The NotAtPDC virtual conference formed from several people on twitter talking about “everyone” that was not at Microsoft PDC. A few of them got together and have organized the NotAtPDC Virtual Conference. The conference consist of a lot of fun on Twitter, follow NotAtPDC and the hashtag #NotAtPDC.
The current schedule includes some really great content, and more is being added all the time, check out the full presentation schedule here.
Great news the new site for this years Tulsa TechFest is up and registration is open!
What is the Tulsa TechFest?
The Tulsa TechFest is a technical conference with currently the broadest topics in the United States, maybe the world. Covering everything enterprise architecture, software/web development, databases, project management, data security and this year for the first time - graphic/web design.
The primary focus is to provide training/teaching sessions that are immediately beneficial to the broadest range of IT professionals in their day-to-day jobs. We accomplish this with over 60 national/international speakers and 90 to 120 75 minute sessions.
The Tulsa TechFest is also a charitable non-profit event that has helped out in the community. This year they are charging admittance of 2 can or 2 bucks. All canned food will be donated to the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma and all proceeds will be donated to the Family & Children's Services.
Who is Presenting?
Check out this partial list of speakers for this years events.
- Chris Bernard, User Experience Evangelist, Microsoft
- Bill Vaughn, Microsoft MVP, INETA Speaker, Founder, Beta V Corporation
- Les Pinter, Microsoft MVP, INETA Speaker, Founder, Pinter Consulting
- Chris Koenig, Developer Evangelist , Microsoft
- Zain Naboulsi, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft
- Phil Wheat, Architect Evangelist, Microsoft
- Michael Scherotter, Developer Evangelist, San Francisco, Microsoft
- Caleb Jenkins, Microsoft MVP - Visual Developer ASP/ASP.NET, Training Mentor / Consultant, Improving Enterprises
- Brad McGehee, Microsoft MVP - SQL Server, Director of DBA Education, Red-Gate Software
- Brent Ozar, SQL Server Expert, Quest Software
- and many more! (Click here for full list!)
For more information and full schedule and tracks listing head on over to http://tulsatechfest.com and don’t forget to register.
This month the Northwest Arkansas Association of IT Professionals is having a Meet N’ Greet at Johnny Carino’s in Rogers [MAP]. This is a networking social even so be sure to bring plenty of business cards. The AITP is also in the process of doing AITP NWA Officers elections.
If you would like to be considered for a position contact Cindy Ragan. We will vote by email to ensure we get a majority of the membership voting in the election. Only NWA AITP members can vote in an election.
The Association of Technology Professionals is a comprised of career minded individuals who seek to expand their potential — employers, employees, managers, programmers and many others. Meeting Information: Thursday, July 31, 2008, 6:00 PM Johnny Carino’s [MAP] 535 N 46th Street Rogers, AR
Recently I have been involved with working with a few charity organizations in the area that are in need of some technical assistance in getting sites going, and etc. It started out as just one organization, but that one has grown to many. I have had two phone calls this week. So, I figure it is well time for a GiveCamp in Northwest Arkansas.
What is a GiveCamp?
A GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. This custom software could be a new website, a small data-collection application for member tracking, or an online informational site for families with children suffering form down-syndrome.
A team at a GiveCamp is made up of the non-profit and the development team. The GiveCamp team work together to create the application needed by the non-profit. The team may work as many hours as needed. In a recent We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge Weekend in January 2008 I worked over 86 hours over the weekend for three different teams.
At the Give Camp, there is an expectation of “What Happens at Give Camp, Stays at Give Camp”. Therefore, all source code must be turned over to the charities at the end of the weekend (developers cannot ask for payment) and the charities are responsible for maintaining the code moving forward (charities cannot expect the developers to maintain the codebase). That being said, many teams I worked with at the We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge Weekend put the codebase into an online source code repository and continued to work with the non-profit to add new features. The main point is that the coding is being done for the non-profits so it must be owned by them in the end.
Call for Volunteers!
So, I am posting this looking for people that would form the core team for this event. I already have a couple of people that have offered assistance, but it will take a lot more. I will be organizing a Meet & Greet event so that the core team can get to know each other and we can assign rolls.
If you are interested in playing a role in the NWA GiveCamp please contact me at jay@jaysmith.us.
GiveCamp Resources:
The GiveCamp Alliance
We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge Weekend
Coders4Charities
John Kingston from Complete Computer Solutions will be presenting on Computer Forensics – Securing Hard-drive Evidence at the next meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Association of Technology Professionals. John Kingston is one of the only people in Arkansas to hold EnCase certification.
The Association of Technology Professionals is a comprised of career minded individuals who seek to expand their potential -- employers, employees, managers, programmers and many others.
Meeting Information: Tuesday, May 27th 6:00 PM CEI Engineering [MAP] 3317 S.W. I St. Bentonville, AR