September 2012
Sept. 3, 2012
Should I use Dropbox instead of Git for 2 coders? In terms of going really fast and working on things at the same time, I’m thinking it may be uber productive to use Dropbox for it’s instant syncing instead of Git/Github. What are the pros/cons?
Dropbox is definitely the wrong tool for this—you’ll find yourself running in to all sorts of weird problems very quickly if you attempt to use it this way.
[... 119 words]If I’m eating during an evening meeting (where a full food spread is available for 20 meeting attendees), how do I know how loud my chewing and crunching is? Am I disrupting the meeting?
It’s probably fine, provided you eat with your mouth closed! If you’re really nervous about it, politely and discretely ask someone.
[... 61 words]Product Demonstrations: What’s the best way to view/demo a website offline at an event?
If this is a static website (just HTML, images, CSS and a bit of JavaScript) you might be able to get it running on your laptop using a web server. OS X prior to Mountain Lion had a built in Apache which could be turned on using the “Web Sharing” option in the Sharing preference page, but it looks like they’ve now removed that option—a way of turning it back on again is described here: http://clickontyler.com/blog/201...
[... 377 words]Sept. 4, 2012
What’s the best app to present animations and/or interactions for a UI/UX project?
I’ve seen designers use both Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote for this purpose to great effect.
[... 35 words]Does PowerPoint has a mode, where I can show slides on projector and see the slide notes on my laptop screen?
Yes. It’s called Presenter View. http://office.microsoft.com/en-u...
[... 34 words]I would like to setup a web-server which will be used solely by myself. What would be the safest way to do so in terms of confidentiality of the contents?
I haven’t configured them myself, but it might be worth looking in to client SSL certificates for this. That way your server won’t communicate with any browser that hasn’t installed a certificate which you generate. I believe the BBC used to use this for a lot of their important servers which they wanted to be accessible only by their own developers from across the internet (I don’t know if they still do).
[... 108 words]Sept. 5, 2012
How do you make an existing web application more mobile-friendly without rebuilding it?
Learn about responsive web design. Provided your site is built reasonably well using CSS for layout there is a TON of stuff you can do with CSS media queries to make your site work better on small screen devices. For example, using media queries to detect small screen (mobile) devices you can...
[... 147 words]Are there any startups outside US which are/were part of incubators & seed programs like 500 Startups, Techstars, Y Combinator, AngelPad or similar?
Our startup http://lanyrd.com/ was part of YC Winter 2011 and is now based in London.
[... 45 words]Sept. 6, 2012
Which are the best video-teasers for conferences?
JavaZone in Norway has a tradition of putting out impressive teasers... their video for the 2012 event is a heist short film guest-starring one of the actors from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels:
[... 56 words]Sept. 9, 2012
SXSW Interactive or An Event Apart?
I’ve been to both, and they are very different kinds of event.
[... 303 words]Sept. 10, 2012
What are some tips for giving a lightning talk at a conference?
Tips for general public speaking still hold for lightning talks. Here are some tips that might help:
[... 236 words]Events (leisure): How can I get into presentations, mixers and meetups without paying the entry fee?
Speak to the organisers and volunteer to help out at the event. This works for all different sizes of events and is a very effective way of getting in to an event for free. As a volunteer you also get a great excuse to interact more with the attendees and speakers.
[... 73 words]How does a new Website that depends on content from users start?
The tried and tested way to solve this problem is with a closed alpha period. Launch the site as a private alpha, then invite a bunch of people you know and trust to start trying it out. Once you launch to the public you’ll already have some content and more importantly you’ll have set an example of how new users to the site should behave.
[... 121 words]Sept. 15, 2012
Seattle, what is a great prize to give away at a conference?
The LEGO Architecture model of the Space Needle. Everyone loves lego, and the architecture series is clearly not intended as a children’s toy so it’s ideal for a conference giveaway. http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Seatt...
[... 50 words]What happens at Amazon once I make an order?
Here’s a fascinating article about Amazon’s fulfilment center in Swansea, Wales which gives a glimpse behind the scenes: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/new...
