The BBC are moving their R&D facilities from Kingswood Warren in leafy Surrey to Centre House in West London. This film, narrated by Ant Miller, shows how the relocation has progress so far:
Recent GMT Posts
Video Report on BBC R&D Move from Kingswood Warren to London- Ignite London 2
- Scottish Ruby Conference 2010
- O'Reilly Donates £1000 to Bletchley Park Thanks To Geek Atlas
- Christian Crumlish - Wallacespace, Covent Garden
- Announcing the Q4 Prizedraw Winner
- 2011: Europython in Florence!
- Jonathan Ive on Mac Design
- Christian Crumlish visits Europe!
- openeo.biz - Survey about Open Source
GMT Extra
Dux Raymond Sy - Sharepoint for Project Management Jeremy Coates - PHP Northwest and Beyond Magnificent Computing Sections - Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London James Boardwell - Folksy Paul Johnston - Asus eee Chris Heilmann - Yahoo Developer Network Christian Alhert - Minibar and Open Business Belgium by Kris Buytaert Erlang - The CEO's View Innovation, technology and enterpreneurship in Italy
Manchester and the North-West Profile - Deb Bassett Profile - Steve Bowbrick South Africa by Dirk Tolken Profile - Dave Cross Paris by Xavier Cazin
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Ignite London 2
Craig Smith writes:
Ignite London 2 is set to illuminate the Capital on Tuesday 2nd March 2010. It will take place from 7pm at the Luminaire in Kilburn during Global Ignite Week. The Luminaire is a fantastic venue which normally plays host to up-and-coming bands - for one night only, it will be taken over by Ignite, that most Rock and Roll of Geek Get-Togethers. Cory Doctorow and Russell Davies have been announced as Invited Guest Speakers.
There are two other UK Ignites happening that week - the West Country sees its first Ignite with the inaugural Ignite Bristol on the 4th March 2010, while not 50 miles away across the Severn Estuary the now firmly-established Ignite Cardiff will entertain the Geekerati of South Wales on the same night. Both are going to be fantastic events: if you’re in the area, it will be well worth being there!
After speaking at the first Ignite London (of which more later), and having helped Imran Ali assemble Ignite UK North, I wanted to be more involved this time around. Fortunately, Amy Thibodeau and Dan Zambonini, the powerhouse team behind the first Ignite London, were open to contributors stepping in to help, so over the last few weeks I've been working with Amy and Dan to put together Ignite London 2. Besides myself, Andy Kervell, who MCed last time around, and Richard Johnson, who shot the great video footage of the speakers, have also stepped up into a full Organiser capacity. It's been a very happy partnership, and great fun to be involved.
My major job is assembling the speaker line-up. If you fancy stepping up to the mic, follow the links on http://ignitelondon.net/speak - deadline Tuesday 9th February. We're open to proposals on any vaguely geeky topic, so there's plenty of scope: we're after a mix of funny and serious, social and personal, high and low tech, crafty, webby, environmental, quirky and mainstream. Making us laugh is a good thing, making us think is even better. We're looking to have 15 speakers this time around, with two or three places offered to Invited Guest Speakers, so there are lots of spots to go for. The only thing we say is No Sales Pitches.
The original Ignite London was a superb night. Amy and Dan did a great job of assembling one presentation after another which were thought-provoking and funny. Unfortunately, they also had me! Ben Hammersley, O'Reilly author and deputy editor of Wired UK, opened proceedings with the Sex Lives of the Great Renaissance Artists, a presentation which sent me reeling with shockwaves of panic - if the rest of the presentations were going to be this good, I was in trouble. After that, I barely saw another speaker as I was ensconced in the bar away from the stage desperately polishing up my own meager efforts.At the very first UK Ignite, in Cardiff, I was a happy attendee. I had driven down from London so I could say I was there, and looking back it was a treat to be able to sit back and watch the show unfurl without feeling I had to contribute. At the Second UK Ignite, in Leeds, I was the compère for the evening - however Imran Ali had done such a fine job putting the line-up together that it needed a minimum of MCing to keep the tempo of the evening flowing.
Speaking was a different matter. When I saw the schedule, I was pleased to note that I was kicking off the last act, that the evening would be well under way before I had to do my bit. However, when it came to the actual event, I'd have loved to have got it over with just so I could have watched my fellow speakers without the dread that I still had to step up on stage. It's not that I'm not used to performing - I've done plenty of gigs and readings and speaking engagements to know what it's all about - but somehow Ignite is different. The audience knows their stuff, I'm representing my company, it's about knowledge, fun, geeky knowledge. Maybe I wasn't fun enough. Maybe I wasn't geeky enough. And then there's the same worry I had before speaking at Interesting back in September - what do I know that other people don't? And the fear is, very little.
