Developer Ignite offers Nerds a chance to shine

Developer Ignite is a free information exchange event designed to connect developers in the Phoenix area and allow them to share topics of interest with a group of people. Inspired in part by Ignite Phoenix, Developer Ignite is not only a great way to hear new ideas, but it is also a great opportunity to network with like-minded nerds.

Since this is a technical event, topics will be centered on relevant and important information to software developers.

Ignite-style events are gaining in popularity, due to their rapid format. Each speaker gets 5 minutes and 20 slides (rotated automatically after 15 seconds) to share a topic that they are passionate about. After the presentations, attendees and presenters mingle together to further discuss and elaborate on the topics.

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Lighting a fire under the Valley with Ignite Phoenix

Coming up in about a month is a somewhat new event in the Phoenix area known as Ignite Phoenix. Ignite Phoenix is an information exchange organized as a way to help foster and inspire Phoenix’s creative community. At the event, you hear 18 passionate speakers talking about their favorite topics or projects for just 5 minutes each. The lineup of presenters for each event is unique, and presentations will educate and inspire you, not to mention maybe make you laugh.

This event is for anyone who wants to hear new ideas and gain a new insight on what is going on in the minds of your fellow Phoenix residents. The presentations are informative for companies and entertaining for individuals. This event is an opportunity to hea ideas from outside of your normal sphere of influence. By mixing it up, new and exciting things can happen to not only you, but Phoenix as a whole.

Our Chief Nerd at Brice Cheddarn Development, Bret, has submitted a topic to Ignite Phoenix in the hopes of being selected as a presenter at the upcoming Ignite 4. His topic: The Nerd Hierarchy. With any luck, Bret will help Phoenix see the web through the eyes of a nerd.

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5 Ways to Use LinkedIn like a Nerd Would

LinkedIn is a popular social network of over 35,000,000+ experienced professionals from around the world. It is a social media tool that allows individuals and businesses a ways to find and collaborate with other qualified professionals. LinkedIn allows users to build a profile that summarizes their experience and expertise, and then share it with other users. Simply put, Linked in is a very powerful tool to inform the world about your own brand of Nerdness.

There are many ways that companies can use LinkedIn to help their cause. Several Entrepreneurs like Guy Kawasaki and Chris Pirillo have written several articles about the benefits and ways to use LinkedIn. The site even features a blog dedicated to the success stories of its users on how they made it work for them. So, we decided to come up with our own list of reasons individuals and companies should use and embrace the powerful online networking tool. Here are 5 ways to use LinkedIn like a nerd would:

1. To Brand Yourself or Your Business. Having a strong brand goes a long way, but it takes a lot to build up a brand and get it strong. A company has to develop credibility in its field and appear to have a strong presence. Having a strong network helps promote your brand. LinkedIn only reinforces the branding you’re doing elsewhere and helps increase your visibility.

2. Market Analysis and Research. Doing research is common for nerds. Every company and individual would benefit from doing more nerd-like research. And LinkedIn is a network that provides a plethora of information to research. It is a great way to analyze and benmark the markert. It is a great way to get to know a company or client and gauge its health. Not to mention, it is a great way to see what competitors are doing. On top of getting valid factual information, you also get other people's opinions through answers and recommendations. Use the vast amounts of information LinkedIn provides to your benefit.

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8 Nerd-Recommended Do-It-Yourself SEO Tips

With the economy on a roller coaster ride as of late, small businesses are looking for things to cut out of the budget. Unfortunately for some of us nerds that make a living on the web, one of the areas getting trimmed from the budget is website optimization.

It takes a great deal of time and patience to see the true benefits and ROI from search engine optimization efforts. And when money is tight, time and patience tend to be in short supply. As a result, website tweaking and perfecting takes a back seat.

Optimizing a website for search engines is in a companies best interest, even without a budget to hire a professional to do it properly. Tough times require slashing budgets and cutting corners, but there are things that companies and individuals can do to stay competitive without spending much money or time at all.

To help companies and individuals on a tight budget, here is a list of 8 nerd-recommended do-it-yourself SEO tips that will help ensure your website competes in seach rankings even when you are on a budget. We haven't reinvented the SEO wheel here with any of these tips, but we have made them fairly basic and easy to understand, and they are all things people can do on their own.

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Top Online ColdFusion Resources

ColdFusion has a wide variety of developers and resources available online. Recently, we asked a question on an Adobe ColdFusion Developer Discussion in Linked In about what everyone's favorite online resource was. So, in honor of that the its recent 13th birthday, and by the help of our Linked In discussion, the Nerds and Brice Cheddarn Studios bring you the Top Online ColdFusion Resources:

http://riaforge.org/ - RIAForge was the brainchild of Ben Forta. The principal developer for the project is Raymond Camden. It is an online community to support developers building open source projects for ColdFusion related platforms.

http://cflib.org/ - The Common Function Library Project (CFLib.org) is another Ray Camden production setup to create a set of user-defined function (UDF) libraries for ColdFusion 5.0 and higher. These libraries are open source and may be used and modified to your liking. Functions range from email format checking to encryption routines. These UDFs can greatly speed up development time as well as add new and powerful features to your web site.

http://www.houseoffusion.com/ - House of Fusion is a powerful (but in need of a redesign) resource supplying quality content to the ColdFusion community for as long as there's been a ColdFusion community. It is a great online utility for ColdFusion Nerds.

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