BendTech

This is a repost of this CodeBenders article

RailsConf was great this year. Got to meet a bunch of new people that I hope to keep in touch with.

After a crazy flight back to the west coast – 15 hours of flying, circling, diverting, waiting, unloading, loading, sitting, waiting for a pilot from Baltimore to Portland – these are the things that stick out in my mind the most…

As I previously tweeted, Yehuda’s keynote speech was awesome. If you think Ken Kesey new how to mix up a tasty batch of Kool-Aid, you should taste Yehuda’s. Oh, man, was I inspired (and still am)! For all the bravado that is the Rails, Yehuda’s talk defined the moral center of this community. If there’s only one video to watch from the conference. This is it…

A good complement to Wy’s speech was Gary Vee’s talk on the “Give a Fuck Economy”. Gary bring’s more emotion to his talks than a JV cheerleading squad, not to mention that he drops more f-bombs than Matt. During the Q&A, I got to ask Gary about his interest in social action. Although, I think he initially misunderstood that I was asking about charity, he did express some interest in the shifting world of non-profit, community action. When you combine Wy’s community participation ideology with Gary’s “mom and pop” grow a relationship with your constituents, I see a brighter future. And that future makes me even more optimistic about UniteNow’s mission.

Here’s Gary’s talk…

Lastly, although not a keynote, I really enjoyed Ian McFarland’s talk Agile the Pivotal Way. Whether you are a consultancy, a startup, a non-profit, a government agency or anything in between, these insights are invaluable. The slides and video have not been posted, yet. But I hope they will be uploaded here soon.

This is a repost of this COISUG article

Our friends at O’Reilly sent me (Abbott) info about a webinar you may be interested. The registration link is:

https://oreilly.connectsolutions.com/datadestruction/event/registration.html

Changes in data storage technologies, new Federal and State data privacy regulations and other factors have created an urgent need to have effective electronic records destruction practices. This session will detail the specifics of these changes and how organizations can protect themselves from huge financial liabilities. Having a defined data destruction strategy not only ensures a greener environment, but also ensures that the terabytes of stored data on the hardware are completely and permanently deleted. This session will discuss: legally compliant electronic records destruction policy; effective data destruction methods; degaussing, dismantling and refining; documentation and reporting; hardware & software vendors.

About Ben Rothke

Ben Rothke, CISSP QSA is a New York City based senior security consultant with BT Professional Services and has over 15 years of industry experience in information systems security and privacy.

His areas of expertise are in risk management and mitigation, security and privacy regulatory issues, design & implementation of systems security, encryption, cryptography and security policy development, with a specialization in the financial services and aviation sectors.

Ben is the author of Computer Security – 20 Things Every Employee Should Know and a speaker at industry conferences, such as RSA and MISTI, and is a CISSP and PCI QSA (Qualified Security Assessor).

This is a repost of this CodeBenders article

I missed Robert Kieffer’s post back in March on this. And, I find it so interesting that I thought it’d be worth sharing again…

Among other things, FanPageAnalaytics.com maps the connections of some 200 million Facebook user profiles and illustrates the “thickness” of those networks between various cities. For example, here is a map of Bend’s social network demonstrating the wide connections ranging from Los Angeles to Seattle.

You can also find other interesting connections for groups, famous people, etc. Who knew that Vermont has the highest per capita number of Jerry Garcia fans in the country?

This is a repost of this CodeBenders article

Just bought our #RailsConf passes. Baltimore, here we come.

This is a repost of this COISUG article

Linux Systems /Oracle Database Administrator needed at COCC. Learn more at the COISUG jobs page: http://www.coisug.info/jobs

This is a repost of this COISUG article

Learn more here: http://www.techspacebend.com/

This is a repost of this CodeBenders article

Over the last 15 years I’ve worked with quite a few startups and growth-oriented companies. During that time frame the way we have all worked has changed dramatically. Most importantly, small teams rely upon efficient collaboration to do more with less time and fewer resources.

When I’m working with clients I often find that they are not using some of the tools that I many of us have come to depend upon. Usually, this is because they are comfortable with the old tools like conventional email and instant messaging. So, thought it’d be a good idea to share some of my favorite apps – not all the ones that I’ve used – but the ones that are indispensable to me and my collaborators. Below is my list. Let me know if you have any tools that you can’t live without.

Campfire (with Propane) – from the big brains at 37signals, instant messaging on steroids. Forget about 1-to-1 IM. Campfire let’s you create chat rooms with groups, upload and store files and store transcripts. Create a new room for each of your working groups like Client X or Project Y.  Add Propane (a local app for OS X) so all of your rooms are available all of the time.

