OpenSourcery

The spring conference season is fully upon us, and various OpenSourcerers have hit the circuit to spread the good word on open source technologies. Michael Schwern has been particularly active.

Schwern begins close to home, presenting "Is the Web Down: A Practical Look at How the Web Works" at the Open Source Bridge conference. In this session, Schwern and Joshua Keroes will lift the veil that keeps many users from understanding "how the Web and its plumbing works." This talk is part of the Chemistry track at Open Source Bridge, which is dedicated to "Understanding how our systems work, in order to improve and extend."

On Thursday, July 23rd, Schwern will share "How to Lie Like a Geek" at OSCON. In short, the talk will cover how geeks, while relentlessly pursuing the Truth, sometimes find themselves accidentally perpetrating lies: Lies by Omission, Lies by Precision, Lies by Irrelevancy, and, perhaps most painfully, Lies rooted in the word "should." As in, "The user /should/ have realized."

Stay tuned to learn what Schwern will deliver at the upcoming YAPC (Yet Another Perl Conference).

Drupal Beyond the Web Justin Miller will treat us to a half-hour version of his DrupalCon DC Presentation, Drupal Beyond the Web.

Modules 101 Each meeting, we want to feature one or two brief presentations (no more than 15 minutes, including questions), highlighting an optional core or contributed module, what it's good for, and any special considerations or tricky configuration issues it has. The idea is to introduce people who are new to Drupal, as well as experienced Drupal users, to solid and useful drupal add-ons. If you're interested in presenting this month, let us know which module by replying on the Drupal PDX group page.

Workflow, Actions, and Triggers Melissa Anderson will present a brief summary of a site using Workflow, Workflow Required Fields, Actions, and Triggers to create complex electronic form routing. After that, she'll demonstrate how to build a simplified version of the use case.

The Drupal meetup will take place at the offices of OpenSourcery. As always, it's free and open to the public. We recommend biking, walking, or using public transportation. Please note: OpenSourcery developers will be working right up to meeting time, so please plan to arrive as close to event time as possible. We look forward to seeing you here.

The Portland Open Source Geospatial users group will /not/ meet on the fourth Wednesday of April, owing to a regional conference that many OS-GIS members will attend instead.

But May? Yes. May is in the books. The fourth Wednesday of the month, May 27th, to be exact.

There are several exciting demonstrations in the offing, but the May selection remains TBD. Please check back here later for more information. In order to help us prepare the space, please RSVP on the Upcoming page.

As always, the user group meeting is free and open. Please join us at OpenSourcery's office on NW Lovejoy between 16th and 17th streets. We strongly recommend biking, walking, or using public transportation.

*Please note* OpenSourcery's developers will be working right up to the meeting time, so please plan to arrive as close to meeting time as possible. Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you here.

Wednesday, March 25th marks the second monthly meeting of Portland's OS Geospatial users group at OpenSourcery. The first meeting focused primarily on logistical and scope issues, but now it's time to dig into and explore emerging technologies.

To learn more about the group and to follow their discussions, please visit the user group page. There you will find a thread about upcoming presentations. You can also help to shape the conversation.

The event is free and open to the public. Please visit the Upcoming event page and register so we know how many people to expect. Find our office here.

PLEASE NOTE: OpenSourcery's developers will be working right up to event time, so please plan to arrive no more than five minutes prior to the start. We tend to recommend this place for thirsty early-comers.

Thank you for reading.

This April, InnoTech Portland will light up the Oregon Convention Center with two days of speakers, a CIO summit, an eMarketing summit, and amazing exhibitors.

Over 2000 local, regional, and national technology professionals attend the event every year, so we're happy to support the cause. Among the feature speakers is Rahaf Harfoush, the New Media Strategist for President Obama's Social Media team. Of course, you can also find OpenSourcery CEO Brian Jamison speaking about the business case for open source software.

You can read more about the various events and sign up at the InnoTech website. We hope to see you there.