Simon Willison’s Weblog

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Friday, 20th January 2012

As a first timer, what are the best tips while flying business class to get the most value?

Wear something really scruffy, so that when you get up to go to the bathroom the stewards can sniffily tell you “I think you’re in the wrong cabin, Sir”—and you can say “No, actually I’m sitting just over there”.

[... 97 words]

What are the pros and cons of open sourcing my website’s code?

I’m afraid if you’re expecting to open source your code as a magic bullet to get others to work on improving it for free you are likely to be disappointed.

[... 250 words]

Is there a simple way to create a form that asks people to upload a picture and an answer to a question, and then gives me access to that info?

You could build this very easily using http://wufoo.com/—an online form building tool (with a superb interface).

[... 55 words]

Web Performance: What is the best way to measure page load times on different locations of the world?

Google Analytics has a built-in “Site Speed” report with a geographical map that can help with this (under Standard Reporting > CONTENT > Site Speed > Map Overlay).

[... 52 words]

What is the difference between a web server and a web framework?

A “web framework” offers a set of APIs for writing your own custom code in such a way that it can be called via the Web. Usually a framework will deal with common details such as HTTP header parsing, URL routing and so forth.

[... 272 words]

What are examples of consumer web products which had little or no initial traction, but which persisted in their direction and eventually found success?

AirBnb famously just kept going.

[... 35 words]

2012 » January

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