2008 Technology Events

Monday. January 7, 2008
Project Leadership Users Group (PLUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Techmaine (MESDA) Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Agile and Iterative Project Management Discussion - with Dean Ostergaard, IDEXX Laboratories
(Rescheduled from 12-03-08)

Is software development really the repeatable, predictable, and stable practice that the civil and industrial engineering metaphors we are so fond of make it seem? Does design stop when the specification is handed over to the programmer like it does when the blueprints are handed over to the construction foreman? Is the programmer or "coder" the equivalent of the iron worker or mason? Is software development repeatable manufacturing or new product development? Bring your answers and join us as we examine the methods, and practices involved in software development, and some alternative methodologies that are not so rooted in the bridge building paradigm.

If software development is indeed so different how then do we manage these projects?

Why do we need Agile and Iterative methodologies anyway?

Answers to important questions:

Where are the requirements?
What does the WBS look like?
How do we deal with frequent changes?
Who is doing what when?

Common mistakes and misunderstandings.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the O'Reilly book, The Art of Agile Development, by James Shore and Shane Warden. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the Techmaine Project Leadership Users Group (PLUG): PLUG membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please feel free to attend the meetings. There is no charge.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
2008 State of Maine Economic Forecast
Time: 7:15 - 9:00 am
Location: USM - Hannaford Lecture Hall

2008 State of Maine Economic Forecast with Charlie Colgan

I hope you will plan to join us in the Hannaford Lecture Hall on January 9th for Professor Charles Colgan's "2008 State of Maine Economic Forecast".

This event is free to attend. Please register on line at: http://www.usm.maine.edu/corporatepartners/calendar_jan09.html

Thursday, January 10, 2007
Database Users Group (MDUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Techmaine (MESDA) Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Plan Reuse & Query Tuning in SQL Server 2005 - with Andrew J. Kelly

This session will explore the process the optimizer uses to decide on how it will build a query plan and whether or not it will reuse an existing plan as well. Plan reuse is crucial to getting peak performance out of SQL Server, and we will see examples of how the batch submitted can affect this. We will also see how you can influence the optimizer's choices when it creates a plan or decides which to reuse.

About the Speaker: Andrew J. Kelly is the Practice Manager for Performance & Scalability with Solid Quality Mentors and lives in Plaistow, New Hampshire. He has over 20 years experience with relational databases and application development on both UNIX and Windows platforms but his main focus now is SQL Server. In addition to general SQL Server training and Mentoring he specializes in Performance, Scalability and Maintainability of large scale SQL Servers. He is a regular speaker each year at many conferences and user groups and has been a SQL Server MVP since 2001.

Door Prizes: Registered attendees will be entered in drawings for new O'Reilly books, The Relational Database Dictionary, by C.J. Date and Understanding MySQL Internals, by Sasha Pachev. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About MDUG: The Techmaine Database Users Group meets monthly, on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting, or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting and to be entered in the drawing. There is no charge for this event. (Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.)

Rescheduled to Feb. 19
DCUG: Digital Communications Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: MESDA Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Redundant Internet Options in Maine- The Northern Route - with Tim McAfee, Pioneer Wireless.

For years businesses in Maine have been relegated to internet access provided by carriers delivered by southern fiber routes. Organizations needing a greater level of internet redundancy had no other options. Southern routes were all that existed. This lack of choice even forced some organizations to move critical operations ou t of state. Finally, you have choice. What if you could have traditional, terrestrial, internet access delivered to you via a southern and a northern route? How would that impact your business in the event of a southern fiber cut? How much costly downtime would be avoided? Would you be able to attract larger customers because you had a more a robust operation? Would you be able to meet regulatory obligations by having true internet diversity? Find out what all this about. You do not want to miss this discussion!

About the Speaker: Tim served in the U.S. Navy from 1989 to 1995 and for 5 of those years he served as a Nuclear Reactor Operator on the USS L. Mendel Rivers. After serving in the U.S. Navy Tim moved back to Maine and developed his own company called McAfee Information Systems. Tim worked as an independent consultant for 1 year before going to work for Computer Systems and Solutions as a service technician. In 1999 Tim took over as System Administrator for the F.A. Peabody Company until the inception of Pioneer Wireless, INC. in 2001. Tim is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and has been the General Manager & Engineer of Pioneer Wireless since its inception.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of an O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of DCUG: The TechMaine Digital Communications Users Group. No charge. plenty of free parking. Contact The TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for more information.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Open Source Solutions Users Group (OSSUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: MESDA Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Death of the Desktop Application - Panel Discussion

With increasingly more client application services available on the Web and advances in Web technologies there are fewer reasons than ever to roll out traditional client/server applications.

Discussion Panelists:

Ted Guild.. Ted Guild is Head of the W3C System Team. W3C utilizes open source software and community data sources.

Dave Gubrud. Dave Gubrud is currently a Software Engineer at Seafax, where he helps manage their internal and external web applications. Dave's previous experience in the software industry includes stints with Gofish.com, Candle Corp (IntelliWatch group) & Delorme Mapping.

Bryan Lewis. Bryan Lewis is old enough to have worked more C/Java development jobs than you'd care to hear about, before finally landing a job in Portland. He spent the last 8 years at Gofish.com/Seafax and is now at Quantrix.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new book, Google Web Toolkit Applications, by Ryan Dewsbury, courtesy of Prentice Hall. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Open Source Solutions Group (OSSUG): OSSUG meets monthly, on the 3rd Wednesday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address so that we can notify you of any schedule changes.

Thursday, January 24, 2008
MAINE STEM Summit
Time: TBA
Location: Augusta Civic Center

The economy and workforce of Maine increasingly depends on innovation in the face of global competitiveness which will require a strong educational background in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Data from the Maine Department of Labor states that 40% of industries projected to gain jobs in Maine from 2004-2014 are STEM related. Maine needs a focused set of actions to ensure all Maine students will have essential knowledge and skills in STEM and aspire to continue in those fields either for work or college.

Agenda
Augusta Civic Center January 24, 2008
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM: Registration
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Welcome and Keynote Speakers Chris Joyce, National Semiconductor and Eric Klopfer, MIT
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM: Morning Break
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM: Breakout Sessions (see below)
11:45 AM - 12:45 PM: Lunch (provided)
12:45 PM - 1:20 PM: Governor John E. Baldacci and State Agency Panel Discussion
1:20 PM - 1:30 PM: Afternoon Break
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM: Breakout Sessions (see below)
2:45 PM - 3:15 PM: STEM and ME - Angus King, Former Maine Governor
3:30 PM - 3:45 PM: Concluding Remarks

Details on the speakers and agenda are at www.STEMinME.org

These sessions focus on the future needs for Maine’s economically designed cluster areas and current business/research and education partnerships. Discussions about what is and could happen to encourage more STEM related learning experiences is an additional focus. Topic will include:

Biotechnology
Composites
Aquaculture
Advanced Technology for Forestry and Agriculture
Environmental
Information Technology with TechMaine
Precision Manufacturing

The Goal of the STEM Summit: To raise the awareness of key constituencies of the importance of STEM education for Maine’s future , its connection to the economic prosperity of Maine, and to commit to improving STEM education in Maine.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Usability / User Experience Users Group (UUUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Highlights from Cooper and Nielson

Cooper's 4-day Interaction Design Practicum covers their entire goal-directed design process from research through development support, with a focus on persona creation and use. Learn the top ten take-aways from this course.

User Experience 2007 was Nielson Norman Group’s annual conference offering. Learn Jakob Nielson’s view of the current State of Usability –- where we have come and where we need to go, as well as some other highlights from the conference.

About the Presenters:
Shannon McHarg is a User Experience Designer at H&R Block where she designs and evaluates interfaces for their line of digital tax preparation products and websites, including TaxCut, DeductionPro, Tango, taxcut.com, and hrblock.com. Prior to that, she worked at Bentley College's Design and Usability Center while pursuing a Masters in Human Factors in Information Design.
Leo Smith is a Senior Usability Engineer at IDEXX Laboratories, working with a variety of modalities (desktop, Web, and touch screen applications) for veterinarians and their practices. Prior to that, he worked as a Usability Analyst at Tyler Technologies where he designed and evaluated interfaces for use in the public sector.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a new O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience Users Group. No charge. plenty of free parking. Visit The UUUG Web Site for more information.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
MaineJUG: MESDA Java Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: MESDA Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Life in a Post Web 2.0 World - with Mike Culver, Amazon Web Services

What’s possible in a post Web 2.0 world? Innovation continues at a mind-bending pace, and this presentation will showcase some thought-provoking new directions that Web Services are headed in. The presentation will provide an overview of Amazon Web Services, including a Web Service named Mechanical Turk that allows computers to make requests of people, an online storage service, a Virtual Server service, and more. There will also be a demo showing how to set up the virtual server. But mostly this will be an opportunity to have a discussion about innovation and entrepreneurial tools.

Amazon spent ten years developing a world-class technology and content platform that powers Amazon web sites for millions of customers every day. Most people think “Amazon.com” when they hear the word; however developers are excited to learn that there is a separate technology arm of the company, known as Amazon Web Services or AWS. Using AWS, developers can build software applications leveraging the same robust, scalable, and reliable technology that powers Amazon’s retail business. AWS has now launched ten services with open API’s for developers to build applications, with the result that over 265,000 developers have registered on Amazon’s developer site to create applications based on these services.

