Purfectly pampered pets

It's been a while since my last post. I think that I may try to get back into this again. I may change things up a little bit but I keep kicking myself for dropping off.

I want to plug my brother's business. He started up a pet care business and I thought that I'd link to it. Puurfectly Pampered Pets They take care of your pet while you are away. From what I understand they service our area and are still taking bookings for the holiday.

More later,
-Mark-

ACM Social Dinner

NWOACM is having a meeting coming up on Wednesday the 11th of October 2006. This is a social event. The event is open to anyone who wants to attend. Below are a copy of the e-mail I recieved.

Topic: Whatever anyone wants to talk about.
Date: Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Time: 7:30 – 9:30
Where: Cucino di Betto

For this social meeting we will be on the main floor for Cucino di
Betto’s. This social is open to any ACM member, student or
professional. The full menu will be available for purchase from.

Please RSVP to mbrinkman at nwoacm dot org or nwoacm at crabbynick dot com.

We hope to see you there!

Michael Brinkman
Chair - NWOACM

Microsoft day report

Well I had a good time on Tuesday. I got to see demos of Windows Vista, Office 2007, Sharepoint, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I also got to try out Virtual Server 2005 and Sharepoint on the Microsoft Bus. I got a break and left again at 5:20 for the NWNUG meeting.

I have to say that the products that really stood out at these sessions were the Sharepoint and Virtual Server for me. I could really see myself using these tools. Don't get me wrong I thought that Windows Vista was very pretty and had some cool new features that will be nice to have but the fact that I can haver virtual computers for free is so sweet.

Also with sharepoint I am very excited about not having to write my own intranet. I'm going to have to do some more reading about it but it looks like you can integrate it with some of their office servers (I know next to nothing about this). The presentation was too fast for Sharepoint but it looked really cool.

At the Northwest Ohio .NET User Group meeting there were lots of tutorials going around. We had a presentation done by Jason Follas. He talked about Delegates in C#. "Basically it is a pointer to a function." It was a very good presentation. I'm awaiting a downloadable version of the .PPT file. I couldn't catch everything on the first swing.

Next was Greg Huber who did a presentation on Microsoft Atlas. Though he explained it isn't called Atlas anymore that's just it's code name. Now they are going with Microsoft AJAX something something. And there are two diffent ways of making your web site look like a desktop application. One is "server centric" with more overhead or there is "client centric" with less overhead but more of that pesky javascript.

The meeting was a good time I was told that the turnout was less than usual but I enjoyed myself. Plus thanks to HCR ManorCare we had a great view to downtown Toledo, a great board room to meet in and some Papa John's Pizza. Additionally I got a free book in their per-meeting raffle thanks to Microsoft.

Next I'll let you know about my trial of the demo software that Microsoft gave me.

Microsoft all day long!

I'm going to the Microsoft Tech Fair that I mentioned on the 15th from 8:30 to 3:30 today. Hopefully I'll be able to play with Windows Vista. I haven't gotten my hands on one of the betas yet. I'm supposed to get to see Office 2007 there as well. Then tonight I'm going to the AJAX presentation at the NWNUG meeting that I mentioned on the 19th.

I was thinking about having a meetup next week on Monday or Tuesday between technolgy professionals in the area at the downtown Frickers. I'll post more about this later.

Downtown Technology Incubator

I was went to my first press conference ever yesterday. It was a good time. I got to meet Ben Konop who is running for the Lucas County Commissioner. He is put forth a proposal to start a high tech incubator downtown. This proposal in it's essence is to help spur tech startups using state funds. The facilty would provide some technical support, utility discounts and other such incentives. The inspiration came from the Youngstown Business Incubator.

The Non-profit organization a (501 (c) 3 charitable , non-profit corporation) out in Youngstown was able, with their incubator, to create about 200 tech jobs, and 16 patents since the year 2000, when they started. Primarily they work with B2B software. Here are a list of the companies that are part of the incubator out there.

This proposal seems like a very good idea to me. It would provide opportunities to technical people who normally wouldn't have the funding to start developing the ideas they have.
I think that in order for Toledo's ecconomic survival it needs an industry other than manufacturing. I think that the talent is definately in the area between all the universities in the area that provide high tech education: University of Toledo's Engineering and business technology and technical degrees, Bowling Green State University's progams and Owens technical degrees.

