March 17th, "Waking Up to an Open World" Talk by John Adams

John Adams, Managing Director of Mintra Limited , and member of Axiom Tech , will talk about the barriers to adoption of free software .

Manchester Free Software serves a growing need for a group in the Manchester area that focuses on free software . The group also covers topics which impact on the freedoms of computer users.

The purpose of this group is to:
* Increase awareness and promote the use of free software within Manchester.
* Provide a friendly and accessible community for individuals in Manchester to learn about and discuss free software, with particular emphasis on ethical considerations.
* Be a source of information regarding free software to individuals and organisations in Manchester.

Full details

March 17th Northern User Experience Meetup

Monthly meet up of the Northern User Experience Group. All are welcome to come on down for a chat.

If you have an interest in all aspects of user experience you will find something of interest.

Full details

March 19th North West Drupal User Group

Admission is free, and you're welcome to bring your Drupal questions and problems, as well as any projects you'd like to demo.

We usually have a good turnout of people, ranging from complete beginners with the software to full-time developers, so if you're looking to learn more about Drupal, this user group is a great place to start.

We like to have a mix of demos, breakout sessions and general Drupal banter with time for questions and one-on-one help. There's the added option of moving on to a nearby pub for refreshment, usually The Old Monkey...

See

Full details

March 6th ManLUG social (Chinese meal + beers)

As usual for the first Friday of the month, a group of us from ManLUG (and various other geek groups) will be going out for a meal and some drinks on Friday 6th March. In a departure from our usual arrangements, we'll be meeting in Fab cafe on Portland Street from 7:30pm and then heading off for a Chinese meal after a couple of drinks. If you haven't been before, one of us will usually be wearing a geek t-shirt of some description, so we should be fairly easy to spot, and we'll be looking out for people anyway. The social is open to all, so please do forward this invitation on to other geek lists in the area.

P.S. There's also a web site where the details of socials are
announced:

http://www.manlug.org.uk

March 10th 18:00 GeekUp Manchester

GeekUp Manchester takes place on the second Tuesday of every month. It's a grass-roots knowledge sharing and networking social for folks involved or interested in all forms of technology and creative media.

What is GeekUp?

GeekUp is a community of web designers, web developers, and other tech-minded folk from the UK. It's a grassroots knowledge sharing and networking social for folks involved or interested in the web and technology industry. Monthly events take place in Chester, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Sheffield.

Full details

March 7th Think Visibility Conference

Think Visibility is a one-day conference with a focus on the areas of web development and marketing which are usually left behind in the creation process: SEO, PPC, Monetisation, Blogging, Accessibility and Usability.

Think Visibility is on the 7th of March 2009

Hosted in Leeds, we bring you a one-day conference that will entertain, inform and interest (we hope). While many conferences focus on producing and designing the website, we will be discussing and talking about what comes next; how to get traffic and how to convert it, as well as and looking at revenue streams for your website or app.

Full details

17th March 19:00 Preston TweetUp+GeekUp

Due to the Preston Tweetup happening on Tuesday 17th March, we decided
we would move GeekUp a day and combine the events! Please be aware
that you need a ticket, see the eventbrite link below

When:
Tuesday 17th March, 7pm

Where:
New Continental pub
South Meadow Lane
Preston, Lancashire PR1 8JP
United Kingdom

What:
The first Preston Tweetup is set to be held on Tuesday 17th March 2009
at the New Continental in their ‘Snug’ area. It's being held in
association with Stage 9 Marketing our official sponsors.
A tweetup is where people come together, bring along their wi-fi
enabled laptop and/or mobile phone and meet other people. People also
twitter during the course of the night, so even if you can’t make it
you can see what’s happening and contribute, by following
#prestontweetup.

At Preston Tweetup we’re going to be discussing ‘How can the web can
be used in Preston Guild 2012?’ As the last Guild was held in 1992 and
back then broadband and widespread laptop ownership was a twinkle in a
very rich man’s eye.
Wi-fi access will be provided free of charge.
The plan for the night is to start around 7 PM, allow half an hour for
drinking and making the wireless access work. At 7.30 PM we’ll
introduce the night’s topic and then break off into smaller groups to
brainstorm (you’ll be allocated a number as you arrive) and then
around 8.30 PM one person will feedback to everyone what their group
came up with. The rest of the night will be free for socialising, idea
bouncing and networking.

