Barcamp Bournemouth 2

Over the weekend of 10th/11th April the second Barcamp to be held in Bournemouth took place at Bournemouth University with over 70 participants in attendance. The sponsors of this year's event were: Red Web, G3 Show, BCS, C4L, Fibreband and Squizzleapp.

Sessions I went to on Saturday

Usability vs Accessibility - Phil Heywood and Luke Guppy
In this session Phil and Luke gave the pros and cons of Usability vs Accessibility and how they should be carefully considered in web projects as one may conflict with the other. They gave examples of the downsides of JQuery and what we can do to improve the accessibility if people have Javascript turned off in the browser.

Smashing Mag sucks or how to blag it as a webdesigner - Rich Quick
In this talk, Rich gave examples of application websites that were obvious rip-offs of each other in terms of design and content. He also questioned who is to blame for designs looking the same, the designer or online articles and tutorials.

Creativity - top 10 tips for better brainstorming - David Burton
In David's presentation he gave the understanding of creativity, how it works and how we can get the most out of brainstorming. He went through the fives types of creative behaviour including Fact Finding, (Re) organising, Improvising, Meaning and Maverick and how people can sometimes shift between them. He also went through how we can come up with freshness and new ideas.

Rolling a turd in glitter, 10 steps to design awesomeness - Damian Proctor
In this talk Damian examined various websites and different design techniques in each site and how they are used effectively. The 10 steps that Damian talked about were: Power of 3, Leading the eye, Creating emotions with elements, Contrast, Hierarchy of type, Whitespace, Unity, Depth, Grids and Colours.

Chat roulette - Dom Hodgson
You know the score.

The rest of Saturday night was spent generally hanging about and playing a few games of Werewolf including probably the best game I've played which had Cristiano as the moderator and no werewolfs were involved. Lets just say it made for a very interesting game.

Sessions I went to on Sunday

XSS with JQuery - Kevin Prince
In this presentation, Kevin showed how we can use widgets across sites using JQuery and JSON and how XSS isn't always evil.

Get Inspiration for Photography - Martin Cunningham
In this session I gave examples of how we can get inspiration for photography when you aren't really inspired to get out with the camera.

Version control with Git - Abizer
In this session Abizer talked about version control with Git and commands that can be used to make life easier when dealing with version control.

Lightning talks - Various Speakers
A session including various 5 minute presentations given by a number of speakers.

As always for these types of events a big thank you to the Organisers, Sponsors and the Attendees. Oh and also Dom and Heather for the cups of tea in Leeds.

Barcamp North East 3

The weekend of 20th and 21st March saw the arrival of the 3rd Barcamp North East to come to Newcastle which also marked the end of Newcastle Science Fest, a ten day event which aims to increase the North East's enthusiasm for science and to encourage the younger generation to consider a career in the science field.

Barcamp North East 3 was held in the Center of Life, Newcastle. A contemporary science and learning center just round the corner from Newcastle Central Station.


Saturday

Sessions I attended on Saturday were (not in any particular order):

Paypal Hacking - Tim Nash
Tim Nash gave a talk on the PayPal API and how it can be used in your own projects.

Finding Creativity - James Rutherford
A discussion on how designers, developers and other creative types find creativity in the everyday world.

Scaling :: Scaling Lingscars.com
A presentation on how lingscars.com could be upscaled for higher performance on the web.

Real Time Web or having a socket in the browser - Alex Kavanagh
Alex gave a talk about real-time updates on the web using Django, COMET, STOMP and Morbid Q and the issues that he has faced.

80s Video Games Anonymous - James Rutherford
A round circle discussion and quiz about 80s video games

The Modern Day Interview - Martin Cunningham
After being on the job hunt for 3 months now, I decided to give a session on the modern day interview and the ups and downs of job hunting. The main point of the presentation was to say that we need things like standard ways of doing things such as job application forms as one is never the same as the other and how interviews need to be brought down a notch and not be so formal.

How to impress the ladies with JQuery - Rich Quick
Rich quick gave a session about the basics of JQuery and where beginners can find resources to help them out. Rich's slides for this presentation can be found over at richardquickdesign.com

Dr Horribles Singalong - Everyone
A singalong to Dr Horrible's Singalong blog which was created exclusivly for Internet distribution.

Powerpoint Kareoke - Dom Hodgson
A favourite session of mine as it is always so funny and yet so random. After volunteers have been chosen, they each must present an impromtu random presentation which they know nothing about. A very parody based session as it presents the absurdity that many business presentations are.

Usual Barcamp games such as Warewolf
A question I will never let down after this Barcamp: "Martin, are you the seeer?"