[... 35 words]Sept. 17, 2012
Scalability: What is the best way to store and serve hundreds of GB of images for a heavy traffic website?
If you’re not going to use a service like S3, your best bet is to run something like MogileFS (which was designed by LiveJournal for handling images) and stick Varnish (a screamingly fast HTTP caching server) in front of it.
[... 66 words]Sept. 18, 2012
Did Mark Zuckerberg have any knowledge on building scalable social networks prior to starting work on Facebook?
I’m going to bet he didn’t have this knowledge, simply because back when he launched Facebook in 2004 almost NO ONE had this knowledge—there simply weren’t enough “web scale” products around for the patterns needed to run them to be widely discussed.
[... 143 words]What does attending academic talks give you that you can’t get out of skimming the latest articles in all of your field’s journals?
Conferences are all about the people. Sure, you can stay at home and read the journals or even watch videos of talks—but you’ll be missing out on the opportunity to get to know the other attendees. You can often learn more from conversations with other attendees than you can from listening to the speakers!
[... 85 words]Sept. 19, 2012
Which are the big Tech and Social Media events coming up from September onward (USA & Europe)?
Our site http://lanyrd.com/ is a good bet for answering this type of question. We operate a wikipedia-style index of professional events and conferences, a large portion of which are tech/social media related.
[... 262 words]Sept. 20, 2012
What is a development framework?
The most useful distinction, in my opinion, is to think about the difference between a framework and a library.
[... 271 words]Why doesn’t the Django framework come with its own REST API out of the box?
I’d argue that it does. If you want to build a REST API you need to be able to map incoming HTTP requests to handler functions based on their URL, run some custom code and return an HTTP response containing JSON (or maybe XML). Django makes all of this really simple.
[... 330 words]Why is everyone so obsessed with picking faults with Apple’s new maps on the iPhone?
Because this is actually a really big deal. For a lot of people (especially those who live in a big city like London or New York) the maps app is one of the most-used apps on their phone. The new iOS maps are a huge regression, not just in terms of map quality but also in terms of search results. On iOS 6 (at least here in the UK) you can’t even type in a simple address and trust that your phone will show you a pin in the right place.
[... 143 words]Sept. 22, 2012
What are the top five items to pique interest in developers to join a startup?
It’s all about shipping.
[... 251 words]What are the ways to Convert Dynamic JSP pages to a Static HTML to Appear in Google search results?
You don’t have to do anything. You’re misunderstanding how dynamic server-side languages like JSP work.
[... 202 words]Sept. 23, 2012
What are some creative programs to use for presentations?
Here’s a trick I’ve used with success in the past: set up your Mac to have 9 virtual desktops, then arrange your “slides” on each desktop using a combination of applications. I’ve done this with a title slide in keynote on the first desktop, a text editor with some sample code on the second, a terminal prompt set up for live coding on the third, a browser showing a demo on the fourth and so on. Learn the keyboard commands to switch between desktops and off you go.
[... 169 words]Sept. 25, 2012
What are some fun things to do in Camden Town, London?
Check out Brew Dog http://www.brewdog.com/bars/camden—excellent craft beers and really good (and interesting) burgers.
[... 33 words]Are there any good examples of ’large amounts of information being displayed simply and intuitively?’
Much of Edward Tufte’s career has been dedicated to documenting (and inventing) ways of handling these problems—his books are an absolute joy to browse through: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
[... 75 words]Sept. 26, 2012
How do you organize the code in your Django project?
For http://lanyrd.com/ our layout looks something like this:
[... 214 words]Sept. 27, 2012
Public Speaking: Where can I find someone to represent me as a speaker?
There are speaker agencies that specialise in this kind of thing, but they’re mainly targeted at larger events which expect to pay $5,000-$50,000 or even higher for speaker. They might not be as well suited to setting you up with gigs at startup events, which are less likely to pay enough money to make it worthwhile for an agent (most agents take a cut of the speaker fee).
[... 104 words]Sept. 28, 2012
How difficult is to to learn a language framework, like node.js?
The answer varies enormously depending on the language and the framework. Some frameworks are very easy to pick up, others are harder.
[... 162 words]