About the Speaker: Mike Culver joined the Developer Relations Group of Amazon Web Services in May, 2006. Mike brings with him fifteen years of technology leadership experience, including at companies such as Microsoft. In addition Mr. Culver has a strong background running an IT organization, with over a decade of experience in the Electrical Wholesale Distribution industry. As a Web Services Evangelist at Amazon, he helps developers take advantage of disruptive technologies that are going to change the way we think about computer applications, and the way that businesses compete.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the book, Google Web Toolkit, by David Geary, with Rob Gordon, courtesy of Prentice-Hall. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About MaineJUG: MaineJUG is the TechMaine Java Users Group. We meet on the last Wednesday of the month, at the TechMaine Technology Center in Westbrook. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Monday, February 4, 2008
MTI Development Award Deadline
Location: www.mainetechnology.org

Up to $500,000 per project available.
Complete applications must be in the MTI office by 5:00 p.m.
For an application visit: www.mainetechnology.org.

Rescheduled to Feb. 19
Ruby Users Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

RUBY Users Group meeting

Details soon. General schedule:

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Ruby Beginners: a Ruby newbie half-hour. You other seasoned Ruby pros are welcome to help answer questions as well, so everyone should still show up at six o'clock.
6:30 to 7:30: Regular topic.
7:30 to ??: Informal discussion at the pub down the hall.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of a new O'Reilly book (title TBA). You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Ruby Users Group (RUBYug): RUBYug meets every other month, on the first Tuesday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

POSTPONED to April 2
Oracle Users Group (ORug)
Time: 6:00 to 8 p.m.
Location: Techmaine Technology Center, Westbrook

NOTE: This event has been postponed to April 2, 2008, due to the winter storms.

New Database Management Features in Oracle 11g - with Bill Keiran, Senior Solution Architect, Oracle Corporation

An overview of new management features in 11g including diagnostics, automatic sql tuning, partition advisor, and SQL access advisor.

About the Presenter: Bill joined Oracle in the summer after spending nearly 12 years as an Oracle Database Administrator and architect. At Oracle he helps customers with RAC, high availability and designing scalable database systems. Bill came from a large .COM where he designed and deployed multi terabyte databases on Oracle 10g RAC.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a new O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine ORACLE Users Group (ORUG): ORUG meets every other month on the 1st Wednesday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

ORUG is sponsored by: ORACLE Corporation.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday, February 11, 2008
Web Designers Users Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Universal Search is Alien to Me: Understanding Universal Search and SEO - with Patti Fousek, CreativeMind Search Marketing

Learn about Universal Search and what you need to do to get your images, news, books, local listings, videos, and blog posts picked up by search engines. Technical issues that keep search engines from indexing a website will also be covered.

Topics covered:

What is Universal Search
Challenges & opportunities Universal Search creates for marketers
How to optimize digital content for search engines
How to address technical issues that may hinder a search engine from indexing your content

About the Speaker: Patti Fousek is the owner of CreativeMind Search Marketing, a search engine optimization consulting and training company based in South Berwick, ME. Patti is a marketer by trade. She has 15 years experience in marketing communications, advertising, and promotions. In 2003 she added search engine marketing to the mix and has concentrated on SEO ever since. Patti’s expertise includes organic search engine optimization, in-house SEO training, Web 2.0 techniques, and web analytics.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in drawings for the new O'Reilly book, Design Accessible Web Sites: 36 Keys to Creating Content for All Audiences and Platforms, by Jeremy Sydik. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Web Designers Users Group (WDUG): WDUG meets monthly, on the 3rd Monday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting, visit the WDUG website or contact the Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
NETSUG: Network and Systems Administrators Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Unitrends' Rapid Recovery System - with Rob Walker

Unitrends' Rapid Recovery System provides a simple, reliable, fast and cost-effective data protection and business systems continuity solution optimized for small to mid-sized businesses and departmental IT groups. The Unitrends Data Protection Unit (DPU) and Data Protection Vault (DPV) network appliances continue to grow in popularity, and are now used by over 1,000 customers, primarily in education, non-profit, government, retail, finance, construction, healthcare, and professional services organizations.

The presentation will begin with an overview of the Unitrends comprehensive feature set, followed by a live demonstration, including the actual crash and recovery of both a Windows server and a Linux server.

About the Speaker: Rob Walker, Systems Engineer for Unitrends, has over fifteen years of progressive experience in IT industry as a senior analyst and consultant, sales engineer, network engineer and administrator in government, healthcare, and high technology companies including PictureTel and Maxima Solutions.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the truly massive O'Reilly book, Sendmail, Fourth Edition, by Bryan Costales, Claus Abmann, George Jansen, Gregory Shapiro. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

NETSUG is sponsored by Reliable Networks of Maine, bringing cost-effective, enterprise-grade technology management solutions to companies like yours.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting and be entered for the doorprizes. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, February 14, 2008
MTI SEED GRANT Deadline
Time: see below
Location: www.mainetechnology.org

MTI SEED GRANT Deadline

Up to $12,500 per project available.

Complete proposals must be in the MTI office by 5:00 p.m.
405 Water Street, Suite 300. Gardiner, ME 04345. For an application visit: www.mainetechnology.org

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
DCUG: Digital Communications Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Redundant Internet Options in Maine- The Northern Route - with Tim McAfee, Pioneer Wireless.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book:
Security Data Visualization: Graphical Techniques for Network Analysis, by Greg Conti. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of DCUG: The TechMaine Digital Communications Users Group. No charge. plenty of free parking. Contact The TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for more information.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing.Please include your email address so that we can contact you if there is any change in the schedule.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Ruby Users Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Magic with Generators - with Casey Rosenthal

We will type just three lines, and viola! -- behold, an online job board with javascript-generated datagrid views and snazzy inline updates. Rails, Javascript, and commandline magic abound.

General meeting schedule:

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Ruby Beginners: a Ruby newbie half-hour. You other seasoned Ruby pros are welcome to help answer questions as well, so everyone should still show up at six o'clock.
6:30 to 7:30: Regular topic.
7:30 to ??: Informal discussion at the pub down the hall.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Advanced Rails, by Brad Ediger. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday, February 25, 2008
STQA: Software Testing / QA Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Creating Automated Web Regression Tests with Selenium RC, Watir and JMeter. -- with Jamie Davis, Blue Tarp Financial

This talk will focus on how to create automated web regression tests using open source technologies. The first part will focus on the functional test tools Selenium RC and Watir, the second part Apache JMeter.

For each technology, an overview will be presented along with a brief demonstration.

About the Speaker: Jamie Davis is a Software Quality Assurance Engineer with BlueTarp Financial in Portland, ME.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the new O'Reilly book, Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit, Second Edition, by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About STQA: The TechMaine Software Testing / QA Users Group meets monthly, on the last Monday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Meetings are free and open to the public.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the drawing.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Java Users Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Genericity in Java - with Suad Alagic, USM

Lack of parametric polymorphism has been a major obstacle for making Java a more viable programming language. Regrettably, a recently accepted solution for genericity in Java has far reaching negative implications because of static and dynamic type violations. Dynamic checking of types of objects may now lead to unexpected type violations.

Further problems occur in using reflection as Java Core Reflection now allows dynamic type violations without detecting them or throwing standard exceptions. Well known approaches to persistence in Java, including Java's own persistence mechanism, do not perform correctly due to incorrect dynamic type information that gets promoted to persistence along with objects.

Severe implications occur in typical database transactions when processing a variety of database collections. Both legacy systems such as those based on the Java binding of the ODMG or JDO, and future Java-related persistent and database technologies will be affected. The source of these problems is in an implementation idiom called type erasure. The limitations of the virtual platform and extensions required to solve this problem will also be presented in this talk.

About the Speaker: Suad Alagic is a Computer Science Professor at the University of Southern Maine. His research areas are object-oriented systems, programming languages and systems and database systems. He has published extensively in the best international journals and presented papers at the best international conferences. He has had research grants from NSF, DOD, and industry. His industrial activities include the role of an invited staff member of the ODMG and a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawings for copies of the new O'Reilly book, Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java, by Scott Davis, Venkat Subramaniam. (We have two copies to give away.) You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

March 3 - 6, 2008
Drupalcon Boston
Time: see below
Location: Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

DON’T MISS EARTH’S LARGEST GATHERING OF DRUPAL PROFESSIONALS!

Drupalcon Boston
March 3-6, 2008
Boston Convention & Exhibition Center
Boston, MA
http://boston2008.drupalcon.org

Drupal Code Sprint
March 7, 2008
Specific location TBD, Boston

Drupalcon Boston 2008 takes place from March 3, 2008 to March 6, 2008 at the Boston Convention and Expo Center. There will also be a Drupal Code Sprint on March 7 at a location in the Boston area.

Drupalcon is the twice-yearly gathering of Drupalers to learn about, discuss & advance Drupal, and to network with other Drupal community members. With sessions targeted at everyone from novice to expert attendees, Drupalcon is where you go to advance your understanding and use of Drupal.

AIIM Expo will be held at the same time and location, and Drupalcon attendees can visit the AIIM Expo Hall. For full access to AIIM Expo, separate registration is required.

Tracks & Sessions:
- Marketing and business
- Design and user experience
- Site building
- Community and core
- Showcase and case study contest

Review the conference program and submit your own session proposal at http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/sessions

Conference Events:
- Job fair
- Industry networking
- Conference social event
- Drupal code sprint (on Friday, March 7th. Location TBD.)