At Interesting I fell back on a topic I know pretty well, namely my dad. For the latter half of his working life, he renovated waterwheels, (which he still does in retirement). So I call him up, snaffled a few interesting facts from him and built a turn around it.
At Ignite, I resorted to pop/rock music, which is the one area where I have put in my 10,000 Gladwellian hours. Over the years, I have accrued an idiosyncratic hotch-potch of insights from schlepping from rehearsal to gig to studio in umpteen different bands and hour upon hour of listening to recorded music. It wasn't going to be much, but it would have to do.
O'Reilly had offered Amy and Dan a few books to give away as prizes, so before my spot I got to acclimatise to being on the stage as I doled out an assortment of tech books to the worthy winners. And then Andy announced my talk, my presentation started, and it was over in a flash. I haven't dared go back to the video to see what I looked and sounded like, but the audience were kind enough to clap politely, and I didn't get booed, so in that sense I got away with it, and I can sit typing right now knowing I'm an Ignite alumni, that I looked into the void of 5 empty minutes, stood my ground and came back to tell the tale. Nerve-wracking as it was, I'm glad I've done it, and I wouldn't think twice about doing it again if the opportunity ever presented itself.
The Thin Line Between Competence & Greatness by Craig Smith - Ignite London 18 November 2009 from hurryonhome on Vimeo.
Of the speakers I saw, the ones which stick in my head are Nicky Smyth, Toni Basi, Matt Edgar and Chris Thorpe. If I haven't included yours, it's not that I saw it and dismissed it, the chances are I was hiding out of the way learning my lines.
Scottish Ruby Conference 2010
In April 2008, Scotland on Rails hosted 80 delegates and 20 speakers from
the UK, Europe and around the world in Edinburgh for the first Ruby conference
in the UK since RailsConf2006. The conference was judged an incredible success
by all those involved. Keynote speaker Michael Koziarski called it the best
regional conference he'd attended. We also ran a charity tutorial day and
raised nearly £3000 for a local Children's Hospice.
In March 2009, we sold out all 180 tickets before the Early Bird period had finished. Those 180 attendees were joined by 35 speakers, again both local and international, including keynote sessions by Marcel Molina Jr and Michael Feathers and plenary talks by Dave Thomas, Yehuda Katz and Jim Weirich. The charity tutorial was run by Marcel and Chad Fowler and raised over £7000 for the Hospice.
In March 2010 we're taking it to the next level.
We'll be hosting nearly 300 speakers and delegates including keynotes from Jim Weirich and Tim Bray. Inspired by RubyConf, we'll be running a 5K. We have a fabulous new venue in the prestigious Royal College of Physicians and a new name. We've always been about more than Rails and the new name reflects that. Simple.
Scottish Ruby Conference 2010. See you there.
O'Reilly Donates £1000 to Bletchley Park Thanks To Geek Atlas
Geek Atlas - £22.99
(978-0-596-52320-6)
O'Reilly will continue to give 50p for each copy sold in the UK
Bletchley Park, the historic site of secret British code breaking activities during WWII and the birthplace of the modern computer, is again in the news thanks to John Graham-Cumming's book The Geek Atlas. O’Reilly pledged to give 50p per copy of the book sold in the UK to the Bletchley Park Fund and we are delighted to send our first cheque for £1000.
Unfortunately not everyone has heard of the plight of Bletchley Park. The Bletchley Park Trust is aiming to preserve the core heritage of the site and to build on the work of the wartime pioneers through education and technology innovation. The Trust does not receive on-going operational funding and therefore is dependent on money generated from donations or any additional on-site or off-site activities such as their online shop to enable it to continue its work.
You might have heard of John’s fight to get a national apology for the inhumane treatment of Alan Turing, one of the main Bletchley Park code breakers who cracked the German Enigma machine which helped shorten the war by around two years, saving countless lives. John Graham-Cumming was successful and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war.
Christian Crumlish - Wallacespace, Covent Garden
Craig Smith writes:
Last week I went along to see Christian Crumlish speak at Covent Garden Wallacespace. Christian is the curator of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library and co-author of Designing Social Interfaces, and he did a fine hour-long talk (plus questions) about how design patterns can be used for building social websites.
My notes, incomplete as they are, read:
Patterns originated in the Architecture Community. Once you discover rules and patterns, they can be used in other situations. Architects missed the benefit of patterns, but Computer Scientists got it. Patterns and wikis have a similar base, as they were originated within the same crowd.
Yahoo!'s Pattern Library, of which Christian is the 3rd Curator, is the sibling to Yahoo! User Interface.
Delicious and Flickr popularised tagging, both were bought by Yahoo! But both have different implementations of tagging.
People take the code and design on top of it. People didn't think they needed the telephone - it took people a while to figure out how it could be used for business. Business is done through it. Blogs are like that - they don't necessarily bring money in, but business is done through them. The network effect of having millions of phones connected escalates their value, just as it does with having many people connected via a website.
