skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I run Ubuntu on a MacBook, but as long as the laptop you buy has Intel graphics and wireless, you'll usually be fine. My last laptop was one of Dell's 12" widescreen models, and it worked fine for me.
Debian on VMWare on an Acer Travelmate 4501.

I had trouble getting any Linux to work (well) on it, because of the wireless card. This was a couple years ago, and driver support for the Centrino's built-in wireless was pretty spotty for Linux. Rather than beat my head against it, I shelled out a couple hundred bucks for VMWare and mooch off the Windows wireless support.

VMWare gives a lot of other nifty benefits too, like I can burn my whole computer to DVD, swap it out, back it up, run multiple OSes, etc. Free imaging too; I have a VMWare image with a base Debian install, all preconfigured with my favorite settings, and when I start a new project I just pop that in and copy it.
Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer
I love the "web pro news doooooot coooom" voice bits at the beginning and end - it makes it sound like a simpson's parody of a news show.

The point about looking at things that don't change is good though, it's one of the things that Hal Varian says in "Information Rules", which is, by the way, an excellent book about economics.
then why did you even respond? the question was "what Linux laptops do you use for development?", not "how many of you are mac fanboys?"
Ubuntu Feisty on an IBM T42
Where do you guys find great designers for application design?
bullshit.

ideas are cheap, implementation is hard.

I am very competent web app developer, with several major applications under my belt. While on the surface you might think you will be able to whip out a clone of one of the popular web apps easily (let alone a brand new idea) but you will find the devil is in the details. What makes or breaks those sites are the thousands of minute implementation level decisions which build up to make a quality application.
It feels more serious. Gives you a bit of fear, "Oh shit, if this company fails I'm going to look like a HUGE loser". That type of thing.
have you run into any problems with the built-in wireless? i know the older powerpc based models did not have a linux driver available for the wireless, but i'm not familiar with the intels.
keep it civil please
For some, it's personal liability. After you incorporate, your personal liability becomes lower than before incorporation--from what I know.
Incorporating protects your personal liability somewhat, in the event that your startup tanks. It can be a paperwork- and lawyer-intensive process, and if you wait until you're seeing significant traffic, you'll be converting from a sole proprietorship, which will make for even more paperwork and lawyering, at a time when you'd rather be focusing on technology.

In short, if your company fails, you want to be incorporated because it protects your personal assets. If your company succeeds, you want to be incorporated because it makes hiring and taxes and office leasing much simpler. Venture capitalists won't fund a sole proprietorship, and they certainly won't buy one.
That article falls a bit short, though. While probably there is no metaphysic power enforcing a karma balance, I like to think of the karma concept as simply another formulation of common wisdom. Some murderers get away with murder, but most probably don't, or if they do, they suffer from it etc. Likewise stealing ideas as a habit might eventually ruin your reputation and your career (although you might be filthy rich by the time).
you're more motivated to shut up that way.

You're not asking them to shut up. You're asking them to stop stealing from the shareholders. That's what options backdating is - stealing from the company's shareholders.

And by fining companies, the SEC is hurting those shareholders. It's important for the shareholders (you and me) to realize that.

It's like telling a thief: If the police catch you stealing: they're going to fine the victims as punishment. What kind of motivation is that?
Ubuntu feisty, IBM T43P
I live in Canada so won't incorporating my company here make it more difficult to get funding in the US?
Incorporation was really easy and fairly cheap. My corporation has one shareholder, just me, and no real rules outside the formal ones needed to exist.

I did this for three main reasons. First, I wanted to experience the paperwork and hassles when I wasn't on a deadline. Second, it gives me a limited legal shield. It's easy to say 'Oh yeah, that was done by the company!' if I ever get sued. Finally, it's a good springboard if any of my ideas and implementations actually take off.

The structure is there if I need it. The cost to get everything formalized was a few hundred bucks and about a hundred bucks a year to keep going. Easy investment. It will save me one more headache when things take off.

