Quick note about tonight's meeting
Just a quick note that tonight we will be having an informal meeting to relax after FOSCON last week. The meeting will be at 7:00PM as usual at The New Old Lompoc. Hope to see you there.
Posts from pdx.rb...
FOSCON II: The Roundup
We pulled it off! pdx.rb’s second annual mini-conference/party/hoedown was well-attended and, I think, well-received.
Even though Free Geek is not close to the convention center, we successfully wrangled folks over via two walking/pub tours, plus several pdx.rb-operated taxi rides. There was the usual confusion, but I think it all worked out remarkably well.
No one was keeping track, but I heard several estimates of 200 people attending, all happily crammed into the big room at Free Geek, plus the adjoining food/beverage room, plus the hallway, plus the sidewalk outside. Everywhere I looked I saw Rubyists merrily listening, conversing, and just enjoying the atmosphere.
What with organizing and trying to relax from organizing, I actually spent more time in the hallways and outside, so I’ll depend on others to report back on the individual talks. (Sean Mountcastle wrote up a particularly good report.) I was able to catch Amy Hoy’s talk on building the Ruby community and avoiding burnout relating to newbies. She was clearly talking from her heart. The other five presenters also gave talks off the beaten Ruby path, which is what we wanted. We’ve always seen FOSCON as not just more OSCON talks, but a chance to build the Ruby community, show out-of-town Rubyists another part of Portland, and in general to throw a good party.
Last year we did FOSCON out of our own pockets and gumption; this year our friends Planet Argon and CD Baby chipped in to pay for the event. Thanks to them, plus Free Geek’s donation of the space, we didn’t have any financial stress. In fact, we raised $140 through the book raffle, which we donated to Free Geek.
Our major issue turned out to be lack of space. The ‘big’ room at Free Geek wasn’t big enough to hold the crowd who showed up. This happened last year, too, but to a much smaller extent, and we thought we’d solved it with FOSCON II by moving the food & drinks to an adjoining room. Nope; that room, too, was crowded, and like a party you’d throw in your own house, it was the kitchen where everyone ended up hanging out.
Our underestimation of the crowd also meant we didn’t have quite as much food and drinks as we would have liked. Next year, we’ll have to dig up the metric on calculating beverages vs. attendance estimates…
We love working with Free Geek, and love being in their funky space (and we’ll continue to have our monthly meetings there). But we’ll probably have to consider a larger venue for next year. We’d had casual chats with O’Reilly about holding FOSCON at the convention center this year, but decided on remaining independent. Next year, perhaps we’ll team up, which would solve both the capacity and transportation issues, and probably help with food/beverages.
The FOSCON planning crew was a fairly small core—about five of us—yet we were able to accomplish almost everything we originally planned to do.
Our first meetings were in the beginning of June—pretty late for such a big event, but we in the pdx.rb group are really good at procrastinating. We met primarily over IRC and email; there were only had about four or five face-to-face meetings, as I recall. We often reported our status back to the pdx.rb group at the monthly meetings or to our mailing list. As the event grew closer, several other pdx.rb members joined the effort, and last night I had the pleasure of several complete strangers come up and simply ask what they could do to help out. We also got a lot of wonderful help and support from O’Reilly.
Especially near the day of the event itself, we made full use of a wiki donated by OSCamp which we used for promotion, planning, and volunteer coordination. This worked out great; however, we should probably move to a dedicated site (foscon.pdxruby.org), as we had some confusion in determining the canonical FOSCON info site.
So now I sit here, quiet, calmer, happy with a successful event, and looking forward to next week’s casual pdx.rb meeting, and towards next year to FOSCON III.
FOSCON II: The Ruby Rodeo
Hear ye hear ye! PDX.rb is hosting our second-annual FOSCON this year on July 26th at 7:30 PM at FreeGeek!
We’ve got an all-star line up in the works, and since we managed to get sponsorship from CD Baby, aka the awesome local indie music store that happens to use ruby a lot, we’ll have pizzas for the masses.
Our “formal” announcement is here, and our wiki page has even more details.
If you’re interested in helping us out, please email the list. We could use it!
See you there!
More spam and added FOSCON page
Man do we get a lot of comment spam here. Something on the order of a few thousand comments. The only easy solution I can think of is to remove all the comments. John Labovitz and I decided to change the settings so that comments would only be allowed for 10 days. That might help a bit, but we’ve still got a problem of cleaning up all those old ones.
Also, I created a placeholder page for our upcoming FOSCON event on July 26th. You can see it in all it’s glory here.
Update: Looks like Jeremy Voorhis was discussing a similar issue on his blog today.
