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Hi
It’s game day, and Software Freedom Day, for OCLUG tomorrow, Sat Sep 17.
11 am to probably 3pm.
Room T117 at Algonquin College on Woodroffe – that’s in building T.
BZ Flag server v2.0.x will be provided on the local LAN.
There will be some other games for kids, and mine will be there.
There will be some software demos, at least one for ‘R’.
Ever find memcached is just too limited?
Apparently Redis is the newest. It allows you to store key-value pairs, lists, sets, and even perform set operations, and have them go to disk or expire. I think Jonathan did the show and tell? There are client libraries for a bunch of languages.
Notes:
The Ottawa Android group met at 6:30pm at The Code Factory. More people should know about this group. It was a lively meeting with useful information every minute.
It’s The Code Factory. It works well for small groups up to 30 people, and has room for larger groups, up to 80 people in theory.
Yeah, there were just 9 of us. Most were developers. Several are new to Android and Apps. No women this time. Mature, err “experienced” group, probably two under 30.
We had a great time! Banter and side tracks were fun and valuable. There is a mail list and the web site has recent posts.
Chris presented a report on the Android Developers Convention, AnDevCon The First. Gee, that sounds formal. Actually we sidetracked him and asked questions while he tried to get through his list of seminars and classes. It seems to have been targeted at people new to Android.
Some people were there when I arrived at 6:25pm. I think it actually started about 6:40pm. We left just before 8:00pm.
My favourite size for an after-meeting pub discussion is now 5 people, as that was how many of us were at the Royal Oak. Informative, relevant. entertaining discussion and jive continued down the street and into the bar. We left just before 10:00pm.
Cost? My half-Guinness and dessert came to $13 with tax.
Ottawa has a wonderful software scene! I especially like the following groups, and go often, for the technical talks and networking.
The terms “beer” and “bar” refer to a gathering in a chattering place where some people imbibe, but you don’t have to. I have enjoyed lots of groups in the city, but prefer locations I can easily reach by bus, so I may be missing some of the best.
Click on “Ottawa Groups” at the top of the page for meeting details.
The Agile Ottawa and Ottawa Scrum groups are having a joint meeting at QNX this month.
Tues Dec 14, 6pm for networking, meeting at 6:30pm, at QNX, 175 Terence Matthews Crescent, Ottawa, Ontario.
I added the Ottawa Android developer group to the “Ottawa Groups” page.
Thanks, Chris!
I always enjoy going to the Agile Ottawa meetings.
I enjoyed the talk and got a lot out of it.
The presenter was Steffan Surdek. He is a co-author of the IBM Press
book “A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum”, that we are reading at my workplace, Exar Ottawa.
Points I felt important to me:
It was great to have a chance to chat with Steffan after the meeting. Thanks for sticking around, Steffan!
Location: Adobe’s offices on Preston St, just south of the 417
Time:
– Networking: 6:00-6:30pm
– Presentation: 6:30-8:00pm
– Heart & Crown afterward
Presenter: Steffan Surdek
Steffan is one of the co-authors of the IBM Press book “A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum”. I have read this book and it succinctly covers all the main topics you will need to address with Agile teams in multiple locations. I look forward to meeting Steffan and hearing his presentation.
November meeting details and outline of the presentation.
Yup, it was a good meeting, and I took away an idea or two…
But what I am most excited to tell you about are future events:
And the ideas I took away are centered around Dmitry’s suggestion that Agile design decisions should be documented with light-weight tools, such as the development team’s existing issue tracker.
The Ottawa Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) is holding their last Star Party of the year on Saturday Oct. 9, 2010. It’s at the Diefenbunker site, off Carp Road.
Looks like the sky is going to be clear. Dress warmly!
* Group: Agile Ottawa
* Subject: Announcement from Agile Ottawa: October event, Tuesday Oct 12
“Better together: How user experience design can help Agile teams”
Networking from 6:00-6:30pm; presentation from 6:30-8:00pm. Location is Adobe’s offices on Preston Street.
OCLUG had to move to the U o f O for the September meeting, due to Algonquin’s inability to plan ahead. Over the last year, the day of week has moved around a bit, too. So it is useful to remind people that the next meeting is planned for:
Tues, Oct 5 at Algonquin, room P211A
Building P is the “Police and Public Safety Institute”. It is almost as far east of Woodroffe as you can get on the Algonquin Woodroffe campus.
Bus access is adequate. Walk from the Baseline Station.
Cars normally park in parking lots 8 or 9. As far as I know, you can still park for free in the evening.
The next meeting is planned for November 2 in the same location.
There was a lot of activity at the OGRE meeting tonight, including knowledgeable questions and answers, and a great video setup in a meeting room at Jaded Pixel Technologies (Shopify).
John Duff demonstrated the Devise authentication framework with Facebook.
Jonathan Sutherland was persuaded to show off his Rails-based real estate agents’ web site.
Dwayne recorded much more detail than I have in a post to the OGRE mail list, including code links.
Late September and Early October club meetings:
OGRE – Ruby group
Sept 28 at 6:30pm
At: Shopify office in the ByWard Market: Jaded Pixel Technologies, 61A York St.
– It’s above Tucker’s Marketplace, near the Hard Rock Cafe.
Topic: “Using Devise to authenticate with Facebook in Rails 3″
OCLUG – Linux User Group
Tues. October 5, 2010 at 7 p.m.
At: Algonquin College (Woodroffe Campus), room P211A
Topic: “World Domination and Control, over USB”
Yup, I missed a few that already happened this month.
See: Ottawa Groups, also linked from the top of the page.
This is sorted into three areas:
Each area is sorted by week of month and day of week, you know, 2nd Thursday comes after 2nd Tues on my list, even if it might not happen that way in a particular month. 
