ddrager's comments

ddrager | 6 years ago | on: Please Add RSS Support to Your Site

Which analytics software uses this? We primarily use Google Analytics, the user agent from the web server log file isn't getting passed back to them.

ddrager | 6 years ago | on: Please Add RSS Support to Your Site

Having struggled with RSS in the past, I will give a few reasons of why I ended up removing RSS from my blog:

1. RSS traffic trickled down to almost nothing. Hardly anyone uses RSS any more as a daily reader^1.

2. Spammers were using my RSS feed to wholesale copy the content from my blog. Identical copies of my blog went up in several different locations, each with their own copy of ads from the scammers. Some of these blogs ranked higher than mine for certain search terms. Google would eventually catch on and remove them, but it was like playing whack a mole.

3. We did not make any money from the RSS feed. Even if we did find a way to monetize it (injecting ads into the feed, for example), see #1.

As a techie, yes yes yes I would like to have an RSS feed. But from a business standpoint, it doesn't make any sense these days.

^1: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=r...

ddrager | 6 years ago | on: A short soft skills course

This seems interesting, but without knowing what a course looks like, I won't sink $84 into it.

If the creator(s) are reading, I would suggest making the first chapter free. That would work better to get visitors to sign up & pay. For example, from what I can see there are 9 missions, so the first is free, pay to continue.

ddrager | 6 years ago | on: Android now forces apps to include proprietary code for push notifications

This has been coming for a while. We attempted to create a push-based notification system based on MQTT. It worked well, then the notifications started getting lost. Turns out, the receiver service was getting killed in the background. We found out the best way to get reliable notification was through Google's own GCM (which has now moved to Firebase Cloud Messaging.

We learned its incredibly difficult, if not impossible to build an app (with reliable notifications) that do not use Google services.

You can say its in an effort to maximize battery resources, which I totally understand, but by requiring a Google service (and now library) you are truly tied in to and reliant on their systems.

BTW, as others have pointed out, there are open source Firebase libraries (https://firebaseopensource.com/projects/firebase/firebase-an...)

ddrager | 8 years ago | on: Goodbye Uncanny Valley [video]

Had the opposite reaction. Went in not knowing, then when I saw Tarkin and Leia I was kind of thinking, wtf? They digitally rendered their faces? When I talked to friends afterwards they didn't notice it. This must be pushing some sort of mental limit of our brains - not everyone recognizes faces/cg the same as others.

ddrager | 12 years ago | on: I am burned out while still in learning phase

What I can tell you is that you are not alone. The startup/coding world, and even just the world in general can be very stressful. Many of us have gone through similar things as you.

It is important to figure out yourself first, and move on from there. You may sometimes try to handle everything internally and it is just impossible to do that all of the time. If you reach out to your friends and family I think they will be more supportive and understanding than you may think.

Feel free to reach out to me if you need someone to talk to - its my user @gmail.

ddrager | 12 years ago | on: VPS Disk Performance, Digital Ocean vs. Linode

All VPS systems suffer from the "noisy neighbor" problem. You may have been on a DigitalOcean system with a lot of neighbors with other high i/o activity, and on Linode you could have been on a server with no neighbors.

The only way to test this is to get a random sampling of servers (which in of itself may be difficult) and then re-do the testing.

That is to say, on a VPS you aren't the only customer using i/o.

ddrager | 12 years ago | on: Overstock.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoins

I used the Bitcoin client on my phone, after the transaction went through I clicked "Confirm transaction" and it has already accepted it. I'm guessing with smaller transactions they just assume it went through, otherwise they don't ship it within the hour you get the order, so they have some protection against doublespends.

ddrager | 12 years ago | on: Overstock.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoins

Just ordered a mini-helicopter on Overstock using Bitcoins. The checkout process was flawless. I used the Bitcoin client on my phone to send the amount by snapping a shot of the QR code on the website. Went right through, hit confirm, and the deal was done!

Couldn't have been an easier process and can't wait to get my helicopter.

ddrager | 12 years ago | on: DigitalOcean raises $3.2M Seed Round

- The SSDs are a main selling point

- Their website is easy to use and clear

- Access via a simple API

I've used them for some side projects - although they aren't feature-full for bigger ones, they are great to use.

ddrager | 13 years ago | on: Why was my email leaked?

What about the possibility that end-users' computers are breached?

- User/pass is saved in the 'Remembered password' area of browser (this is decodable by malware) - Email is screen-scraped by malware - Email is sniffed during login at a wifi hotspot (Password is encrypted, user/email may not be) - 3rd party apps that are linked to your dropbox account

I'm not saying that this wasn't caused by the database breach, but there are a TON of reasons that this could have happened. Some on Dropbox, some on the end users.

Don't expect your email address to stay private. That's what passwords are for.

ddrager | 13 years ago | on: Windows 8 (soon) available for download

I just purchased it, and it appears to be downloading now. Note that I had pre-applied for a reduced price offer since I had just purchased a new Windows 7 PC. The URL I used was through here: https://www.windowsupgradeoffer.com/en-US/MyOrder

It is currently downloading through a "Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant" program. This program took all of my information and charged my credit card, and is downloading the files as I write this. ETA 15 minutes total.

Screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/2t3T2M261P2a

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