this is still an awesome project, unfortunately there will be lots of python and ruby hipsters here who will dismiss this project... it doesn't matter, since most software you use is built in C or C++, and that won't change anytime soon :-)

back in the day people coded demos 4k in size with 3d graphics and music

How dare she have an opinion about management? Seriously. I'm glad you're here to police such matters.

Does it matter? The point is the same whether she's a programmer or not.

And she makes it clear in the article that she's a PM, not a SWE.

It does matter a lot, think about it.

Can't argue with logic like that.

Why does it matter so much? There are tons of articles on the front page of HN from no-names.

Exactly.

So you agree that it doesn't matter who the author is?

Who the fuck are you?

Just some dude who didn't write an article.

And you wrote your comment because.....

Things have changed a lot - more tools that allow bozos to get into engineering these days. There are just more wannabe engineers now so the % that is good is just smaller.

They are clueless and don't know java is a programming language for lamers.

> They are clueless and don't know java is a programming language for lamers.

The claim "java is a programming language for lamers" is only true if portability isn't important. Portability is important. Android's reliance on Java proves that.

If you had simply said that Java is a sucky, crippled language, I would have agreed.

I'm not sure portability is why android has java as its primary language ... For example http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html

major chip manufacturers probably have reference designs you can get, which include some of their parts, and which should be a good starting point.

you will indeed need to have access to advanced PCB fab and assembly subcontractor, but with some digging around you can find those.

the biggest problem is that you'll need hardware and software engineers who really know their job and can do the schematics, layout and firmware - doing a cell phone well is not an easy or small project, certainly not if you want to do something at a serious level and go beyond hobbyist type hacking.

you'll also have to do research on where to get an OS - developing this yourself is a huge project, probably just as big if not bigger than doing the hardware design. I don't know if it's possible, but perhaps you can get android OS source code and use that as a starting point.

you'll have to make each part of the hardware talk to the OS which means writing some driver or glue code, which is a whole other job. I'd try to use standard peripherals/ICs in your design for which android already has drivers.

without knowing more about your project, I can't really help more than this - if you want to talk about it feel free to msg me.

spam!

nice idea, but what if they don't send the device back and stop paying?

How did you do your link building and what did your ppc ads look like?

We were complete amateurs back then, we literally emailed hundreds of sites asking for links. That didn't work so well but it was enough to secure some organic traffic. We tried doing a few press releases and in retrospect, the content of those releases was rather embarrassing - but hey we were learning by doing right?

The PR generated quite a few back links but it is hard to assess how effective it was. We also tried to buy links and that didn't work out at all (too expensive).

I will check our AdWords account to see if I can retrieve our PPCs ads text.

thanks - what was the link building strategy you ended up focusing on and why?

look forward to seeing the ad texts. thx for sharing.