Honest question: as a United States internet user, is there any practical reason I need to have a root certificate from the Chinese national Internet authority installed?
Corollary, is there a short list of CAs that folks around here trust more than average? Is there any value in such a whitelist, or are all CAs so rotten it doesn't much matter?
CloudFlare is probably not a good choice. They recently blocked access to a similar service, Lantern, per the linked WSJ article.
"CloudFlare, which offers content-delivery network services, said last week it cut off Lantern’s use of the service, saying it was unauthorized. “We don’t do anything to thwart the content restrictions in China or other countries,” said Matthew Prince, chief executive of CloudFlare. “We’re a tech company and we comply with the law.”"
How about: free users can track budgets for 1 person (themselves), and the data is stored locally. If they want to share it with several people for free, they can install it on the family tablet.
In the free version you could show ads, and then do an IAP to remove them forever (one time cost). You could skip ads if you wanted, but I would probably go ahead and put them in the free version.
You could then offer a companion service which syncs to "the cloud", allows sharing the budget between several people, and which requires a monthly subscription (sold through your website).
This segments nicely: young people with no cash get it free, and families who have more money are your paid users. Even better, you have a time-honored and very popular plan to eventually convert your free users to paid. :)
Yes, this is what I meant. We want companies to take a chance on people who might not have perfect resumes, or for new ventures that might not work out. This gives people without traditional bona fides a chance to prove themselves, and to get experience.
I was only in the job market very briefly before giving up on the whole mess and starting a business. I didn't finish college, so it was brutal. The jobs I did get were non-traditional companies who took a chance on me. Sales jobs in particular will give anyone a chance to prove themselves. I came to deeply appreciate that.
1) $5 for the Premium Account is too cheap. There is nothing that is $5 a month that I want to use for my business. Its a signal that this is probably a hobby. Make it free or charge a real price (at least $29/month, but $49 is better). If its not worth real money, you should reexamine the value proposition.
Amy Hoy says you need 500 people to pay you $30 a month, which seems about right to me. At $5/month, you're going to need 3000 people paying you every month! That's really tough! Don't do that to yourself!
2) You have to explain what this does, succinctly, right at the top of the page.I read your site, and your Medium post, and I'm still somewhat confused.
How about this headline instead:
Improve Your Accountability With OpenLoopz: Public, threaded, shareable to-do lists.
Anyway, congrats again on launching! And keep in mind that 90% of the readers of your HN post do not have anything in the wild for which people could actually pay them money, so you're way ahead of the curve. Keep going!
Off topic: OP mentions the AdWords Expert, Aaron Weiner of Software Promotions[1], who was finally able to get it all resolved.
If you have an AdWords campaign and its underperforming, HIRE THIS MAN. I had the opportunity to work with Aaron about 5 years ago, through a client, and I could not have possibly been more impressed. He took an absolute dog of a marketing campaign [2], and made it work. Unreal.
Anyway - I don't do this often, but he's that good. Hire him / Software Promotions if you need help with AdWords - you will not regret it.
I'm having trouble getting my head around the pricing. 1x for one task, 2x for unlimited. Can you expound a bit?
Specifically, what do you mean by unlimited? Could I schedule you every day for a 30 minute consultation?
Also, I'm one shop but we have several properties. Correct to assume I need an account for each one? (roughly 4 accounts)
Very interested!
Edit: I see now that you have one business day turnaround, and allow one order in the queue. Each task is about ~30 minutes, so effectively up to 10 hours of marketing consultation a month for $175. That's very compelling! Cool!
Not only could you publish them in a loop, until 2011 they were not random at all. Rather, the first 3 digits behaved much like an area code - if you know where someone was born, you can pretty easily guess the first 3 digits of their SSN.
Apparently in 2011 they changed this, and now none of the numbers are significant.
I don't disagree that a lot of people would stop pirating if there was a legal alternative. However, in my experience, most adults will simply chose an alternative rather than resort to piracy (which is probably watching a different show, but it could also be simply not watching TV).
I'm in that camp, now. I'll just pick another show which is available on Hulu/Netflix/Amazon, or I'll play my Xbox, or I'll take a walk. Not a big deal.
I think for some segment of the population it will continue forever. But I think most people grow out of piracy eventually.
In my experience, adults generally don't steal things, even if no one is going to catch them and even if they really want it. And consequently most people grow out of piracy. Not everyone of course, but enough for me to believe there's still a future in selling IP.
What if the recruiter tells you that Google/FB/etc reviewed your resume and you didn't make the cut? (When in actuality they just don't want to pay the commission)
You wouldn't dislike them, but you might then not apply for a job there (thinking you had already been turned down once), and then Google/FB/etc misses out on any chance to hire you.
Joe Random Recruiter can decide one day that he is a recruiter for Google/Twitter/FB/anyone else. He doesn't need or obtain their permission - he just starts firing out emails to everyone he can find on i.e., LinkedIn.
The email says something like: "My client, {Google, Facebook, etc}, is looking for someone with {one of your skills}. Are you interested?"
If you reply yes, he then sends an email to {Google, Facebook, etc} and says:
"I'm representing an engineer with {your skills} at {outrageous price including fat commission}. Are you interested?"
Assuming they are in fact interested in you (which they likely are), Google/Facebook/etc is now in a tough position.
- Google/FB/etc can say YES, pay the fat commission to the recruiter, and give you the job. You think the recruiter is a gift from heaven.
- Google/FB/etc can say NO, and the recruiter will just tell you they flaked, the opportunity disappeared, or just never contact you again.
The twist is that if Google/FB/etc says NO, the you will end up with a bad impression of THEM, not Joe Random Recruiter. They don't even know your name, with which they could reach out and explain.
Google/FB/etc know this, and as an engineer you are (currently) so valuable that they are (currently) forced to play ball.
And unfortunately, since this method actually works, we see more "recruiters" popping up every day. Even worse, the bad ones are the most aggresive, and they drown out the honest players.
My advice to the Googles/FBs/Twitters of the world: make a page listing the firms you DO work with, just as you list the IP ranges of your crawlers. Not a great idea, but its all I've come up with.
My advice to the job seekers of this world: cut them some slack - you probably didn't ever actually talk to Google/Facebook/etc, or at least they were misinformed about you.
Thanks for your comment. This makes sense - I would use Watson to determine which photos have humans at all, and then run those through, e.g., my facial recognition software. But Watson would keep me from having to waste resources looking for faces in photos of trees, for example.
I'm not in this field, so I'm having trouble understanding what use cases / consumer facing features this API unlocks. Your comment is very helpful in that regard.
Corollary, is there a short list of CAs that folks around here trust more than average? Is there any value in such a whitelist, or are all CAs so rotten it doesn't much matter?