Cost & Registration:
The cost to attend Drupalcon Boston is $195. This covers four full days of intensive sessions and tutorials, networking and social events, lunch and a t-shirt.

To register for Drupalcon, sign-up at http://boston2008.drupalcon.org.

Monday, March 3, 2008
Project Leadership Users Group (PLUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Project Manager Effectiveness: What Really Matters - with Lori Willette, PMP Director, Project Management Office, UNUM

What attributes; knowledge, experiences and personal traits combine to make the most effective project managers? Are you focusing on your strengths and implementing improvements that will increase your effectiveness? Unum Group has recently participated in the PMO Executive Council’s 2007 Project Manager Effectiveness Diagnostic. As a result of this collaboration, Unum is using the quantitative analysis to validate their beliefs and experiences in what drives project manager performance. They have also evaluated the results against what may be considered myths in project manager effectiveness. Join this discussion as Lori Willette, Director of Unum’s PMO shares their findings and experiences regarding what are the drivers of project manager effectiveness. Participate in a dialog in what practices we, as project managers and leaders of project management can leverage to continue to improve project manager effectiveness.

About the Speaker: As Director of the Project Management Office (PMO) for Unum, Lori Willette holds responsibility for the company’s Portfolio Management and Project Methodologies. As a Member of the Leadership Team, she supports portfolio planning and resource management, project consultation, process improvement, and methodology development.

Ms. Willette has more than 20 years of IT management experience in insurance, financial and manufacturing industries. Before joining Unum, she held senior leadership positions with companies in Maine in Project Management, Business Development and Product Management. In addition, she held various IT leadership position within Information Technology.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Head First Software Development, by Dan Pilone, Russell Miles. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

The Project Leadership Users Group is sponsored by Tyler Technologies: Software and Services for the Public Sector.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

March 4 - 9, 2008
CeBIT 2008
Location: Hannover, Germany

CeBIT is the world's most important international business platform and showcase for digital IT and telecommunications solutions and attracts a highly international audience of users from the worlds of industry, commerce, the skilled trades, banking and finance, the services sector, the public sector, R&D and science.

CeBIt 2007 hosted 6,153 exhibiting companies from 79 countries and 480,000 attendees -- 50,000 more than in 2006. Of the 480,000, roughly 106,000 visitors came from outside Germany. Orders worth a total of eleven billion euros were placed at CeBIT 2007.

Visit www.cebit.de for more information.

Monday, March 10, 2008
RUBY Users Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

New RUBY Users Group meeting time

Starting with this meeting on March 10, the TechMaine RUBY Users Group will be meeting every month on the second Monday of the month (except for July and December).

General meeting schedule:

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Ruby Beginners: a Ruby newbie half-hour. You other seasoned Ruby pros are welcome to help answer questions as well, so everyone should still show up at six o'clock.
6:30 to 7:30: Regular topic.
7:30 to ??: Informal discussion at the pub down the hall.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the hot-off-the-presses O'Reilly book, The Ruby Programming Language, by David Flanagan and Yukihiro Matsumoto. First Edition. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Network and Systems Administrators Users Group (NETSUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Messaging "Face-Off"

This meeting of NETSUG will focus on messaging solutions: Exchange, Notes, Zimbra, etc.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Linux Networking Cookbook, by Carla Schroder. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

NETSUG is sponsored by Reliable Networks of Maine, bringing cost-effective, enterprise-grade technology management solutions to companies like yours.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Information Security Users Group (InfoSEC)
Time: CANCELLED
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

This meeting has been cancelled.

RFID: New Technologies with Security and Privacy Ramifications - with Tiffany Strauchs Rad

Radio Frequency Identification is a practical and useful technology for locating items without the requisite close proximity as needed with older technology, such as bar codes. However, new technologies such as RFID “powder,” internal pre-crime detectors, and insertion into children’s clothing and other items have pros and cons associated with the practicality of its use. In addition, RFID use in access control, identification documents, and banking cards, while convenient, may lack important security features to prevent unauthorized scanning and usage of the data contained. This discussion will examine current RFID technologies as well as security and privacy of its applications and relevant legislation.

About the Speaker: Tiffany Strauchs Rad, MA, MBA, JD, is the CEO of ELCnetworks, Inc., a technology and business development consulting firm with offices in Portland, Maine and Cambridge, Massachusetts. ELCnetworks, established in the Old Port in 2001, assists new companies in their formation and strategic business and technology development. She is also a part-time professor in the computer science department at the University of Southern Maine teaching computer law and ethics. In addition, Tiffany is a technology and computer law and policy columnist for Congoo.com. Her academic background includes study of international law and policy at Oxford University in England, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Maine School of Law, as well as intellectual property at Franklin Pierce Law School in Concord, New Hampshire.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the book, Virtual Honeypots, by Niels Provos and Thorsten Holz, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine InfoSEC Users Group: InfoSEC meets monthly, on the 2nd Wednesday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, March 13
.NET Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: UNUM Home Office #3, Portland

Topic: Mashup your Office Business Applications

Mashups are wildly popular across the Internet today, let me show you how to bring this powerful technique to your business applications. In this scenario I have a Groove workspace with members of my XBOX clan. We use the workspace to collaborate on activities such as discussions, screen shots, events and game night planning. The application pulls data from Groove and mashes it up with XBOX Live data in Excel so I can analyze the activities of my gamer friends. Although the demo has a gaming theme the concepts and techniques that I will show you apply to line of business data as well. You will see how to read data from Groove and SharePoint, call RESTful XBOX Live services, transform complex xml data using Linq to Xml, Data bind xml to Excel and dynamically create complex Excel charts.

Speaker: Paul Stubbs
Paul Stubbs works as a Program Manager with the Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) team in Redmond. Paul is a co-author of the best selling book- VSTO for Mere Mortals. Paul is currently focused on driving the development of a new managed code application programmability development tool. In addition to VSTA Paul works with the Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) team developing Office solutions. Paul has worked at Microsoft for 3 years and has spoken at such events as TechEd and TechReady. Paul also participates in the developer community on the Microsoft forums and the VSTA blog http://blogs.msdn.com/vsta.

Agenda:

6:00 - 6:15 Food!
6:15 - 7:30 Presentation
Q & A and door prizes

Monday, March 17, 2008
Web Designers Users Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Ten Minute Topics: Free or Open Source Web Development Tools - with YOU.

Another of our popular "ten minute topics" nights, at which attendees offer mini-presentations. This time, it's free or open source web development tools. Do you use a free or open source application, web-based tool, or other web design tool in your work? Come tell us about it.

You can still come, even if you don't have a topic to present, of course. But bring one. We want to hear about it.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Simply JavaScript, First Edition, by Kevin Yank and Cameron Adams. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Wednesday, March 19
MIX Forum
Time: 7:30 - 10:30 am
Location: Woodlands Club, Falmouth

The purpose of MIX is to provide opportunities for entrepreneurs who are seeking risk capital to make brief presentations to audiences of potential investors.

To Present: Entrepreneurs must submit an Application Form, two copies of their business plan, and an executive summary.

For complete information and registration with instructions, please visit www.maineco.org.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Usability / User Experience Users Group (UUUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

UX Clinic

The March UUUG meeting will be a "UX clinic," in which attendees can bring in a user interface to be exaluated, and learn from the evaluations of others' interfaces. (Feel free to attend, even if you don't plan to have your user interface evaluated)

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the new O'Reilly book, Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications, by Toby Segaran. First Edition August 2007. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience Users Group. No charge. plenty of free parking. Visit The UUUG Web Site for more information.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Java Users Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Groovy - with Erik Olsen

This is the regular meeting of MaineJUG, the TechMaine Java Users Group.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy the O'Reilly book, Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java, by Scott Davis. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

MineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Monday, March 31, 2008
Software Testing / QA Users Group (STQA)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Techmaine Technology Center, Westbrook

How to keep and motivate your QA team --without increasing your budget -- with Marina Gil-Santamaria, Empirix

Have you ever heard comments such as "Anybody can do QA," "QA is boring" or "A QA Engineer is really a Developer Wannabe?" If you have, and you are not in agreement with them, you should attend this session!

Key points covered:

5 worst QA miss-conceptions that we have all heard about
Why they are wrong (so you can neutralize them if needed)
10 helpful (and free) pointers and guidelines that you could easily apply within your organization to boost QA team’s morale and sense of appreciation

About the Speaker: Marina Gil-Santamaria is the Web community manager for Empirix's Web BU, where she manages and evangelizes all services and tools associated with QAZone --Empirix's new online community dedicated to fostering communication and collaboration among QA & IT professionals worldwide. During the last ten years Marina has held positions in QA, development, services and product management organizations at CA, Wily, and Empirix. Marina is a frequent contributor to industry publications and forums. Marina holds an MS in electrical engineering from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the Pragmatic Bookshelf book, Release It! Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software, by Nichael T. Nygard, courtesy of O'Reilly Books. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the drawing.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Oracle Users Group (ORug)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Techmaine Technology Center, Westbrook

New Database Management Features in Oracle 11g - with Bill Keiran, Senior Solution Architect, Oracle Corporation

An overview of new management features in 11g including diagnostics, automatic sql tuning, partition advisor, and SQL access advisor.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Oracle Essentials, Fourth Edition: Oracle Database 11g, by Rick Greenwald, Robert Stackowiak and Jonathan Stern. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

ORUG is sponsored by: ORACLE Corporation.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Governor’s Energy Efficiency Summit
Time: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm
Location: Augusta Civic Center, Augusta, Maine

The Governor’s Energy Efficiency Summit:
Strengthening Business Through Energy Savings

OVERVIEW
Do you want to reduce your energy costs and improve your business operation? Learn from the experts how best to manage your energy use as well as what resources are available to help. This is a tremendous opportunity to share your views and needs while hearing from others how they made the difference in their operations. You will reduce energy costs while enjoying the benefits of:

New jobs: green energy jobs and services for Maine’s economy
Reduced energy costs: meaning a stronger bottom line
Improved business climate: increasing awareness of how effective products and services stimulate the availability of new and better products, encouraging further innovation.
Reduced volatility: the less energy we use the less vulnerable we are to rising costs.
Improved productivity: there is a proven relationship between energy efficiency, higher productivity, and increased investment.
Environmental leadership: we all share environmental responsibility for reducing energy use wherever financially feasible.

