13 ms·

The $0 Startup - once Costly resources for Free

90 points by dholowiski 15y ago

irickt 15y ago
Chrome flags this site as having "Insecure content".
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
  Not here (Chrome 15.0.874.106 in W7)
- dholowiski 15y ago
  Yes... The whole site is HTTPS but the disqus comments are served by HTTP. I need to make the blog section be served non HTTPS - this is #1 on my list of things to fix.
mdasen 15y ago
Assembla isn't free for closed-source projects (http://www.assembla.com/plans?locale=en http://www.assembla.com/plans?locale=en) unless there's a hidden plan. Apparently they made the change back in 2008 (http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/6986/Release-2-0-restricting-free-plans-giving-back-with-features-and-pric http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/6986/R...), but this article was written today which is confusing. Am I missing something? BitBucket (http://bitbucket.org http://bitbucket.org) went free for private repositories a while back and recently added git support. That might be a better alternative today.
- eogas 15y ago
  It looks like the author was talking about this: http://offers.assembla.com/free-git-hosting/ http://offers.assembla.com/free-git-hosting/ I'm not sure why he/she didn't just link straight to that page. I also have to vouch for bitbucket's awesomeness though. Their tools might not be quite as fancy as the competitors, but they're slowly improving. Also, Atlassian's academic license is hard to beat: http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket-academic-license http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket-academic-l... You basically get their most expensive plan for free if you're a student. They do the same thing for nonprofits I believe.
  - dholowiski 15y ago
    I meant to link to the free plan - yes it's kind of hidden. Must have copied the wrong link.
run4yourlives 15y ago
If you're using the free version of Fogbuzz anyway, you may as well use Kiln instead of Assembla. Hg is just as good as git. I'd go out on a limb and suggest that if you are just working by yourself in pre-release development, don't even bother with a source code control. Use dropbox instead. It's simpler and faster until you get something up and running. Once you actually need version control (as opposed to glorified backup) then you can switch for little to no cost.
- chc 15y ago
  I'm not one of the downvoters, but how on earth is doing "your-scm-here commit" and typing up a description when you complete a task complex or slow? If that's even in the top 75% of the complexity in your app, you've got it so easy that it really doesn't matter what you do because you could just rewrite the whole thing in like five minutes. On the other hand, the ability to try things and easily revert back to a known state is lost with the drag-and-drop versioning.
  - run4yourlives 15y ago
    It's not, except that you need to do it. Most people don't do it every time they save. I figured I'd get hammered for that suggestion, but the whole idea of version control is centred on the following two benefits: 1. Backup of files (every saved version) 2. Merging/branching/comparing etc. of various versions. For a single developer with a pre-MVP development, point two is really irrelevant. (I'm sure there are cases where it wouldn't be, but I'm generalizing). I would argue that point one is better served by Dropbox (or something similar) than a full fledged VCS, simply because you're saving code and running/testing much more quickly than you are committing in these early stages. Once you get to a certain point, by all means a proper VCS is the way to go.
    - fuzzix 15y ago
      "2. Merging/branching/comparing etc. of various versions. For a single developer with a pre-MVP development, point two is really irrelevant. (I'm sure there are cases where it wouldn't be, but I'm generalizing)" For me, most of the the strength of my chosen revision management toolkit comes down to its simple-to-invoke branch/merge alone. The ability to start a new branch for every idea and change request means I can manage and roll out changes far more effectively than with plain old versioning and backup.
Zephyr314 15y ago
As one of the commenters on the site mentioned, github has a free educational tier (same as their micro tier). Go to https://github.com/edu https://github.com/edu and fill out a quick form.
sudonim 15y ago
It's better to use the right tool rather than the free one. I'm sure these products being recommended are great. I don't use any of them. At work we use Pivotal Tracker, Github, 37 signals suite and others. They all cost money, and they all add value beyond their cost relative to free options. I would strongly advise against using "free" as your price point. It'll cost you.
- dholowiski 15y ago
  On one hand it's true - you get what you pay for. On the other hand (and in my case) if you're a one-man startup and you're broke (or deeply in debt), you don't have money to spend on frivolous things like a web server, and free resources like this mean the difference between launching and not launching. I use everything I mentioned in my post... the only thing I'm paying for right now is a server ($60 for 6 months), a domain name and SSL Cert. The domain name? 1.99 with 10% off coupon and the cert was $10. I'm not saying this is the best or the right way to do things, but for me it mean the difference between sitting on my butt, and launching.
politai 15y ago
I would add mongohq for a free 16mb database. It's not much, but it's enought to validate your idea if you have a small site.
- dholowiski 15y ago
  Cool, also nice for learning mongodb if you've never used it (like me).
- lpolovets 15y ago
  MongoLab (https://mongolab.com/about/pricing/ https://mongolab.com/about/pricing/) offers 240mb for free. I've used MongoLab and MongoHQ, and both are super easy to set up.
ricksta 15y ago
my co-founder were coding at the local library one day with vim full screen, and attracted the attention of the library security guards to come question him if he is "hacking" the library.

