Who is sick

I came across a site today called whoissick.com. It is a web site that lets you post your symptoms if you are feeling under the weather. You can see trends of who is sick and with what.

Right now there are 4 guys in the Toledo area who aren't feeling all that that hot. I bet there are some more of you out there. Go ahead and post your symptoms. You may find out you're not the only one.

Link

Happy Darwin Day

I just found out that today was Darwin Day. I want to wish everyone a happy evolution.

I want to thank Jenni Laidman for posting on her blog letting everyone know.

edit: Sorry it was late last night and I didn't find out that it was Darwin Day till past midnight.

Wi-fi Network covers Toledo

Here is an article that I found on the city web site. The city is looking for a company to provide wi-fi to the entire 88 square miles of Toledo. At least that's what it sounded like to me. The article was a little tough to decipher. I had to read through it twice. I think the part that threw me off is their term "Request for Proposals" I'd assume that means they are looking for someone to provide this service. I'm going to have to do some more research on this.

RGP gets Grant for $11.8 Million

Looks like the Regional Growth Partner is doing a pretty good job of getting Grant Money from the State for our region. I'm not sure exactly when this announcement was posted but it must be pretty recent. The money is supposed to go toward high technology Not necessarily Computer technology but that is fine by me I suppose but it would be nice to see some of that go to computer tech.

Part of that $11.8 million award includes $6 million to capitalize a pre-seed fund, investing in 32 to 38 companies, primarily focused in the signature areas of Advanced Materials and Agbiosciences. Advanced materials is focused around the region’s national leadership in thin films materials, but also includes polymers, nanomaterials and other structured materials. Agbioscience supports business in the food production industry, food manufacturing/processing industry and agricultural biofuels

I hope they do some good with that money. I'm still wondering what the results are going to be from the consulting they did with IBM.

Ugg

Normally Dell has given me wonderful service. But this time sucked. I bought a new laptop over the x-mas season. I was and still am excited about it. But when I got it the monitor was flaky and later that day went dead. I called and I had to send the darn thing to get repaired. It finally came back today. I start using it. Then I notice that the screen looks weird. I check the settings. It turns out that the resolution is at 1280x800 and won't go any higher. I paid for a screen that can go up to 1440x900. It is looking like they put the wrong LCD screen on my computer and now I get to send it back to get the right one. I won't get to play with my new laptop till it comes back in a week or more. I'm soooo unhappy right now. I just want to play with my new toy.

-Mark-

CodeMash

I should have posted about this months ago but I have been shirking my blogging duties...

There is a major conference going on for programmers of all types to swap skills and listen to speakers. It is happening right at our back door over in Sandusky Jan 18-19. I believe it is only $99.

CodeMash It looks like the site is down for the moment but hopefully it will be back up soon.

NWNUG - Writing Quality Code

NWNUG is hosting a talk by Dustin Campbell about writing quality code on the 16th of January.

Link

Fun over the holidays.

Over the X-mas season my wife and a couple of my friends made our way to the annual "Tour de Noel" hosted by the Women of the Old West End. On the tour we were able to see several of the historic homes in the old west end of Toledo. My favorites on the tour were the Libbey House, and the Mansion View Inn

Here are some pictures that I took.






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It was a good time. It was the only time this winter that it was actually cold. I highly suggest catching it next year if you can.

Mark

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.