Breakout sessions will offer many successful examples of businesses and institutions completing energy efficiency projects. You will have time to ask the important questions and find out how you can implement similar measures.

For More Information or Registration

Monday, April 14, 2008
Ruby Users Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Simulation DSL

Casey Rosenthal will be presenting his simulation DSL. We might also have a presentation on Design Patterns (details soon!)

General meeting schedule:

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Ruby Beginners: a Ruby newbie half-hour. You other seasoned Ruby pros are welcome to help answer questions as well, so everyone should still show up at six o'clock.
6:30 to 7:30: Regular topic.
7:30 to ??: Informal discussion at the pub down the hall.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Learning Ruby, by Michael Fitzgerald, First Edition. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Ruby Users Group (RUBYug): RUBYug meets monthly on the second Monday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday, April 14, 2008
Outsourced Software Development
Time: 3:10 PM
Location: 117 Donald P. Corbett Hall, UMaine, Orono

Outsourced Software Development

David P. Crocker
Attorney and Counselor at Law
Solicitor of England and Wales

ABSTRACT

This talk will discuss outsourced software development, with an emphasis on outsourcing to Russia. It will discuss how one finds development partners, how to assess potential partners and how to structure the relationship. It will examine social aspects of establishing development relationships in Russia and the different levels of potential relationship. Finally, it will discuss the feasibility of setting up one's own development company in Russia and some of the practical issues involved.

This talk is based on personal experience in outsourced development and business travels in Russia, England, Europe, Japan and South Korea.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

First admitted to practice in 1989, David P. Crocker manages an international law practice in the areas of information technology, licensing, intellectual property and business law. He has extensive experience in domestic and international licensing, technology development and general intellectual property law, including copyright, trademark and trade secret protection.

Crocker is currently qualified to practice as an attorney in the United States and as a solicitor in England and Wales. He advises United States, United Kingdom and international clients in technology, intellectual property and business matters.

Crocker is a past president of TechMaine, the Technology Association of Maine and is a regular contributor to U.S. and English publications, where he writes on law and technology issues. Crocker is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Maine School of Law where he was production editor of the Maine Law Review and a former law clerk for the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. He also holds degrees from Gordon College and the University of Durham, England.

Monday. April 21, 2008
Web Designers Users Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 tp 8:00 p.m.
Location: Techmaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Assisting Your Clients with Website Statistics & Google Analytics - with Marita L. Fairfield, Women’s Business Center at CEI

Do you know how to tell the difference between good web statistics in a web hosting package and useless ones? Do you know how to get the most out of your own website’s statistics? This presentation will help web designers navigate the terminology, technology and process of useful and accurate statistics and help them help clients use the data as well. We’ll talk about adding Google Analytics to the web statistics you provide and how to demonstrate to your clients the importance of including elements of website design that will generate measures of “conversion” – moving a website visitor to take a “most wanted action” on their site – whether it be requesting a catalog, filling out an online contact form, or buying from an e-commerce site.

The Women’s Business Center at CEI is funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance.

About the Speaker: Marita Fairfield is the Women’s Business Center Director and counselor for Internet/Websites for the Women’s Business Center at Coastal Enterprises, Inc. In this capacity, she provides a series of workshops for Maine business owners on various aspects of developing a business website. These workshops are presented both in person as well as via online distance learning platforms. Ms. Fairfield also provides free one-on-one counseling to clients out of her office in Wiscasset, as well as providing on-line and telephone counseling to clients in other regions of the state.

Prior to joining Coastal Enterprises as the Women’s Business Counselor for Internet/Websites, Ms. Fairfield was the Market Research Director for Rastar Digital Media/Auto Source Marketing, a position she “telecommuted” to from her office in Maine for four years. For seven years prior to that position, she owned a full-service market research firm, Lighthouse Research, Inc., which she sold to principals of Auto Source Marketing.

In addition to having the experience and perspective of both a former corporate executive and a former owner of a microenterprise business, Marita has a background in teaching and education. She has a Master’s Degree in Social Psychology from the University of Utah and has taught various courses at universities and vocational schools, including Microsoft Office Applications and E-Marketing For Entrepreneurs. In her capacity as Research Director, she also developed methods for teaching business and computer skills using remote access programs and other Internet tools. As President of Lighthouse Research, Inc., Marita also designed a number of employee assessment tools used by management consultants for training programs in such topics as diversity and accountability in the workplace.

Ms. Fairfield currently resides in Wiscasset, Maine. She is adjunct faculty with the University of Maine at Machias and has taught a Blackboard course on E-Marketing For Entrepreneurs.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Apache Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for Apache Administration, by Rich Bowen and Ken Coar, Second Edition. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

April 25-26, 2008
Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium
Time: .
Location: Mt. Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Salisbury Cove, ME

Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium

The 35th Maine Biological and Biomedical Sciences Symposium will be held April 25-26, 2008 in the Maren Auditorium and Dahlgren Hall Conference Center at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salisbury Cove, Maine. The Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium (MBMSS) is a state-wide gathering of researchers and students—an opportunity to share research results, exchange ideas, promote collaboration, and network with Maine scientists in a variety of disciplines. Invited and selected speakers will present short research reports, followed by question/answer and open discussion. A poster session and pre-conference workshop will also be held.

All Maine researchers, science faculty, graduate, undergraduate and high school students are cordially invited to attend.

Conference details can be found here

Monday April 28, 2008
Virtual Machines: The Value of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Time: 3:10 PM
Location: UMaine Orono Campus

CS Department Seminar Monday April 28, 2008, 3:10 PM, 117 DPC (Business College)

Virtual Machines: The Value of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Dick MacKinnon
Retired Director of IBM's Cambridge Scientific Center,

ABSTRACT
This talk will cover the origins and intended purposes of virtual machines. Today we are most familiar with virtual machines because of the VMware software provided by EMC Corporation and Microsoft's Virtual Machine software product. But these companies hardly invented the concept which, in fact, goes back to 1964 and sprang from the very laboratory MacKinnon managed as IBM's longest-tenured research director.

MacKinnon will discuss the difficult gestation period, birth, and flowering of the virtual machine; its enormous contributions to IBM's prosperity and computer science; why people use virtual machines; and why IBM tried so hard to stamp out the very notion of virtual machines. Dick will also explain what a virtual machine is.

MacKinnon feels he played a significant role in keeping the virtual machine flame burning by enhancing the concept in product form, responding to customer needs, and publishing the definitive description of this innovation. It is upon these shoulders that VMware and Microsoft and others now stand.

BIOGRAPHY
Dick MacKinnon graduated in 1956 from Mount Hermon School and went on to graduate magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa at Yale in 1960 and received an MBA at Harvard in 1962. Dick had three distinct careers, somewhat in parallel. He spent thirty years at IBM, primarily as a research director, running a "skunk works" laboratory on the MIT campus. He received IBM's Outstanding Innovation Award for his pioneering of the precursor academic network to InterNet-Bitnet--and his lab did the communications software for the original IBM PC--the only IBM authored software in the whole PC. He also taught for some 27 years at MIT's Sloan School and Boston University. Finally, he joined twin Brother Bill at MacKinnon Associates, consulting with CEOs of State Street Bank, EMC Corporation, and Penske Corp on their information systems. At Penske Corp. Dick served as interim CIO for two years and at State Street he served as that bank's first State Street Fellow. He retired completely in 2002. Since 1984 Dick has been a director of Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, member of the oversight committee of the Radiation Oncology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale and at Leveret House of Harvard, and a trustee of the Mass. Audubon Sanctuary, Broadmoor. He lives in Sherborn, MA.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Usability / User Experience Users Group (UUUG)
Time: 6:00 tp 8:00 p.m.
Location: Techmaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Earthmate GPS PN-20: a Case Study in Applying User-Centered Design in Handheld Product Development - with Chip Noble

Chip Noble, User Interface Design Manager at Delorme, will be presenting a case study on the development of DeLorme’s PN-20 handheld GPS device. Chip will speak about their approach to the user-centered design process during product development and will share the challenges and lessons learned from the experience.

