just stick to hacks is all we ask, hardware, software, life, wetware, whatever, it is what you are good at.

“best ofs” reviews, and “how to use software for what it was intended” are just not what people read this site for.

As I previously mentioned when you announced the new Software writers, I know one of them. I am more than thrilled that hack-a-day can become something more. I do agree that filters would be very handy, as I sometimes browse this site looking only for hardware hacks. But that being said I fully intend to read every software post. Including the one just posted. Keep expanding, a community must grow, and this awesome community needs to accept that many hardware hacks has software involved at some point. Whether that be embedded or otherwise.

I’ve been drawn to Hack A Day by the unique content. For the more mundane content I usually go to other outlets like Tom’s. Keeping the “hardcore” focus is what I’d like to see personally. Be that through a RSS feed or something else is fine. If the scope of the site did broaden I might enjoy seeing more topics covered, but hard to say until that starts to happen.

As for the whiny elitists, they’re always going to be whiny elitists regardless of what is done with the site. Thanks for supporting the site, hopefully it has a long and healthy future.

I’ve been reading HAD for quite a few years now and I do understand it may be time to grow beyond the simple hack-a-day theme, but there has to be a balance to keep the site’s spirit. Example: The 5-minutes-ago post about twitter apps. The article was GREAT, the writer really knew what he was talking about, and I learned about apps I would’ve never found by myself. But this is simply not the place to publish it.
Forums to discuss, improve, develop proyects: YES
Hack a day hardware/software posts: YES
What attracted me to this place in the first time was it’s simplicity.
A single, useful, interesting post every single day.
Anything from a single-wire mod hack all the way up to completely rewriting a devices firmware to do “extra stuff”.
Now, it seems HAD is simply trying to cram anything that ends up on their hands into the poor site. Even simple details like how I’m now able to use CaPiTaL LeTeRs seem to have destroyed the original (in the sense of creativity) idea of lowercase only posts.
I don’t mind having several articles a day… but let’s just take care of what’s being published here.
I’m glad you took the user’s comments seriously… it really shows how much you do appreciate the site.
Let’s keep the spirit of HAD alive. :D

I’

I’m perfectly happy with the content on Hack-a-day lately. If something doesn’t interest me I skip over it. If I have something positive to add I comment, if I don’t I keep my mouth shut. I don’t really understand the whining. I learn something every day from HAD, even when it’s an article about something I already know. Heck, sometimes even the ads are helpful.

Thanks for doing what you do!

I strongly support the idea, I’ve been reading for years, and even with a ton of searching, have never been able to find a resource for learning how to start that’s not either written for the completely ignorant (grade school) or the completely knowledgable (bachelors in EE). I’m stuck with ideas in my head and nowhere to put them. Not so sure about the ‘top x’ posts, but a tutorial dev series from HaD are right what I need.
And, if they can attract a slightly larger (not even much wider) audience and make some $ at it so it can stay running, I’m sure not going to bitch about posts I can just ignore!

HaD has always been a great read and the random juxtaposed nature of the hacks is half it’s charm.

That being said it does have the potential to become an amazing reference point for all that the term Hack encompasses.

Growth will require organisation, categorization and order.

I will probably no longer choose to read that obscure post about something I have no interest in even though they are sometimes my favorite posts.

HaD is more a celebration of the cleaver idea than the specific practicalities – I hope this remains.

Hopefully you’ll be able to pull this trick off and still provide me with an eclectic stream of innovation and ingenuity.

What ever happens congrats on what you’ve created to date.

I have to agree with Tecy, I too have been just browsing this site for a while now, and loved all different things that people have come up with and had posted.
I do think that that would be pretty cool to have such things as “how to’s” on the website. Just thought I’d put my two cents in.

Keep posting hacks – things where people have modified hardware and software to perform tasks not originally intended. The Internet is full of random people doing fun things with their technology. When you find one, how about doing a short interview. It’d be more interesting to read than a bunch of photos, youtube video and paragraph of text.

Don’t post “life hacks” or software reviews. I’m quite capable of evaluating my own Twitter clients and “top 10 xxx” posts are cheap ways to fill a blog with content. If I want to read that kind of stuff I can go to Engadet,Gizmodo, Lifehacker or any of the other blogs you’ve mentioned.

If you need to create filler content, write interesting articles about “classic” hacks and people.

