UPDATE: CHANGE OF DATE Registration for the South Sound Technology Conference is Up

The 11th Annual SST Conference has been postponed. A new date has been established in the new year, but will be announced when the venue has been confirmed.



As many of you are aware, and if you aren't now is a good time to be, the South Sound Technology Conference is coming up on November 19th, 2010. Presentations and conversations are to include sustainability and peak oil, mobile application development and that every present topic in the South Puget Sound, cybersecurity.

There will be a lunch keynote and therefore, a lunch. We will use the registrations in order to estimate the number of lunches we will need, and this year their is a nominal registration fee for the conference, which will take place from morning until afternoon in the William Philip Hall on the UWT campus.

This fifteen dollar fee will not only cover the lunches, but this year we have added the option to pay twenty dollars for the conference, with five dollars going toward a student registration.

The registration page is up, thanks to the help of the University of Washington, Tacoma advancement group who have created the page for us.

Register here for the conference:

More information on the speakers and events are coming up. Contact me if you have a particular topic or speaker that you are interested in, as there are a few slots still available.

Searching for Some History

In week three of my Living and Working class we discuss search engines. Starting from a historical perspective we touch on how it became necessary to create means to find the vast amount of information that was exploding in number and size across the Internet and then the Web. Archie (and Veronica and Jughead) from McGill University and the University of Nevada respectively, Gopher from the University of Minnesota (go Golden Gophers), are mentioned. Then we discuss the generation of many different search engines which grow to prominence, are merged or replaced up to the present day.

At this point we talk about types of searches, specialty searches, vanity searches and those third party stalker search engines that keep an eye on you.

Some of this is done through my own personal experiences: (I went to see Pulp Fiction as a break from an Internet conference with this great kid, Brian Pinkerton, a grad student at the UW) Who knew that Webcrawler would become so popular that it wasn't allowed to operate during the day and that the engine (and Brian) would get picked up by AOL. My feeble attempt to hire him for Free Range was dwarfed by what AOL could do.

Some is done through going online and some is done through a Powerpoint Presentation.

However, I have stumbled across a web site that does an excellent job of summarizing the history of search. It is www.searchenginehistory.com. Search Engine History is published by Aaron Wall and references several academic sources for its compilation of information and links. Another excellent resource found through search.

Tacoma Waterway at Sunrise

Exit133 posted an article on the Shoreline Master Program. If interested it can be found here.

However, I was struck be the photo accompanying it that was provided courtesy of the City of Tacoma Community and Economic Development. There are lots of great shots of Tacoma, as there are of any city of its size and water based geographically advantageous location.

But I just liked this one.

Living and Working Virtually Once Again

The school quarter started less than two weeks ago and this quarter I am once more teaching Living and Working in a Virtual World. Once of my favorite things about this particular class is that the students represent many different programs here on campus. Though the other courses I teach are populated by Computer Science and Information Technology students, this class is made up from Business, Urban Studies, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Nursing and others.

One major difference from when I started teaching the course several years ago is how rapidly we adopt and integrate new technologies into our daily lives. Where at one time you might ask how many people are familiar with blogs and blogging, now the question is how many people own their own domain names. Social networking sites have gone from being interesting ideas to commonplace utilities. You can decide to publish your ideas, create e-commerce sites and form sub group support systems and you don't have to know any HTML.

If there is one thing I can count on during the course of the quarter, it is that one of the non-technology driven students will introduce me to a new application of technology that I did not know previously existed. Such is the widespread saturation of technological adoption and change in the present.

Hairspray at the TMP

The latest theater production I have been cast in is Hairspray, which is currently playing at the Tacoma Musical Playhouse. The house has been full every night and for a 380 seat theater that is pretty amazing.

Just this week, David Edward Hughes, Seattle writer for the publication Talkin'Broadway wrote his review of the show. It is great to see such a great cast, orchestra and crew get some attention for their efforts. And what a fun show it is to do.

See his review here:

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/seattle/se451.html