beTech :: Evolve Already

• Event: beCamp 2009
• Dates: May 8th 5 PM to 10 PM, May 9th 9 AM to 5 PM, 2009.
• Location: CitySpace (http://www.cvilledesign.org/cityspace/)
• Map: http://tinyurl.com/c6bxzr
• Price: $FREE
• Signup: http://barcamp.org/beCamp2009#Campers

If you’re a geek in or around the Charlottesville metroplex or even if you’re merely tech-curious, this is the event you don’t want to miss. beCamp is Charlottesville’s version of the BarCamp unconference phenomenon—organized on the fly by attendees, for attendees. Realizing that the most energizing parts of any tech conference are the ad hoc conversations that take place in the hallways between the sessions, beCamp facilitates these types of interactions for an entire event.

This year we are using the bright airy CitySpace facility, on the downtown mall, underneath the parking garage.  CitySpace is directly upstairs of the space we used last year, and the open layout should mesh well with our OpenSpace conference. We’ll have a large room that can hold all 100 of us, as well as 4 or 5 break out rooms for the individual sessions.

We provide the venues, the wireless, the projectors, the food, da beer—you show up to teach, learn, and participate.

Each attendee should talk about something or volunteer (registration, set-up, teardown, etc.). We will suggest and pick the sessions which will be picked by the attendees Friday evening. For example, if lots of people want to hear about Google’s OpenSocial, then that will be on the agenda. If no one wants to hear about HTML5, then it won’t be on the agenda.

Think of it as an open-source geek gathering where you get to decide what goes into and what comes out of the event. It’s 2 days of creating, collaborating, and conversing with people just as juiced excited about technology as you are.

If you think you can help sponsor some of the needs, please let me know.  We’ve listed some of the needs on this page: http://barcamp.org/sponsor-beCamp-2009

Learn More

Homepage: http://barcamp.org/beCamp2009

Sponsorships: http://barcamp.org/sponsor-beCamp-2009

See other beCamp’s: http://barcamp.org/beCamp2008

Details

Dates: May 8th 5 PM to 10 PM, May 9th 9 AM to 5 PM.

Location: CitySpace (http://www.cvilledesign.org/cityspace/)

Map: http://tinyurl.com/c6bxzr

Price: $FREE

Signup: http://barcamp.org/beCamp2009#Campers

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Originally posted by Eric Pugh | Principal | OpenSource Connections, LLC | 434.466.1467 | http://www.opensourceconnections.com

The first planning meeting for a Spring ‘09 higher ed web design/development conference at U.Va. is set for next Wednesday (full details below). If you missed the earlier email several weeks ago announcing this effort, you can read it online. Jared Spool, of UIE, will be with us on speakerphone to discuss presenter possibilities for proposed conference sessions (thanks to everyone who contributed ideas to the proposal) and help us formulate some next steps. We’ll also start mulling over logistics like securing a funding model, booking space, catering, publicity, setup/tear-down etc.

If you’d like to be a part of the planning but can’t make it to this first meeting, I’ve set up a UVaCollab site and email list at UVaWebConf09 at collab.itc.virginia.edu. All future announcements and online discussion regarding the conference will happen there, so feel free to join if you’d like to keep tabs on the progress. The name of the UVaCollab site is “UVa Web Conf ‘09″, and it’s listed in the public directory.

Hope to see you there!

First planning meeting and discussion with Jared Spool
When: Wednesday, November 12, 1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Where: In the Byrd Room, Harrison/Small Special Collections building, U.Va.

On November 19th at 4pm in Harrison-Small Auditorium, noted map collector DAVID RUMSEY will present “Giving Maps a Second Life with Digital Technologies.”

Mr. Rumsey will show how technology has transformed his work as an historical map scholar and collector. Using imaging software, GIS, and popular applications like Google Earth and Second Life, Rumsey has given new life to old maps, both in their dissemination and in our ability to analyze and understand them in a variety of disciplines. He will demonstrate how he offers rare maps and innovative software tools on his free, public website:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/

Come early to the talk for a guided tour of the Seymour I. Schwartz collection of North American maps: “On the Map,” beginning at 3pm in the main gallery of the Harrison Institute / Small Special Collections Library:

http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/onthemap/

And stay late for a reception to follow Mr. Rumsey’s presentation!

