Software Freedom Day – Dundee

8 September, 2011 by Leave a comment

The third Saturday in September (the 17th) is Software Freedom Day and the University of Abertay, Dundee will be hosting an entire day of talks and demos all arranged by The Open Society and the Tayside Linux User Group.

Who Are We

“The Open Society” and the “Tayside Linux User Group” have long been establishing their names within the local Free and Open Source Community, as centres of support and advocacy for people from all walks of life. This September we will be showcasing some of the best that our local community has to offer.

What is Software Freedom Day

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality software in education, in government, at home and in business – in short, everywhere! The non-profit company Software Freedom International coordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, give-aways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organize the local SFD events to impact their own communities.
visit softwarefreedomday.org »

Who Should Attend

This is a real opportunity for people in Dundee and surrounding areas wishing to find out more about FOSS, its culture, its ethics and more importantly how to get started with it. Talks and Practical demonstrations throughout the day , for the novice computer user to the technical evangelist – you are sure to find something to interest you.

The event is completely free and open to everyone;

  • We have 13 talks on 2 tracks
  • Lots of Demo Software and Machines
  • Plenty of great enthusiastic people

You can find more information at http://sfd.the-os.org.uk/

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Event: “Functional Alchemy” and “CoffeeScript 101″

6 September, 2011 by Leave a comment

Scottish Developers are pleased to present two talks by Mark Rendle on Tuesday 11th October 2011 in Edinburgh.

Mark is currently employed as Principal Software Architect by Dot Net Solutions Ltd, creating all manner of software on the Microsoft stack, including ASP.NET MVC, Windows Azure, WPF and Silverlight. He is a Windows Azure Development MVP.

Mark’s career in software design and development spans three decades and more programming languages than he can remember. C# has been his favourite language pretty much since the first public beta, when you had to write the code in a text editor and compile it on the command line. Those were the days. You kids today, with your IntelliSense and your ReSharpers, don’t know you’re born…

Things vying for Mark’s attention lately include functional programming, internet-centric applications, the Azure cloud platform and NoSQL data stores.

Register for Functional Alchemy and CoffeeScript 101 in Edinburgh, Edinburgh, City Of on Eventbrite

Functional Alchemy: Tricks to keep your C# DRY*

C# 3.0 and LINQ have made anonymous delegates and closures a hot topic. C# 4.0 improves on them. But these “functional” features have applications beyond messing about with IEnumerable. In this session I’ll present 10 simple and not-so-simple uses of first-class functions to help cut down on repeated code and improve maintainability; hopefully you’ll discover a new and exciting way of approaching coding problems.
The main thrust of it is that F# is cool and groovy but there’s a lot of mileage in functional-style programming in C#, which people are using every day, so let’s look at some cool examples there.

*Awarded “Top Speaker by Knowledge of Subject” at DDD South West 2010.

CoffeeScript 101

Hidden deep within JavaScript, there is an elegant, powerful and clean language waiting to be discovered. This subset of the language was documented by Douglas Crockford in JavaScript: The Good Parts. Now, that subset is accessible through the CoffeeScript language. It’s like Python and Ruby spent a wonderful night together and spawned a beautiful baby scripting language that is succinct, expressive and compiles to The Good Parts.

Modules, classes, lambdas and more are supported, and you can interact with your existing JavaScript code, as well as all the diverse, wonderful libraries that are out there jQuery.
This session will cover the basics of the language, and interoperability with existing libraries. I’ll also show you how to integrate CoffeeScript into your development process, with Visual Studio and other tooling as well as runtime compilation for on-the-fly changes.

