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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]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]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]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]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]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]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]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]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]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]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]SXSW Interactive or An Event Apart?
I’ve been to both, and they are very different kinds of event.
[... 303 words]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]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]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]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]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]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]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]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]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]What are good ways to make a conference for which people are willing to pay?
First, find the right topic, location and date. There’s not much point in running a three day Big Data conference in San Francisco on the same days as O’Reilly’s Strata conference down in San Jose!
[... 231 words]Is it possible to embed Skype into a webpage to use as live chat support for free?
Olark offer a very neat JavaScript widget that does exactly this (it’s text-based messaging, not video or voice): http://www.olark.com/—you can try their demo at the bottom of their page.
[... 72 words]How can you use SlideShare effectively to grow your professional reputation in a specific niche?
“How to integrate SlideShare activities with other social networks”
[... 208 words]How do I keep service providers and consultants out of my meetup or conference?
If it’s that important to you, make the conference apply-to-attend and get people to submit linkedin / github profiles or whatever to demonstrate that they are a founder/builder. Then only send invitations to the people you are sure aren’t service providers or consultants.
[... 91 words]What are good ways to get meeting with VC’s without introductions?
To get an introduction, you need to impress someone who can make that introduction for you. Knowing someone who knows a VC isn’t enough. Take a look at the section titled “Asking for introductions to people is tricky” on this page to understand why: http://www.kalzumeus.com/standin...
[... 102 words]Which digital events should I attend in the UK in 2012 and 2013?
If you’re building something for parents it might be worth heading to a few conferences in the US—there is a HUGE mommy/daddy/parent-blogger conference scene there which doesn’t have an equivalent in Europe as far as I’ve seen.
[... 58 words]What are the biggest sites/web applications that are using the Node.js framework?
I imagine LinkedIn are one of the largest now—they use Node.js for the back-end of their mobile and tablet apps.
[... 40 words]What is the technology stack behind Lanyrd?
Lanyrd is principally a Django application—we use Django and Python for almost every aspect of the web application itself, as well as the backend for our iPhone application.
[... 195 words]I was wondering if anyone can recommend any organizations/conferences or seminars that provide sessions on Writing for the Web?
The term “Content Strategy” has emerged over the past few years to encompass quality web writing as well as a host of other related topics. It sounds to me like you would benefit from one of the increasing number of content strategy conferences. We have a list of upcoming content strategy events on our site, Lanyrd: http://lanyrd.com/topics/content...
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