zachwaugh's comments

We're not using a framework. The app itself is a standard Cocoa/Objective-C app, just using a mix of web views and native views for rendering the content of individual screens.

I created this before I ever heard about the playing cards of the same name, and actually meant to change the name (check out the last line of the readme - https://github.com/zachwaugh/Helveticards/blob/master/readme...).

Happy to change the name though, this was just a quick, weekend hack about two years ago.

Kind of surprised to find this on here today. I made it about two years ago as a quick hack, and haven't touched it since. I used unicode glyphs because I didn't see any benefit of recreating those in CSS. Was planning on adding the backsides so you could flip them over, but never got around to it.

Pleasantly surprised that it worked perfectly on my iPad with touch and dragging. I always read HN on my iPad and so many sites, especially anything keyboard driven, become useless.

This is pretty much exactly what Wordoid does with the bonus of telling you if the domain is available - http://wordoid.com/.

Just been going through this process myself. I usually use Fireworks, but wanted to learn Photoshop since there are so many more resources available. Here's some that I've found helpful:

- http://365psd.com/ and http://designmoo.com/ - Both have free, high-quality (for the most part) PSD's you can download. Sometimes for me the most helpful thing is just seeing how someone else constructed something. How many layers they used, which layer styles created a certain effect, etc.

- http://methodandcraft.com/ - Just recently launched, but already has some nice videos I've learned a lot from.

- http://photoshopetiquette.com/ - A bunch of quick tips

- http://bjango.com/articles/ - All the design articles are great

- http://designthencode.com/ - Can't vouch for this personally as I haven't gone through it myself, but looks like a really great and detailed guide.

That's probably a good rough estimate. I did some of my own back of the envelope calculations along those lines and figured out a site like Daring Fireball is probably making around $5,700/month from the Deck, which is less than I would have thought. I'd love to get some first-hand info though.

For the mobile, I would most likely want to use the same network for consistency. And the main reason I want to use one of these networks is because the ads are high quality and relevant. I'm less worried about maximizing revenue, and more concerned with the ads being helpful and unobtrusive.

Thanks again for the tips. I haven't done much with advertising, so it's definitely helpful to hear.

I don't know how they perform, but I assume their successful because companies keep advertising there. I don't mind these particular ads because they're high quality, not obnoxious, and relevant to me. I never click through ads on most sites, but I actually do click through these because I'm interested in the product. It's ideal advertising to me.

Thanks for the info. I think you may be thinking of the wrong Deck though. I was referring to http://decknetwork.net/, which is a network that only shows only a single ad per site with a limited number of advertisers and publishers. For example, on Daring Fireball (http://daringfireball.net/). Fusion (http://fusionads.net/) does the same thing. I'm not sure how much that changes the numbers, but I believe it's a bit different from the typical ad network.

Go to college. Put all the education and career considerations aside for a moment. College was one of the best times of my life. Go have some great experiences, make friends, go to parties, travel, do crazy shit, and take time to think about the rest of your life and want you want it to be. After that, you'll be working until you retire, and that's something I wouldn't rush into. I've been out of college about 7 years, and never once I have thought, man, I wish I've been working full-time longer. Plus, I made some of my best friends and met my wife while I was in college.

You have no idea in what direction your career will take you, so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to plan for the "long run". A lot of my friends switched careers or went back to school at some point in their 20s. Many people are now making a living off creating iPhone apps, and the iPhone didn't even exist 4 years ago, so there is no way to plan for everything.

Well, I never said that Google was responsible for the design of the remotes or hardware in the post, that's clearly on Sony and Logitech. But Google did design the interface that requires a keyboard and mouse to operate, so they have some of the blame. You can bet that in the unlikely event Apple had a product where other companies designed the hardware for their software, they'd have some pretty detailed specs to make sure stuff like those remotes didn't happen.

I agree, and that is my point actually, the remotes were just an example. But the remotes reflect how they approached the whole problem. Google went with the assumption search was necessary, and had to find a way to fit it in. Apple thought about the entire experience, and realized people don't want to search on their TV and left it out.

If by rock star, you mean someone that parties all night, comes in late and hungover, has weird contractual demands, and trashes hotel rooms on business trips, then yes, I guess I'm a rock star. When do I start?

I keep everything in Notational Velocity stored in plain text files, which I keep in sync between multiple computers with Dropbox. It also syncs with SimpleNote so I can view/update it from my iPhone or iPad or from the web. Simple, and I can access it from anywhere.

Within the text file, I usually group ideas by type and mark it with a '*' if I implement it, and a 'X' if I decide it's not a good idea/it's already been done/I've lost interest in it. Has worked well for me.

Typically, about 25 days after the end of the month in my experience. For reference, I got paid on 6/23/10 for May, 5/26/10 for April, and 4/28/10 for March.

I like the idea, but I think the main issue is design. It's pretty hard to figure out what's going on, and the interface is inconsistent. Example, on a user's page, each link they posted isn't in the same position, they're staggered down the page. That makes it difficult to scan someone's posts to find something interesting. I would say if the posts are going to have images, make sure they're all the same size, or maybe have them float right so all the link titles are aligned left. In the same vein, each user has a different size/shape avatar, they should all be, say 48x48 square for example. There's a lot of those little details throughout the site that doesn't make for a great user experience.

Also, I think you need to switch the focus to reading, as others mentioned. Interesting content is what's going to get people coming back. So the front page should show the most popular links instead of people. I actually think this page (http://www.howl.com/explore/all) should be the home page. I think that would make a much more compelling first experience, and you should be able to get there without needing to sign up. It's simple and you instantly get a feeling for what the site is.

I like the idea. As a developer, it's certainly a more tempting business model than worrying about selling ads. The only web app I know of that does this is pinboard.in. They charge a one-time signup fee, and that fee slowly increases as the amount of users increase, so the earlier you sign up, the cheaper it is (http://pinboard.in/signup/). I don't know if it's sustainable in the long term though.

a) 2 (Meter Maid and QuickPic) b) both paid c) zero marketing d) small (~$5k/year)

I wrote a post with some more detailed stats on Meter Maid sales: http://blog.zachwaugh.com/post/558531800/metermaid-sales-sta...

The only advantage Posterous has is built-in comments. Yes, you can use Disqus on Tumblr, but it's a bit of hack, and Disqus has it's own issues. Regardless of your opinion about comments, it should at least be an option for a blog.

But here is where Tumblr wins, you can't include any JavaScript in your Posterous theme (http://posterous.com/theming/porting). So if they don't support a feature you want (like comments or TypeKit), you can't add it on your own like you can with Tumblr.