About the Speaker: Chip Noble is the User Interface Design Manager at DeLorme. He joined the company in 1997. Chip and his team work with sales & marketing, development, and quality assurance to design software, web, and hardware mapping applications in Yarmouth, ME. Chip’s background is in DeLorme products, outdoor gadgets, and user advocacy. In his spare time he likes to plan adventures, geo-reference everything, and eat mini-Eartha chocolate globes.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the new Pragmatic Bookshelf book, courtesy of O'Reilly Books, GIS for Web Developers: Adding 'Where' to Your Web Applications, by Scott Davis. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience Users Group. No charge; open to the public. Visit The UUUG Web Site for more information.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Java Users Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

The Holy Grails? - with Christine Morin-Hill

Is Grails all that it claims to be? Why should I care about yet another framework? Well, only you can decide by coming to a Grails 101 talk introducing the strength of the 'Coding by Convention' approach of Grails and how using the best-in-breed java technologies to pull it all together may just make all the difference. Wikipedia defines Grails as: "Grails is an open source web application framework which leverages the Groovy programming language (which is in turn based on the Java platform). Grails is intended to be a high-productivity framework by following the "coding by convention" paradigm, providing a stand-alone development environment and hiding much of the configuration detail from the developer." Come on by and see a Grails web application built real-time before the meeting is done.

About the Speaker: Christine Morin-Hill is a cofounder of Quai, Inc., an internet consulting and development firm first established in 1996. Her expertise in providing technical consulting services has spanned all areas of client projects from acquiring functional requirements to hands-on implementation. With over 12 years experience in the industry so far, 10 years of that has been using and loving java technologies with a focus on web application development. Mrs. Morin-Hill is a graduate of Boston University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering. Other areas of interests include: motorcycle riding, amateur photography and cooking; especially all things chocolate.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Java Pocket Guide, First Edition, by Robert Liguori and Patricia Liguori. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

MineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting and to be entered in the drawing. There is no charge for this event. Open to the public. (Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.)

May 7 & 8, 2008
Excellence in Information Technology and Compliance Conference
Location: Sheraton Harborside Portsmouth, NH

As we've all seen in the news, no business is exempt from the risk of data breaches...

Please join us for the 5th annual Excellence in Information Technology and Compliance Conference (EITC) in Portsmouth, NH, May 7 and 8, 2008.

With presenters and attendees, EITC attracts the best information security professionals in New England. Don't miss this opportunity to hear and discuss topics including:

Secure Network Architecture
Measuring Least-Privilege - a quantitative approach to need to know
Wireless for Business - 10 tips and traps
Managing Technical Vulnerabilities
Content Filtering - what information is leaving your business?
Building Blocks for eDiscovery Policy Development
Evidence Handling / Computer Forensics
Log Review - extracting the value
Establishing the role of ISO

Complete conference information can be found at: www.nmi.net/EITC_2008.pdf Be sure to note the impressive list of speakers for this event!

Please share this information with others in your organization - the conference is an excellent opportunity for anyone in Information Technology, Information Security Officer, Managers and Executives.

EITC 2008 will be held at the Sheraton Harborside Portsmouth, NH May 7 and 8. To register please visit: www.nmi.net/contact/eitcReg.html where you can select the option to bill me later or pay now via paypal.

In addition to being a wonderful networking opportunity, this conference will keep you up to date on the information security and compliance developments that will impact your day-to-day work. If you have any questions please contact NMI InfoSecurity Solutions at 207-780-6381. We hope you will join us!

Thursday, May 8, 2008
MIX Forum: Application Deadline for Presenters
Location: www.maineco.org/presenting.php

The Maine Investment Exchange (MIX) provides regularly scheduled forums to bring together providers of risk capital with qualified entrepreneurs seeking capital. Presenting companies are pre-selected through an application process and are provided with an opportunity to make a brief formal presentation to an audience of investors and an opportunity for networking. MIX is an enterprise created by Maine & Company and supported by private businesses throughout the state.

UPCOMING MIX FORUM: June 18, 2008

Interested in presenting? Applications are due by Wednesday, May 8th. Please click here to request an application.

More about MIX

Forum Details

Monday, May 12, 2008
Ruby Users Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Design Patterns in Ruby, continued . . .

Building on the success of last month's meeting, this month we will again focus on Design Patterns in Ruby, which is a topic that should be of interest to programmers in other languages as well. Attendance will be good, and I am sure that the pub will get its usual bump, so bring your Java/Python/PHP friends, and make them drive.

General meeting schedule:

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Ruby Beginners: a Ruby newbie half-hour. You other seasoned Ruby pros are welcome to help answer questions as well, so everyone should still show up at six o'clock.
6:30 to 7:30: Regular topic.
7:30 to ??: Informal discussion at the pub down the hall.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the hot-off-the-presses O'Reilly book, FXRuby: Create Lean and Mean GUIs with Ruby, by Lyle Johnson, First Edition. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday, May 19, 2008
Web Designers Users Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Website Content Management Systems - Panel Discussion

This will be an informal discussion on a few different types of website content management systems, including proprietary and open source solutions. Bill Clarke of The Geek Team will discuss RevolutionCMS; Casey Rosenthal will discuss Rails; Randy Runnels and Suzy Massey will discuss WordPress;and Todd Woofenden will discuss Drupal. (Maybe others as well.)

About the Speakers:

Bill Clarke co-founded The Geek Team in 1999 and currently serves as President and Application Architect. The Geek Team specializes in custom web application development, and has a number of products under development including RevolutionCMS, a painless Content Management System for Web Designers. The Geek Team is headquartered in Greene, Maine.
Casey Rosenthal is the Chief Software Engineer at Port Forty Nine, an online application business specializing in Ruby on Rails software. Mr. Rosenthal has over a decade of experience writing and deploying online applications, and has been using the Rails framework for over two years. Port Forty Nine's flagship product is an online business simulation for sales managers, used mostly in the pharmaceutical industry, and written entirely on Rails.
T.H. Creations co-founder Randy Runnels has been designing and building web applications since 1999. He's passionate about accessibility, usability, and web standards.
Todd Woofenden is TechMaine's Users Group Coordinator, and manages about a dozen Drupal websites. He is currently working on developing a new site for TechMaine in Drupal 6.2.

Door Prizes: Registered attendees will be entered in drawings for several copies of the hot-off-the-presses O'Reilly book, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide, by Amy Shuen. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
2008 Technology Awards Gala
Time: 6:15 - 9:30 PM
Location: Eastland Park Hotel Ballroom

Announcing the 2008 Finalists

The Technology Awards showcase the progress and recognize the accomplishments and significant contributions of the state's technology sectors over the past year and present awards to Maine's top technology companies. This event allows TechMaine the opportunity to highlight outstanding achievements and success stories from technology firms across the state.

We are especially pleased this year to announce the Governor's Award for Technology Company of the Year.

Join us and our special guest Tom DeMarco as the Master of Ceremony for this year's Technology Awards Gala. Tom is a Principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild, and a Fellow of the Cutter Consortium. He was the winner of the 1986 Warnier Prize for "lifetime contribution to the field of computing," and the 1999 Stevens Award for "contribution to the methods of software development."

Along with the other members of The Atlantic Systems Guild, Tom has written a 2008 book on patterns of behavior observed when groups of technical workers join together to take on a substantial task. The book is called: Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior.

The 2008 Technology Awards Gala will be held Tuesday, May 20. The Gala features heavy hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar plus exceptional networking opportunities. Register Today

May 21 meeting POSTPONED
Digital Communications Users Group (DCUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

POSTPONED: We are working on bringing Jeff Nevins and Jeff McCarthy of Fairpoint to DCUG, but May isn't working out. Please stay tuned for a new date!

About the Speakers:

Jeff McCarthy has been in the telecommunications industry in northern New England for 21 years, starting his career as an Agent for New England Telephone in Vermont. He has served in a role as a communications services consumer, as a telecommunications manager for Banknorth Group. He also has a background in sales and product management having worked for Hyperion Communications in 1997, RCC Atlantic, Adelphia Business Solutions / TelCove / Level 3. Mr. McCarthy joined FairPoint in June of 2007 and is the Assistant Vice President – Business Services, with responsibility for the sales and account support areas for business and enterprise markets throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Jeff Nevins has over 20 years of experience in corporate communications, public relations and governmental affairs. He has worked in communications department for FairPoint Communications since November 2008 when he returned to Maine after spending three years in Louisiana working for CenturyTel, a telecommunications company similar to FairPoint. He is a Maine native who graduated from the University of Maine and has an MBA from Thomas College. He has also worked for Mead Paper/Boise Cascade, Allied Signal Corporation, the Maine Better Transportation Association and the United Way of Kennebec Valley. He has two grown daughters and lives in Augusta with his wife Barbara.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the Addison-Wesley book:Crimeware: Understanding New Attacks and Defenses, by Markus Jakobsson and Zulfikar Ramzan, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of DCUG: The TechMaine Digital Communications Users Group. No charge. plenty of free parking. Contact The TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for more information.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing.Please include your email address so that we can contact you if there is any change in the schedule.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Java Users Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

The JavaServer™ Faces 2.0 Platform Specification - with Roger Kitain, Sun Microsystems

The JavaServer™ Faces 2.0 platform specification is the first major revision since 1.0 in March 2004. This session explores the methodology used to identify the most important problems to solve for the second major release of the specification. Then it examines the concern about ease of development of JavaServer Faces applications and how the specification will address those concerns. Ajax is one technology that has grown as an enabler of rich Internet applications. With that came the emergence of numerous JavaServer Faces/Ajax technology-based frameworks for creating rich, dynamic JavaServer Faces applications. The specification standardizes the best features from some of these JavaServer Faces/Ajax technology-based frameworks as well as features common to all the frameworks. It reviews these features in addition to other features that distinguish the JavaServer Faces 2.0 specification.