Right now you fulfill a unique niche some where in between lifehacker/ gizmodo and the many DIY/How to sites out there. I like what you do and the way you do it. Yes there are ways you could enhance the site; keep answers going (I’ve seen a decrease). Maybe “live blog” some projects as opposed to posting the final products. I like the idea of “hack anything”; get more hacks yes! change the tone of the site NO!

I think a top 10 or top 25 hack would be cool… based on voting maybe. just a thought.
another thing, users need to be a little understanding, ie,. the “Not a hack”, crap. I know its hard to find HAD worthy material. and its us hackers that need to provided the content so get hacking people!

Personally I love the idea.

As for the negative feedback; maybe it’s because there are images for links instead of the green text that calms our desire to upgrade our lolcats for a moment and read about others goings on.

I love HaD and read it daily. I have no problem with broad content (it’s easy to skip things that aren’t interesting) as long as the focus remains on hacks and making. General app reviews and similar are fine once in a while but tend to become more and more common if one is not careful. There are other sites for that.

I would like to see more tutorial posts, especially in the intermediate-advanced range. There are plenty of places to read about the basics; several fora with purely advanced material; but not many places that give guidance and links that can help one develop new skills and move from moderately knowledgeable to an advanced level.

Thanks for a great site.

I think the problem is HaD is now just an aggregator of random postings. When I first started reading everything posted was an in-depth hack/how-to and was good to read. Not the post of the site, that was just a lead-in, but the linked articles. I think the problem is the quality of articles outside the site, or the lack of finding quality articles.

And maybe, at the end of the day, it’s the commercial pressures that apparently don’t exist that are causing the problem. The owner wants the site to expand, but I can’t see that happening naturally the route that has been prescribed – software reviews? Forum, yes, so people can discuss. How-to’s – sure. Feature articles to get people started in an area – sure. But somehow it just doesn’t cut the mustard any more. Maybe I’ve out-grown it. Maybe the lack of “progress” that so upsets the owner is what I like. It’s not a sell-out instructables type nonsense site full of half-useless tat created by people in a blue-peter-esque way with sticky back plastic and blue card.

The problem, as I see it, is lack of quality contributions. The staff are posting what they see fit. In order to keep up with demand some of it is a bit questionable, now the questions are raised some more fields are added to increase the post count and target audience, only the existing audience is still wondering where the quality is, no what other fields they should be looking at.

The front-page, wordpress nature of the site (good god, there are better solutions, surely) is not really suited to a variety of fields. It no-longer feels like it is about a bunch of knowledgeable people about things of interest, but anything found to fill a space, and the layout means its all just dumped there for all to see, like it or not.

Pah, not sure where I’m going with it. If I’m so genius why don’t I start hackitall.com eh. dunno.

Yours, confused

Totally agree with Piku, hacks of any sort are good but reviews, 10 best whatevers and rumours are best left to the “filler” blogs

“HaD is not Engadget, Digg, Gizmodo, or any of those other sites! Keep it that way!” – Anon
“It is very minimalistic and that is a good thing. (…) I am really missing a good browsing system. tags just dont do it.” – Remarknl
And HAD is not Instructables, HowStuffWorks and Makezine! It’s hardcore!
I come here to look a f*cking Russian make a RADAR on his garage!
I love the straight design: Title, picture and text. Fast browsing.
You should make a census to learn more about your visitors. Fast questions like: “You work with software/hardware development ?” “Have a degree ?” “How old are you” “If i put a lot of noob reviews about iphone software you will keep visiting HAD?”

Let’s keep the spirit of HAD alive! [2]

Most of my points have already been made (expansion good(ish), ‘top ten (whatever)s’ bad), really.

just, keep up the good work.

@juan cubillo -

Drop
—–
@-moz-document domain(“hackaday.com”)

{* {text-transform:lowercase !important;}}
—–
into Stylish.

@Piku

Modifying Hardware and Software to work like you want it to is the definition of hacking. Building things from scratch or a bunch of loose parts in your junk box is prototyping.

First time commenter, long time reader.

I think the biggest issue with the introduction of non-hack articles was just how poorly researched and written the article on Android 3.0 was. Now I don’t have the knowledge to determine if the author was simply (incredibly) ignorant, an Apple fanboy, or just trolling, but I do know it didn’t belong on HaD. While the second controversial article (the one covering Twitter apps) was of much higher quality, it still isn’t a hack and thus doesn’t belong here.

I understand the need for broadening the user base and if these changes must stick, I would ask for additional RSS feeds that do not list non-hack posts and/or feeds that can omit certain authors.