Comment Spam
I just went through and deleted a boatload of comment and trackback spam. While I was doing so, I blocked the following words and phrases:
- viagra
- online betting
- internet gambling
- online craps
- cialis
- levitra
- funnyhost
- phentermine
- dirare.com
- paydayloan
- financialeconomics
- creditmanchestermortgagepoor
- autocreditpoorrefinance
So. If you were planning on leaving a comment but can’t because one of those words was in it, I do apologize. You’ll have to find a way to rephrase.
Portland to RailsConf
Several Portland Rubyist and Railsters are riding the train from Portland, Oregon to Chicago, Illinois for RailsConf 2006!
We need 20 people to get a group discount!
To learn more, visit… The Argon Express
RubyConf 2005 Materials
Thanks to John and Derek for their recap of RubyConf 2005.
As promised, here are a couple of links related to RubyConf. First off, Ryan Davis of Seattle.rb (and much other cool stuff) fame, has posted most of the lecture slides here.
Also, Ezra Zygmuntowicz, has graciously hosted a ton of audio and video recordings of RubyConf presentations. You can find that here.
Also, we’re taking another stab at the podcast tonight. Chris Dawson of Webcastinabox will be fixing up our recording and posting it soon at http://pdxrb.podasp.com. Watch the mailing list for more information on that.
December Meeting Reminder!
Just a quick reminder—We’ll be having our December meeting tomorrow (yes, December 6th!) at FreeGeek, as usual. We’ll be meeting at 7pm, as is normal.
Expect a RubyConf debrief from your friend and mine John Labovitz, as well as varied discussions of other ruby topics.
See you there!
Hackfest/meet'n'beer Debrief
Last night a number of folks got together to drink beer and write Ruby. I suspect that more of the former happened than the latter, but nonetheless, code was written and beer consumed.
Regardless of the productivity level, I’d call it a rousing success. You should feel free to say so if you disagree and provide suggestions if you’ve got ‘em.
Peat mentioned a few minutes ago on IRC that he’d do it again next week, and I think that’s a fantastic idea. Who else is in?
I wasn’t thrilled by the choice of venue this time around. I still like the idea of the Lucky Lab, but they might still not have wireless by next week. You guys in the know: what’s the score?
Next Tuesday -- Meet'n'beer!
Following up on what was discussed the other day, we’re getting together on Tuesday to chill and hack. Plans have changed a touch so gather ‘round and listen up.
We’ll be meeting at Old Town Pizza at 6pm on Tuesday, November 8th. In order to reserve some space for us I had to agree to us all being on the same tab and them tacking on a 15% tip. If you intend to eat/drink while you’re there, bring cash!! This is very important as they will not split the bill and I’m not putting the whole thing on my credit card :P
The venue situation isn’t ideal but what can you do. We’ll work it out for next time. See you all there!
November Meeting Debrief
FreeGeek was once again host to a meeting of the PDX Ruby Brigade last night. A slightly smaller meeting this go-round, we heard an SVK tutorial from Dane Jensen and a a tour of eXPlain Project Management Tool from John Wilger.
Chris Dawson of Webcast In A Box brought along one of his companies podcasting appliances and attempted to record a podcast, but sadly it didn’t work. Chris has more in this post to the mailing list
The notes from Dane’s SVK presentation are available here, and he assures me that a big ol’ batch of handy links will be coming Real Soon Now.
We also discussed getting together next week to hack. The plan is to show up at 6pm next Tuesday (November 8th!) with laptops and our projects and using our collective energy to motivate ourselves. That is, hackfest with no specific project ;)
There’s a slight issue with a venue, though. Originally we had talked about the Rose and Raindrop, but it turns out their big room is booked and their small room is too small. They have another space but we need to commit to spending a certain amount of money ($100 to be exact). This shouldn’t be a big deal but we do need to know how many people are coming for sure.
So, if you’re planning on coming, let us know either in comments here or via email to me or to the list. More details will be forthcoming as I get a better headcount.
Reminder: November meeting next Tuesday, Nov 1st, 2005
This is just a friendly reminder that the next Portland Ruby Brigade meeting is going to be next at 7pm, Tuesday, November 1st, 2005 at Free Geek.
It’s here… where the blue dot is. :)
(map provided by CommunityWalk and google)
7PM at Free Geek!
There is a rumor that Dane Jensen is going to give us a presentation on using SVK. (not-confirmed)
Update!
Dane’s offered at least three times, so I’m going to call it confirmed. We’ll also be having presentations from John Wilger about his eXPlain Project Management Tool.
I’ve heard rumors that the crack website development team will be bringing us up to speed on the status of the website, too.
- ben
Portland Ruby Brigade boasts 50 subscribers
In the less than a week, more than ten new Rubyists subscribed to the PDX.rb mailing list. That averages out to more than two a day!
Discussions range from ideas for future Portland Ruby Brigade events to using Ruby to help local non-profits.
Have you joined yet?