About the Speaker: Roger Kitain is currently the co-spec lead for JavaServer Faces at Sun Microsystems. Roger has extensively been involved with server side web technologies and products since 1997, including the early development efforts of the Software Download Center, Sun One Identity Server, and the JavaServer Faces Reference Implementation.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Harnessing Hibernate, by James Elliott, Tim O'Brien, and Ryan Fowler, First Edition. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

MineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Thursday, May 29, 2008
Usability / User Experience Users Group (UUUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center

Usability Testing with Morae and UserVue - with Shane Lovellette

Shane Lovellette, Product Manager of Morae, will be giving a presentation of usability testing with Morae and Uservue. Morae is an application that helps usability professionals run and analyze usability tests as well as lets remote observers observe the test in process. The Techsmith Team is hard at work adding new capabilities that will help test devices like the iPhone, paper prototyping as well as perform in-depth interviews to focus groups and unmoderated testing. In this session, Shane will provide an overview of how Morae supports traditional usability testing and will pull back the curtain to give you a peek at what's coming...and demonstrate specific use scenarios. Remote user testing with UserVue will also be shown. We hope you can join us!

About the Speaker: Shane Lovellette is the product manager for Morae and UserVue. Shane came to TechSmith with over eight years of management and production experience in video and television. In 2004, Shane helped TechSmith introduce Morae, the first all-digital solution that records and synchronizes user and system data for the analysis of human-computer interaction. In that time, Morae has become the gold standard for usability testing and user experience research. Shane holds a bachelor's degree in television, radio, and film production from Syracuse University and an MBA from Michigan State University. Shane resides in DeWitt, Michigan, with his wife and two children.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the new O'Reilly Book, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management, by Scott Berkun. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience Users Group. No charge; open to the public. Visit The UUUG Web Site for more information.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Monday, June 2, 2008
MTI Development Award Deadline
Time: 5:00 pm
Location: www.mainetechnology.org

Up to $500,000 per project available.

Please note that there have been changes to the Development Award Request for Application. Please click here to review the changes.

Complete applications must be in the MTI office by 5:00 p.m. on the deadline date
405 Water Street, Suite 300, Gardiner, ME 04345.

For details, forms and online registration, visit: www.mainetechnology.org.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Oracle Users Group (ORUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Introduction to Oracle Data Integrator - with Cori Peele, Oracle Corporation

In today’s fast-paced, information-based economy, companies must be able to quickly integrate vast amounts of data from disparate systems. Oracle Data Integrator streamlines the high performance movement and transformation of data between disparate systems in batch, real-time, synchronous, and asynchronous modes. This presentation will provide an overview of how ODI's innovative, modular design and built-in connectivity to all major databases, data warehouse appliances, analytic applications, and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) suites dramatically enhance user productivity.

About the Speaker: Cori Peele has served as the lead Middleware Architect on consulting engagements and has over 12 years of experience in the IT industry as a developer, consultant, and project manager.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the O'Reilly book, Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference, Fourth Edition, by Steven Feuerstein, Bill Pribyl and Chip Dawes. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

ORUG is sponsored by: ORACLE Corporation.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, June 5, 2008
Metro NETpm
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 PM
Location: Sapphire Technologies, 280 Fore St, 4th Floor, Portland

Kick start summer with Sapphire Technologies!

Don't miss TechMaine’s upcoming monthly networking event. Join TechMaine and Sapphire Technologies on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 for a party at Sapphire Technologies in Portland from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.

We will close out the workday in style with NETpm. Meet your friends and network in a relaxed, unstructured atmosphere. Admission is free. Pass the word! Everyone come join the fun and festivities. Win Red Sox tickets and other great prizes plus free hors d'oeuvres and an OPEN bar of soft drinks, beer, wine, and frozen summer cocktails! WOW! Please register online here for this event.

Sapphire Technologies is our benevolent host for NETpm this month. Metro NETpm is presented on the first Thursday of every month by TechMaine.

Sapphire Technologies is an Information Technology staffing service. Specializing in IT since 1984, Sapphire attracts and retains the highest quality technology professionals across the U.S. and Canada for contract and permanent positions in all industries, including telecommunications, banking, software, R & D, and Internet/e-commerce. Sapphire Technologies Portland office opened in Maine in October 2004, and has over 40 offices nationwide. Sapphire Technologies is located at 280 Fore St, 4th Floor in Portland. More information can be learned @ www.sapphire.com.

Monday, June 9, 2008
RUBY Users Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center

RailsConf08, RailsConf08, and . . . RailsConf08!

If you couldn't make it to RailsConf this year, come hear what you missed. And if you did attend RailsConf this year, come hear what you missed.

General meeting schedule:

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Ruby Beginners: a Ruby newbie half-hour. You other seasoned Ruby pros are welcome to help answer questions as well, so everyone should still show up at six o'clock.
6:30 to 7:30: Regular topic.
7:30 to ??: Informal discussion at the pub down the hall.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of a new O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Network and Systems Administrators Users Group (NETSUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Data Protection Strategies - with Bill McKeen, Workgroup Technology Partners

The discussion will be a high-level tutorial of various current storage technologies, including a contrast between NAS and SAN technologies, data protection strategies, etc. The presentation will also cover how technologies from Network Appliance can be utilized to improve performance and reliability while reducing capital and operational costs. A discussion of virtual environments (server, storage, and networking) will be included as well.

A demo of Netapp technology will be provided. The goal will be to show the advantages in database environments like Exchange, SQL Server, Oracle, etc, as well as the tremendous benefit for virtual infrastructures. As time permits, the demo may extend into other areas.

About the Speaker: Bill McKeen has been designing, implementing, and supporting various IT solutions for over 20 years. Currently, he is the VP of Systems & Technology at Workgroup Technology Partners, where he manages the technical staff, and determines the company’s technology and services direction. Bill is very familiar with the practical aspects of current IT environments, including the disciplines of networking, storage, security, and virtualization.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the hot-off-the-presses O'Reilly book, The Book of Wireless: A Painless Guide to Wi-Fi and Broadband Wireless, First Edition, by John Ross. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Digital Communications Users Group (DCUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Accelerating Businesses to the Speed of Light - with Oxford Networks

Oxford Networks is one of Maine’s leading local communication providers. Founded in Oxford County, Maine in 1900, Oxford Networks serves a territory from Bangor through Portsmouth, New Hampshire with its own high-speed fiber optic network. Oxford Networks also provides the first large scale Fiber to the Premise technology in Maine,which brings competitive choice to consumers in Local and Long Distance Telephone and High-speed Internet.

John Dougherty, Corporate Project Manager and Julia Munsey, Marketing and Public Relations Specialist will present information on Oxford Networks Fiber to the Premise network, including path diversity, service offerings and why now, why fiber.

A presentation of DCUG: The TechMaine Digital Communications Users Group. No charge. plenty of free parking. Contact The TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for more information.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing.Please include your email address so that we can contact you if there is any change in the schedule.

May - June 2008
SBIR/STTR Grant Deadlines May - June
Location: www.sbir.gov

Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer

The SBIR/STTR program provides more than $2 billion each year to small business, helping entrepreneurs take their ideas from laboratory to market. The following SBIR agencies are currently accepting proposals:

Department of Health & Human Services, National Institutes of Health: Due August 5 and December 5, 2008
Environmental Protection Agency: Due May 21, 2008
Department of Transportation: Due June 3, 2008
National Science Foundation: Due June 10, 2008
Department of Defense: Due June 18, 2008

Upcoming releases:

U.S. Department of Agriculture: Release June, 2008
NASA: Release July, 2008

To monitor agency release dates or find other information on the SBIR program, go to www.sbir.gov or www.zyn.com/sbir.

Important Notice to Companies Submitting SBIR/STTR Proposals: Most agencies are migrating to electronic submission of grant applications and companies must first complete a registration process. To begin registration, visit www.grants.gov/GetStarted.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
MIX Forum
Time: 7:30 to 10:30 a.m.
Location: Woodlands Club, Falmouth

The purpose of MIX is to provide opportunities for entrepreneurs who are seeking risk capital to make brief presentations to audiences of potential investors.

To Present: Entrepreneurs must submit an Application Form, two copies of their business plan, and an executive summary.

For complete information and registration with instructions, please visit www.maineco.org.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Java Users Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Intro To jQuery (by example) - with Dan Bachelder and Josh Kastelein

jQuery makes writing Javascript fun again.

Learn how easy it can be to develop robust, cross-platform DHTML using this enormously popular open-source library.

From simple animations to sophisticated AJAX, Dan and Josh will take you on a guided tour of jQuery's features, with lots of stops along the way for demonstrations and code examples.

Take your Javascript from zero to asynchronous in this developer-focused and question friendly presentation. If you write code for the web or enjoy learning best of breed technologies, then this session is for you.

