I will be speaking at RubyNation 2010. My topic is “Leveraging Rails to Build FaceBook Applications.” This is a distillation of some of the practical tactics that my development team at MetroStar Systems has used to create highly successful FaceBook applications using Rails, including real-life systems like PollCast and Iran Voices. FaceBook is the world’s largest social network, with over 600 million members.
RubyNation 2010 Speakers Selected
The conference organizers, including myself, met last night to finish the evaluation of the 60+ talk proposals we received this year for RubyNation. After a lot of discussion, we’ve now narrowed them down to the final set, pending some last minute tweaking and final confirmations of a few details with a couple of the speakers. Notifications of acceptance/non-acceptance will be going out soon.
ExchangesConnect Contest Site Live!
The 2nd Annual ExchangesConnect Video Contest launched at noon today. Within hours, users were uploading the first videos for the contest. I’m really pleased to have been involved in the development of this contest.
Beer and BBQ at RubyNation
Woohoo! My company, MetroStar Systems, has signed up to be RubyNation’s Friday night Happy Hour sponsor, featuring two of the major food groups: Beer and BBQ!
RubyNation Interviews
I was in the studio yesterday with a team of seven volunteers to videotape interviews with people who have helped make RubyNation a reality. Interviewees included: 1) Gray Herter, the chief organizer of RubyNation, 2) myself as a RubyNation organizer, and 3) Johnny Nguyen, Vice President of the New Media Group at MetroStar Systems.
Gray Herter, Chief Organizer of the RubyNation Conference, being interviewed by David Keener in the studio at Arlington Independent Media. Photo by Johnny Nguyen, taken from the production booth.
RubyNation 2010 Date is Moving, Part 2
It’s looking like April 9-10, 2010 will be the revised date for the RubyNation 2010 conference. Not confirmed yet, but looks likely.
RubyNation 2010 Date is Moving
After a moderately unpopular sojourn to Las Vegas, RailsConf has been hinting about a move to the East Coast of the United States. Today, they dropped the bombshell that RailsConf 2010 will be held in Baltimore, virtually in our backyard, in June 2010. This is, unfortunately, also the timeframe when we were planning to hold RubyNation 2010. So, it looks like RubyNation will be moving out of the way of its much larger (and considerably more expensive) cousin. March 2010 looks like a major contender for RubyNation’s new date. More news later as it becomes available.
RubyNation Web Site Updated
Just finished the latest update to the RubyNation web site. Moved 2009 content into the archive area, and updated the remaining content to reflect the run-up to the next conference in June 2010 (exact date and venue still to be determined). Next step, we’re working on a new look-and-feel, thanks to some help from Don Anderson, graphic artist extraordinaire.
Steve Keener at Apraho National Park
Steve Keener was just on vacation in Colorado for some dedicated cross-country riding. On Day 7 of the “riding” vacation, he set up his Oregon Scientific helmet mounted camera to collect video showing what it was like to travel through Apraho National Park on a dirt bike.
From Steve:
Drew Marcum and I were running together on the trails, with other riders in our group further ahead. This was Day 7 of our group ‘riding’ vacation, and we were in the Apraho National Forest, near Granby, Colorado. I was recording video with my Oregon Scientific helmet mounted camera. We ended up doing about 29 miles out into the forest, and then came back by a different route.
RubyNation 2009 Survey Results
Survey results from the RubyNation 2009 survey have been trickling in, and we’re very pleased with the results. This was only the second year that we’ve run the conference, and we’ve sold out both years. Even better, 2009 had 15% more attendees than 2008, so we were able to occupy a larger venue. Anyway, 66.8% of respondents rated RubyNation Very Good or Excellent compared to similar conferences. Counting in those who considered the conference Average for its type, 91.8% of respondents considered RubyNation to be Average or better for this type of technical conference.