Also, it's nice to have business cards that say CEO on them.
How can a company fail? Can't you always pursue different web 2.0 apps over time? Or do you need to incorporate each one separately?
Congrats!!!!
Linux Mint -- http://linuxmint.com/ -- is a great distribution for laptops, particularly since they do a terrific job of supporting media and wifi cards "out of the box".
My guess is the same reason I felt compelled to click on the link. OS X is the best desktop Unix experience I have ever had. It has all the tools I use, all the power underneath, and it comes wrapped in a pretty pretty wrapper.

Linux to me has become a loose term for any Unix. I've heard it used to refer to any of the BSD's, Solaris, and even OS X.
Consider MacOS on a MacBook. I realize it's not Linux, but you avoid the trouble of installing and maintaining Linux.
I have to admit I'm a touch jealous but also excited. I can't wait to see what you and your group get going.
Thanks for all of the well-wishes. Pt. 2 was posted this morning.
Thanks! I'll do my best to let you all live vicariously.
How to get better results from Keywords selection
Ubuntu Edgy on IBM T41P. Yes I know, I need an upgrade!
Congrats and good luck!
I have a T41p, I think its quite adequate.
A company fails if its liabilities exceed its assets, and there's no reasonable way the situation can change.

You can always pursue different web 2.0 apps; but it's probably a good idea to spin them off into separate companies.

Imagine a case where you have four projects. One of them really takes off, while the other three are just barely profitable, and you hire someone to help you with the project that's taking off. After six months you decide to let him go. He slaps you with a discrimination lawsuit. Doesn't matter if it's true or not.

If you have incorporated your companies separately, the only company that lawsuit can take down is the one that employed him, because the assets of the other companies can not be used to pay off the liabilities of that company. If you incorporated them all together, that lawsuit can take all of them down. And if you haven't incorporated any of your companies, your assets can be used to pay off that lawsuit.

And the reason it doesn't matter if it's true or not is that, even if you were completely above-board and non-discriminatory, it takes lawyer time to establish that in court, and lawyer time is not cheap.
Because of the false assumption inherent in the question.
Sony Launching Youtube Competitor Tomorrow
This is interesting. Another YCombinator startup using Microsoft technology alongside of Xobni, Loopt. Microsoft is Dead?
Congrats, that's awesome.
Inherently you cannot be a YouTube competitor until you've SOME comparable reach numbers to YT.
Well, if it's a choice between that and not punishing cheating period, it might be better to do that. It's a difficult situation, but in general, I'd rather have a system that always punished cheating than one that didn't punish cheating when doing so would have collateral damage, because the latter system means basically that so long as you are important to the company, you're perfectly allowed to cheat.
What are your options ... you can launch something better? Unless you have a patent, there is no point trying to talk to her .... What is your background and what is this idea? I would like to evaluate it better ...
You should have jsut posted a link to all the podcasts: They are all vary good: http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html
Cut it out with the sockpuppet accounts or we'll ban your site.
You're definitely right. Like I said in my first post post, Jobs shouldn't be above the law just because he is valuable to Apple.

But try to punish the cheaters, not those who are being cheated. Don't fine the company - fine and/or jail those committing the fraud.
Feld Thoughts - Widget Stats
OmniGraffle http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/ + free web templates from here: http://graffletopia.com/

It's an excellent way to get stuff done. OG and templates have saved us a ton of production time and wireframes that we creted were very clean and most importantly, they were clear and anyone who looked at them would know how stuff worked and how things were connected. OG allows you to add the right amount of detail without wasting a ton of time on minutia that creeps up if you use PS.
Wait, is teenwag.com the actual competition??? (down here at -10 points!) If so, it's interesting to see what the "idea" was in the first place.
You don't need to use Linux on your laptop for development.

For example, I use GWT + Eclipse under Windows XP and deploy to a ubuntu feisty server.
Here is a related post: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11777
Interview with Chris DiBona of Google
feisty on dell d810
Hm, I have some good advice for you... but I'm not sure about some details, why don't you e-mail me your presentation so I can work those out? :-D
Why waste the energy on revenge? Even if you succeed at destroying her startup, you'll be left with nothing. She won't have anything either, but that's pretty cold comfort.