People used to phone a place - 'is such-a-person there?' - where now we phone a person, or even a pocket.
Christian offered up with 5 Principles - not set in stone, not without exceptions, but strong guidelines. These principles, were tested at Barcamps etc, and eventually became Designing Social Interfaces:
Pave the Cowpaths
Look at the behaviour that is already happening and facilitate that.
Talk Like A Person
Don't do corporate speak etc, your web copy should be conversational to set the tone you want your users to use. These include:
- Conversational voice
- Self-deprecating Error Messages
- Ask Questions
- Your vs My ('Your' gives context - someone else is saying 'Your', it is inclusive - with 'My' you're out on your own)
- No joking around (sarcasm, in-jokes often don't translate online - your audience might not get the humour)
Play Well With Others
- Embrace Open Standards
- Allow data outside the bounds of your application
- Accept external data within the sphere of your app
- Support two-way interoperability
Learn from Games
There are things about games which apps can learn. For example, reward participation. Got to give up some control to your users. For example, the designers who build Never Ending Game went on to build Flickr - a game-like culture was transferred.
Respect the Ethical Dimension
Every social website has an ethic dimension. Don't spam, don't pester.
Other gems Christian doled out:
- Give people a way to be identified
- Social Objects - Things people have a common interest in, something to rally around. They keep people involved, they allow the site to grow organically
- Give people something to do - eg upload videos - let them be involved
- Let the community elevate people and content they value - 3rd party moderation doesn't scale
- Enable a bridge to real life events
- Anti-patterns! - Things which seem like a good idea at the time but later on shows itself to be bad eg copying a successful website but not understanding what makes it successful
- Don't break email - eg NoReply is a bad idea
Overall, this was a great evening (Yahoo! always put on great events) with a capacity audience stacked right to the back of the cafe. I have a few more photos here.
2011: Europython in Florence!
Francesco Pallanti writes:
After a period of radio silence here we are back on air more resolute than ever! There's a news however that we'd like to tell to everyone in the Python community.
The Python Italia association has worked in the shadows for months, then a voting took place between members of Europython organization and the two candidate teams, Italy and Germany.
It's with great pleasure that we're announcing the confirmation of
Florence as official venue for Europython 2011!
Python Italia APS
Our proposal won and the hard work done in the latest months has been rewarded assigning to Italy the organization of the 2011 edition of Europython.
We're still in the early stages but we've identified a couple of possible venues for the conference really close to the railway station and we're trying to secure them and develop partnerships.
Meanwhile, rest assured that the machines for the next PyCon Italy are well oiled and we've already started working on that; we're finishing the new graphic layout of the logo and soon you'll be able to browse the new version of the website.
In addition to the blog you can follow us:
- either by becoming a fan on Facebook
- or following us on the Twitter account
If you wish to know more about the organization you can subscribe the newsletter.
Stay tuned for updates about Europython and the next PyCon Italia conference.
Christian Crumlish visits Europe!
Christian Crumlish, curator of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library and co-author of Designing Social Interfaces, is coming to Europe. He has two talks lined up, one in London, one in Berlin, where he will illustrate the principles of social web design with a deep dive into interaction patterns, design principles, and anti-patterns (familiar but broken solutions that seem like a good idea at the time).
The events will be held at:
London
Covent Garden Wallacespace
2 Dryden Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2E 9NA
UK
Time: 7 pm
Date: 19th January
Register now https://www.eventbrite.com/register?orderid=8475305868&eid=464665828
Berlin
newthinking store GmbH
Tucholskystr. 48
10117, Berlin
Germany
Time: 7 pm
Date: 21 January
Register now http://www.xing.com/app/signup
openeo.biz - Survey about Open Source
Adam Walczak - a Polish Software Developer, if I have extrapolated correctly from his site - has created a survey to assess the circumstances where Open Source is being used in business:
The goal of this initiative is to establish a community interested in researching the organizational structures of open source projects and the business models of companies that are related to them. In other words we are exploring the open source ecosystems to find out which aspects and relations between business and the community-driven development are responsible for their successes and their downfalls.
If you're scratching around for things to do before heading off for Christmas, why not help him out by completing the survey.
QCon London 2010 - 8th/9th March 2009 - Special Offer for O'ReillyGMT Readers!
Tutorials: March 8-9, 2010 / Conference: March 10-12, 2010
QCon is always a fantastic event. Once again, it's being held at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. There are over 80 speakers lined up so far: to give just a small sample:
Dan Ingalls – The principal architect of five generations of Smalltalk environment
Ralph Johnson – Co-author of the now-legendary book, "Design Patterns" and "Gang of Four" member
Francesco Cesarini - Co-author of "Erlang Programming" and Founder of Erlang Solutions
Michael T. Nygaard – Author of "Release It!"
