I've heard this song before, but haven't seen this video. Very fun!

No folks, I didn't make a typo this time. In order to accommodate various schedule conflicts, our August meeting has moved to the first week of September. I suppose with the extra meetings and all this year, it won't be that big of a change.

Now, as to the subject, Tom gave a similar presentation to PADNUG about four years ago and it was one of the most well regarded presentations we ever had. This is a presentation you definitely want to see.

We will be meeting at the usual time and place... just a week late :).

And while you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Aivea - http://www.aivea.com/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/
Ascentium - http://www.ascentium.com/
O'Reilly - http://www.oreilly.com/
Online Business Systems - http://www.obsglobal.com/
Robert Half Technology - http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

It started with the TechNet newsletters and is now making its way to the other properties' publications. The tall, skinny advertisement that pushes the content below the fold.

The shot to the right is from my Outlook Viewing Pane. This screen is running at 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. Thanks to the height of the advert, I only see one out of eight articles in all those pixels without scrolling.

Who thought this would be a good idea?

I no longer subscribe to any of the TechNet letters and now, the "Mike Vizard" letter is gone, too.

So far, the c|net and ZDNet newsletters have kept these type of ads along the side of their content. That works. We'll see if it lasts, though.

For those of us that were there, John's PADNUG presentation last week was really good and, I'm sure for many, inspirational. Have you downloaded the bits yet?

For those of you who were not able to make it or if you would just enjoy reviewing the presentation, Scott has been kind enough to take the video he shot that evening and provide it via Silverlight.

For some details on how Scott made the video, visit his post.

Can you believe how long it has ben since we've been to a mall? Transformers was great last month, but the food was just a little too good up there at Cinetopia.

So, in an effort to get everyone's stomach back into the bad shape it should be, join us again at the Washington Square Food Court. We'll have a chance to give some feedback to the new Hanselborg as he prepares to join the collective.

For those of you that are members of facebook, we've got this event posted up there, too. Click here to visit the page and RSVP.

What: Portland Nerd Dinner
Where: Washington Square Food Court (Second Floor; typically, straight out from Picture People)
When: Tuesday, August 7, starting around 6:30 PM (vCal link)
Why: Welcome Scott to the Collective

Be There and Be Square!

We've got O'Reilly's Open Source Convention visiting here in town this week and it gave us the opportunity to invite John Lam to come speak to us regarding his work on RubyCLR and IronRuby.

A couple of notes this month: First, appologies for the late notice. We had some logistics issues to work through and, obviously, wanted to work around the OSCON schedule.

Second, note that we are meeting at Corillian this month and I anticipate that we will start a tad later than usual as we will be rushing John from the Oregon Convention Center after his engagement there.

Look forward to seeing everyone there!

It happened. Scott was assimilated. I guess I was always kind of surprised that this hadn't already happened, but once I got used to the idea, I accepted that it would always be that he would be an advocate, but not a member.

But now, it has happened. Scott Hanselman is now Borg.

Great Summer Greetings!

It has been way too long since we've had an officially sanctioned Nerd event here in Portland. That said, with the release of Transformers this week, we can resist no longer.

In order to kick things off really well, we're going to haul up to Vancouver to the finest theater in the Portland metropolitan area: Cinetopia. I described this theater a couple of months ago. Since our first visit last year to see Pirates #2, we've not gone to another theater; it's that good.

Since we want to make this event available to nerds of all ages, we will be looking to go to the Grand theaters (the Living Rooms are 21 and over only).

What: Portland Nerd Dinner Movie
Where: Cinetopia Theaters - 11700 SE 7th St, Vancouver, Washington
When: Saturday, July 7, 2007, 4PM Showing
Why: 'Cuz lotsa stuff will get blowed up!!!

Let any and everyone that might be interested know. And of course...

...Be There and Be Square!

It's summer time here in the Portland Metropolitan area and of course that means that Rick is back with us!

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Found via Chris Sells:

[My] programmer personality type is:

DHSC

You're a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.