No.. Keep things pretty much like they are… I can get that “general” hacking/modifying stuff from “Make”. They spool that stuff off by the by the bucket load. My only gripe with Hackaday has been that you guys are very Ardunio slanted.

I’ve been reading hackaday since the beginning, If I recall correctly I was linked here from a site called “case mod god”. This was back when the modding scene was unheard of and the real mods where adding 8 leds and a cmos controller to hps and dells (i miss the days before pre-mod cases!) I love this page and I’m sure it can only get better with time.

i would like to point out that DIY is so fashionable now that many other sources, be it news sites or blogs or zines or whatever, are starting to develop their own outlets and posts and pages for the kind of home-brew electronics hacks/projects that HaD posts.

a few years ago BA (before arduino) it was mostly only EE/compsci/radio guys who were brave enough to enter the realm of hardware hacking. and HaD is where everyone came to see all the cool new stuff. these days that kind of hacking is available in a tech segment on CNN and an article in popular science and a billion places on the web.

my point: don’t let HaD blend in with the crowd too much, where more and more people and institutions are getting in on the DIY action.

I’ve never been a commenter on the HaD posts, so this is a first.

I have to say, I’m a loyal Hack-A-Day reader, regardless of what is posted. Honestly, the more the merrier (up to a point). A lot of the posts are above my head (for now), so it’s great to see a post that piques my interest (… like the recent halogen bulb alarm clock!) and that I know I can pull off.

My TI LaunchPad arrived today and I just opened it and started playing around with it. Where did I hear about it? Hack-A-Day.

If people don’t like the site, they can shut it and leave. I, along with other loyal Hack-a-Day readers, will certainly remain.

<3
-IMac

I love the hacks, tool reviews (bus pirate and dso nano and such), and sheer insanity that comes along with such a site. That being said, if I want to read reviews about apps and such like that, that have non-cheap/free hardware associated (apple, for instance), I’d rather not. Then again, I tend to skim over such posts and go for the meaty ones. I wouldn’t object to the beefier and more extreme PC mods, but I would object to generic case type mods. I want to see new things being done, not the same old crap I see everywhere else. I’d still like to see more useful things to do with old CRTs. :\ but yea. Love the site. :3

As for me, the content here is perfect, even those that get 50 comments that say “not a hack” are usually good reads, worst case I just scroll down a little farther to find what I want.

As UltraMagnus pointed out, just keep it to HACKS.
Though, I don’t think we need a Lifehacker clone.

You don’t truly own something until you’ve hacked it…

I haven’t noticed anything wrong with HaD besides a slow increase of daft users, common to any growing community.

Hopwfully we never reach the ‘Eternal September’ state :)

I personally think that maybe hackaday needs a front page:

Hardware Hacks
Software Hacks
Reviews etc – if they are going to stay
How To’s

And a seperate RSS feed for each. I don’t think it would be much of an inconvenience to people to click on a link to reach the type of hacks they are looking for. Then people can change their hackaday links to the hardare page (rather than complaining about all the software stuff in with it) and other people can view what they chose. Then hackaday can go on as it previously was with a few extra bytes of front page.

Mowcius

I am glad this is finally being addressed from the top level. The relative history of hackaday has always been unknown by most readers but it says a lot about why the site is the way it is.

I think these ideas are good for the most part. I would like to see the readership and interest expand so having more general posts is probably the way to go, as much as they often turn me off (esp those of the “top X Y” variety). I can live with the noise.

My suggestion:

Maybe the writers should just commit to at least one post a day that you can really get behind as a ‘hack’ and then have a special category for that which can be filtered. Then it can still technically be called hackaday.

To find an interesting and new hack EVERY day is not trivial. The hackers in the crowd need to step up either hacking or documenting their hacks.

If you need more technical stimulation I would suggest subscribing to journals in your field. I am a software engineer and I really enjoy reading ACM journals but I am sure IEEE has a number of equivalents.

Is there any way you could do an Arduino-a-day page?

I have been going to this site almost every day since the first week it started almost 6 years ago. I have had no issues with any changes that have been made to the site. When the posts started to become more frequent it was frustrating catching up, but I adapted and subscribed to the RSS feed so that I could follow the posts up to the minute. The change was great. Now I think it’s time for us to adapt again. If you don’t like the article they post, then skip it. I’m sure you will get at least one other in the same day that will fit your fancy.

