Yesterday, I had the privilege to present at Software Freedom Day - Cleveland on python, what it is, and who's using it. I was hoping to get more in detail with my presentation, but other circumstances wouldn't let me get that in depth. Therefore, I will have more posts here hopefully over the next couple weeks getting into python a little more for those interested.

When I signed up for the event, I knew only a handful of people there. Some of the guys (like Michael Letterle and Joe Fiorini) help me on the Cleveland Day of .NET planning committee. Joseph James Frantz, the lead organizer of this event, had heard my IronPython talk and wanted me to come and speak here at his event. I also knew Mat Kovach, as I usually see him running around with my buddy Martin Hebrank.

Upon my arrival at Gemini Center, I was greeted by Joe Frantz and met up with the guys who were already there. I also met Seth Keiper and Andy Halko. Joe gave a great keynote explaining what FOSS is and what Cleveland has going for it. After his keynote, Mike Masello talked about Firefox, or as his talked was called "The World's Best Browser". He went into various add-ons for it, and I would have loved to hear more about what he's found.

After their talks, I went to hear Joe Fiorini's presentation on Git and Github. I'm locked into a Source Safe world, so it was interesting to see what another source control program could do.

We had pizza, wings, salad, cookies, and pop for lunch. After lunch, I ducked into a presentation on VirtualBox. Being stuck on Vista Home Premium, which doesn't support Virtual PC, I was a little cranky since I hadn't wanted to get into VMware and just hadn't had time to look at other options, but I missed working with a virtual PC, like I do sometimes at work. It was nice to see Seth's presentation and after finding out that there's a Windows client, it's given me hope that I can do virtualization without having to upgrade Vista.

After Seth's talk, I sat through Joe Frantz's talk on Puppy Linux, another linux distro that can be boot off of media and run from memory. It's nice when you want to toy around with a barebones linux setup without having to install it on your computer.

I missed Mike's Microsoft and Open Source presentation, but I was able to double check the last few details on my slides. I also enjoyed talking COBOL with Joe Frantz. It was my first time seeing the language - business CS students would see it, but being an engineer, I wasn't exposed to it.

My presentation was at the end of the day, and it went off without troubles for the most part. I wish I could've gone into more detail with python, especially since I had an audience of developers. Since I had to cut my presentation due to personal issues, I'll have to make up for it in blog posts.

Overall, it was a great experience, and I'm glad I took the day off of work to present and attend this event. It was a diverse crowd - many of Cleveland's technical groups were represented. For an event that was put together in such a short amount of time, I found it to be very well done, and I'm eager to see what they'll pull off next year.

So... mark your calendars... October 30 & 31, 2009 - Software Freedom Day - Cleveland returns! Hope to see you there!

Labels: Software Freedom Day

I'm going to apologize ahead of time for the lack of code and technical blog posts. I've been working on presentations for a couple upcoming events, and I'm looking forward to a lot of others. So, what're the tech events that are coming up?

ArcReady/MSDN Unleashed

Every now and then, there are Microsoft events that make their way to Cleveland. ArcReady and MSDN Unlimited are two of those events, and together they make a day of the event. These events are coming to Cleveland this Thursday, October 9th. ArcReady is in the morning, and MSDN Unleashed will be in the afternoon. This event is being held at the Microsoft office in Independence. Check out ArcReady registration and MSDN Unleashed registration for more details.

Ohio North SQL SIG Meeting

Allen White has posted the October agenda for the Ohio North SQL SIG meeting on his blog. This month's meeting is this Thursday, October 9th. This group meets the 2nd Thursday of the month at the Microsoft office in Independence.

Bennett Adelson-sponsored .NET SIG Meeting

The Bennett Adelson-sponsored .NET SIG meeting will go over jQuery on Tuesday, October 14th. This group meets the 2nd Tuesday of the month at the Microsoft office in Independence.

Ann Arbor Day of .NET

I'm looking forward to Ann Arbor Day of .NET for many reasons. Most of all, I'm looking forward to seeing my friends again. I'm also presenting on the SQL 2008 data types. For those who saw my presentation last month, this is not the same presentation. I've taken parts from that presentation and expanded the talk a bit more to get into FILESTREAM.

Ann Arbor Day of .NET is being held on Saturday, October 18th at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For those who attended Ann Arbor GiveCamp, this event is at the same campus.

This event is FREE to attend, but registration is advised, as this event will fill up. So register today!

Software Freedom Day

What is Free Software? Do businesses really use it? What are the benefits of it versus the costs of it? Come out and see sessions on various aspects of FOSS and other Free Software concepts at Software Freedom Day on Monday, October 27th, at the Gemini Center in Fairview Park (Cleveland-area). I'll be speaking on python and all of its goodness. For more information, check out their website at: http://www.softwarefreedomday-cleveland.org/. Hope to see some of you there!

.NET University

Jim Holmes and Jeff Blankenburg have gathered some of the speakers from the community to put on this introduction to .NET that's being held down in Columbus on Saturday, November 8th. If you know of any junior developers or even developers who are just getting acquainted with .NET, this event is definitely for them. Check out Jim's entry on it or go straight to the registration page! (Hurry up and register - as there weren't many seats left from what Jeff said.)

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If you have an event going on that you want me to blog about, drop me a message and I'll make sure to include it in an upcoming post.

Labels: .NET SIG, .NET University, Ann Arbor Day of .NET, Cleveland tech events, Jeff Blankenburg, Jim Holmes, Software Freedom Day, SQL SIG

Joe Fiorini and my friend Kevin in NC both have mentioned this event to me, so I figured I'd talk about here.

• What: Software Freedom Day Cleveland


• When: Monday, October 27th, 10am-4pm


• Where: Gemini Center in Fairview Park

The goal of this event is to promote free software, showing people the benefits behind using free software, giving people the opportunity to network with others who are in the free software community, and celebrating free software.

Ooh, new buzz word -- "free software"!

No, that's not it. The concept of free software has been around for quite a long time. Check out the Free Software Foundation's explanation of "free software".

I'm already into the free software movement...

Then make it a point to be there! If you're as passionate as most people who develop in the free software arena, volunteer to speak at the event.

Labels: Cleveland, faithfulgeek, Nivex, Software Freedom Day