Implement the idea yourself and do it better than she does.
Why not let it just belong to you, the individual?
The problem with OpenLaszlo is exactly the fact that it supports both flash and ajax, and therefore it settles to the lowest common denominator of both platforms. Flex has richer components because it settles on only one technology (Flash) and therefore it leverages Flash to its full capabilities.

Another advantage of Flex over OpenLaszlo is the Flex IDE (aka Flex Builder). It's a great product! (Note: Flex Builder is closed-source, and a bit expensive -- $500 I believe)

Despite the fact that Flex is Flash-only, I think they did a great job integrating it to the web stack. For example, Flex uses CSS to define the component styles. ActionScript also feels pretty much like Javascript. As a matter of fact, when I started using Flex I had no Flash experience whatsoever and was up-and-running very quickly.
Hmmm, I wonder if this will be as successful as their 'iTunes Killer' http://connect.com which I'm sure you all have heard of and use regularly (IE support only) ;)
Ubuntu 6.06 on an IBM T43p.

I'd prefer os x on a macbook, like I have at home, but that's outside of my control here.
Maybe the problem here is the law. If the intent of the law is to protect the shareholders, lets just dump the law and have the shareholders decide. If they want him punished, they can do that in a number of ways including firing him. If they don't care, thats their prerogative as well. They are, after all, the "victim" if there is one. I think any deception of this kind is a bad thing, and that the shareholders should demand transparency in the management of the company. Maybe the solution would be for Jobs to give back double the amount of stock value for the gain he would have received in the deception as a clear reminder to him and the management in general not to behave in this foolish manner ever again.
HP Presario and Windows XP :P (am I the only one using Windows... Geez!)
How to motivate people not only to look at online ads but also to give you feedback on those ads
Just adapt http://listengame.org to advertising.
Cozmo Wants to Kill Your TV
It's just par for the course for super-powerful elites.

Of course others have pointed out that Jobs is so important to Apple that doing anything to him would hurt the shareholders that the laws are supposed to protect, whereas some option backdating -- which isn't even illegal, the problem was a paperwork filing technicality -- did zero harm to anyone.
I hate typing on laptops. Do any have a good keyboard?
I don't dispute that, but the point is that at that point it's just a matter of doing it. You start writing code, encounter problems, find solutions. If implementation is really so hard and ideas are so cheap, you should be trying to implement dozens of ideas and giving up because of the technical challenges for each site you're actually able to launch. For me it's the converse, I have a harder time finding a good idea worth doing than doing the implementation and refinement. Yes, refining the idea and doing it right are non-trivial, but that's got more to do with how competent you are in general. I personally don't have a glut of good ideas and a shortage of implementation skill. Yes, I can come up with ideas if we just want to measure by volume -- but these have to survive through the "Is this a good idea?" filter before I count it as an actual idea. Generating crap is easy.
Macbook Pro with Ubuntu 6 on Parallels. Best of both worlds. As you are probably not going to be running Macosx on your servers. This way you have an excellent dev env, and a vm which you can mess about with for your code.
no, it's a troll/spammer pretending to be, and lots of gullible users fell for it
> "I'd love to exit with a good $1 billion, hopefully by 25."

Everyone wishes that.
Because you shouldn't be an individual if you're starting a company. Didn't Paul tell you you need a co-founder?

Seriously, if you're a one man shop and happy about it, just file an LLC with your state. It's cheap ($200-$400 depending on state) and will protect you from any legal stickiness if one of your customers decides to get nasty because your app lost their data or you find yourself on the wrong end of a copyright lawsuit. It may be unlikely, depending on your business, but it doesn't take long, and the requirements are quite low.

If you're not really serious about starting a business at all, then, don't worry about it at all. Go get a job working for someone else and work on your projects as a hobby.
'... You may advance and be absolutely irresistible, if you make for the enemy's weak points; you may retire and be safe from pursuit if your movements are more rapid than those of the enemy ...' ~ http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
Do you happen to be related to Larry Ellison?
Bullshit. Web "development" is a high school skill. Which is why web frameworks are trivial to implement, learn and use. Which is why building web sites takes months, not years. Tenths of thousands of dollars, not millions.

