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For HTML/CSS, Bulletproof Web Design is a great book. It doesn't get into graphical design though.

If you're interested, I started a website to help organize group studying just like you're suggesting. It's called Curious Reef, and here is an example class for the MIT OCW 6.00 class: http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduc...

Ping me if you have any questions (email in my profile). It's all free, open, etc.

I switched to TheSixtyOne a while ago. Put on the 'remix' mood and I'm set.

I was skeptical at first, but this looks really cool. I just signed up and I'm excited to use it. I had used DailyBurn for a while, but the challenges and social aspects were disappointing. I think you've really nailed those things already. Nice job!

Agreed. In the past, I've made it my goal to use one (and no more than one) new tool for each project. Whether it's the web framework, database, version control system, javascript framework, etc, I make myself learn one new thing. That way I'm still mostly productive, and I don't get frustrated and unproductive due to having to learn so many new things all at once.

11,000 page views per day or per month?

Okay, cool. My side project is Curious Reef: Exploratory social learning: http://curiousreef.com/

The most active class right now is this one: http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduc...

Do we have to be based in Boston?

> Someone who can wear an "M" can just as easily wear an "L" or "XL", but the reverse is very much not true.

It's that thinking that leads to skinny people (like me) having a lot of large t-shirts that they don't fit into. Just because it can physically go over your body doesn't mean that it "fits."

I'm still learning it. If anyone else is interested, I'm taking a class for it on my learning website, Curious Reef: http://curiousreef.com/class/programming-in-c/

> I've been stuck in this "Where do I start, what should I learn, what should I use?" rut for 6 months now.

Well, do anything else besides nothing. You could have learned Django, Rails, or anything else in the last 6 months. Just pick some web based technology and build something with it. There is no "best" solution.

> I just need a direction

You don't need a direction, you need decisiveness.

I have some experience with fantasy sports, and my two cents is that it seems like you'll have a hard time getting traction. Although fantasy sports are popular, you're not really tying into any existing fantasy games. You're creating a brand new game from scratch, and that will be hard to do.

As a user, I couldn't care less about it being "social" or not. It's either going to be fun or not fun. I think the landing page should be overhauled to somehow show me why it would be fun. I wasn't convinced enough to join.

Also, I don't know what country you're targeting, but it's probably not mine (U.S.). Maybe if I were interested in cricket, soccer, or tennis, I would be more likely to join.

Edit: I tried clicking on the links for upcoming events, and they all redirected me to the home page. I wanted to browse around the site before joining but I wasn't able to.

The morning works out best for me. I consider myself a "night person," but that can easily be changed. Have you read this: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-ea... ?

Also, the fitness subreddit is a great place to talk about this stuff too: http://www.reddit.com/r/fitness

Make sure you follow everything in this article, and get something signed by them: http://blog.asmartbear.com/working-startup.html

This should cover most of the basics for you: http://blog.asmartbear.com/working-startup.html

I think patio11 also has a blog post on that, but I'm too lazy to look it up now.

FWIW, I've done it twice and neither time did I write up a formal contract. I just emailed my supervisor describing what I was doing and asked if they had any objections. No problems either time.

Since it sounds like there is some intermingling of your side project and your day job, I would definitely get something signed. Probably nothing formal, just something like the asmartbear post describes.

Maybe that's just for dynamic pages. Probably most of the most popular pages are cached and wouldn't be considered in that 20 req/sec. Just my own wild guess though.

I'd like to add that there are also people working through SICP on Curious Reef (my social learning website): http://curiousreef.com/class/structure-and-interpretation-of...

It's an easy way to keep track of your work and collaborate with other people.

Yeah, that's been happening on Curious Reef a lot (Curious Reef is my website which is similar to OpenStudy).

Here's an example of people working through an issue in a C programming class: http://curiousreef.com/class/programming-in-c/lesson/1/assgn.... There wasn't any issue with the actual book itself, but the discussion is adding value to others who might come across the same problems.

If you're working through the 6.00 class, you may be interested in joining the people on Curious Reef who are doing that class also: http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduc.... Over 250 people have joined that class so far.

(disclosure, Curious Reef is my website)

That's a good example. Thanks for the feedback. Overall, I wasn't aware that this was a big issue for some people, and now I'll spend more time considering aliases for future projects. Thanks.

I'm sorry to hear that you don't want to register. I agree that usernames are frequently unnecessary, and for other sites that I've created I avoid them.

However, I think it's useful for this website because you get a profile page with a URL that uses that username. For instance, here is mine:

http://curiousreef.com/kday

Sure, and email + alias could work also, but I really wanted people to have their own vanity URL, and this seemed to be the easiest way to do that.

What are your goals? Are your visitors returning? If you stopped paying for ads, how much traffic would you have? Did you intend to make money?

No, there isn't, but that sounds like a good idea. I'll try to add a way to do something like that. Thanks.

I launched this site last January, and there was a great response for the SICP class. This year I was feeling like learning C, so I started this class based on the K&R book.

I'd be interested in any thoughts you have on this class or the website as a whole.

On EC2, I increased write throughput on one table by 3X by mounting 2 additional EBS volumes to the server and partitioning the table across the three volumes. That may not be as beneficial to you though if you have many different tables that are being written to.

Well, that is one possible outcome if the patent holder agrees to it. You can't guarantee that they will grant you a license though.

I was a developer in a startup weekend last month, and our team did really well. What helped us the most was that all the developers were familiar with the framework and VCS we were using (Django and git). None of us wasted any time installing anything or reading the how-to docs for beginners. We hit the ground running and wrote the most code of any group by far.

To prepare, make sure you're familiar with at least one popular framework so that you can join a team that's using it. Also, learn git and/or hg if you haven't yet.

If you're lucky (like I was), one of the teams using your framework will also have a good idea.

I'm working on education: http://curiousreef.com

I ditched Pandora a long time ago for the sixty one: http://www.thesixtyone.com/

I like the moods->remix for when I'm programming.

Although this article is a bit scary, the title is completely editorialized. Nowhere does it indicate that this is the "end of public research." The republicans are simply asking Americans to review publicly funded projects.