Dylan Schiemann – Cofounder, Dojo
Dan North – Agile troublemaker, developer, originator of BDD
Simon Brown & Kevin Seal - Founders of "Coding the Architecture"
Ulf Wiger – CTO of Erlang Solutions
Robert Schwegler – Chief Architect, bwin
Tracks at QCon London 2010:
- Architectures You’ve Always Wondered About
- Agile Evolution, How do you test that?
- AlphaGeeks on .NET,
- Cool Stuff with Java
- Programming Languages
- SOA 2010
- Software Craftsmanship
- 2015 Software Development
- Irresponsible Architectures and Unusual Architects
- Browser as a Platform, Dev and Ops: A single team
- DBs & WebOriented Data
- The Concurrency Challenge
- Cloud Solutions
For full programme, speaker and presentation information: www.qconlondon.com
Save £50: Register at http://www.qconlondon.com using the promotion code "oreilly10"
Open Hardware Conference - London
It was my pleasure to attend the - hopefully inaugural - Open Hardware Conference at NESTA in Plough Place in London. The event was jointly organised by NESTA, Open Business and 40 Fires, the foundation behind the Open Source car, Riversimple. Christian Alhert of Minibar fame was MC for the day. Roland Harwood of NESTA did a quick introduction/greeting. The theme of the day was how to open up hardware to enable people to work together.
The day's first presentation and discussion featured Daniel Soltis, seen to the right of the photo on the left, who is an Interaction Designer at Tinker.it, and Francesco D'Orazio of Face, seen at the lectern. Tinker.it, you may well know, are the company which sell the Arduino chips. Face is a new company which seeks to apply the techniques of crowd-sourcing and social media to advertising campaigns.
Daniel gave an overview of Arduino's progress so far since its arrival in 2005. It was Open Sourced because the department at the University where it was developed was due to close, and Massimo Banzi and his team wanted it to live on after the department had gone. It was deliberately given a low price in order to keep it within the finances of the average engineering student - it would cost no more than going out for dinner and a few beers. (Obviously, that was in Italy - if it had been the UK, it would have cost 8 pints and a takeaway curry). They have sold 60,000 Arduinos to date. The name 'Arduino' is trademarked, the schematics and CAD are released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. The companies using Arduino tend to be Open Source based.
Francesco talked about Face's co-creative model of collaboration with companies to do research and innovation. After some experimentation, they found a mix of offline and online activities work best, with a group of 25-30 people gathering to work on ideas.
A lively panel discussion followed, where Francesco got a bit of (unfair to my mind) stick for his company's activities. As Francesco said, the companies they work with are traditionally very closed, and any success Face has in opening them up is a real achievement. He had identified four key motives for participation in the offline activities - money, love, glory, fun. There was a response that once money was included the rest of the motives fell to the wayside. Daniel said the driving force behind the take up of the Arduino was an obsessive need to tinker with things. Paul Downey from Osmosoft was concerned that Freedom was a word a that hadn't been used in the discussion. Someone commented that one of the the beauties of Open Source was opening up and watching where it goes.
My own thoughts are that these are both very new business models which will continue to develop, to be honed, to be built upon. Any discussion of their merits as yet is premature, as they are still in spin. it's still fun to discuss them, but the bottle hasn't stopped spinning yet. But there won't just be one way to do it, we will see a myriad of approaches creating interesting and successful things.
The breaks and lunch at Open Hardware Conference were busy with excited chat, people swapping ideas, business cards, everyone was open and ready to exchange ideas. It was impossible to stand on your own: someone would approach you to chat, someone would bring you into the conversation. It was heartening to see and exhilarating to be a part of.
After the first break, it was all Open Source cars. Patrick Andrews and Hugo Spowers from 40 Fires, (pictured on the right) and Jacco Lammers from c,mm,n (at the lecturn) gave a discussion of their respective projects. 40 Fires is a foundation which oversees the development of the Riversimple Open Source car. C,mm,n is an Open Source car development from the Netherlands. Both had identified Open Source for pragmatic, as well as ideological reasons - they thought opening development up to the world would result in a better product, quicker to market. One of the points that came out was the Arduino is a learning tool used to build prototypes, objects which are not mission critical - cars, Open Source or not, have to work. There are less opportunities for a hydrogen car to break down than, say, a petrol driven car - there are less moving parts which potentially could go wrong, but still the car has to be reliable. 40 Fires do not intend to sell cars - what they will do is lease them, which they think will cut down on the perpetual upgrade cycle car owners can find themselves on, to "establish a business model that rewards longevity and low running costs rather than obsolescence and high running costs".
