The most annoying thing about this new way of updating the OS? The hoops you have to jump through to do a clean install.

After the first WordCamp Vegas back in early 2009, a bunch of us formed a Beer & Blog chapter. It was good. We talked tech. We had a few beers. A few of us speculated what it would be like to have a tech community, since it was so segmented. Your developers there. Your internet marketers here. Designers stuck in the middle. Social media was still in its infancy. There were talks of a tech campus somewhere in town where startups could work together. Small investigations into making a co-working space a la Independents Hall, but no capital or prime locations to house it. Slowly Beer & Blog became more about the beer than the blog (it’s okay… some groups serve their purpose for a time and then dissolve). During one of these conversations, I hatched an idea for a tech community calendar, but there weren’t enough events to make it worth the effort.

I purchased domain names for it anyway and sat on them for the past 3 years.

It looks like Vegas is finally coming into its own after three years of searching for its home in the tech arena. Startup Weekend. Jelly. Ignite. WordCamp (crossing my fingers someone steps up to organize it this year!). Adobe User Groups. Not to mention the plethora of conferences held here every year.

Enter Sin City Silicon. There are finally enough events to fill a calendar or blog and make it meaningful to the local techs. I’m aware that the tech community is still going to have some segmentation due to programming language preferences, disciplines, and business models, but at least those who want to dabble will have a one-stop-shopping place to find all events. The main goal? To bring like-minded people together in the name of tech.

No idea when this is going to launch yet, but I’m hoping to work on it (with the help of some Jelly friends) in all of free time — between designing a poster for the Sunset Rock ‘N’ Run and helping out with /usr/lib (a library about technology? It’s like chocolate & peanut butter. I’m sold!). Stay tuned for more information…

Photo: Flagpoles in the Queen’s garden by Roger Price and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Camputs? What are those?

Yep. Apparently Google believes that the Rhodes Ranch area of Las Vegas, NV needs a medical camputs. When someone figures out that is, please let me know. kthxbye!

I’m undertaking these 23 Things of library 2.0 because I want to learn more about the tools available to use.  Last semester I took a metadata class, and the fact that XML is everywhere really made me want to explore the possibilities for use in searches.  I looked metadata for finding photos & videos in my job. I’m trying to find real-world or new applications to make my job easier, as well as aid those who create the information a more streamlined method of storing and finding their files. I believe that this is quickly becoming a backbone for information transfer and connection, amidst the crosswalk issues.

As an RSS aggregator, I used both BlogLines and Google Reader, and tried out the one in Mozilla ThunderBird.  My current choice is Google Reader since I can keep one log in for many different tools.  I found that they all work very similarly, and I opt for convenience over bling.  Besides, I can plug in a widget on iGoogle to display the most recent posts, and share interesting posts with contacts (if you’re interested in KM and metadata, add me as a Google contact Sara.Mooney[AT]gmail[DOT]com).  A list of Mac feed readers can be found on About.com’s website. The main reason why I don’t like the ThunderBird is for the sole reason that I receive way too much email as it is, and don’t want to be in there all day.

I find that I use the feed readers while I am waiting for files to upload or transfer while I’m at work.  I can read short entries in the length of time it takes to transfer a mid-sized file.  This way I learn new work methods, trends, and stay productive during a time where I would normally be idle.  A feed reader allows me to skim the posts and select the ones I want to read in one place instead of going through each person’s individual blog. Time saving!  By using an RSS feed, a library could easily place a small feed widget on their home page that pulls any press with their name in it (another great feature of Google — their alerts and blog searches).  Most news services and pages are RSS enabled, so I tend to add them to my feed to see when they’re updated.

Finding the feeds isn’t hard through the use of the Google blog search, Icerocket, Technorati, or any number of other blog search engines (warning: site has a number of broken links, but the ones that work are good). Some are simply for news. Others you need to submit your RSS feed to be included in their searches.  They all display slightly different results, and it takes a lot of trial and error to find which one works best for you.  I personally stick to Google blog search or Icerocket.  Sphere is a semantic search widget that’s slowly getting there (I like to check results every few months), but I’m not finding it incrediblly useful yet. No matter what, it takes a bit of digging to separate the useful information from the noise.