90 points by dholowiski 15y ago

irickt 15y ago

Chrome flags this site as having "Insecure content".

jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
Not here (Chrome 15.0.874.106 in W7)
dholowiski 15y ago
Yes... The whole site is HTTPS but the disqus comments are served by HTTP. I need to make the blog section be served non HTTPS - this is #1 on my list of things to fix.

mdasen 15y ago

Assembla isn't free for closed-source projects (http://www.assembla.com/plans?locale=en http://www.assembla.com/plans?locale=en) unless there's a hidden plan. Apparently they made the change back in 2008 (http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/6986/Release-2-0-restricting-free-plans-giving-back-with-features-and-pric http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/6986/R...), but this article was written today which is confusing. Am I missing something? BitBucket (http://bitbucket.org http://bitbucket.org) went free for private repositories a while back and recently added git support. That might be a better alternative today.

eogas 15y ago
It looks like the author was talking about this: http://offers.assembla.com/free-git-hosting/ http://offers.assembla.com/free-git-hosting/ I'm not sure why he/she didn't just link straight to that page. I also have to vouch for bitbucket's awesomeness though. Their tools might not be quite as fancy as the competitors, but they're slowly improving. Also, Atlassian's academic license is hard to beat: http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket-academic-license http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket-academic-l... You basically get their most expensive plan for free if you're a student. They do the same thing for nonprofits I believe.
- dholowiski 15y ago
  I meant to link to the free plan - yes it's kind of hidden. Must have copied the wrong link.

run4yourlives 15y ago

If you're using the free version of Fogbuzz anyway, you may as well use Kiln instead of Assembla. Hg is just as good as git. I'd go out on a limb and suggest that if you are just working by yourself in pre-release development, don't even bother with a source code control. Use dropbox instead. It's simpler and faster until you get something up and running. Once you actually need version control (as opposed to glorified backup) then you can switch for little to no cost.

chc 15y ago
I'm not one of the downvoters, but how on earth is doing "your-scm-here commit" and typing up a description when you complete a task complex or slow? If that's even in the top 75% of the complexity in your app, you've got it so easy that it really doesn't matter what you do because you could just rewrite the whole thing in like five minutes. On the other hand, the ability to try things and easily revert back to a known state is lost with the drag-and-drop versioning.
- run4yourlives 15y ago
  It's not, except that you need to do it. Most people don't do it every time they save. I figured I'd get hammered for that suggestion, but the whole idea of version control is centred on the following two benefits: 1. Backup of files (every saved version) 2. Merging/branching/comparing etc. of various versions. For a single developer with a pre-MVP development, point two is really irrelevant. (I'm sure there are cases where it wouldn't be, but I'm generalizing). I would argue that point one is better served by Dropbox (or something similar) than a full fledged VCS, simply because you're saving code and running/testing much more quickly than you are committing in these early stages. Once you get to a certain point, by all means a proper VCS is the way to go.
  - fuzzix 15y ago
    "2. Merging/branching/comparing etc. of various versions. For a single developer with a pre-MVP development, point two is really irrelevant. (I'm sure there are cases where it wouldn't be, but I'm generalizing)" For me, most of the the strength of my chosen revision management toolkit comes down to its simple-to-invoke branch/merge alone. The ability to start a new branch for every idea and change request means I can manage and roll out changes far more effectively than with plain old versioning and backup.

Zephyr314 15y ago

As one of the commenters on the site mentioned, github has a free educational tier (same as their micro tier). Go to https://github.com/edu https://github.com/edu and fill out a quick form.

sudonim 15y ago

It's better to use the right tool rather than the free one. I'm sure these products being recommended are great. I don't use any of them. At work we use Pivotal Tracker, Github, 37 signals suite and others. They all cost money, and they all add value beyond their cost relative to free options. I would strongly advise against using "free" as your price point. It'll cost you.

dholowiski 15y ago
On one hand it's true - you get what you pay for. On the other hand (and in my case) if you're a one-man startup and you're broke (or deeply in debt), you don't have money to spend on frivolous things like a web server, and free resources like this mean the difference between launching and not launching. I use everything I mentioned in my post... the only thing I'm paying for right now is a server ($60 for 6 months), a domain name and SSL Cert. The domain name? 1.99 with 10% off coupon and the cert was $10. I'm not saying this is the best or the right way to do things, but for me it mean the difference between sitting on my butt, and launching.

politai 15y ago

I would add mongohq for a free 16mb database. It's not much, but it's enought to validate your idea if you have a small site.

dholowiski 15y ago
Cool, also nice for learning mongodb if you've never used it (like me).
lpolovets 15y ago
MongoLab (https://mongolab.com/about/pricing/ https://mongolab.com/about/pricing/) offers 240mb for free. I've used MongoLab and MongoHQ, and both are super easy to set up.

ricksta 15y ago

my co-founder were coding at the local library one day with vim full screen, and attracted the attention of the library security guards to come question him if he is "hacking" the library.