward. Why would any designer participate if they know the community believes their work has no value?

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today

I love his type of content publishing. It works the same way as the Humble Bundles.

If you give something away for free, I'll take it for free.

If you give me the option to pay $0, and give me a reasonable suggested price(this book), I'll pay the suggested price.

If you give me the option to pay $0, show me what others are paying(humble bundle), I'll pay the median.

If you give me the option to pay $0, and give me "bonuses" at certain price breaks (kickstarter, humble bundle), I'll pay at the most attractive price break.

It actually makes a ton of sense to adopt these kind of pricing structures because people actually pay!

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: Show HN: Github for Designers

I'm trying to come up with something more interesting to say than "Wow". I've wished I had this a few times.

I think the only thing that you lose here is access to an actual "diff", but visually, you get most of it.

Grats on a fantastic achievement.

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: VeriSign hit by hackers

"Oh my God," said Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and before that the top lawyer at the National Security Agency. "That could allow people to imitate almost any company on the Net."

Does anyone else feel this line is more suited to a Hollywood movie than a Reuters release?

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: Poll: Do you have a Facebook account?

I recently had to reactivate my long-dead account so I could develop apps on the Facebook platform. Otherwise, I prefer Twitter.

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: Windows to Mac to Windows to Mac to... Linux? It doesn't matter.

For a full-time developer, I agree with the OP insofar as Linux and Mac are largely interchangeable. I develop on Linux and love it.

The biggest exception is for anyone involved in graphics, front-end development, or often works with graphic designers. The lack of native installation of Photoshop and Illustrator wrecks it.

That's what largely spurred my decision to buy a Mac. There's only one OS that currently offers a Unix CLI with native Adobe Creative Suite installation. If Adobe ever offers native CS on Linux, I'll be Linux for life.

andrewheins | 14 years ago | on: Microsoft’s “Picture Password”: A Breath Of Fresh Air On The Lock Screen

It should be mentioned that this creates problems of its own. Toronto Police recently released their numbers, and 18% of the calls to 911 were pocket dials created by those "emergency call" buttons. We're talking hundreds of thousands of calls clogging 911 each year, each requiring the operator listen to the whole pocket dial, attempt to make contact, call back, and if no contact is possible, send a squad car to investigate.

What we've got isn't working.