We’re also running a competition for Preston Blog readers to design
the Preston Tweetup logo.
If you’d like to get more involved in Preston Tweetup drop an email to
prestonblogs@googlemail.com

March 4th 19:00-23:00 Liverpool Linux User Group

Liverpool Linux User Group are a group of Linux and open source software users that meet on the first Wednesday of the month. If no talk is organised then we will usually organise a "open stage" for people to discuss projects, current news, or just to rant.

This month, we have a provisional talk booked by Graeme Dyas, who will be demonstrating the Lego Mindstorm robotics kit. The firmware for the controller has been released as open source, presenting a whole new world of possibilities for what was a simple robotics ki.

We will meet up in "The Old Ropewalk" pub before the meeting, then head out to the event around 7:00pm. The Liverpool Social Centre is two doors up from Forbidden Planet and is the right-hand door at the front of "News From Nowhere" Check the window for a handy Liverpool LUG sign, which will indicate we are there and not still at the pub. Press the white doorbell for access (the one marked basement) and someone will come up and open the door for you.

After the talks we will usually stay in the meeting area for a while then head out back to The Old Ropewalk pub.

Full details

March 4th 18:30-23:00 GeekUp Sheffield

GeekUp Sheffield takes place on the first Wednesday of every month. It's a grass-roots knowledge sharing and networking social for folks involved or interested in all forms of technology and creative media.

This month
- the final instalment of Ian Ibbotson's series on Semantic Web
- showcase of BashMash 1: The Archer Project
- BarCamp Sheffield planning meet

What is GeekUp?

GeekUp is a community of tech-minded folk from the North of England. Our socials take place once a month in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Sheffield and are always a lively place to share ideas and spread a little knowledge.

Full details

3rd March 18:00-21:00 Social Media Cafe Manchester

What is it?

The Social Media Cafe, or Tuttle Club, is a place for people interested in social media to gather, get acquainted, and to plot, scheme, and share.. emphasis on open and interesting conversating!

Who should come?

If you're interested in the future of media, how we organise, share, produce and enjoy it, then come along. If you're an artist, film maker, geek, musician, designer, writer, photographer, or anything close or related, then come along. If you want to meet like minds, come along.

Full details

March 3rd PHPNW Meeting

The next meeting of PHPNW is on 03/03/2009

PHPNW (PHP North West) is a group focussing on the PHP web development language in the North-of-England.

Where: Revolution, Arch 7, Deansgate Lock, Whitworth Street, Manchester, M1 5LH [1] (Normally in the lounge at the back on the entrance level)

When: 7pm Tuesday 3rd March 2009

What: This month we're having a look at Git Version Control system (Ciarán Walsh) & starting our series on Object Oriented Programming (OOP) approaches with Singleton & Factory design patterns (Paul Court).

Come along, grab a drink and join in :)

We have our meetings at Revolution on the first Tuesday of each month. The venue has free WiFi and serves food 'til 9pm.

Full details

[1] http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Arch+7+Deansgate+Lock+Whitworth+Street+Manchester+,+M1+5LH&ie=UTF8&z=16&iwloc=A

3rd March 10:00-12:00 OpenCoffee Leeds

If you're working in the creative or digital industries, we'd love you to come hang out, chat, demo or just network with others...usually around 20-25 people each month...sometimes more :)

OpenCoffee itself runs from 10am to noon, but Old Broadcasting House has an open house in the afternoon with plenty of hotdesks available for those who wish to work into the afternoon and stick around for the company :)

More details...

1st March - Linux/Free Software Skillshare@Common Place, Leeds

10:00am - 4:00pm

Come down and show off yr skillz or join in making good things happen, e.g.:

* Getting GNU/Linux installed on your computer, or someone else's
* Configuring a tor relay
* Experimenting with free audio software
* Getting one's head around plausible deniability in cryptographic systems
* Introduction to the Mir content management system (as used by Indymedia)
* The delights of Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
... or whatever you want to suggest/offer

http://www.thecommonplace.org.uk/

North West England Perl Mongers - Technical meeting 25th February

Wednesday, 25th February 2009 at 19:00.
Venue: Infolab C74, Lancaster University

Perl 5 is alive!
20 minutes - Matt Trout, Shadowcat Systems
A short introduction to the new Perl5 including DBIx:Class
and the new Perl5 Non profit for advocacy!

