1. I don't want to apply for a job, but I have an idea of how you can improve your site. I read the feed because I like to see what's going on with gadgets and because I like DIY projects, but most of this stuff is out of my league. I think it would be neat if you would have a section for beginners. BTW, I'm only 15. This Easter holiday I'd like to start my first DIYs, simple stuff, just to learn how to play with electricity, so I would love to see some advice for newbies here: Stuff like what you need and the basics of modding, cheap stuff that the average Joe can buy.

Posted at 4:21PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Alex B

2. I could not agree more with alex b. I was thinking of applying, and providing said noob hacks, but school is takes up most of my time and money.

I love putting larger or more batteries on devices, so all my noob hacks I've done so far involve that.

Posted at 5:21PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Matt_

3. this is tempting. however i have way too much going on at the moment, such as wrangling my own blog into something resembling decency...maybe if this happened 6 weeks in the future, i'd have jumped on it. i also like color photos and capital letters. :)

Posted at 5:26PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Garrett

4. im in the same boat as garrett. this would be an awesome freelance job if i didnt have classes for another 2months...

Posted at 6:16PM on Apr 10th 2008 by dmang

5. Well, I actually bit the bullet and applied. I'm in school but had to cut down hours because I spend too much time on the computer anyway (lies, I changed my major midway-through the semester and now i have to take sciences for engineers rather than the vanilla courses). At least I'd have something to do online rather than pointlessly trawling the internet and refreshing hack-a-day/slashdot/engadget all day...

Posted at 6:52PM on Apr 10th 2008 by TX297

6. I agree with Alex B.

Noob hack section. Things that are almost stupidly simple and a little less stupidly simple.

Because everyone is born a noob. And i currently am one.

Posted at 6:55PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Microcontroller Wannabe

7. i think you should hack kitchen appliances.

Posted at 8:22PM on Apr 10th 2008 by sarah

8. As far as the noob section goes, I approve! As long as it isn't too noobish. I'm 15 as well, and love to mod whatever I can. I'm certainly not a noob in complex electronics, but I don't have enough time to spend in between school, flying and warcraft. ;) I've always wanted there to be more do-able projects on Hackaday, but I can understand that this new section could put more stress on you guys, due to the fact that there are lots of people that want advanced hacks, and also lots of people that want small-time stuff.

Posted at 8:25PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Chris

9. i agree with alex b that there could be hacks more of us could do, but the hacks should still be useful, a lot of the hacks require that people have machines, materials, skills or money

Posted at 9:46PM on Apr 10th 2008 by cartufer

10. Hey! That pic is in color! (Whats with the no caps and bw pics anyways?)

A great place for simple hacks is instructables. Though n00b hacks would be nice, there are so many of there out there that by posting them here, we dilute the concentration of truly amazing hacks. I like this place because I am not at this level, but it introduces me to advanced ideas and concepts, and in a way sets a goal for me.

Also, please take a look at the (obsolete) greasemonkey hackaday style.(http://userstyles.org/styles/60) I don't see why the site must be so dark and ugly. The css is already there, use it!

Posted at 10:07PM on Apr 10th 2008 by atrain

11. What I would suggest would be to hire a person to be a contributor and an editor. Their purpose would be to filter through submitted hacks and stories that the members submit. That would allow for hackaday to maybe develop enough consistency to actually have at least one hack every day. And yes I know this is the same basic idea as the digg architecture but obviously it works. Then as this got going you could pay contributors based on the number of "diggs" or positive feedback on an article. This idea is similar to how atom films pays their contributors. Turn the content over to the community.

Posted at 10:12PM on Apr 10th 2008 by NicodemusBC

12. I concur with all the people before me calling for a noob friendly section. Would it be possible to do more in the line of How-to's or tutorials for noobs? Simple stuff, introductory micro controllers, basic circuit design, cheap way to get parts for projects, cheap way to make or get tools, etc. I love reading all the content on this site and can honestly say I've read it nearly religiously for over a year and a half. Unfortunately I can't really do anything with these hacks due to a lack of knowledge more than anything, and I'd rather not have to wait for college to get a start on this stuff.

HACKADAY FTW

Posted at 10:29PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Zachary

13. Alex:

Since you seem to have an appreciation for electronics, you need to obtain a few electronics books and get yourself a 1001 project board that uses components, then when you're done with the board, it makes a nice beginner parts box.

Rat Shack 28-280 is the one I bought my little cousin.

And good luck, the world needs more people interested in this kind of stuff.

Posted at 10:44PM on Apr 10th 2008 by Adam

14. it seems like a lot of commenters want hackaday to add focus to not just completed hacks, but provide people with the tools and information to go out and do their own hacks. if you start with a final idea instead of a collection of existing general knowledge, you can be overwhelmed with what you might have to learn in order to cover all the areas.

i don't think beginners should be discouraged by some of the advanced hacks that appear here. remember that a lot of hackers are working with the benefit of years of study in a particular field, and often with an engineering college and/or career background. the wide variety of projects that appear on the internet can give the impression that everyone but you is a technological superman, able to understand and do anything. the reality is most people do a couple projects in a specific area...like ben heck, who tries to focus on console modding/miniaturizing. or the guys who focus on hacking cheap digital camera firmware, or mp3 players.

the key to having fun in this scene: get some general knowledge (what everyone is calling "noob stuff") and then find something that interests you and become an expert in that one thing. you'll develop a unique perspective and come up with something amazing!

