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Show HN: My Static Page HTML App To Track And Recommend Books For Hackers

DanielBMarkham 12y ago
Usage: 1) Find what people are saying about a book before purchasing. Example: http://www.hn-books.com/Books/Slaughterhouse-Five.htm#the_buzz http://www.hn-books.com/Books/Slaughterhouse-Five.htm#the_bu... 2) Save a list of books that answer a particular question as a link to share with others instead of having to list your favorite books over and over again. Example: "These are the best sci-fi books I read last year: http://www.hn-books.com/#B0=164&B1=166&B2=165&BC=3&EC=0&FC=0&Q0=15&QC=1" http://www.hn-books.com/#B0=164&B1=166&B2=165&BC=3&EC=0&FC=0... 3) Read reviews 4) Create a "Countdown clock" that shows how long your startup has until you run out of money: http://hn-books.com/EZ-Business-Model.htm http://hn-books.com/EZ-Business-Model.htm There are a few more features. More functionality than most folks would expect from a static html page app.
onli 12y ago
That is a nice site. All the reviews are from you? You are using a custom tool for the static page generation? Small thing: on the main page, you have a-links into buttons, for the audio-book, e-book and normal one. That doesn't work for me, a click just presses the button (newest FF under Ubuntu). Do you want hints for the design?
- DanielBMarkham 12y ago
  Sure! Email them on. The site is almost 4 years old, and it's starting to show its age. I would do much differently were I to start over. Yes, currently the reviews are from me. I let the site slide for a long time because I only wanted books that would still be good ten years from now, and you don't see a lot of those released each year. Interesting problem I ran into with the site? Gushing reviews. Turns out if you only review the best stuff, you quickly run out of superlatives. That was the main reason I didn't finish reviewing all the entries. The challenge I took when building the site was to do as much as possible without a transactional database or realtime back-end system. The site compiles from an MS Access database to JSON, which is then stored on the server. I found with a semi-static database and rich querystring, I could do a lot more than most people would imagine. It made me start deeply thinking about app architecture -- completely changed the way I look at it. But the UX? Not so much.
  - onli 12y ago
    I sent you an email

Usage: 1) Find what people are saying about a book before purchasing. Example: http://www.hn-books.com/Books/Slaughterhouse-Five.htm#the_buzz http://www.hn-books.com/Books/Slaughterhouse-Five.htm#the_bu... 2) Save a list of books that answer a particular question as a link to share with others instead of having to list your favorite books over and over again. Example: "These are the best sci-fi books I read last year: http://www.hn-books.com/#B0=164&B1=166&B2=165&BC=3&EC=0&FC=0&Q0=15&QC=1" http://www.hn-books.com/#B0=164&B1=166&B2=165&BC=3&EC=0&FC=0... 3) Read reviews 4) Create a "Countdown clock" that shows how long your startup has until you run out of money: http://hn-books.com/EZ-Business-Model.htm http://hn-books.com/EZ-Business-Model.htm There are a few more features. More functionality than most folks would expect from a static html page app.

onli 12y ago

That is a nice site. All the reviews are from you? You are using a custom tool for the static page generation? Small thing: on the main page, you have a-links into buttons, for the audio-book, e-book and normal one. That doesn't work for me, a click just presses the button (newest FF under Ubuntu). Do you want hints for the design?

DanielBMarkham 12y ago
Sure! Email them on. The site is almost 4 years old, and it's starting to show its age. I would do much differently were I to start over. Yes, currently the reviews are from me. I let the site slide for a long time because I only wanted books that would still be good ten years from now, and you don't see a lot of those released each year. Interesting problem I ran into with the site? Gushing reviews. Turns out if you only review the best stuff, you quickly run out of superlatives. That was the main reason I didn't finish reviewing all the entries. The challenge I took when building the site was to do as much as possible without a transactional database or realtime back-end system. The site compiles from an MS Access database to JSON, which is then stored on the server. I found with a semi-static database and rich querystring, I could do a lot more than most people would imagine. It made me start deeply thinking about app architecture -- completely changed the way I look at it. But the UX? Not so much.
- onli 12y ago
  I sent you an email