About the Presenters: Josh Kastelein - Java developer for 1 year. 6 years as MS developer. Currently senior developer at IW Financial.
Dan Bachelder - Java developer for 7 years. Currently senior developer at IW Financial.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Java Power Tools, by John Ferguson Smart. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

MineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008
SBIR Summer Session
Time: 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Location: Portland Regency Hotel, 20 Milk Street, Portland

SBIR Summer Session – July 9, 2008, 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Overview of the $2.0 Billion plus federal SBIR/STTR grants available for innovative technologies. The SBIR/STTR program is a competitive grant program where small businesses may receive up to $850,000 to fund feasibility and prototype development of innovative technologies. Topics of interest are broad and grants are awarded in response to proposals submitted. Phase I funding provides up to $100,000 to prove feasibility and Phase II provides up to $50,000 for prototype development. For More Information: Contact Karen West at 207-845-2934 or email at cpmgmt@pivot.net

Thursday, July 24, 2008
.NET Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Unum

Topic: ASP.NET Dynamic Data

ASP.NET Dynamic Data provides a framework that enables you to quickly build a functional data-driven application, based on a LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework data model. Full CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) operations are supported. The site includes filtering by foreign keys and Boolean fields; foreign keys are automatically converted to their friendly names. Smart validation is automatically available, which provides validation based on database constraints for nullable fields, data type, and field length.

Speaker: Jim O'Neil
Jim is a Microsoft Developer Evangelist for the Northeast District. He recently joined Microsoft after 12 years at Sybase where he was heavily involved in the PowerBuilder development community as a support engineer, pre-sales consultant, and evangelist. He is a co-author of two books on software development with PowerBuilder and has presented at multiple user groups and conferences in the US and Europe.

Registration page is still suffering some technical difficulties so please register by sending your name to brickisland@yahoo.com

Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Drupal User Group (DRUPALug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

A Tour of Websites Built in Drupal (and how they did it) - with Todd Woofenden

Drupal, the open-source website content management system, is building up a huge user base. All over the world people are using Drupal to build sites of all types, from small affinity group sites to very large sites with super-heavy traffic. In this session, the first TechMaine Drupal Users Group meeting, we will take an informal tour of some different kinds of sites that were built in Drupal, and take a look at how certain features and functions were built. Come see what Drupal can do! Note: We also want to guage interest in running a Drupal users group, so please come to this meeting and chime in.

About the Speaker: Todd is the TechMaine User Group Coordinator, and is involved in the current project to build a new Drupal site for TechMaine. The new site, being built in Drupal 6.x, will offer TechMaine members and Maine's technology sectors a much more powerful and useful set of tools and interactive features. When not at TechMaine, Todd does freelance Drupal site development at Signal Light Host.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the book, Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion, by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen and Harry Lewis, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Drupal Users Group (DRUPALug): DRUPALug meets monthly on the first Tuesday of the month. Meetings are open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, August 7, 2008
Metro NETpm
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Location: Axon, 377 Fore Street, 4th Floor Portland

Keep your summer fun rolling with the creative crew at Axon!

Join TechMaine and Axon on Thursday, August 7, 2008 for good food, good drink, and great people at the Axon offices in the heart of the Old Port from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.

We will close out the workday in style with NETpm. Meet your friends and network in a relaxed, unstructured atmosphere. Admission is free. Join us for hors d'oeuvres and an open bar of soft drinks, beer, and wine. Please register online here for this event.

Metro NETpm is presented on the first Thursday of every month by TechMaine, and Axon has graciously offered to host this popular gathering of TechMaine friends and associates.

Axon is a team of experienced designers and web programmers, providing a wide range of marketing, design and web solutions to its clients. Axon is currently in the process of designing and programming websites incorporating web 2.0 features for the Maine Heritage Policy Center, the Association of Consulting Expertise, and the Biotechnology Association of Maine. Visit Axon during NETpm at 377 Fore Street, 4th Floor, Portland or on the web at axondm.com.

Monday, August 11, 2008
RUBY User Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

def presentation_missing( )

We should each have ~3 ideas of short presentations, lightning-talk style. We'll write them on a board and audience can choose which ones (if any) we want to hear.

You can see some of the topics on the thread here. * really basic overview of working with github * map.restfully * reactor pattern (eventmachine in Ruby) * rake tasks for cron as an alternative to script/runner * activerecord error handling for associations * STI as a way to minimize controllers in addition to database tables * active_merchant * phusion passenger * optimizing SQL

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Ferret, by David Balmain. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Network & Systems Administrators User Group (NETSUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Surprise! Security Vulnerabilities You Thought You Didn't Have to Worry About - with Mark Stone, Reliable Networks

Just because you "follow the rules" doesn't mean you are secure. Okemo and dozens others had successful PCI audits yet their credit card systems were still hacked.

What should you be worrying about?

Mark Stone attended the 3-day Last Hope conference in New York City in July. This bi-annual conference hosted by 2600 drew thousands of hackers, law enforcement types, lawyers, and increasing numbers of over-30-year olds interested in displaying and learning all about current security exposures. Unlike the last conference, no one was arrested just before they were to give their presentation, but that doesn't mean the sessions were any less juicy. "Hacking" has grown up and is now much, much more professional.

In this unique NetSUG session, Mark will recap the highlights relevant for Network and System Administrators who don't want to find themselves explaining to management why their systems got hacked.

Topics to be covered include:

Why you are still vulnerable using ssh, tls or anything else that relies on OpenSSL-even if you don't run a Debian-based system like Ubuntu subjected to the embarrassing OpenSSL bug.
Why VMware and Xen virtual machine security is not fixable, even on big HP iron.
Breaching Layer 2 VLANs on the latest Cisco gear.
Using Firefox for penetration testing.
Social engineering tricks that really work.
Why the card readers used by the leading data centers in Maine and elsewhere are next to useless (and how to avoid being blown up while carrying your new RFID-equipped US Passport).
How road warriors get hacked (too many easy ways, unfortunately, too cover in one session).
Report from the University of Pennsylvania on (the incredible lack of) voting machine security, and why IT professionals should volunteer to work at polling places.
What really happens to your checked luggage and how to avoid problems traveling the airways with your laptop.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new No Starch Press book, The Book of IMAP: Building a Mail Server with Courier and Cyrus, First Edition, by Peer Heinlein and Peer Hartleben, courtesy of O'Reilly Books. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Information Security User Group (InfoSEC)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Tom Witwicki, Director of Information Security at Hannaford Brothers in Scarborough, Maine will discuss utilization of the ISO 17799 and 27000 standards to address security and compliance issues.

ISO/IEC 27001 is gaining wordwide acceptance as a framework for governing Information Security and the management of information risk. Tom Witwicki will explore this framework of controls in some detail and describe how it is being used to establish a roadmap for information security governance at Hannaford.

Hannaford is a Supermarket retailer headquartered in Portland, ME and is part of the global Delhaize Group of supermarkets. As Director, Information Security of Hannaford, Tom Witwicki has responsibility for all aspects of Security Operations, Regulatory Compliance, Information Risk Management and IT Service Continuity. Tom is also a Steering member of the Technology Architecture Governance (TAGS) organization which leads infrastructure synergy efforts for the Delhaize Group. Mr. Witwicki joined Hannaford in 1990 and before becoming Director, Information Security, was Director, Technology Services and responsible for technology infrastructure at Hannaford.

Tom has more than 20 years of IT management experience in a variety of industries. Before joining Hannaford, he was Manager, Data Resources, at National Life Insurance Co.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new Addison Wesley book, Virtual Honeypots, by Niels Provos and Thorsten Holz, courtesy of Pearson. You must register to attend and be present to win.

About the TechMaine InfoSEC User Group: InfoSEC meets periodically, on the 2nd Wednesday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine User Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, August 14, 2008
.NET Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Unum

Topic: 2008 community launch & tech-ed debrief

Check back for more details

Thursday, August 14, 2008
Java User Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Building SOA applications using OpenESB, BPEL, JBI - with Sang Shin

Note that this is a special time! (Next month we return to the regular schedule of the last Wednesday.)

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) represents a fundamental shift in the way applications are built, deployed, and used (or reused). By moving from big, monolithic applications to smaller, re-usable Web services,thus building applications from composable building blocks, companies can dramatically reduce time-to-market, increase maintainability and flexibility over the applications they build.

This session starts with a brief introduction on what BPEL is and its relationship with WSDL. A concrete example will be used to explain how a typical business process can be described using BPEL. It then briefly talks about concept and architecture of JBI and Open ESB.

The rest of the session is devoted to show-and-telling how to develop a composite application step by step using SOA features of NetBeans 6.0. This includes creating XML schema for defining the syntax of XML documents that are being exchanged, WSDL document for web service description, BPEL document for describing the orchestration among reusable Web services.

Speaker Info: Sang Shin is working for Sun Microsystems as a Java(tm) Technology Evangelist as well as a Technology Architecture Consultant. He frequently gives talks on important Java technologies such as J2EE, EJB, JMS, J2ME, Web application frameworks such as Struts and JSF, and Web services technologies to worldwide developer audiences. Whenever he finds time, he also teaches one of the three software engineering courses ("Web Services programming using XML and Java programming language," "XML," "Distributed programming using Jini networking technology") at Brandeis university in Massachusetts. He currently teaches free online "J2EE programming with Passion!" and "Advanced J2EE programming with Passion!" courses to over 3,000 worldwide Java developers. These courses can be taken through javapassion.com.

Lots of Door Prizes: Registered attendees will be entered in door prize drawings including a copy of The Addison Wesley book, Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications, by Jonathan Knudsen; a couple of copies of Effective Java (Second Edition), by Joshua Bloch, some CDs of the 2008 JavaOne Hands On Labs, and other good stuff, courtesy of Sun Microsystems. You must register and attend to be in the drawings.