The Enlightened Perl Organisation.
10 minutes - Mark Keating, The Enlightened Perl Organisation.

Enlightened Perl is an organization which is built around a
movement within the Perl community. Its goals are complementary
to the Perl Foundation. Specifically, we support certain Perl
development efforts that ensure perl's future as an
enterprise-grade development platform.

Google Summer Of Code.
10 minutes - Mark Keating, Shadowcat Systems.
Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program that offers
student developers stipends to write code for various open source
software projects. The North West England Perl Mongers group
plan to support and assist with applications to Perl projects
for GSOC 2009.

A whistle stop tour of modern Perl libraries.
20 minutes - Matt Trout, Shadowcat Systems.
Introducing Moose the Perl 6 object model, Catalyst an MVC web
framework and Reaction.

The meeting will begin with some brief introductions at 19:00.

After the meeting we'll hopefully be moving to a near by bar for a
beer or two where there will be chance to meet and discuss Perl with
members of NWE.pm and the talk presenters.

The program is about an hour long, but we expect we'll run on until
about 20:15 depending on time between presentations and any questions
and answers.

This is an opportunity to attend technical conference level talks not only locally but also at no charge! Some or all of the talks on the program have already featured at the annual London Perl Workshop in November 2008 and the PostgreSQL Conference, West US in October 2008.

Someone will meet people at the front doors of Infolab up until about 18:55, but University Security will be locking up at around 19:00. Give 07870 594102 a call if you find yourself lost or locked out!

The North West England Perl Mongers group meets once a month on the last Wednesday for alternating social and technical events. See our website at http://northwestengland.pm.org/ for details of past and
future meetings or join our mailing list at http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/northwestengland.pm.

Makers and Hackers Feb 28th

Makers and Hackers is a one day competition open to makers of all kinds run by Folksy and Tinker.it! Show up in Sheffield or London on Feb 28th, and make a “Household items of the future” in 8 hours with the people around you!

When & Where

On Feb 28th 2009 from 10am to 5pm
London (United House, North Road, N7 9DP, 5 minutes walk from Caledonian
Road station) OR
Sheffield (Access Space near the train station)

Who is it for?

Designers, Crafters, hobbyists, sewers, knitters, woodworkers, artists, hackers or electronics tinkerers. You’ll team up with others on the day, decide what to make and then make it.

What will you make?

You decide! The brief is “Household items of the future” and you can choose to interpret that in anyway you want. You could create a cushion that makes a noise when you sit on it, to a walking plush doll, or just make something cute and lovely. High tech, low tech or no tech, come along and bring your skills!

For more info and signup details see :

http://www.makersandhackers.org

AgileYorkshire - 11th March Meeting

Test Doubles: An Introduction To Unit Test Patterns

An introduction to unit testing design patterns illustrated by an in depth look at Test Doubles (Dummies, Mocks, Fakes And Stubs).

Unit testing is a widely used agile technique. The basics can be learnt quickly but developers new to unit testing often struggle to create high quality, maintainable tests. Design patterns describe a solution vocabulary for reoccurring concepts. They are widely used as tools to improve the quality of object oriented designs. This talk introduces the pattern language of the unit testing domain, illustrated by Test Doubles: Dummies, Mocks, Fakes and Stubs (an area with many traps for the unwary).

Robert Burrell Donkin is an active Open Source contributor best known for work in Jakarta (now Apache) Commons and was elected a Member of the Apache Software Foundation in 2005. During the day, he designs and develops enterprise systems in Java using a mixture of agile techniques.

Leeds Ruby Thing Thursday Feb 26th 7pm till late.

Leeds Ruby Thing

Thursday Feb 26th 7pm till late.

Mr Foley's Cask Ale House, Leeds.

Leeds offshoot of the North West Ruby User Group http://www.nwrug.org/
Expect unstructured discussion of Ruby, Ruby on Rails and other random stuff plus nice people, great beer and coffee and geeky tshirts.
Beer and socialising, everyone welcome.

Website: http://leedsrubything.org/

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1744130/

It's Tech Up North

Events in the North of England of interest to the technology crowd...

...or at least those I know about...