While I do not really like the super light “hacks” they just don’t bother me. Everybody has things they like and do not. For the most part I like what HAD does and enjoy it.
No you do not have to create your own IBM 360 CPU from ttl chips and baling wire to qualify.
The best Google Twitter apps? Seen that too many times to count but it may be useful to someone.
I vote just keep it as it has been but I will say that some of the software “Android” posts are in my opinion just not good posts.
They lacked both depth and accuracy. Lack of depth is a matter of opinion but the lack of accuracy just isn’t good.

Hey there. Jason, I’m just posting in to say that I’ve been a long-time reader on a daily basis (4+ years actually) and I wouldn’t mind the execution of your idea. Might give me a bit more inspiration and knowledge as well. I’d say, keep it up and innovate :D

Having read through the (currently) 74 previous comments, I’ll second a couple:

1) “best ofs” reviews, and “how to use software for what it was intended” are definitely not what I read this site for. I already read engadget, etc. I’ve liked the how-tos for various basic electronic components. But, don’t let this devolve into an Instructables clone.

2) given the number of entries in various categories, HAD could use a better or additional search function. I’m a pretty determined researcher, so when some h/w or s/w comes my way and I have a dim recollection of a HAD article discussing it, I’ll eventually find it. But, I’d rather not have to work that hard.

@M4CGYV3R
But what is a good enough hack?
Let me tell you of some projects I was thinking of doing.
I was thinking of combining a DSP or Gummstix with a 900Mhz Zigbee to create Zigbee based digital voice radio. I would use Speex for the codec. I was also thinking that if I used a Gumstix I could make it a Motocycle communications/entertainment system with a voice command interface.
Yes it would be heavy in the software category but would it be good enough for you to be on Hack a Day?

What about a UAV that could land it’s self?
Just how hard does a hack have to be to be interesting?

I fell in love with this site the first time I saw it. I don’t do much hardware hacking myself but sometimes this site inspires me to try something new and to open up my ipod (or whatever hardware I have) and try to change something or just to learn what the insides of it look like. This is what I think the site is all about. Inspiring. I have loved the wau you’ve done everything so far but if you change that up a little I won’t really mind. As long as the spirit is the same!

Thanks for making hackaday one of my favorite sites!

I’d like to second what mowcius said, or instead, hack together another way to filter the content. Then keep each category high quality while still having a decent overall quantity for those who want to see it all.

It’s been said 20 times before, but a different feed for classic hacks would be great. Even if it’s one hack per week i’d bet most people would still come to this site as long as that one hack has a good writeup and it’s original.

Here is the deal. This site is like show and tell. I can’t find the parts to do some of the hacks. Without instructibles, some of the hacks are useless. If you want Hack A Day to have some shelf life then there has to be instructibles or else I read it and say, “so what” because I don’t have access to all of the plans. In reality, there are probably two or three projects here I like but even more are useless because there isn’t enough information to go attempt.

#2. I don’t mind people using Arduino but there are other processors out there. When a switch or thermostat can be used and the user decides that only Arduino will do then it becomes tedious.

uhm…. just stick with it.
if you go facebook on me and change everything daily. you loose (1)

Please, just keep the site open. It is a valuable “point of knowledge”.
Without the knowledge sharing offered through the site itself and the members that do a great job sharing the time spent in hacking of any hardware/software/.. one of the founding point of Internet – knowledge sharing – can be lost without repair.
So thank you Jason for keeping the site out of some “Corporate control”, and I confirm my interest in both your point as a future strategy for the life of HaD. Than if you need some money …. we can study a solution like a “$upport” membership or a little share of your company as partners.
thank you again – bruno

Oh I want to add to my post above: Definitely do what you need to do to make the site profitable or at least self sustaining. Nobody should fault you for that. Just don’t do so at the expense of the uniqueness HAD currently has.

I personally like all of the content on Hackaday, while there is stuff I am not interested in, its not so much that stuff I am interested in gets lost. You can’t please everybody but I think the shotgun approach (throw enough pellets, you’ll hit a little of everybody) works pretty well. Also, it allows me to expand on things I may never have thought I would interested in.

Hackaday is a necesarry breeder of ingenuity. Not only by example, but by inspiration. It is imho an essential engine behind economical prowess that is needed to get the US out of the present deep hole the banks and corporations drove it into. Let not ACTA or some patent infringement suit or entangled interest stop this site or limit its freedom to publish hacks. Not because it is cool to steal or rip, but because there is no material damage caused by the educational and creative modification of artifacts that we find in our veryday environment while it does create the engineers of the future.