Kevin Hale, Derek Sivers, Mike McDerment et al @ Less Conference | Hacker News Reader

Kevin Hale, Derek Sivers, Mike McDerment et al @ Less Conference

lessconf.lesseverything.com

31 pointsauston22 comments

I'm confused. Everyone's saying the list of speakers looks great, what do you expect to learn from speakers that you already haven't read on the web?

Most conferences are only good as networking opportunities, if that.

i agree. furthermore, $200-300 to get in, plus travel and accommodation expenses (either in $$ or time if going the car-sharing and couch-surfing route)

networking is definitely important, but only if you have someone on your team who is super prepared and ready to take advantage of the experience.

(personal note: while that person could be me, i much more enjoy staying home to code and go salamander wrestling)

> Most conferences are only good as networking opportunities, if that.

Like being able to eat lunch with the Speakers of the event?

You're right, next time I want a vacation I'll just do a google image search...or to grow my business network, I'll add myspace friends. It's all in what you see. To me it looks like a conference that has all the important stuff without the annoying expo and corporate sponsors. I'm sold.

> what do you expect to learn from speakers > that you already haven't read on the web?

Are you kidding? Do you think the only thing to learn from someone is what they've written on the web?

Exactly. Whom among us hasn't written down every useful thought we've ever had and blogged it? If all of our friends blogged, would we even want hang out?

I've seen Kevin speak in person at BarCamp Tampa last year. I almost skipped it b/c I had read so many of his blog posts, but fortunately decided to come in just a bit late instead. It was well-prepared, entertaining, insightful, inspiring, (I'll stop now and not over-do it) and not just a rehash of his blog entries.

I actually decided the networking opportunities were overrated, and I would only go to another conference for good speakers.

So a bunch of website and web app developers are the speakers? Doesn't anyone else get the feeling that everyone is narrow-minded when it comes to the software industry?

seems like they've done more than just run a website... I'm sure Derek Sivers & Kevin Hale had to do more than just apache configuration files to get their companies up and running.

The list of speakers looks great, I signed up and can't wait for the event.

I wish there was less spam on Hacker News.

I can't wait to be at this, amazing speakers and free books and massages!

At 800 x 600, you can't read the event date. So I changed resolution to read the date, but now I can't find the time.

This sounds like a worthwhile event, and I imagine the speakers don't make their customers jump through hoops like this website makes you do.

Honestly, shouldn't pros have a better website?

800x600? Get a new computer and you'll be able to read a lot of websites!

The computer is new. The eyes are old.

Please understand this...

I will use what I want, not what the poorly build site forces me to do.

There are 100 million other baby boomers who have increasing difficulty with higher resolutions. Do you want them coming to your site or not?

Buy a monitor with a lower DPI so everything looks bigger. The opportunity cost is too great to support 800x600 at this point.

The opportunity cost for whom?

I got a 22" monitor. I went to the eye doctor and got special glasses for working. I use 800 x 600 all the time. For all my work and all my web surfing. Almost all sites work just fine.

I spend $5,000 per year on-line. I'm probably not alone. If your site doesn't work for me, I leave (and take my money and eyeballs, too.)

Like I said before, there are 100 million others in the same boat. Not to mention the increasing use of netbooks and mobile devices.

I used to get upset when people here at hn told me how I, as the customer, had to change to suit the vendor, which goes against everything I've ever learned in business. Not any more. Now I just shake my head at the lessons lost.

If I can increase the conversion rate, or even the amount people are willing to spend, by increasing the resolution and that results in greater revenue that targeting 800x600, then I should do it. This is especially important with web apps. 800x600 can actually hurt the usability of some applications that require a lot of fields/controls.

Sorry, I didn't realize there were people running 22" displays in 800x600 due to sight difficulties on HN.

Still, don't blame web designers. The problem is that current operating systems are not resolution independent. While you can resize a web page in modern web browsers, everything outside the browser window is still too small.

Also, in Safari 4 when I make browser window very small, I still get horizontal scrollbar, and can see the date.

I just viewed the site on my G1. It looks like ass.

It need not be that way, and not accounting for assorted screen sizes and devices is lazy.

The date of the conference is October 17, 2009. Your screen resolution is vintage! I didn't realize folks were still using 800x600.

It shouldn't matter what resolution people are using; sites should degrade gracefully. You never know when you're going to have someone with a visual disability, or using a screen reader trying to use your site.

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