After lunch the delegates had a choice of two discussions, one continuing with Open Source cars, the other I didn't quite catch. I was interested to hear more about Open Source cars. The session switched between 'the regulatory bodies governing production cars are too daunting to make this project realistic' to 'it'll be alright'. 40 Fires picked up some useful feedback - no one expects an Open Source project to be a self-governing utopia. It's OK to be the benign dictator, to make decisions as you see fit, to run proceedings. Contributors want guidance, they want to be useful. Give them a specific problem to solve.
Hugo and Patrick started off in motor racing. The Arduino came out of Academia. Someone (I think it was Jacco) mentioned some particular hardware had been developed by some country's military. Motor racing, military, academia - these are three areas that scratch their own itch. They have funding models which allow them to develop projects purely for their own benefit, which means they don't have to second guess the requirements of the market - they are their market. But any competitive advantage is short-lived - their competitors will catch up, will reverse engineer and find a way to get back on equal footing. So innovation needs to be constant, because the knowledge will soon be assimilated by others.
Roland announced the Open 100, a NESTA/Open Business competition:
The 'Open100' competition is a celebration of the power of openness and mass collaboration. You can be part of the competition by nominating the company you think is the best open innovator. The competition will be open until 12th February while the winners will be announced on 24th February, with the help of Our Judges. The winners are those who will be included in the list of the world's top 100 open companies.
Before the final session, I got to say my piece about Make.
Finally we had a talk from Andrew Katz, the lawyer for 40Fires, who talked about open source licensing, the benefits and downsides of the GPL.
A hearty contingent convened at the Public House to continue the discussion, even through the rain.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable, thought provoking day. The delegates drifted home at the end of the night knowing they'd been involved in something that matters.
Codebits - Lisbon, Portugal, December 2009
Josette Garcia writes:
Codebits - the fun event for all techies.
Inspired by Hackday, London, Celso Marthino and Pedro Custodio, both then from Sapo.pt, decided two years ago to create Codebits in Lisbon. This year Pedro was not with us but Jose Castro did a super job. Almost 700 techies lined up on Thursday 3rd December for the opening of the third Codebits which shows no sign of fatigue.
Codebits is held in a huge old darkened building - it takes 5 mins to walk from one end to the other and the place is buzzing with activities. The place is a techie's dream - cables, internet connection, cameras, tables, chairs, flipcharts, bean bags, game consoles - everything is there to make it a 3 day and night memorable event.
Yes, the idea is to spend the nights there - food and drinks are provided non stop. This huge open-plan barn-style building is divided into areas for small conferences, 100 of tables on which techies can work on their team project, an area for Mitch Altham and his soldering maker table and tools, television screens everywhere, (live feed and TV for friends at home).
The programme is brilliant. It includes talks (Portuguese and English), Quiz Show, Rock Band Contest, and the 24 hours programming/hacking competition.
Around 50 teams worked on projects which had to be presented to the audience and judging panel at the end of the third day. Each team had 90 seconds to present their project - my heart went out to them, they had not slept for 3 days, did not get any fresh air (except for the draft) - as you will see from the pictures that life of a techie is not all glamour.
I did not compete, I went to sleep every night - not a lot, but I did go to bed!
UKUUG - 2 New Tutorials Announced - Zenoss & Erlang
On January 27th 2010 in London, we have Zenoss Introduction Workshop, led by Zenoss Master Jane Curry:
Zenoss provides comprehensive Open Source network and systems management.The purpose of this workshop is to get delegates started with Zenoss. The product will be installed in a VMware environment and the main functions of Zenoss will be explored through a series of practical exercises, using a combination of real and virtual devices.
The workshop aims for at least 80% hands-on time.
- UKUUG members: (Individual & Academic) £310 + vat
- UKUUG members: (Commercial) £385 + vat
- Non-members: £430 + vat
Book now: online or booking PDF.
Prices include refreshments, lunch and course notes
On 3rd Feb 2010, we have Practical Erlang Programming, led by the founder of Erlang Training and Consulting and co-author of Erlang Programming, Francesco Cesarini:
Practical Erlang Programming covers the basic, sequential and concurrent aspects of the Erlang programming language. You will learn the basics of how to read, write and structure Erlang programs. The target audience are software developers and engineers with an interest in server side applications and massively concurrent systems.
The goal of this tutorial is a hands-on introduction to the theory and concepts behind sequential and concurrent Erlang programming, explaining the Erlang syntax, semantics and concurrency model. We conclude with an overview of the error handling mechanisms used to build fault tolerant systems with five nines availability.In order to get the most out of this tutorial, you must have a good grasp of other programming languages. This will be a hands on tutorial. Make sure you come with your laptop having installed Erlang and your favourite editor.
