A large part of a modern techie's intelligence is resident on the Web. This is particularly true at a tech conference, which is all about picking up names and

A large part of a modern techie's intelligence is resident on the Web. This is particularly true at a tech conference, which is all about picking up names and opinions that need to have the facts filled in around them. You go to a talk. The speaker says, offhand, that they just built a big system around AMQP on Erlang. You want to know what the hell AMQP is, and what Erlang is, so that you can ask the speaker or your fellow audience members some intelligent follow-up question before they disappear from your presence. You need Wikipedia, Google, and a handful of specific useful blog posts, and you need 'em now. Another problem is that many of these conferences are so darned huge that you need electronic networks just to locate your colleagues.