Pivotal Tracker – from the folks at Pivotal Labs, PT is a collaborative task management tool for Agile shops. Guess what? It works great as a task manager for any group. Create “stories” (or tasks), assign them to someone, build time estimates, pass tasks from one team member to the next and track progress/velocity of your sprints with burndown charts. Guess what else? It’s completely free – as in beer. Thank you Pivotal!

Dropbox – you still emailing documents or storing shared documents on (the oh so clumsy) Box.net? Dropbox is a freemium web-based storage service with a twist. Download their app to your machine and a local folder on your machine looks and acts just like any other folder with one exception: it automatically syncs with the network and your collaborators. So your files are always local and always available on the network. Did one of your collaborators delete one your documents? No problem visit the Dropbox site and restore it. Want to keep separate repositories? Just create unique folders for each of your groups and invite each group to that folder.

Highrise – another great product from 37signals, Highrise is a simple, but powerful CRM app. Track client contacts, leads and deals with all or some of your team members. And it’s easy to keep Highrise up-to-date: just forward or cc emails to Highrise and the system will automatically attach it to the appropriate contact.

Gliffy – everyone needs a diagram some time. But it’s usually not just for yourself, but rather so you can share your plan/idea with others and get their feedback. Sound familiar? Then check out Gliffy, an online diagramming application that let’s you collaborate and share. Oh yea, it comes with plenty of templates and stock icons for just about every industry.

Google Calendar – coordinating meetings, blocking out “task time” and sharing your calendar with others is a huge pain. I’ve yet to see a calendar app (local or web-based) that’s great. But Google Calendar is probably the best. Create multiple calendars and share some or all of them with those that need to know. Gcal will keep your calendars in a single interface and it’s easy to create events and invite others.

Google Docs – also not the best office suite on the planet, but everyone has a Google account. Easily upload, share and collaborate on docs. Track changes so you can roll them back when you need to. And, Google has recently added Google Drawings a collaborative drawing tool to help groups illustrate things like org charts and visually markup other images.

Skitch – so you’re working on a design – a website, product, marketing piece, whatever. You receive a draft from your designer and want to share your thoughts. One way of commenting is writing text in an email. Another, perhaps better, way is to crack open Skitch and overlay text, arrows and other graphical clues on top of the image. Skitch also lets you grab a screenshot from any app on your computer. So you can easily grab anything on your screen, add comments and share it with your team.

Skype – everyone knows Skype, a simple, cross-platform text and video instant messenger app. It also does super-cheap international calls. If you have a virtual company or have lots of remote workers, using Skype helps to guarantee lots of face time with all your team members. Plus, you get to know your cohorts a lot better when you get to see them working in their pajamas.

Fluid – last but not least, if you use a lot of web apps, you really need Fluid (OS X only; one more reason to leave your Windoze machine). Fluid  is a little app that will make any web-based app feel like a desktop app. So if you use Gmail or Pivotal Tracker all the time, you can keep them available all the time without cluttering up your browser with more tabs.

Did I forget something? Got an app that you can’t live without? Please add a comment.

This is a repost of this COISUG article

New book reviews on COISUG:

Google Apps: The Missing Manual

I was primarily interested in Google Docs, and this book had copious information that was more than adequate to get me up and running. There are a lot of subtleties hidden in Google Apps and how you can collaborate with them. Ms. Conner describes quite a few of these in her numerous “tips” inserts. In fact, I found the tips to be some of the most valuable parts of the book. Read more.

Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers

The Companion for Photographers is well thought-out. Derrick Story presents a totally Adobe-based workflow that starts with importing images using Photo Downloader in Adobe Bridge, adds metadata, then does quite a bit of editing using Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), and finally uses Photoshop CS4 for final adjustments when needed. Read more.

Free Books: http://www.coisug.info/books-for-members

Tech Book Club: http://blog.bendtech.com/book-club/

Checkout the articles here.

This is a repost of this COISUG article

Bend SharePoint User Group Meeting

Date/Time: May 7, 2010 11:30 -1pm

Location: 2600 N.W. College Way, Pioneer Hall Rm 232 (COCC). Bend. United States.

Description: Presentation by Kris McBride of Cinetix Solutions: Quick Wins for Power Users with SharePoint WSS. Free lunch and door prizes! Map: http://visitors.cocc.edu/map1-09.gif Please note that parking shouldn’t be too crazy because it is a Friday; Park close if you can – parking passes will be available inside for you to put in your car.

Learn more here: Bend SharePoint User Group Meeting – May 2010

This is a repost of this COISUG article

Need a spot to work, full or part time, or just to drop-in and use a super-fast internet connection and a conference room. To have lunch and hang out? Learn about new jobs and startups?

Come checkout TechSpace Bend – http://www.techspacebend.com