Book now: online or booking PDF
- UKUUG members: (Individual & Academic) £160 + vat
- UKUUG members: (Commercial) £225 + vat
- non-members: (Individual & Academic) £220 + vat
- non-members: (Commercial) £295 + vat
It's worth booking early: bookings made before 31st December will incur VAT at 15% - after this date rate will revert to 17.5%
Maker Faire, Newcastle, 13th-14th, March 2010 - Call for Proposals
A Call for Proposals has gone out for the 2nd UK Maker Faire, which is due to take place in Newcastle on the 13th and 14th March 2010:
Following the outstanding success of the first UK Maker Faire which was attended by over 7000 visitors, we are thrilled to announce Maker Faire 2010! Once again, Maker Faire will be heading to North East England as part of the Newcastle ScienceFest - a 10 day festival celebrating creativity and innovation.
DIY Makers, Progressive Techies, Old-Fashioned and Indie Crafters, Mad Scientists, Quirky Musicians and Myriad Innovators propose your projects here. Deadline for submitting proposals is December 11th and then we will make a selection by January 8th.
Last year was a huge triumph, as this BBC News Report shows. 2010 promises to be even grander and awe-inspiring.
Follow Maker Faire UK on Twitter: http://twitter.com/makerfaire_uk
XP Day, London, 7th/8th December 2009
December 7th and 8th 2009 sees XpDay taking place in London:
The Extreme Tuesday Club (XTC) are pleased to announce the 9th consecutive London XpDay conference, to be held December 7th and 8th at Church House, Westminster.
Aimed at experienced Agile practitioners, this year's conference provides an interactive mix of scheduled sessions, lightning talks and Open Space. There are three remarkable keynotes: Mark Striebeck (Engineering Manager at Google, responsible for developer testing infrastructure, tools and adoption); Dr. Doron Swade (Engineer, historian, and museum professional, the internationally recognized authority on the life and work of Charles Babbage) and Terry Saunders (Comic storyteller, Edinburgh Fringe stalwart). The conference continues after hours with social events sponsored by Google and Zühlke.
As usual, the conference will feature several leading book authors, including O'Reilly's Ade Oshineye (Apprenticeship Patterns, Guidelines for the Aspiring Software Craftsman).
For more details & how to register, see http://www.xpday.org/
Write-up of November's iPhone and Smartphone Publisher and Developer MeetUp
November's iPhone and Smartphone Publisher and Developer Night was another triumph, an Augmented Reality Special. 24 was kitted out in its Christmas garb, and once again thanks to Yuza Mobile for loan of the space. An audience of about 100 people turned out to see two excellent presenters:
Ravi Damani is the co-Founder of acrossair. He talked about his most famous app, Nearest Tube, which uses geolocation to orient the user to the nearest underground station. The app uses the iPhone's native ability to know where it is, to know which way it is facing and to understand how it is being tilted. It calls for data from the Nearest Tube servers for the nearest station and for directions for how to get there, and superimposes the data it retrieves on top of the image from the camera. The app can then guide the user to the station, following the directions on the screen.
Mark Cummins spoke about PlinkArt, his Art Indentification app. Take a shot of a painting, and the app searches the PlinkArt database for images that match. Three seconds later, it returns the name of the painting, along with information about the artist.
Mark is a PHD student who specialised in image recognition, and the things he has learned are rolled into PlinkArt. The same algorithms would work on anything which has a hard surface - he said it wouldn't work on something like a handbag, which is bendable. With PlinkArt, all the hard work is done on the server, not within the phone, which allows Mark and his team to develop the same application for platforms other than the iPhone: it has been ported to Android, and other platforms are in development.
Both Ravi and Mark made the point that the sticking point with all these applications is accessing the datasets. As Tim O'Reilly says, Data is the Intel Inside of the next generation of applications.
Barcamp Manchester 7th-8th November 2009
Still a few tickets left for Barcamp Manchester 2, taking place this coming weekend (at the time of writing) at Contact on Oxford Road: Google Map If you're anywhere in the region, this will be a fine event to take part in.
Report from the International PHP Conference 2009, Barcelona
Josette Garcia writes:
How many techies does it take to build an elephant tower?
Result –
This elephant is, of course, the mascot of PHP. Attending the International PHP Conference in Barcelona, I was surrounded by these lovely cuddly toys. As you can well imagine, the conference, organized by the PHP Barcelona User Group, was not for the soft-hearted but for the top PHP programmers/developers. Altogether there were 350 attendees coming from as far as India to listen to some brilliant talks.
Once again Rasmus Lerdorf was invited. He gave a brief history of PHP and talked about good security when using PHP. He was rather critical of the use of frameworks and design patterns – saying that the developer should always be in charge of his/her code. (Since the website does not show Rasmus’ talk, I gathered that information from talking to people who attended his talk. Hope I got it right!)
Other talks of interest included:
. The State of Quality Assurance Tools for PHP by Sebastian Bergmann
. Symfony 2.0, a Sneak Peak by Fabien Potencier
And many more.
Interested in PHP? Look out for PHP Barcelona 2010 as I am sure this conference will go from strength to strength.