#pdx.rb continues to grow
The Portland Ruby Brigade IRC channel is quickly growing in size. This morning we hit 18 people! 17 if you don’t count our trusty drb-subversion-aware, pdxrbot. Number 19 was me logging in on my laptop to take a screenshot. I don’t know about other Ruby user groups, but I bet we’re quickly headed towards being one of the largest and most active Ruby groups in the country.
We’re a small group… but we’re not that small. FOSCON was a great way for us to get some local attention. You can almost guarantee that we will be doing that again next year… and I would expect it to be bigger and better!
In terms of our small size. I was amazed to find out that with less than 40 people on the mailing list, we had around 30 people show up at the last meeting. It’s nice to know that there are so many people interested in Ruby in the Portland area. Scott Laird even took the train from Seattle to come to our meeting!
We will continue to add links to members on the sidebar of this blog and we’re hoping to launch the new website in the coming week(s).
If you live in the Portland area and are even just slightly interested in Ruby, stop by on the IRC channel or subscribe to our mailing list.
Expect to hear more out of the Portland Ruby Brigade in the coming months!
It Came ... From The Past!
From the swirling mists of the last millenium comes a hulking device—a mechanical monstrosity of archaic origin. Lurking in the darkest corners of the FreeGeek compound, it awaits the plaintive cry of the desperate nerd: “Hey … who brought the video projector?”
Silence. Low murmurs. Fingers point …
THEN! From the depths it lurches, trailing BNC cables, VGA adapters, power supplies, and a shuddering toolchest. Upon squeeky wheels it rolls: FRANKENJECTOR, the last of it’s breed, the 900 watt behemoth of steel and glass.
We pay homage to thee, if only to ensure that in our time of need you will honor us with your dim light and 800×600 resolution video.
Your Link Here!
Do you blog? Do you ♥ Ruby? Do you consider yourself a member or groupie of PDX.rb?
If the answer to the above questions is yes, then we want to know about it! There were somewhere around 30 people at the meeting last night and yet only 6 links in our Member Blogs section.
Leave us a comment here with your name and blog URL and we’ll get you in with the links. We’d love for you to show your PDX.rb pride by linking back to us with the badge Robby came up with. Download it at http://blog.pdxruby.org/files/pdx-rb-small.jpg.
UPDATE
We have a new badge now!
Thank you, Allison from Planet Argon!
October meeting was awesome.
Thank you to everyone who made it to the meeting last night. It was an awesome session of Q&A and discussion. The beer weren’t bad neither.
Special thanks are due to Derek and Jeremy for coming and being our Wonderful Fantasmic Guests o’ Honor. Props are also due to FreeGeek for helping us get around the double-booking issues we had with the PHP group, who themselves were very flexible and we appreciate that greatly.
If you couldn’t make it last night, you may not have missed your chance to ask any questions you might have had. Jeremy has agreed to an email interview. If you’d like to toss some questions in, please email Robby before the day is out. You can reach him at robby
Last night was huge and we’re only getting bigger. If you’re not already on the mailing list, you’re missing out. Click here to check out our lists and join up. Expect details both here and there on upcoming events, including the launch of our new website and details about our next hackfest.
See you next month!
Reminder! Upcoming PDX.rb meeting!
Just a quick reminder that our upcoming Ruby Tuesday meeting will include a presentation and Q&A from Derek Sivers (of CD Baby fame) and Jeremy Kemper (of Rails committer fame).
Additionally, Tim Germer will be recording our meeting to throw together what will likely be the very first PDX.rb podcast!
Rumor has it the PDX.rb webdevs will also be showing off the results of their recent hackfest.
So come join us, next Tuesday (October 4th) at Free Geek. The show’ll be getting on the road ‘round about 7 pm.
See you there!
October 4, 2005 special guests
As you all know, Derek Sivers of CD Baby contacted me to ask if the Portland Ruby Brigade would be interested in having him come by the next meeting. I got the final confirmation today. Derek will be accompanied by Jeremy Kemper (bitsweat)... who is our local Rails commiter! They will field any questions that we throw at them in regards to their rebuild of CD Baby from PHP and MySQL to Ruby, Rails, and PostgreSQL!
To go a step further, Tim Germer from NW Noise will be joining us and will record our discussions. He runs a cool local podcast for music-stuff and is a fan of Rails. :-)
From this recording, he/we will work on mixing together a podcast that we can share with the Ruby, Rails, and PostgreSQL communities.
Just wanted to share the latest. :-)
Read only Rails wiki
The Portland Ruby Brigade is happy to announce that we are going to host a read-only mirror of the Rails wiki at http://railswiki.pdxruby.org/
Once the DHH gets the new wiki up, we will attempt to build a few scripts to keep daily mirrors of the site so that in the event that the site go down again, we will have something up for those who can’t wait. :-)