Sunday

Sessions I attended on Sunday were (not in any particular order):

Breakfast at Spoons
A few poeople including Dom, Tim, Leeky, Cristiano, Melinda, Carolyn, Heather and myself went for a breakfast to start the day in Wetherspoons not too far for the venue.

Stop taking photos - Chris Neale
Chris gave a talk on why cameras and laptops should be left back at home when attending conferences and events. The argument was that when you take technology to a conference it takes you away from the event and not as much enjoyment is to be had. Also the other side of the story was do the photos taked of an event really portray the day to other people.

Get off your arses, no excersise required - Tim Nash
In this talk, Tim explained some of the projects that he had worked on and how you can make money out of niche ideas.

Chat Roulette - Dom Hodgson
Dom held another round of chat roulette on Sunday afternoon. Following from what Dom had previously said to me on the Saturday, I had to go along to this session to see what it was all about!

Daily Dragon, the upstart friend of Mr Duck - Caz Mockett
Following on from the Duck365 project that Alistair has worked on, Caz has decided to do a Dragon365 with a little purple dragon called Dai and it's lion friend Leo. This talk was an introduction to the project and a show and tell of the pictures that the dragon is currently up to.

On the Sunday afternoon I hung around for a few drinks, then Caz, Alistair, Carolyn, Tim and I went for a Japanese meal, this was then followed my Tim, Carolyn and I heading back to the Head of Steam for a few more drinks before they travelled back down to Leeds with Dom and Heather.

Barcamp North East 3 was yet another awesome weekend. A big thank you should go to the people who helped out such as Yahoo Developer Network, Microsoft, Center of Life, Newcastle Science Fest, SuperMondays and of course Alistair who organised the whole thing.

A big shout out should also go to the attendees: Alex Kavanagh, Alistair McDonald, Brian Degger, Sarah Degger, Ian Simmons (Center of Life), Stewart (Center of Life), Carolyn Jones, Caz Mockett, Chris Neale, Cristiano Betta, Danni Matzk, David Batty, Dom Hodgson, Heather Burke, Eric Nelson, Harry Palmer, Ian Puncey, James Rutherford, Robert Lee Cann, Mick Cunningham, Melinda Seckington, Neil Crosby, Mr Duck, Dai the Dragon, Peter Bull, Rebecca Parker, Rich Quick, Richard Hyatt, and Tim Nash for making it such as great weekend.

UK Maker Faire 2010 and Soul Technique release the ST EP!

A couple of weeks ago, I spent Saturday along at the 2nd Makerfaire to be be held in the UK as part of Newcastle Science Fest, a ten day event which aims to increase the North East's enthusiasm for science and to encourage the younger generation to consider a career in the science field. Makerfaires have been going for quite a while now in America and have only just came over to the UK in the last couple of years, much to the surprise of me being held in Newcastle. Makerfaires celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science and the DIY attitude.

I went to the 1st Makerfaire to come to the UK last year, again held in Newcastle and thoroughly enjoyed myself, the visit also incorporated a photo walk with some of the usual's from the Newcastle Photo Walk group on Flickr and when I saw the event organized again and coming back to the North East I just had to go along. This year you had to pay an entrance fee to get into the Center Of Life where the event was held (Last year it was held in Times Square), still it was quite reasonable at around £4 which also included access to the other exhibitions in the building. This year the event was also a lot bigger both with the amount of attendees and the amount of makers and stalls available to look around.

Here is a run down of some of the makers which I found most interesting.

Sugru – Make things more user friendly by hacking them
Out of all the stalls I saw at this years Makerfaire this was the most useful product. A product called Sugru which allows further hacking of an everyday product to make it easier to use. It is a putty/rubber like substance which then sets and can be used on basically anything.

The 3 Drunks
Three robots which act drunk and who interact with passers by.

ZomeTool and Polydron
Exploring the ideas of symmetry in 2D and 3D by building mathematical sculptures.

Shapeways
A fascinating project which I first noticed at last years Makerfaire which print objects in a variety of 3D shapes using various different materials.

Twinkly, Sparkly cocktail bar
Demonstrated by Oli Wood, this is a cocktail bar made with LEDs and recycled products.

Web Cycle
A project created by Tom Scott and Matt, the Web Cycle uses open source Arduino technology and open source Ubuntu software. By cycling faster, the internet connection speeds up allowing you to browse pages faster.

Compukit UK 101
A project that is 30 years old, built from scratch and demonstrated at last years Makerfaire.

Percussion Kit II
Alistair McDonald's scaled up version of the original Percussion kit which he built at a hack day last year in London. Very interesting to see how the younger people interacted it.

Power Tool Drag Racing
Racing power tools such as modified Angle Grinders, Dremels and Saws down a 30ft track.

Complete a Rubicks cube in under 30 seconds
A robot which detects the rubicks cube, computes the possibilities and solves the problem in under 20 seconds.