Interview with Michal Slaski and Rusty Klophaus
At the last Erlang Factory in London, I interviewed Senior Erlang Consultant Michal Slaski and Creator of the Nitrogen Framework Rusty Klophaus about how Erlang Web Framework and Nitrogen can work together.
And this seems an apt time to remind you about Erlang User Conference 2009 in Sweden, Stockholm from the 12 Nov 2009 to 12 Nov 2009.
UKUUG Spring 2010 Conference - Call for Papers
The UKUUG Spring Conference for 2010 is due to take place in Manchester from 23-25 March:
We are currently accepting proposals for talks; so if you are a systems administrator or developer, we want to hear from you. We are seeking papers covering all aspects of systems and network administration, including:
- security and audit
- authentication and authorisation
- operating systems
- ethics and legislative compliance
- storage solutions
- network file systems
- databases and directory services
- nomadic and wireless computing
- benchmarking and performance tuning
- configuration management
- scripting and task automation
- cluster management
If you have a novel solution to a problem, experience of a particular application or hardware platform, tips and tricks for fellow systems administrators, or a favourite tool you could talk about, please submit a paper for consideration by the programme committee.
Talks should include a high level of technical content and not involve sales pitches.
Significant Dates
To offer a talk, or make enquiries about a partially formed idea, email spring2010@ukuug.org
- Initial closing date for abstracts: 15th November 2009
- Accepted speakers notified by: 22nd November 2009
- Final date for all talk materials to be submitted: 28th February 2010
Open Hardware Conference - London, December 4th 2009
40Fires and Nesta have announced the Open Hardware Conference, which will take place in the Nesta offices in London on the 4th December 2009 between 10am and 8 in the evening:
Collaborative Strategies and Challenges of Making Things the Open Source Way
This is an event to bring key projects, their participants and stakeholders together in the emerging field of Open Hardware development, organized by 40Fires in partnership with Nesta.
The 40Fires Foundation is a forum to develop energy-efficient cars, and other sustainable products, using an open source approach.
The event aims to inform participants about Open Hardware, to be a space to discuss and learn and to explore practical solutions and potential collaborations to help Open Hardware work better, for a better world.
Confirmed speakers include Christian Alhert of Minibar and Open Business fame, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino of Tinker.it and Francesco D'Orazio of FACE. Patrick Andrews of Riversimple/40 Fires will be talking about The Hyrban, the Open Source car, Adrian Bowyer about the RepRap Project and its Community, and Andrew Katz will discuss A framework for open licensing of hardware.
I've signed up - should be a cracking day.
Leeds Girl Geek Dinner - October 21st 2009
The fifth Leeds Girl Geek Dinner is happening at the Loft Leeds this Wednesday, the 21st October 2009.
Background: "The Girl Geek Dinners were founded on the 16th August 2005 as a result of one girl geek who got annoyed and frustrated about being one of the only females attending technical events. She was tired of being assumed to be marketing, tired of constantly having to prove herself and decided that she just wanted a change and to be treated just the same as any other geek out there, gender and age aside."
The speakers for the Leeds Girl Geek Dinner will include:
christine morris // @cmoz;a Canadian living in the UK for over ten years with what she refers to as a healthy obsession with technology. She is always after the latest trends & research in the field, hoping to explore it further.
She has received joint funding (British Council & Arts Council) for digital works, namely re-writing Freud, which was shown at ProgME Brasil, France, Scotland, London. This was an algorithm written for a wall mounted touch screen, which randomized the entire book The Interpretation of Dreams, and re-printed it in a completely new order every time.
Working in education for several years keeps her motivated and her research & fascination has led her to her current project, Apps & Hats - a quirky iPhone application review show, created only a few months after the app store launched.
sarah hartley // @foodiesarah;
a digital editor for the Guardian and has been an online journalist since 2000 after starting her career in regional newspapers.
She blogs about the evolution of journalism, social media and online communities, as well as the Media Guardian’s PDA blog.
Journalism training and development is an area of particular interest for Sarah who has run courses in all aspects of online content production, blogging and multimedia for organisations in Britain and oversees ranging from NATO to NCTJ journalism colleges.
Before joining the Guardian she was the head of online editorial for MEN Media in Manchester, publishers of the award-winning Manchester Evening News.
There will also be a showing of her code, 
"a short film, bringing together a series of interviews with women in leadership positions across Silicon Valley."
The Her Code: Engendering Change in Silicon Valley study was conducted in the first half of 2009 by Orange Labs's Pascale Diaine, in San Francisco.