Posted at 11:08PM on Apr 10th 2008 by macegr

15. What I don't know is why the aversion to capital letters, is there something I'm overlooking here? Having everything in lowercase just makes it a bit confusing to read... I mean, I hate internet yellers as much as the next guy, but the other extreme isn't really good either..

By the way, I agree that there should be more "easy to do projects"... I am not a n00b, but I lack the necessary tools to do most hacks in here, and I am a really poor man, I'm lucky to have access to the internets...

Also I seem to be the only one who likes the dark black-green style with B/W pictures... It makes it look like a serious place, not something a careless teen or one of those stupid "do your work because they pay you" programmer would be browsing

Posted at 12:07AM on Apr 11th 2008 by DarkLightConnection

16. Good luck on the search. I only wish I tinkered more so I could feel justified in applying. so sad.

Piping in and dropping my 2 cents even though no one cares:

Colors and Site Design -- I miss Kermit, so green and black strike me as fine. OK, so I don't really miss Kermit as much as having a soft spot for green and black. Between Opera being able to load style sheets and the above grease monkey script, it's a moot point though. Anyhow, green and black is built into hacker/cracker/phreaker/etc history.

Newbie section -- For 98% of the stuff here, the only really basic topic needed is getting the parts and putting them together. You have an article on getting parts and soldering already. Past that anything people consider "basic" is going to be too basic for some and still too advanced for others. Instead of an entire newbie section, I'd think that a single article guiding beginners to appropriate beginner level resources would be far more useful. Making it a live article and occasionally updating it with a quick mention in the day's post wouldn't be that difficult either. Plus, if the site is recommending books, retailers, and what not I doubt many would mind at all if you got referral credit for sales and what not (For those retailers that offer suck things).


Other random ideas for people to steal when they apply (or to knock the easy ones out of the way to make them think harder :D)
-- Other DIY sites (toolmonger.com and strobist.blogspot.com spring to mind) maintain a flicker pool for readers to upload their projects and what-not to. Doing similar here would allow the reader base a chance to interact with each other as well as share works in progress that they are working on without having to do up entire articles. Interesting projects can easily be called out in the Short articles with a handful of links (which i miss)

-- To touch back on the newbie discussion, articles focusing more on work area set up than the projects themselves might work well within the context of the site and fit in when it's a slow day for projects to link/write up. I know that there was the Hack-it Challenge, but more might be interesting.

-- Extending the Hack-it Challenges, low cost of entry contests might be fun. Thinking of the challenge itself might be difficult though. Only instead of the Hack-it, brainstorming format, this would actually require both conception and completion of the actual project. Low entry cost should make it easier for all to enter while letting those who want to spend more do so.


It seems silly to suggest ideas in the comments since I'm not currently applying. Perhaps these will just get ignored, but, like i said, I wanted to pick off the low lying fruit.

Good luck to those who do apply.

Posted at 1:51AM on Apr 11th 2008 by Blind

17. i definitely agree with ^dark light^ mabey a different color but otherwise yeah

Posted at 2:11AM on Apr 11th 2008 by hb

18. how about a team competition where the entry fee is actually spent on parts for the build? could even try to get ebay to sponsor if build parts had to come from there. so, set a challenge and take team nominations and then have the blog team judge the results by videoconference. make the time period 1 month and have weekly updates on each team's progress.

please credit me with this idea if you use it! thanks.

Posted at 2:27AM on Apr 11th 2008 by andrew

19. i think lots have already been said but here are a few of my own thought:
design of the site is nice i like it only thing that bothers me is the adds on top. ever thought of doing a subscriber section for a small fee and then blend the adds out? ( of course i understand that you can just blend them out with the above mentioned methods but thats not the point they are here to support the site...) you could also use some kind of easy comment writing for subscriber (no need to fill out the form and confirm?)
also i agree with macegr however i believe there are people out there who understand the advance hacks and could contribute in some ways but for some reason lack the money or tools to do amazing projects themselves. therefor i think it would be a great idea to create a kind of "idea corner" where advanced users can share ideas and help each other out with problems.

Posted at 12:26PM on Apr 11th 2008 by snowdruid

20. I like Blind's idea of an updated resource section.

There is already a (unofficial maybe?) Flickr pool: http://flickr.com/groups/hack-a-day/

Perhaps adding one of those side bar Flickr things would increase it's use.

As to snowdruid's "idea corner", http://www.teamhackaday.com/ serves that purpose to a degree.

Not enough time to apply myself, and I don't really encounter stuff that doesn't get picked up by other blogs first regularly enough.

Posted at 3:32PM on Apr 11th 2008 by tom61