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Ask Different contest starts today with bonus for TUAW readers
The other day I wrote about Ask Different, the Apple-centric site in the Stack Exchange crowdsourced tech-help network. At the end of that article I mentioned something was coming, and now I can tell you the rest of the details. The Contest Starting today, Ask Different is running a contest. The rules are simple: ask a question related to iOS, and be sure to tag it "iOS" (plus whatever other relevant tags apply). There will be two winners: the question which gets the most views and the question with the highest number of votes will win a 16GB iPod nano (6th Generation) or Apple accessories of comparable value (your choice). The Rules The contest is open to both new and current Stack Exchange and Ask Different users. Everyone is eligible to participate regardless of geographic location. If you live in an area of the world where it is too difficult for Stack Exchange to ship you your prize, they'll figure something else out on a case by case basis. The only metrics in use to determine winners are the number of page views and votes your questions get. So ask as many good questions as you can, and share them using whatever means you see fit. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google Plus, whatever! There will be separate (and equal!) prizes for The Unofficial Apple Weblog readers who are participating in this contest. Make sure include in your Stack Exchange profile that you're a TUAW reader. (You need to include the word "TUAW" so the contest search can find you.) The Dates The contest begins today (Monday, January 16th) at 10 am EST and goes until Friday, January 27th at 11:59 pm (EST). Only questions that are asked within that time period will count towards the contest. New to Stack Exchange / Ask Different? If you don't already have one, go to http://apple.stackexchange.com/users/login and create an account. Be sure to mention TUAW in your profile (or add it if you already have an account). If you are not familiar with Stack Exchange, I would highly recommend checking out the Ask Different FAQ which has a list of "best practices" including etiquette and protocol for asking and answering questions. It also explains some aspects of the site such as voting and reputation. Win/win and maybe win again Of course you can continue to send us questions for our Ask TUAW and Aunt TUAW series, but we get far more questions than we can answer. I also know that many of our readers have a wealth of information to share with others. Getting more people to know and use Ask Different is a win/win for the Apple community. The chance to win a prize for asking a great question is just icing on the cake. Disclaimer: The Ask Different iPod contest is managed entirely by Stack Exchange. The prizes awarded and the contest process are completely under the control of Stack Exchange, and decisions made by Stack Exchange are final. TUAW and AOL have no administrative or legal role in this contest and cannot be held responsible for any questions of eligibility or other matters.
"Ask Different" welcomes your Apple questions
Most of the people savvy enough to be reading an Apple tech blog are probably the ones who get asked a lot of computer-related questions by family and friends. Perhaps you provided tech support over the holidays. But what happens when you have a question? Who can you ask for help? My favorite spot for Apple Q&A is Ask Different, which is part of the Stack Exchange network of sites. I've only been using it for a few months, but unlike all of the other "help forums" I have used in the past, this is one I return to almost every day, because it's better. Most web forums are horribly ugly. Posts are crammed full of animated GIF signatures and a whole bunch of irrelevant information about the user. Many have huge distracting ads which are inserted in-between questions and answers. Discussion threads can go on for pages and pages, making it difficult to find any good information among the cruft. Ask Different is clean and straightforward: a question at the top of each page, and answers below. Good answers get voted up, bad answers get voted down. Users can have their own "avatar" but other than that, the only other information you'll see is "reputation data." More on that in a moment. More importantly, it is not a discussion forum, it is a place to ask questions and get answers, hopefully so that the next time someone has a similar question, they can find the page where it was asked and find the information they need. Most web forums are also notoriously horrible for the trolling, flame wars, and related nonsense. Ask Different has administrators and moderators who not only help keep order, they will even edit questions for clarity, as well as make suggestions on how questions can be improved. If a question is deemed off-topic, it is closed. The end result is a much nicer experience than any other forum I have ever used. When you first join the site, you will have only very basic privileges, such as asking or answering a question. As your reputation increases, you will gain the ability to do more things on the site. Your reputation data is posted alongside your question and answer. If you ask a good question, it will get voted up, and your "reputation" will increase. Provide a good answer, it too can be voted up (not only by the person who asked the question, but also by others who read it), and your reputation will increase. If you want to join Ask Different, you probably won't even have to make a new login. You can use your Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, or any other Open ID login. (If you want to make a separate Stack Exchange login, you can do that too.) Just head over to their login page and you can be up and running in a few minutes. (Note that Stack Exchange uses Gravatar for avatars, so if you want your own picture on your account, you'll need to connect it to a Gravatar account.) Your account will work across the entire Stack Exchange family of sites. Once you are there, take a look at questions with no official answer yet or post one of your own. With so many bad web forums out there, you might have given up on ever finding a useful one. Trust me, I understand, I use Google Chrome's personal blacklist to block search results from several of them. Ask Different is truly useful, and it will only get better with more people who are willing to share their knowledge. Also, just a little heads up that if you don't have an Ask Different/Stack Exchange account yet, you might want to get a head-start and set one up soon, because we have a little something planned for next week. All I can tell you right now is that it will only be for TUAW readers, and you'll need an account on Ask Different to be able to participate.