Bristol Knowledge Unconference - December 12th/13th 2009
The world requires we all have a touch of the Polymath about us these days, even if it's in a small way. Whatever your profession, chances are you double up your tasks, updating your skills so you can present your ideas, design and build a website, write a blog, take and edit photos and videos, (not to mention the fraught task of buying the camera in the first place). There will be metrics to analyse, hard drives and internet connections to SysAdmin, decisions about copyright licences to be made. For the hardware hackers out there, there are all the practical skills such as soldering, working out resistance, connecting and programming Arduinos, constructing a container, sewing to be contended with. Because it's fun to pick up new skills and knowledge, we get stuck into these tasks with relish, but they still have to be learned if you want to give your ideas a run out in the sun.
And to do so, you could buy a book or go to the web - both perfectly sound options, especially the book buying bit! - or you could find an expert and learn from them. But should there be a chance to spend a complete weekend in the company of wall-to-wall experts, who are happy to let you know what they know, then surely that's an opportunity worth leaping at.
All of which is a preamble to set up The Bristol Knowledge Unconference:
The Bristol Knowledge Unconference will be taking place at the Arnolfini Arts Centre in Bristol, UK on the 12th and 13th December. It fuses together knowledge/information/wisdom, discussions, games, being social, networking and a bar!
The Bristol Knowledge Unconference is for all people who are involved with "Knowledge", and like to go to an event which is practically focused, yet informal. No matter what background you have you are free (gratis and libre) - whether you're a Web Developer, a Knowledge Engineer, a Semantic Web Engineer, a Graphics Designer, a Psychologist, a Scientist, a Knowledge Manager, an Information Architect or Anything Else - there will be something there for you. The mission is to bridge the gaps between different communities and to learn.
This years Bristol Knowledge Unconference (2009) will have a subtitle: "The Art of Knowledge". It is one part of a weekend entitled "unCraftivism", which brings together various art+tech events (such as the Knowledge Unconference, Dorkbot and Robotics Labs), "unCraftivism" itself is a satellite event of the "Craftivism" exhibition at the Arnolfini Arts Exhibition.The event is an unconference (a very informal conference, a bit like a Barcamp), and so there is no charge for entry and it's quite free-form during the days. Attendees will be free to move from talk to talk across the events happening that weekend. Feel free to put your name on the "I'm coming" list on the Bristol Knowledge Unconference 2009 web page, and if you feel like giving a talk, discussion, demo or game then please do. You get get in touch with Daniel Lewis, the organiser of the Unconference, if you have any questions, queries, comments or suggestions (Tel: +447834355516 - Email: danieljohnlewis [at] gmail [dot] com ).
Madlabs and Robot Hack Day
Madlab is Manchester Digital Laboratories:
... a 1000 sq. ft. former shop in the Northern Quarter – open Thursday-Sunday from 10am-late (plus other evenings when there’s an event happening).It’s a space you can get together with like-minded individuals and work on your urban gardening, crochet, hacking, programming, media arts, filmmaking, animating project without worrying that you’re in a library, coffee shop, pub or other unsuitable venue. We know hackers and craftspeople need work space and may need to get down and dirty – we also know sometimes you need a quiet area to present and show works to your peers. We support both activities. And we hope there will be a rich mix of individuals who’ll get out of the usual zones, the knitter talking to the software architect, the cupcake maker scheming with the laser etching builder. We know some good will come of this.
If you’re organising a workshop, meetup, unconference, user group, or knitting circle and want to use the space then drop us a line!
Madlab are hosting Robot Hack Day on the 24th of October, 2009 as part of the Manchester Science Festival. It's a chance to break apart that disappointing electronic gadget you got last Christmas and create something new and inspiring out of it, to get crazy with solder and a glue gun and bring a bunch of resistors, capacitors and motors to life, and have a laugh while you're doing it. And there will be Robot Football! I mean, if that isn't a fun day, what is!
Here's Madlab's Dave Mee to tell you more:
Erlang User Conference 2009
One of the very pleasing things that is noticeable when observing the European Tech Scene is how many of the people doing impressive and interesting things are themselves interesting and indeed likeable. So it is with the good folks at the Erlang Factory, who are hosting the 15th Erlang User Conference 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden during the week commencing the 9th of November:
Erlang Conference
The User Conference consists of a full day of talks from experts, the obfuscated Erlang competition followed by an Erlounge in the evening where there will be drinks and snacks.Erlang University
Tutorials
In the week of the User Conference, from 9th-11th November, there will be three-day training courses in:
On Friday 13th November there will be a series of Erlang and Test-Driven Development Tutorials. These will allow delegates to learn about and how to use a number of tools including:
The inventors of these will be leading the Tutorials so if you want to learn about testing Erlang programmes, this is the place to do it.
Sign-up before 15th October and SAVE SEK 450 (excl VAT) with the Early-bird offer!
GEEK ATLAS & BLETCHLEY PARK
O'Reilly will donate 50p to the Bletchley Park Trust Fund for every copy of The Geek Atlas sold in the UK.
£1000 DONATED SO FAR
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