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BarCampMilwaukee5 Intros

BarCampMilwaukee5 was held October 2nd and 3rd, 2010 at Bucketworks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

When we were planning BarCampMilwaukee5, Gabe asked if there was a way to point a video camera at people as they introduced themselves and project it on the wall. My answer was “yes” and we pulled together all the equipment to do it, and I somehow became the camera operator. As long as I was rolling, I threw a tape in, and this is the result.

This video is about 43 minutes long, and while I compressed it as much as I could without losing too much quality, it’s still about 480MB. I hope it serves as a historic element of the fifth BarCamp held in Milwaukee. You’ll see the people who were at the opening session and hear just a little bit about them.

This video is released under a Creative Commons Attribution License. You can also find this video at blip.tv or download an MP4. Enjoy!

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MKEDH5

MilwaukeeDevHouse5 is Friday, December 3rd, 2010… Details at Web414.com

See Also: MilwaukeeDevHouse5 – Hack the Bucket! and BarCamp ReCap at Web414 and maybe even Design Inspiration.

Come ready to think, discuss, and take action… Your ideas? We want them!

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BarCampMilwaukee5 Lightning Talk: Firefox 4

At BarCampMilwaukee5 we did Lightning Talk where you get 5 minutes to talk about a subject. (5 minutes only! We time it and when the alarm goes off, you’re done!) I talked about Mozilla Firefox 4, which is/was in beta at the time.

My main point was too let people know that Firefox 4 is much improved over previous versions of Firefox. I know a lot of people who have switched to other browsers (mainly Chrome) due to speed issues, and while speed is important, I don’t think it’s the most important thing.

My suggestion to people was to completely wipe their existing Firefox profile (which could easily be 5 years old by now) and install the Firefox 4 beta, and see how fast it was. Don’t install any add-ons, just start browsing fresh, and see what happens. Keep an eye one arewefastyet.com too, and see how those numbers and lines are looking.

I also touched on Mozilla Drumbeat, Game On, Firefox Sync, and Firefox Home. I probably left out a lot of things I would have liked to mention, but I did this unprepared. Also, you can actually say a lot in 5 minutes.

Special thanks to Chris Larkee for filming the Lightning Talks. You can find them all at YouTube, and Chris said they are all available under a Creative Commons license, but since YouTube has no concept of such things, you’ll just have to take our word for it. You can also find this video at blip.tv

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MilwaukeeDevHouse5 – Hack the Bucket!

Hack the Bucket? Hack the BarCamp!

It’s been a long time since we’ve held a MilwaukeeDevHouse, and while Milwaukee Hacker House has been doing somewhat regular events, DevHouse hasn’t, but we’re changing that!

BarCampers, Web414ers, and anyone else that does a meetup or event at Bucketworks, we invite you to MilwaukeeDevHouse5, happening on Friday, December 3rd, 2010, from 5pm to Midnight.

Here’s what I’d like to see happen: We do some brief intros, explain what we hope to accomplish, then we generate some ideas, and then we make those ideas come true. (There will also be food & drink of course! It needs at least some party atmosphere!)

We may not finish everything we start that night, but it should serve as a starting point. Also… the sky is the limit.

The sky is the limit. Really. We mean it, Any idea should be shared. Do you think there should be an iPad on the wall in every room? Should BarCamp have electronic SmartBadges that alert you to things? Should the grid wall be a giant touch screen? Want permanent videoconferencing and video streaming stations everywhere? RFID tags on everything? A grid of 20 monitors on a wall displaying artwork, photos, and data? Robots that serve us drinks? Anything. Don’t let any limits to your imagination keep you from sharing.

Once we have all these (possibly crazy) ideas, we’ll set about trying to make them happen. The “iPad on the wall in every room” idea might turn into “computer near the wall in every room” until, you know, we get the funding to make all of these dreams come true… but really, we’re hoping to spark some ideas, and adjust them to fit into what is possible with the resources we do have, or can secure.

I’ve got a few old computers, displays, and other hardware at the office I’ll probably bring along in the hopes that we can hack them into something interesting.

Will you join us?

(The graphic is based on an original photo by Tracy Apps, published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. Thanks!)

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Web414 October 2010 (Audio)

Web414 Here is the audio from Web414 for October 2010 (aka BarCamp ReCap!) We discussed how the event went, reviewed a little bit of the media, and talked about how we can make BarCampMilwaukee better in the future.

You can also download an MP3 file if you’d like. (And for our freedom loving friends, enjoy an Ogg file.)

Also, if you want to get all of the audio automagically downloaded podcasting style, subscribe to the feed.