Location

 The Corn Exchange,
35 Constitution Street,
Edinburgh,
EH6 7BS

Agenda

18.30 – Doors open
18.55 – Welcome
19.00 – CoffeeScript 101
19.55 – Break
20.05 – Functional Alchemy: Tricks to Keep Your C# DRY
21.00 – Close

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Upcoming Glasgow Events

5 September, 2011 by Leave a comment

First up in October is Zen and the Art of Software & How to Manage your Manager:

Zen and the Art of Software

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a book about Quality; what it is, where it exists, and how we may try to attain it. In this talk, I will use passages from the book to introduce ideas on how we, as software developers, might try to improve the Quality both of the software we create and of ourselves. I’ll talk about what “Quality” means in the context of software, how to measure it, and the importance of close interaction with users at all stages of software development.

How to Manage Your Manager

Developers and managers generally don’t understand each other. Developers know the arcane languages of machines and are motivated by inexplicable forces. Managers seem to spend half their time in meetings and the other half emailing each other Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. The result is that both sides end up frustrated, feeling that the other is stopping them from doing their job to the best of their ability.

In this talk, I will share some of the things I’ve learned in 20 years of being managed, including:

  • How to get the PC you want, with the two big monitors and a decent CPU.
  • Also, how to get extra software, training, and even sent to conferences.
  • How to adopt best practices, like TDD, pairing and daily stand-ups even though your manager doesn’t know what they are, and probably doesn’t care.
  • How to earn the respect of people who seem to actively like wearing suits.
  • Maybe, possibly, how to respect them just a little bit.

Then in November is “The Happy Developer” – Is it a Myth?

“The Happy Developer” – Is it a Myth?

It’s a great time to be a developer right now don’t you think? Even in all of the economic chaos we still have it pretty good so what reason would any of us have to not be happy in our jobs?

The answer, as it turns out, is quite a lot. We have had our rants about poor management choices, the lack of proper code reviews, having to work with outdated/inappropriate technology, processes and methodologies, demands and pressure from those above us and we put up with it because at the end of the day, it pays the bills.

In this session I will explore with you the pitfalls of being a developer in these difficult times and with the help of some case studies and good old-fashioned reasoning, give suggestions on how these frustrations can be addressed.

If you are stressing out over a problem in your job, bring it with you, this is built entirely on experience from developers who have been there.

Audience participation is encouraged and this session is not technology or platform specific.

Click on the links above for more information and to register for each event. All the above events are technology and platform neutral.

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Event: A Developer’s Morning with Microsoft

18 August, 2011 by 2 Comments

Microsoft

Friday, 9th September 10am – 1pm at Microsoft’s Edinburgh Offices

Scottish Developers in partnership with Microsoft bring you a morning of developer-focused content. The event will include a session on Windows Azure and a session on the user experience of Visual Studio (including a sneak peak at vNext!)

Microsoft’s UK Managing Director Gordon Frazer is also in town and will be delivering a keynote.

Register for A Developer's Morning with Microsoft in Edinburgh, Edinburgh City on Eventbrite

Agenda

09.30 – Doors Open & Registration
10.00 – Keynote by Godron Frazer
10.20 – Windows Azure with Steve Plank
11.20 – Break
11.30 – What are those guys at Visual Studio thinking about? (Steven Clarke)
12.30 – Q&A
13.00 – Closing

Venue

Microsoft (Edinburgh Office)
Conan Doyle
4th Floor Waverley Gate
2-4 Waterloo Place
EH1 3EG
Edinburgh

See: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/about/offices/edinburgh.aspx

Windows Azure

Steve Plank

This session will explain the mystery and mystique behind some of the common cloud computing terms – private cloud, public cloud, IaaS, PaaS. It will contrast the way an on-premise development project is deployed compared to a cloud-based project. You’ll understand the over-arching Windows Azure Platform and then we’ll dive in to each component – Windows Azure Compute (including Storage), SQL Azure and Windows Azure App Fab. There will be demos of how to create simple apps and deploy them as live internet-accessible services. The talk will also show how to integrate applications in to the online enterprise environment. Also, for the consumer-focused developer there will be a section on how to easily consume facebook, google and live-id users in to Windows Azure applications.