Mr. Konop suggested that the people who end up being involved in the incubator can determine which high tech industry to pursue. Whether or not Ben wins the election I'd like this idea to continue. It is encouraging that someone is thinking about ways to encourage tech business in the area.

I want to thank Lisa Renee at the glass city jungle for posting the press conference notice.

One thing that I found interesting with being at the press conference was that only a couple of people showed up for the press conference. Don from the Nookular Option was there along with a reporter Erica Blake from The Toledo Blade, a camera man from WTOL was there too. It was fun. I feel like a real reporter.

I think that with this sort of creative ideas I think that Toledo could become a better place.

Ajax .net at NWNUG

The president of the North West Ohio .NET group is doing a presentation on AJAX in .NET titled: "An Introduction to Delegates in .NET" on Tuesday September 26thLooks like they are going to be doing a series of these sorts of presentations.

International Talk like a Pirate Day

Shiver me timbers it's International Talk like a Pirate Day today! In Meebo they have a filter that will translate your conversation into pirate speak if you type "pirateon" and "pirateoff" to turn it off. I tried it out it's funny.

Here's how it translated what I just said.

Mark Chandler: Shiver me timbers 'tis International Talk like a Buccaneer Day t'day! In Meebo they have a filter that will translate yer conversation into buccaneer speak if ye type "pirateon" and t' turn it off, with a chest full a' booty. I tried it out 'tis funny.

Aktion Associates hosts MS Tech Fair

There is a Microsoft Technology Fair on Tuesday September 26th from 8:30AM - 3:30 PM hosted by local information techonology company Aktion Associates registration seems to be required.

Meebo

I'm trying out this Web 2.0 product called Meebo. It is a web based instant messager program. It allows you to instant message across multiple IM networks (aol, yahoo, msn, ICQ, and Jabber or GTalk) and it allow you to put a widget on your web site as seen to the right. This allows visitors to your web site to strike up a conversation with the owner of the site.

Local Meetings

Talug is celebrating Software Freedom Day on September 16th 2006
Additionally they are advertising for the Ohio Linux Fest event on September 30th.

IEEE is holding several events:

The Toledo Section is pleased to host a presentation by Dr. JOHN M. FRAZIER of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research on September 21 at Mancy's Italian Restaurant. Dr. Frazier will present research on Modeling and Simulation of Biological Constructs. Click on this link for details and reservations.

Arc Flash Hazard Seminar, Wednesday, October 25, Presentation Room at SSOE, Inc., 1001 Madison Ave. We plan to certify 1 PDH (CEU) for registered PEs attending. Click on this link for details and reservations.

NWNUG posted about a meeting in Findlay on the Sept. 13th about the "Five (Supposedly) Scary things about .NET"

I know this is out of my jurisdiction but I thought I'd post about it. The Detroit SQL User Group is having a meeting on Sept. 14th 2006.

Late addition:

Also MOCHI is having a presentation on the Sept 20th 2006 @ 6:30-8:30 PM titled: "Evolving Technique in Digital Art". Kind of interesting that they didn't post the event on their web site but posted it on the semafx.net web site.

Looks like the semafx.net guys are having a guest speaker Alex Lindsay of the Pixel Corp on Sept. 19th 2006 starting at 6:30 PM. I have heard some great things about the Pixel Corp, if you have an interest in computer graphics, design, animation, etc... I would suggest attending. Alex Lindsay is the Chief Architect for Pixel Corps so I'm thinking he's pretty important and has a lot of interesting things to say. . .

Technology Group International

I found an interesting article in the "Toledo Free Press", featuring a software development company in Toledo called Technology Group International. They are a small comapany that makes Enterprise Resource Planning, (ERP) software named Enterprise 21 among others. Looks like they are doing pretty well for themselves.

Spreeder

I just got turned onto this tool called Spreeder by the v-log "Command-N" I'm not into Macs but they link to some cool web 2.0 sites and neat tools like this one.
I'm still trying to determine if this is a worthwhile tool but it helped me get through a couple of articles that I was trudgeing through. It's a web tool that forces you to read fast by flashing the text by one word at a time. It's kind of hard to absorb it all but I think it worked. Just don't blink. Copy the text you want to read into it and hit play. I rate it as a 3 out of 5 spiffys.

Org Schedule

Looks like there are several meetings coming up in the near future.