Soul Technique release the ST EP!

Following the Makerfaire on Saturday night we headed over to the World Headquarters as Soul Technique, a Newcastle band I've followed for a while now were releasing their EP which had been in the pipeline for a few months.

The gig was down to start at 8pm but as with any event like this, the unwritten rule is is that it will start at least 30mins later. We turned up for 7:50pm, the doors were closed. Odd I thought, but then a woman came to the door and told us that we had to stay outside (Event asking if we could use the toilet, she pointed to the bar across the street). 15 minutes later we were allowed in, and even then the girl taking the money on the front counter wasn't ready. I found this very bad customer service and World Headquarters nearly lost two customers by doing this.

After paying the money to get in (and getting a free EP CD), I caught up with Ruth, the lead singer and had a bit of a chat. The night started with a set from Skrufz a rap group for the North East. I quite liked some of their stuff, but wouldn't have minded seeing them again as I'm sure they would have grown on me.

The second set of the night was given by the main group of the night. A brilliant set including a lot of their older tracks and some new ones. I've found with a lot of Soul Technique gigs and their style of music that when people get a couple of drinks down them and the audience gets into the spirit of things, they can bring the building to the ground with their mix of soul, pop, bass and grungy music and the EP release was no exception!

Some of the tracks played on the night included: “Move with me”, “Ugly”, “I've been here before”, “Golden Era”, “Freakshow” and “Slow Down”.

Even with the troubles we had when we first arrived this was a truly fantastic evening. Soul Technique regularly play in Newcastle, so get yourselves along to the next gig!

Soul Technique can be found here: myspace.com/soultechniqueofficial

Mobile Android Development and Using PHP with Web Services

SuperMondays returned to Newcastle on the evening of 22^nd February with an attendance of over 100 people. The attendees came to see 2 speakers, Alex Reid and Lorna Mitchell.

Android Development with Alex Reid
In this session, Alex gave an overview of Mobile Apps, How to write a mobile app, Differences from the web, Mobile device constraints and benefits and Android itself. Alex demonstrated 2 applications which he has already developed for Android including “Ask the Hoff” and “Next Metro”, an application which allows you to see which Metro will arrive next and if it is on time. He explained that to write a mobile application yo have to decide which device(s) to target, get to know an SDK, testing and publishing the app. Later in the session, Alex explained the differences of Mobile to the Web and how efficiency is the key when developing mobile apps.

PHP and Web Services and why they are the perfect partners with Lorna Mitchell
Lorna Mitchell is a big name in the PHP world and community and so needs no introductions. Lorna came to SuperMondays to discuss PHP and Web Services and why they are the perfect partners. During her talk she explained how PHP is solving the web problem, how the problem evolves and how PHP evolves to solve the problem. Lorna showed the architecture of Web Services and how different data formats can be used to communicate with Web Services including JSON and XML. She also discussed different services types which are normally associated with Web Services including *-RPC, SOAP and REST.

Alex's slides can be found here:
http://www.slideshare.net/AlexJReid/development-of-a-mobile-app-for-android

Lorna's slides can be found here:
http://www.slideshare.net/lornajane/php-and-web-services-perfect-partners

NE Bytes is born

Andrew Westgarth and Jo Noble have brought a new Microsoft Technology user group to the North East with the launch of NE Bytes. The launch event was held on Wednesday 20^th January and I went along to the event to see what it was all about.

NE Bytes revolves around both IT Developers and IT Professionals in the North East who use Microsoft Technologies in their day-to-day work and it also showcases up and coming software in the Microsoft suite of products.

For a launch event, it was great to see the number of people who attended. Over 90 people and the 3 speakers (Steve Smith, Mike Taulty and James O’ Neill) were present.

Highlights and features of Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010
The first session of the evening was given by Steve Smith, a SharePoint MVP and Director of Combined Knowledge (A specialist SharePoint training consultancy). Steve talked about some of the new features in the up and coming release of SharePoint. He covered topics such as Metadata management model, Records management, Records routing, The Ribbon, Office integration, Migration options, Architecture and the new layout of the software.

Silverlight – 2 Years, 4 versions and where are we now?
Mike Taulty who currently works in the Developer and Platform Group at Microsoft UK gave the second session of the evening. Mike talked about Microsoft’s UX technology for RIAs and covered what is available in Silverlight such as various User Interface components; he also demonstrated what is available in the new Silverlight release, Silverlight 4 which is currently in Beta.

Hyper-V with James O’Neill
The third session of the evening was given by James O’ Neill who works on the Evangelist Team. He covered the Hyper-V virtualisation technology which is bundled with Server 2008, including the improvements which were released in Server 2008 R2. He also demonstrated System Center Virtual machine Manager and managing virtualised systems using Windows PowerShell.