Dave Rooney’s Agile Ottawa group on LinkedIn has attracted some interest from another infrastructure guy. Dan Murphy of DJM Systems has asked for a new sub-group about “Using Agile Methods for Infrastructure Projects”. Looks like an interesting group idea!
The International Game Developers Association, Ottawa chapter, had a round-table meeting. I enjoyed the round-table called “Managing Your Way Through a Project Lifecycle”. I found the active presence of software managers a useful part of the meeting.
Carleton is not the normal location for this group, however, the following info is relevant for other groups meeting there. Carleton University is easy to find, but for anyone except Carleton grads, a link to a map of the campus would have been useful, showing where buildings are. One panel member was 10 minutes late through not finding Paterson Hall.
Parking is expensive at Carleton, unless you park at the south end of the campus, far from everything. Bus and O-Train access are more central. The O-Train provides access at 20 min intervals until late at night.
The classroom where we met was 129 Paterson Hall. It could hole about 30 people seated at tables. The chairs were comfortable. The people present could see clearly for the round table format. The temperature was fine. There was no need for projectors or sound system, and there was none.
Washrooms were OK. Food and drink are available in the University Centre building. At least some of the franchises are more expensive than at non-university locations.
There were lots of students around while I was there, so it seemed that no one would be likely to get caught alone with the wrong person.
In the round-table group I joined, with 8 or 10 people present, there were students, experienced developers and about half of the group were experienced managers.
There is some online activity on the group blog at http://www.igda.org/ottawa. They also have a mail list at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/IGDA_Ottawa/
Tony lead the round table discussions. He was one of the managers present. He was obviously prepared and provided leadership and control of the discussion. There was lots of discussion and interaction between those present. The students had questions about how to apply the groups experience to their projects, in class and out. The experienced managers traded stories and asked probing questions.
The group started at 6:30pm as expected. The chips and pop provided by the sponsor arrived soon after.
There wasn’t one that I noticed, at this meeting.
Migrated. Originally posted: 2010-01-31 Updated lots.
Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) organizations that host events where software developers might meet other software developers.
The following groups don’t meet at the Code Factory. Yes, that’s an odd way to split the groups, but a really big chunk of groups DO meet there.
Groups in the startup scene:
These groups meet at the Code Factory.
This is a specifically networking event, not a technical event like OCLUG and most of the others in my lists, which means the portion of my review about presenters will be extremely brief. 
This is my first visit to this group.
I was able to find Patty Boland’s pub at 101 Clarence St. easily on Google, and on foot once I reached Clarence Ave. If you are walking from the Rideau bus terminal, it’s a nice walk for someone who walks a lot.
The area is busy with little parking, as anyone who has ever visited the Market will remember. However, there were some empty parking spaces on Clarence when I arrived at 6:15pm. I don’t think there is free parking in the area.
Bus service is the best there is in Ottawa, once you get to the transitway at Rideau.
The room is the second floor area, up a set of stairs. There is room for probably 30 people in the area. No other bar patrons were in that area, just people there for the Startup Drinks event.
Sound system, screen and presenters – not relevant.
The seats are good bar seats, and the place felt comfortable. There are tables, but no one there seemed to feel the need to pull out a laptop
Cost of the space is just the expectation that patrons will purchase drinks and/or food.
I spent about $15 on a coffee and big bowl of chili. Service seemed OK to me: prompt and polite. The washrooms worked, but were not overly well cared for.
I found that the walk back to the Rideau seemed safe and comfortable. Most people I saw seemed to be patrons of bars moving to or from. I was not accosted by drunks or beggars.
The 15 or 20 people at this event included startup owners and technical people, mostly or all software developers. Probably some of the software developers had less than 5 years experience but some had more than 10, like myself.
People interested in Startups as a group may have online interaction, but not through startupdrinks.ca, unless you think Twitter and RSS count as “interaction”. Startupottawa.com at least allows comments on their posts.
No sub-groups obviously visible. Find the next meeting by RSS or Twitter on startupdrinks.ca.
No presenters, just a short announcement and welcome at one point. I said my comments about the presenters would be ‘brief’. Done.
No particular end time. People just left whenever.
The meeting ‘is’ the after-meeting.
This is a monthly meeting of Ottawa Group of Ruby Enthusiasts’ (OGRE). This group attracts a broad range of presentations and attendees, resulting in a very interesting evening.
See: Review: Code Factory meeting space for info about the Code Factory space.
There were about 18 people, including three of us who arrived later than 6:30pm. When I arrived at 6:35 or so, it appeared that the meeting appeared had started on time. It looks like most people arrive for networking soon after 6:00pm.
There may have been a couple of company owners there from Ruby-centric companies like Shopify, but most people there were developers with experience ranging from a couple of years or less to about 20 years or more.
The OGRE group has an active mail list. The next meeting is announced on the list and there are technical discussions regularly.
There were two presentations. Don Kelly’s presentation on LLVM and Treetop was about the esoteric technical area of writing your own language using Ruby-based tools. Julie Hache spoke on updating Ruby on Rails from 2 to 3, why and how.
The presenters spoke clearly and enthusiastically about their topics. Their technical knowledge was obvious. In both cases, their presentations were accessible to someone with limited Ruby experience, as well as experienced Ruby developers. This was partly because they were both competent presenters.
There was a community announcement from someone working on the “Hobo” framework which extends Rails.
The meeting started on time and ended at a reasonaable time near 8:00pm.
About 8 people got together at Darcy Magee’s. It took a few minutes for them to arrange a space for the group, but I don’t think anyone had contacted them in advance. The cost was reasonable. The service was prompt and courteous.
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