TALUG is having a meeting on Saturday August 19, 2006 2:00pm to 5:00pm at Stautzenberger College (5355 Southwyck Blvd Toledo, OH 43614) There isn't any official topic of discussion announced yet but I'll post if they do.

Also the NWNUG is having a speaker, Tim Landgraves in a speach called: "Composable Systems - The Developer's Toolkit.

ACM is trying to figure out their current schedule and they are going to be planning a geek dinner for sometime in the future. I'll have more about this in the future.

Frappr map

I created a Frappr map so that people around Toledo could add themselves onto my map.

Blog It, Toledo

Welcome all "Blog it, Toledo" Readers!

Well it looks like I'm going to really have to get down to work now I made it into Lisa Renee's Column in the Toledo Free Press.

I've gotten addicted to her blog at the Glass City Jungle and can't help but post on the political topics she writes about. I never thought that local politics could be so interesting.

I'll have some content on this site soon I promise. My time's been taken over with moving. I'm still formulating what exactly I want to do here. Thank you for being patient.

Till next time,
-Mark-

Upcoming meetings

NWOACM (North West Ohio Association for Computing Machinery) is tenatively having a meeting on the BGSU Campus Hayes Hall on the second floor at 7:00 PM July 31st

Talug (Toledo Area Linux User Group) is having a meeting on August 2nd.

NWNUG (Norhtwest Ohio .NET User Group) is sponsoring a presentation by Brian Prince: Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk Server 2006 on Tuesday July 25th starting at 5:45 PM at their meeting place described on their site.

Sir Ken Robinson

Here's Sir Ken Robinson who speaks on creativity and the education system. He is a very heart-felt speaker and rather entertaining. I think that if we took his advice then there would be many more happy people in the world.

I know this post is somewhat off topic but I think that all subjects come back to education and creativity. Plus I think that it is awesome to hear such a great speaker for free.

I stole this link from the Scoblizer.

Still here

TALUG is having a meeting on the Saturday July 15 at 2:00 PM.

And it looks like NWOACM is going to be having a meeting soon. Date and time to be announced.

I'm painting and moving into my house this week so sorry I haven't posted for a couple of days.

TALUG Event

Looks as though the Talug Group is holding an event on the 5th of July.

*Wednesday* July 5, 2006
6:30pm to 9:00pm
Topic(s): Intro to Shell Scripts
UT College of Engineering (maps & directions)
Palmer Hall (old South Engineering), room 3020
Bancroft Campus (park in lot 20)
Westwood Ave at Douglas Road
Toledo, OH 43606

Excitement

I think that I'm really going to go through with this idea. It's kind of scary. I've never been a journalist or even a rogue journalist. I just think that the topic is important and that it should be discussed. I don't think that the sciences get any sort of press in the area of the world so I'm going to create it.

I know there has to be some sort of tech community around here but there isn't anyone to recognize it. As I was looking around last night I ran across several different organizations, ACM, IEEE, TALUG, there was a meetup with web developers, and more.

I have been exposed to the professional organizations while in college but I had little to no contact with the professional chapters even after I graduated. I also ran across a blog or two, like Keith Instone's. I was in contact with Keith a while back. He was trying to help revive the the local chapter of ACM. Which it looks like they got their paperwork completed.

I think that I'm going to have to pay my dues, finally to ACM.

Looks like I missed a presentation on "Active Learning for Speech Recognition".

I'm going to have to do this. Wish me luck. I just hope that I don't get distracted by something shiny.

-Mark-

Serious or Not

I've been thinking about starting a Techish blog for a while. I read/listen to a lot of tech news and I think that I could do some writing about it. I guess that I'll talk about some of my history. I came to Toledo to study Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Toledo. I used to be involved with the ACM(Association for Computing Machinery), got to be their Chairman, vice-chair for a couple of years during that time I got to see it's decline but I can talk about that some other time. I'm currently working in Toledo as a Jack of all Trades Information Technology Specialist. I dabble in a lot of things from Web Programming/design, SQL Server Administration, Desktop support, telephone systems, Mail Server Administration etc...

I like to complain that there isn't any tech in Toledo, I know it's wrong so I'm going to see if there is some way for me to uncover those out there that love tech around here as much as I do and what they are doing.

I'm kind of doing this on a whim so sorry if it starts off kind of shaky. Also I'm moving into a house so there may be spans between posts... Buying a house kind of made me think more about this town as a permanent residence so I may as well write about it.

Talk to you soon.

-Mark-