Bio

Steve Plank or “Planky” as he is more usually known works in the UK as a Cloud Evangelist. He writes, presents and blogs on Microsoft cloud technologies for the developer, IT Pro and business audiences. You can usually catch him at his blog or at events such as TechEd, Gartner, RSA and so on. He also has an active interest in security and digital identity and wherever the worlds of cloud, identity and security collide you are sure to find him enthusing. He’s an old-timer at Microsoft, having been around since ‘93 when the first version of Windows NT was released.

What are those guys at Visual Studio thinking about?

Steven Clarke

Have you ever wondered why Visual Studio is the way it is? Ever been curious to see a little bit behind the scenes and see how Visual Studio is designed? Or do you just want a sneak peek at some of the new features that will be part of the next release of Visual Studio?

In this talk I’ll describe the work that my team, the Visual Studio User Experience team does. I’ll show you how we gather feedback from developers and how we use that feedback to identify and design new features and experiences for Visual Studio. In the process I’ll show you some of the new features that we’re working on for the next release of Visual Studio – and I’ll be asking for your feedback, so that we can make it even better.

Bio

Steven is a User Experience Researcher on the Visual Studio team in Redmond, USA. He works on understanding how to improve the experience that developers have with the programming languages, frameworks and tools they use every day. He’s been with the team since November 1999. Prior to joining Microsoft, Steven was a developer at Motorola in East Kilbride.

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Glasgow Event: What’s new in the upcoming release of SQL Server

12 August, 2011 by Leave a comment

We have a new event coming up on the 16th August in Glasgow city centre.

The next version of SQL Server is shaping up to be a huge release and is going to have some great new features for developers and DBAs. In this talk I will look at new DBA features, new T-SQL features and changes to the SQL Server toolset with the new features in SQL Server Management Studio and the SQL Server Developer Tools (Juneau). The talk will be divided in to approximately into four sections to cover each part with demos of features available in CTP3.

Martin Bell

Martin is that suave and sophisticated SQL Server User Group leader who runs the SQL Server User Groups in Edinburgh and Leeds. On top of that he is one of the organisers of the biggest SQL Server conference in Europe – SQLBits. This takes place twice a year at different locations in the UK.

Agenda – 16/Aug/2011

18:30: Doors open

19:00: Welcome

19:05: What’s new in Denali (SQL Server vNext)

– There will be a break roughly in the middle of the talk.

21:00: Retire to the bar.

Location

The venue will be in the private function suite at the Bath Street Pony, at 207 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4HZ.

Register for the event

To register for the event, click/tap here.

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Event: Mining the Social Web with Gary Short (Edinburgh)

7 July, 2011 by Leave a comment

For those who missed Gary’s talk in Glasgow last month we have arranged for him to speak in Edinburgh in August.

Register for Mining the Social Web with Gary Short in Glasgow, United Kingdom on Eventbrite

The Talk

With so much customer interaction happening on social web sites right now, companies need to know what kind of information they can extract from them. In this presentation, I’ll show you how to find out such information as: where you customers are, what they want, what they think of your products and who are the influencers in the network.

This session is packed with code samples and will be both fun and useful for anyone who works at a company who already make use of, or who are thinking of making use of, social media as a marketing platform.

The Speaker

Gary Short works for Developer Express as the Technical Evangelist on the frameworks team. He has a deep interest in technical architecture, along with social media, especially on the data mining and analytics side. Gary is a C# MVP and gives presentations at user groups and conferences throughout the UK, Europe and the US.

The Venue

We are meeting at Storm ID, The Corn Exchange, 35 Constitution Street, Edinburgh, EH6 7BS

After the meeting there is the option of retiring to a local pub to continue the evening

The Agenda

18:30 Doors Open
19:00 Welcome
19:10 Talk
20:50 Feedback & Wrap-up
21:00 Retire to the Pub

Register for Mining the Social Web with Gary Short in Glasgow, United Kingdom on Eventbrite

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Event: A Quantum of Computing with Dave McMahon [BCS Edinburgh]

22 June, 2011 by 2 Comments

UK Community speaker and SharePoint MVP Dave McMahon will be delivering a talk on Quantum Computing in Edinburgh on Wednesday 13th July.

