January 2013
Jan. 1, 2013
Do comments really count for SEO link building?
Most sensible commenting systems will put rel=nofollow on links to discourage comment spam, which will have a significant effect on SEO.
[... 35 words]Jan. 2, 2013
Does it cost tax payers when sporting events have military jets fly over the stadiums?
According to HowStuffWorks "How Military Flyovers Work the cost is mostly paid for by various branches of the US military—they approve around 850 flyovers a year, and the cost comes out of their training budget. Event organisers sometimes have to pay for lodging, meals and transportation.
[... 70 words]Jan. 3, 2013
How should people organise software developer focused conferences in order that they achieve socially acceptable representation across relevant demographics (eg gender, ethnicity) in terms of speakers and attendees?
No one wants to feel like they have only been invited to speak because of their gender/other demographic factors, especially since they risk losing some the respect of the audience if there is a feeling that they weren’t invited purely for their expertise.
[... 309 words]What are the strategies for a front end developer to keep up to date with the emerging technologies?
Step one: find developers who you respect and subscribe to their blogs, follow them on Twitter/Google+/etc and try to understand what they are talking about and what they think is exciting.
[... 139 words]Jan. 6, 2013
What is the best food in London for under £20?
In terms of chain burger restaurants, Byron is excellent—much better than GBK.
[... 60 words]Jan. 7, 2013
How do I jump start a submissions-based website?
Post a lot of stuff yourself. Get some friends to post stuff too.
[... 44 words]Jan. 8, 2013
What are good and easy practices for frequent web deployments?
At Lanyrd we use a combination of Fabric to drive our deploy scripts, git to get the code on to the servers, puppet for configuration management and Jenkins to run continuous integration tests and provide a “deploy the site” button.
[... 262 words]Are there any sites like CodeAcademy for other fields, i.e. who specialize in math, languages, finance, etc. (no “generalists” like Khan)?
For language learning my wife has been having a really good time with Duolingo—she uses the iPhone app but they have a web version as well. It’s also free—I think their business model revolves around getting students to crowdsource translations as part of their learning exercises.
[... 130 words]Jan. 10, 2013
What was the Registration Fee for QCon NY 2012?
Registration opens in February—they haven’t announced ticket prices yet. You could always email them and ask.
[... 33 words]Jan. 15, 2013
What should one bring on a trip to London?
Bring an unlocked smartphone (Google Maps is essential, it has excellent public transport directions—don’t trust Apple Maps). You can get a pay-as-you-go SIM when you arrive, provided your phone is unlocked (check that you will be able to put a UK SIM in it).
[... 179 words]What are some productive things to do for 15 minutes a day?
Learn a foreign language—using DuoLingo on the iPhone, or with podcasts such as Coffee Break Spanish.
[... 36 words]Jan. 25, 2013
Where can I find a calendar of tech events and conferences all over the world?
We have a comprehensive, crowdsourced calendar of conferences and professional events on our service, Lanyrd.
[... 203 words]What are the top tech conferences for social, mobile and location based marketing?
Our service, Lanyrd, is a crowdsourced directory of conferences with very strong listings in those categories. Try the following pages:
[... 152 words]Jan. 26, 2013
How do I learn Python fast?
Learn how to use the Python interactive prompt and start solving problems with it. The official Python tutorial is an excellent place to start: http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/
[... 38 words]Jan. 27, 2013
What are good ideas and examples for event gamification?
Straight up points and badges style gamification seems a little contrived to me, but there’s definitely a lot to be said for activities that encourage delegates to meet new people.
[... 279 words]Can you advice me some newsletters where I can signup to receive on my email news about web/programming/startups conferences, talks, contests, events, classes?
Our site Lanyrd.com can help with this. You can sign in with Twitter or LinkedIn to see event recommendations based on who you are connected with. Then you can improve those recommendations by tracking topics in geographical areas (e.g. every Social Media event in the USA, or every Mobile event in San Francisco). If you give us your email address we’ll send you an automated weekly email letting you know about newly announced conferences or events that we think you’ll find interesting.
[... 112 words]Jan. 28, 2013
What are some hidden gem restaurants in London for trying food from different countries, aside from the plenty of Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Italian restaurants?
I’ll throw in a few of my favourites...
[... 123 words]Jan. 30, 2013
What is the best city to host a convention in US and why?
I can’t say I’ve tried every city, but my personal favourite US city to attend a conference in is Portland, OR. Amazing food, great public transport (the tram service is free within the city center, which includes the convention center) and plenty of interesting things to do and see outside of the conference.
[... 84 words]Does it still make sense to become a Java developer, or should I migrate to PHP or .NET?
It sounds like you need to expand your horizons a little further. The best programmers I know these days aren’t working solely in Java, PHP or .NET—they may use one those languages, but they’ll also be getting stuck in to dynamic languages such as Python, Ruby, JavaScript or Scala.
[... 222 words]Jan. 31, 2013
Does the Quora iOS app allow one to give “Thanks?”
I’d really like to be able to do this—could there be room for it in the little cog menu, next to “promote”?
[... 40 words]