You like coding at a High level.
The world is made up of objects and components, you should create your programs in the same way.

You work best in a Solo situation.
The best way to program is by yourself. There's no communication problems, you know every part of the code allowing you to write the best programs possible.

You are a Conservative programmer.
The less code you write, the less chance there is of it containing a bug. You write short and to the point code that gets the job done efficiently.

Wow... it's time to cap off some of our busiest times for conferences and presentations by visiting with Stuart Celarier about Microsoft's CardSpace.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Want to remind everyone of a few events that are coming up shortly:

All the way from the building next door, Microsoft MVP and Regional Director Scott Hanselman will be joining us for a very special BONUS PADNUG presentation.

(Didn't you love the familiar tone of that paragraph?)

Scott has stepped this one up a bit, too. In his effort to raise funds for the American Diabetes Association, this meeting will also be a chance for you to step up and contribute to the cause. Not only will you be helping, but there are several folks that have pledged to match donations during this time period!

Let me give you one more reason to attend tomorrow night's presentation and donate to the ADA with Scott: PADNUG will also be matching donations from the meeting! Thanks to the generous contributions of our sponsors and the participation of all of you, PADNUG will match up to $500 in donations from this meeting to the American Diabetes Association.

Further, don't miss the opening meeting for PDXUX on the 15th. It will be a great follow-on to Scott's presentation.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

This morning, I take a look at my blog syndications and I find that the InfoWorld feeds have gone to an abbreviated format with a “READ MORE” link at the end. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am with that.

Please tell me that this is a short-term experiment. Otherwise, I now have at least two more feeds to remove from my list of subscribed blogs.

With rare exception, when blogs move to this style, I drop them. For one thing, I like to be able to download the feeds to my PDA for reading offline. Also, I typically read blog postings in bulk from Outlook (using NewsGator) and have zero interest in the context switch required to move to the browser to finish what I've started.

I figure I'll give InfoWorld a week to change their mind. If nothing comes of it, ZAP!!

Okay folks, here we go. Unfortunately, the Microsoft office is not available this month, but since many of us will likely be downtown attending the InnoTech Conference, we've worked with the organizers (Thank You, Sean) to make room for us there.

As I sent out last week, the InnoTech Conference will be a great place to be even if we were still meeting on the west side. Feel free to run out to the site and register. Discount Code of "DEV999" will continue to be valid for a period of time... this will allow those that would like to attend the conference in conjunction with our meeting to do so at no cost.

Don't forget: the Max line goes right to the Convention Center, too. Don't get yourself caught in the Highway 26 traffic if you can help it!

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Windows' Live Search Maps (last mentioned here)  has made another improvement to the ability to view the world in three dimensions. High resolution 3D has come to downtown Portland! I'm not sure, but I think my car is parked on the top of the garage near the bottom of the picture!

It is the season again for all to step up and help Scott in the fight against Diabetes.

Last year, Scott raised $12,000 this way. The goal is now $50,000! Seems quite doable to me! I'll be adding to your coffers, Scott... heck, maybe I can even help in the walking part .

InnoTech, the region's most comprehensive business and technology event, offers two full days of conference sessions and one, focused day of exhibits (Thursday, April 26th only). This year's jam-packed agenda includes the return of the eMarketing Summit (now with two tracks!), the Oregon CIO Summit and IT Executives of the Year Awards, InnoTech's Happy Hour (a great networking opportunity!) on Thursday, April 26th, and, of course, the latest on Open Source, Agile, Security, and the latest, exciting innovations in business and technology.

This year, InnoTech is offering a new, Developers Track. Because of the involvement that PADNUG has had with organizing this event, the conference has offered a limited number of complimentary passes to the general InnoTech Conference.

The first 20 people to register using the Discount Code DEV999 will receive complimentary admission to InnoTech this year. Lead sponsors include Microsoft, Comcast, Akamai, OTBC and others. For a complete listing of presentations, speakers and to register visit www.innotechoregon.com.