Dave McMahon provides his own look into the far future with a brief resume of the world of Quantum Computing. Sounds too Sci-Fi? Too Fantastic? Maybe, but people are today seriously researching Quantum Computing and Quantum Computing Devices. Some companies claim to have already created them, others refute the claims, and the reasons why there is some controversy will be covered in this session. It’ll be fun, mind-blowing and you get a glimpse of what could be in store for us in the coming years and why the future of Search may be in harnessing the power of the sub-atomic and why SSL’s future prospects may not be so rosy …

Room 4.31 (fourth floor), University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB.

For more details on this event please see http://www.edinburgh.bcs.org/events/2010-11/110713.htm

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Refresh Edinburgh July – Pre-Highland Fling Social

17 June, 2011 by Leave a comment

The Refresh guys will be hosting a pre-Highand Fling social evening on Thursday 7th July at the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh.

Refresh Edinburgh is a community of web developers and designers interested in cutting-edge web technologies. We want to gather great minds, share our knowledge, promote local talent, and be more than we think we can be. We also want to drink and talk geek.

The night before the Highland Fling conference, Refresh Edinburgh are having a get together. The event is graciously sponsored by Storm ID and will feature drinks, free whisky tasting and some chat with like minded web folk.

This event is open to Fling attendees and Edinburgh residents alike.

Tickets are free but limited. We’re putting them online in batches to give everyone a chance to get one.

First batch online at 12pm Friday 17th June
Second batch online at 10am Wed 22nd June
Third batch TBC

To register for the event head over to http://refreshedi-jul11.eventbrite.com

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The Highland Fling Conference – Web Standards In Scotland

16 June, 2011 by Leave a comment

The Highland FlingBack for it’s 3rd instalment The Highland Fling brings top speakers in the world of Web Standards right to your doorstep and is back again this year in Edinburgh on July 7th.

Modern web design has become a complex beast with many different facets. We’re on the cusp of a revolution with specific areas of the HTML5 spec / CSS3 gaining traction and browsers reaching common ground on how to display the sites that we build.

How do do you tame the beast and set a good baseline from which you can build amazing web sites and applications?

The Highland Fling 2011 will not only give you practical advice on how to do this, it will show you how a back to basics approach will help elevate your game to new levels.

Tickets are £155 each and speakers include Steve Marshall, Jack Osborne, Mike Rundle, Remy Sharp, Rachel Andrew, James Edwards and the host for the day Christian Heilmann.

For more details and tickets see: http://thehighlandfling.com/

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Social Innovation Camp comes to Scotland this weekend

15 June, 2011 by Leave a comment

Social Innovation Camp LogoOne of the sessions on the Alternative track at DDD Scotland this year was from Glen Mehn and he spoke about Social Innovation Camp which will be invading the nation’s capital this coming weekend (June 17th – 19th).

From 7pm, Friday 17th June to 4pm, Sunday 29th June 2011, at the Informatics Ventures Forum in Edinburgh, we’re bringing together some of the best of the UK’s software developers and designers with those at the sharp end of social problems.

They’ll have just 48 hours to build web-based solutions to a set of social problems – from back-of-the-envelope idea to working prototype, complete with software.

One of the ideas we’ll be helping to develop over the weekend will be a project called Volunteer Impact – inspired by the happiness-tracking app, Mappiness, this is a tool for volunteers to self-measure the impact volunteering has on their personal well-being.

If you’re interested, sign up here: http://www.sicamp.org/si-camp-uk/scotland-2011/weekend-sign-up/

It is shaping up to be a cracking event so if you are interested and have the time to spare, get yourself signed up!

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