Complex software takes good knowledge of complex algorithms and man-years of development. Well.. since everybody wants to get rich quickly these days, innovation scaled down to web "applications", where the only valuable thing is percisely the idea. And your only advantage is the time to market.

It took years for other big firms to develop search engines as good as google's is. THAT is what I call "implementation is hard". Implementing something as trivial as myspace is less complex than compiler class project in college. (I've done both).
I prefere wolfenstein in javascript:

http://www.wolf5k.com/
Good recap from NY Video 2.0 Meetup - startups presented including Viddler, Kaltura and Tilzy
His main site is a little over-the-top, but just look at his portfolio. He's my favorite designer ever; I just wish I could afford his prices.

http://www.eoghanmccabe.com/
VBA for Macintosh goes away
Talk is Cheap
Refers to this Chris Debona article (with a poor title) ~ http://egofood.blogspot.com/2007/03/in-which-i-speak-out-of-school-and.html
You don't develop on laptops. This is not what they are built for: they slow, keyboards are not capable of decent typing speed and screens are tiny.

Stop trying to look hip and get yourself a workstation.
You won't love him if you watch Pirates of Silicon Valley.
If web development is so easy, why is the poster posting here instead of simply "whipping up" a competing application?

Why do hundreds of kids bother applying to YCombinator?

Can't they just whip up a webapp in a few months?

Yes - web dev is easier than desktop app or complex client/server applications, but Hitting the High Notes (as Joel says) will never be "easy". Simple, yes. Easy, no.
Adobe Takes Flex Open Source
(warning: sorry, off-topic a bit here...)

hey nathan - glad to find you on here. (it's Shanti)

I've been meaning to tell you... is your model a hosted one?

One space that Google (nor Sprout) will ever dominate is a software model where you allow clients to install your app on their own servers or VPSes. (i.e. a JumpBox)

Clients then get the best of both worlds:
1) Your killer UI
2) Privacy/Security/Control of their companies email data on their own server

Sure you've thought of this, just thought I'd give it a plug.
You mean Scribd?
Some of us like to code in bed. Or on the floor, or outside, or while watching TV.

For me, the convenience of being able to take my computer wherever I want far outweighs the bigger screens and hard disks of a desktop. And I've never found the keyboards to be a problem; I type 90+ WPM on a Dvorak-layout laptop keyboard.
also don't share it with any negative nancies you know.

i.e. the kind of people who find every reason why something won't work.

when you look at their accomplishments, it's always... nothing.
perusing new.ycombinator lately has made me think this would be a good idea as well.

i'm moving to SF soon though so i don't think it'll be that big of a problem.

eHarmony though? ugh. they are certainly good at spamming you to death for the next 18 years of your life if you decide not to sign up for a paid membership, (i only walked through the interview b/c some buddies of mine were all doing it for fun!)
Both Bill Gates & Steve Jobs have said in interviews they read Engadget =)

What I wonder is if Bill Gates has read PG's Microsoft is Dead essay...

Any top Microsofties in da house...? (yah, right.. =)
Interesting thoughts on outsourcing to Bangalore (may no longer be a good decision for startups)
Totally. Back in 2002, I hired a designer in India for $200/month. After few months it increased by 100 bucks.

Today he is making over $600/month and increasing. Obviously not to take anything away from him(he was a fine designer!)--the power in the Indian job market in last three years has shifted from employers to employees.
Ruby on rails google a very unfriendly and abusive - bring down a fledgling startup with DDOS attacks USE PYTHON
ok, please go to http://juwo.com again. Is that better?
ok, removed it. Hope there are no legal hassles later.

