Geeks in Boston

We have two big events September 6th.

The first ever TECH cocktail Boston is being held from 6:30 – 9:00 at Tequila Rain near Fenway. Open bar and technology… what more could one ask for? Signup was SO popular that spots were sold out the first day, and when an overflow list was started, it shortly became old out as well.

If you weren’t fortunate enough to register for TECH cocktail, O’Reilly is holding their second Ignite Boston from 6:00 to 10:00 at Hurricane O’Reillys near North Station. The schedule includes a few ‘launch’ talks to get the night going, followed by lightning talks, and a few surprises.

There’s a lot going on in September, in the second week alone!

First up is Sun Tech Days, Tuesday September 11th through 12th. You like Java? You got it. Topics will include Java EE 6, Java SE 7, JSF, Java ME, scripting with JRuby, and NetBeans. Check out their site for more details and to register for free.

Next we have the monthly New England Java User Group meeting. This month, Ryan Cuprak will be giving a tour of the open source offerings for Java. Utilizing open source solutions can give you more time to focus on your core concerns, rather than developing and maintaining your own version of the Wheel. This month’s meeting will be held again at Sun’s Campus in Burlington. See their site for more details and to register. As always, registration and pizza dinner is free.

Friday September 14th through 16th is the New England Software Symposium 2007: Fall Edition. I had the opportunity to attend last fall’s conference, and it was an amazing experience. Two and a half days, 5 tracks, lots of amazing speakers. This is a very technical-oriented conference with no marketing fluff whatsoever. The only downside is that it is a bit pricey, making this a nice thing to try to get your company to expense. The early bird special ends Monday, August 24th for $750, and then $850 after that. You can get a $50 discount if you use the coupon ‘nfjsusergroup50′, courtesy of NEJUG. If you do go, here are some tips:

• Be well rested before the weekend starts, and get enough sleep over the weekend. It’s an intense weekend, and you will be exhausted by the end.
• Engage with the speakers, as well as with other attendees. I noticed not many people actually talked to the speakers between sessions, and I was able to talk one-on-one with several of them.

Last on the billet is DevHouse Boston 3 on Sunday September 16th. I had an awesome time at the last DevHouse back in June. I liken the experience to a LAN party, except with coding. The basic gist of it is everyone starts gathering around 10am, and shortly after, each person has a few moments to introduce themselves, what skillsets they have, and what project ideas they have to work on that day. Then there is a breakout, and people start forming groups to work on a project for the rest of the day. And then the coding starts, with breaks for lunch and dinner. After dinner, each group has an opportunity to demo the fruits of their labor, and following this, share a few drinks before everyone heads their own way. I have a few suggestions if you do get attend:

• Register early, and provide an accurate accounting of your mad skillz, and provide your website / blog
• Check out other attendees info ahead of time
• Think of something to work on ahead of time, and post it to the ideas section
• Check out other project ideas ahead of time
• Be there promptly at 10. After initial introductions, and projects start, it may be a bit more difficult to get into things

Edit: I was reminded that the New England Software Symposium has five, not three, concurrent tracks.

Hello geeks of Boston! After speaking with Shimon, he agreed to let me help out around here, to keep you informed of the geekery going on in the area.

So allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is Josh Nichols, but I’ve found myself more commonly known as Pickles. I’ve been in Boston just over two years. I’m currently working for the Broad Institute, doing Java web development type stuff for the Chemical Biology department. In my spare time, I’m a user and developer of Gentoo Linux, having worked on Java, Ruby, and Xfce support. And most recently, I’ve become a Rails convert, and wrote my own blog (it’s one of those rite of passage type of things), Technical Pickles.

So that’s all for now, and I look forward to keeping everyone up to date on the latest events!

There’s a nice little article in the Boston Globe by Carolyn Y. Johnson about the Boston-area tech community, and especially about Beta House, the coworking loft in Central Square.