linh's comments

linh | 13 years ago | on: Intel's 4-inch "Next Unit of Computing" to cost $400

Oh wow. This is funny. I know someone who spent 2-3 years developing the technology for his phd (it's pretty complex to get it right/good). Anyway, the fashion industry is a pretty conservative industry (weird huh?) so he has a hard time monetizing it even though it has a lot of potential.

linh | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: The build vs buy debate... should we hire a programmer?

Not really getting the concept but before you even consider hiring freelancer, a big question is, do you have the money to hire them? Do you know how to hire freelance developers? (Going on elance and hiring cheap developers will probably get you nowhere - I've been there). Do you also need to hire a designer and a front-end developer? Are you trying to build a team or just get the website built and be done with?

Either way, you'll need to do a realistic financial projection to see if you have the money to hire an agency or a freelancer. A good approach would be to write down all the features your website will have (hopefully not that many), draw up a simple information flow diagram, and wireframe the concept using something like balsamiq. After you get all of that done, talk to a couple of reputable agencies and see how much they'll do the work for so you have a general idea of how much it'll cost (but they usually ask for your budget first). If that doesn't work out, guesstimate how long each feature will take to complete. Multiply that by 4 and the hourly cost of the programmer (and designer and front-end engineer if you need them) and you should get a decent estimate of the cost.

linh | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: 99Designs vs Local Designers?

Can't really tell you how much an actual homepage might cost because there are too many factors. It is a one page website? Do you need front-end development with it? etc.

I do want to give you a word of caution, sometimes after paying 1,000 USD for a logo, you might not get exactly what you imagine or want. The best way to approach it is have a good idea of what you want or better yet know exactly what you want. For instance: I want a cute panda mascot that's chewing on bamboo would be much better than "we are a social networking website that wants a clean and minimalistic blue logo." The latter is so vague.

linh | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: 99Designs vs Local Designers?

You seem like you know what you want. =) Anyway from my experience 99designs is usually cheaper but the quality of work is subpar. If you are someone who is really picky about quality, originality, etc I would say away from them. That being said, a good designer will probably cost around 1,000 USD for a logo. That probably includes 3 original concepts and a few revisions (depends on the designer). As for the landing page...why not just use something like launchrock.com?

linh | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: The build vs buy debate... should we hire a programmer?

You should give us a little bit more detail on what this business is. Without knowing that how in the world can we tell you if it's worth it to pay a freelancer to do the work? For all we know, you can get it up going with a wordpress website.

Also, here is an alternative: Get a technical co-founder on board, but that's hard because everyone wants a technical co-founder.

linh | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: 99Designs vs Local Designers?

Would you mind giving us a bit more details? What kind of designs? Logo? Website? Poster? What is your budget? What do you want to accomplish?

You can find local designers through websites such as dribbble.com, behance.net, craigslist.com, and many more.

linh | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

Even if you limit the comment, it is still there on the side, which means you are still distracted. I would attack the problem from an UI and UX standpoint. I know there is a website or app (can't remember the name of the website) that shows the comment ON the video as the video plays, kinda like subtitles (you can turn it off). Nonetheless, it's still too distracting for me.

Here is an idea you can play with: wikipedia for videos. So sometimes after you watched a video, you want to know EVERYTHING about it, and usually the comment are crap for factual information about the video. What you can do with that technology is allow users to learn more about the video when he or she pauses or when the video ends. Lots of possibilities here =).

linh | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

Didn't apply to YC but interesting idea. I thought of the same idea but there was one fundamental problem I couldn't solve. That is, the text on the side is too distracting. I hope you can think of some ways to solve that problem!
page 1