This lecture is co-sponsored by CERSA (the new Center for Emerging Research, Scholarship, and Arts) and the Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia Library.

The Scholars’ Lab is also hosting a luncheon, open house, and other map-related events on November 19th, which is International GIS Day:

http://www.gisday.com/

Please say hello to Michael Prichard, the owner of Willow Tree Consulting and a Flex developer!

This is a quick update for you regarding our Flex Discovery Group meeting next Tuesday. A detailed agenda will go out on Monday. This week the annual Adobe MAX conference is happening in San Francisco, so expect big product news to come soon from Adobe. Don’t forget the focus of this group is to build a Flex Application together utilizing: multi-page forms, web services, web cam inputs, validation, video, video cue points, animations, file uploads, wysiwyg editor and more! Place all code here: http://code.google.com/p/flexdiscoverygroup/ .

MEETING DETAILS:

When: Tues, Oct 28th, 12:00pm - 1:00pm

Where: Brown Science and Engineering Library, http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/brown/, [location see map: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/map.html ]

Who: Everyone is Invited and encouraged to share ideas and parcels of finished or unfinished Adobe Flex work for discussion purposes.

There’s a free conference about open-source databases planned for November 14-16 at Cityspace (inspired by beCamp, which is a local BarCamp event I attended earlier this year). Free meals, good times. (We have sponsorship from Sun, Google and others. There are opportunities for local sponsorship, too

A lot of the most illustrious names in open-source databases will be here. This will definitely be a place you can meet people who know how to make databases sing and dance. For example Peter Zaitsev of mysqlperformanceblog.com fame will be here, as will the creator of SQLite and many more.

It would be great if you would

1. spread the word — put badges on your sites, blog about it, tell
   friends to come
2. help organize
3. attend!

See http://opensqlcamp.org/

Grab badges from
http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/10/04/opensql-camp-badges-are-ready/

Please join us for a presentation on XUL on Wednesday,October 15th from 10:00 - 11:30 am in Clemons Library, Room 407.
What: Introduction to XUL Development
When: Wed. 10/15, 10:00 - 11:30 am
Where: Clemons Library, Room 407 (to the left of the reference desk)
Who: RJ Bruneel
Introduction to XUL Development
An introduction to XUL development and discussion about what worked while RJ worked on a XUL project for Opensource Connections. XUL (XML User Interface Language) is Mozilla’s XML-based language that lets you build feature-rich cross platform applications that can run connected or disconnected from the Internet. These applications are easily customized with alternative text, graphics and layout so they can be readily branded or localized for various markets. Web developers already familiar with Dynamic HTML (DHTML) will learn XUL quickly and can start building applications right away.  

RJ Bruneel is a seasoned Software Developer since 1997 currently working for Opensource Connections. 

For more information about the location, check out http://www.lib.virginia.edu/map.html

MEETING DETAILS

When: Wednesday, July 30th: 1:00pm – 2:30pm

Where: Newcomb Hall, Room 168

Meeting Title & More Below:

Title: RDF, and OWL, the Semantic Web, and Linked Data

Description: While some may roll their eyes when they hear about the
Semantic Web, usually because of unfair associations with the
pie-in-the-sky failed promises of Artificial Intelligence, many
developers are already building some very cool applications. In this
presentation, we’ll look at technologies that build on the simplicity of
the RDF data model to enable these applications. We’ll also see how
RDF/OWL enables the coding of useful semantics, and how the Linked Data
movement is building on many Semantic Web principles to make increasing
amounts of valuable data available to your applications.

Bio: Bob DuCharme (www.snee.com/bobdc.blog) is a Solutions Architect at
Innodata Isogen. In a recent XML.com newsletter, editor Kendall Clark
wrote “Does anyone write tech prose as clear as Bob?” Bob is the author
of Manning Publications’ “XSLT Quickly,” Prentice Hall’s “XML: The
Annotated Specification” and “SGML CD,” and McGraw Hill’s “Operating
Systems Handbook.” He’s written over seventy pieces for XML.com and has
contributed to Dr. Dobb’s Journal, IBM developerWorks, perl.com, XML
Magazine, XML Journal, XML Developer, O’Reilly Books’ “XML Hacks,” and
Prentice Hall’s “XML Handbook.” Bob received his BA in Religion from
Columbia University and his Masters in Computer Science from New York
University. He lives in Ivy.