please go to http://juwo.com again. Is that better?
I would like an answer to this question too.
If I was the only time I'd be in Boston is when my yacht parked there.
Are Older Entrepreneurs Threatened By the Younger?
How is Linux at supporting dual monitors?
Do you have to pay for all your software, or is there good free software to use for a Mac?
Ubuntu on a Dell Latitude D620
It seems that Linux-philes use IBM/Lenovos and Dells. I have seen this elsewhere, too.
Buckling spring keyboard from pckeyboard.com modified with Unix layout, or a Sun Type 7 if you prefer a quieter keyboard.
I use almost all free software. I do all of my work under the MacOS unix environment with vim, gcc, python, etc etc. You can use the MacPorts ( http://www.macports.org ) package manager to install and manage your usual unix utilities. (MacPorts is analogous to portage/emerge on Gentoo, apt-get on Debian, yum on RedHat/Fedora, and FreeBSD's ports). I also use Firefox for web and Adium X for IM.

The only thing I can recall paying for is Parallels, a virtualizer similar to VMWare, to run MS Windows under MacOS. I hardly ever use it.
not much of a "friend"
Unfortunately, the rest of India will still remain poor due to selfishness. (But I have too many words to write on that).
I saw this too. He was spamming YC too. I hope he learned his lesson
I haven't, yet...
Top Ten Reasons Why Web 2.0 Sucks
There are at least 10 startup ideas inside this post.
Joost is an excellent concept and I'm impressed that they've been able to land some major deals before launch.

However, as the industry moves towards HD standards - are consumers going to be satisfied with the solid but still lower quality video that can be efficiently transmitted on the net?
I'll be 100th person to predict utter suckiness.
You have better odds of winning $5M in the NY Lottery than you do of selling your company to Google (or Yahoo)
the decrease in early stage dollars... I wonder if this is because there are less early stage deals, or that the value of each early deal has gotten lower.
Ok, let it be simple. My point is that Kawasaki is 100% right. If your idea can be so easily stolen, it probalby wasn't a great idea to begin with. Maybe it's that social networking aspect she is adding is actually what will make it successfull.

Hate to sound negative though, having that happen to you surely hurts...

And yes, kids apply to YCombinator exactly because they can whip up a web app in a few months. YCombinator puts them in front of VCs after that.
At what point during development of your startup is it ok to start losing sleep, friends, socializing?
and will protect you from any legal stickiness if one of your customers decides to get nasty because your app lost their data or you find yourself on the wrong end of a copyright lawsuit.

Mostly. A corporation is no assurance that a court will not find you personally responsible for damages, perhaps due to (in the court's eyes) negligent or malicious behavior.

That said, you are of course better off with a distinct legal entity but you still have to cover your ass and document responsible behavior (e.g., that you pay bills on time, do due diligence on tools and equipment and hiring, etc.) and that you act in good faith.
Redeye VC: Using the waterfall...
Denim rocks. Paper & pencil rule, but Denim makes it easy to get a working mock-up up and running.

After drawing out the pages, you can create active links among them, and export the site to HTML. Denim creates pages that have nothing more than image maps, with hot spots for linking and navigating around the site.

This is something you can run in browser and put in front of clients to verify general behavior and layout.

Plus I like how you can zoom in and out to see a site map or a single page or some detail in a form on page.

Note: Denim works best with a drawing tablet, such as what Wacom sells. But a mouse will work as well; the gestures, though, may be harder to execute.
Take a look at what squidoo.com has been doing with ads. They let users up/down vote ads.
Generally, sooner the better. But here is the twist: if your startup is part of the social network bandwagon, you can't get THAT disconnected from friends and the outside world.
Yet another example of how bad people want to make money really-really bad without actually doing anything. "Go from idea to a product in a few weeks with some help of an offshoring developmet team".

Since when software became so easy to make that it takes only weeks to "convert an idea..."?

How about building something hm... more complex than a dozen of HTMLized SQL SELECT outputs?
the post just makes for a racy headline. nothing else. the sentiment is correct, but the analogies couldn't have been crappier. all lotto players are equal. all enterpreneurs aren't!
80 Hours a Week ... For What?
If you haven't tried Linux recently, it's actually gotten pretty good on both of those fronts, especially if you compare it to Windows. Also, many PC manufacturers are starting to pre-install Linux, which should make it even easier for people who don't want to worry about installation.
You created a user named "railssucks" just to post this?