About MaineJUG: MaineJUG is the TechMaine Java User Group. We meet on the last Wednesday of the month, at the TechMaine Technology Center in Westbrook. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

MaineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Monday, August 18, 2008
Web Designers User Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Shine on you Crazy Diamond: the 10 Shiny Facets of Information Architecture - with Susan Doran

Susan Doran will discuss the information architecture of web sites.

Take the Survey: Susan posted a quick survey for you to take, in advance of this meeting.(Even if you aren’t sure you can come, you can still fill out the survey.)

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new Sitepoint book, courtesy of O'Reilly Books, The Ultimate CSS Reference, by Tommy Olssen and Paul O'Brien. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Digital Communications User Group (DCUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Unlicensed Wireless Broadband and Network Operations - with Chris Jensen

An overview of unlicensed wireless technologies, the pros and cons of each, and avoiding some deployment pitfalls. Also, a demonstration of some home grown tools to help you manage your network.

Chris Jensen, an independent technology consultant, will explain wireless broadband technologies, and provide insights on how to manage this technology effectively. As a special bonus, Chris will provide a brief demo for his wireless radio network operations software he developed for a Maine based Wireless Internet Service Provider.

About the Presenter: In 2005, Chris started Chris Jensen Consulting serving customers in the greater New England/New York area. Offering a wide range of services, from systems engineering to custom programming and network monitoring, Chris specializes in creative uses of open source software, but also has expertise in the Windows environment.

Before beginning Chris Jensen Consulting, Chris was the Director of Technology for UniTel, an independent telephone company and Internet service provider in Unity, ME, where he played a pivotal role in the implementation of the company's DSL service and ongoing strategy. wireless radio network operations software he developed for a Maine based Wireless Internet Service Provider.

Today, Chris is supporting wireless networks in Maine and Massachusetts, including such critical services as Homeland Security, and Boston PDs video camera network.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the book:Security Data Visualization: Graphical Techniques for Network Analysis, by Greg Conti, courtesy of O'Reilly Books. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of DCUG: The TechMaine Digital Communications User Group. No charge. plenty of free parking. Contact The TechMaine User Group Coordinator for more information.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing.Please include your email address so that we can contact you if there is any change in the schedule.

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Bioinformatics Special Interest Group (BIOsig)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center

Computational Intelligence and the Genetics Analysis of Common Human Diseases - with Jason Moore.

An important goal of human genetics is to identify which genes and which specific DNA sequence variations (polymorphisms) play an important role in determining susceptibility to common diseases such as cancer, essential hypertension, and schizophrenia. Human genetics has been very successful in identifying rare DNA sequence variations (mutations) that predict with virtual certainty whether an individual will develop a rare disease such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia. However, this same level of success has not been observed for common diseases that represent the majority of the public health and economic burden.

This general lack of success is due to the enormous complexity of common diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, that are determined by many genes and many environmental factors that interact in a nonlinear manner. Gene-gene interactions (epistasis) and gene-environment interactions (plastic reaction norms) are important components of the genetic architecture of common diseases and are receiving increased attention as geneticists and epidemiologists move from studying diseases with simple etiologies to diseases with very complex etiologies.

Dr. Moore will introduce the computational challenges being faced in human genetics and then introduce some novel algorithms that have been developed to address these challenges.

About the Speaker: Jason H. Moore received his B.S. in Biological Sciences at Florida State University where he focused on undergraduate research in molecular evolution. He then worked as a research assistant with Dr. David Beer in the Thoracic Oncology Laboratory at the University of Michigan where he studied molecular alterations in the progression from Barrettis esophagus to esophageal adenocarcinoma. This work led him to graduate school at the University of Michigan where he completed an M.A. in Applied Statistics and an M.S. and Ph.D.in Human Genetics. For his dissertation, he worked with Dr. Charles F. Sing on the genetic analysis of cardiovascular disease in human populations using statistical and computational methods.

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1999, Dr.Moore accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Center for Human Genetics Research, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, and Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt University Medical School. Dr. Moore was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2003 and was awarded an endowed Ingram Professorship in Cancer Research. While at Vanderbilt, Dr. Moore served as scientific director of the Bioinformatics Core for the Center for Human Genetics Research and founder and director of the Bioinformatics and Supercomputing Shared Resource for the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. He was also the co-founder and co-director of the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education (ACCRE).

In 2004, Dr. Moore moved to Dartmouth Medical School as the Frank Lane Research Scholar in Computational Genetics, Associate Professor of Genetics and Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine. In 2008 he was promoted to Professor of Genetics and Community and Family Medicine with tenure. He serves as Director of Bioinformatics for Dartmouth Medical School and holds adjunt faculty appointments at the University of New Hampshire, the University of Vermont and the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix.

Note: This is the first meeting of the new BioSIG group. Come help build an exiting new special interest group!

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the fascinating new book, Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion, by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen and Harry Lewis, courtesy of Pearson Education.

A presentation of BIOsig: The TechMaine Bioinformatics Special Interest Group. No charge; open to the public. Contact The Techmaine Users Group Coordinator for more information.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Thursday, September 4, 2008
Metro NETpm
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Location: 55 Foden Road, South Portland

Close out your summer with the team from iCST!

Join TechMaine and iCST on Thursday, September 4th for good food, good drink, and great people at the iCST offices at 55 Foden Road, South Portland from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.

We will close out the workday in style with NETpm. Meet your friends and network in a relaxed, unstructured atmosphere. Admission is free. Please register online here for this event.

Metro NETpm is presented on the first Thursday of every month by TechMaine, and iCST is our generous host for this popular gathering of TechMaine friends and associates.

iCST is a twelve year old South Portland, Maine-grown Information Technology Staffing company. iCST specializes in improving productivity and profitability of its clients. iCST provides Software Developers, Project Managers, Network Administrators and Business Analysts. iCST provides these people both on permanent and contract basis. iCST won many awards including the Governor’s award for business excellence. iCST is a minority owned small business with 8(A) certification.

Monday, September 8, 2008
RUBY User Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Introduction to Rails

This will be a "newbie" presentation on Rails, intended for: newbies and PHP programmers, developers on other platforms like Java, and business-office/managers who may be interested in using Rails in their company.

The presentation will include an introduction to Rails, a demo (creating a simple blog), a show-and-tell of some advanced plug-ins...

...and an Installfest: Bring your laptop, and you can leave with a running Ruby on Rails application!

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing, a new Ruby-related book, title TBA You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Ruby User Group (RUBYug): RUBYug meets monthly on the second Monday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Rich Internet Applications User Group (RIAug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Adobe Air and Flex - with John Moore

There's a lot of excitement in the RIA community about the powerful combination of AIR and Flex! Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is a cross-platform desktop runtime that allows developers to use standard web technologies, like Flash / Flex, HTML, and JavaScript, to build and deploy desktop applications. AIR applications, which easily leverage services, have been developed for services such as Twitter, eBay, YouTube, and Flickr.

Come see how RIA developers use these tools to very rapidly build desktop applications that run almost anywhere. All attendees will receive a CD with several applications.

About the Presenter: John Moore is a Rich Internet Application architect who has been working on the client side of web applications for 12+ years. He is the co-founder of Quai, Inc. and RIAspot.com. He has provided cutting-edge web interfaces for many companies including Ernst & Young, Fidelity Investments, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Wachovia Bank. He is an Adobe certified Flex developer, and currently is developing a suite of components built on top of the Dojo toolkit.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the Addison-Wesley book, Dojo: Using the Dojo Javascipt Library to Build Ajax Applications, by James E. Harmon, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Rich Internet Applications User Group (RIAug): RIAug is a new user group developed to support the wildfire-like growth of the Rich Internet Applications community. We meet monthly, on the second Thursday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Web Designers User Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Social Media 101: Do I Really Need a Facebook Page? with Rich Brooks

Facebook. MySpace. LinkedIn. Twitter. Blogs. Podcasts. RSS. Ning. YouTube. Flickr. FriendFeed. Bebo. del.icio.us. Digg. Arrrgh! Are these even all real words?!?

Maybe you've heard of some or all of these social media services. Maybe they're all new. Maybe you teenager is on Facebook or MySpace and you're wondering what they could possible have to do with your business.

If you're looking to learn more about social media and how you might use these free tools to connect with prospects and customers, this is the class for you.

Attendees will learn:

About many of the most important, popular social media Web site.
How to use blogs and podcasts to engage prospects.
How to connect with like-minded people for business opportunities.
How to promote events and seminars using social media.

About the Speaker: Rich Brooks is founder and president of flyte new media, a Web design and Internet marketing firm in Portland and on the Web at http://www.flyte.biz. He writes a monthly email newsletter, flyte log, and blogs regularly at flyte blog: web marketing strategies for small business (http://www.flyteblog.com) and at MaineToday.com on Web marketing topics such as search engine optimization, email marketing, business blogs and building Web sites that sell.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new book, Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 in 24 Hours, by Kate Binder, courtesy of Pearson Education You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, September 18, 2008
.NET Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Unum

Topic: Developing XSLT Applications in VS 2008

Visual Studio 2008 is a first class XSLT development platform on par with many standalone tools for XSLT development. You can use it to create and debug standalone transform or transforms that are embedded in a .NET application. Did you know you can set a breakpoint on data?

XSLT is usually one of those things you use only when you have too, but with the amount of XML floating around today you just might be making your life harder by avoiding it. VS 2008 lets you develop an XSLT based application just like you would a C# or VB.NET application; write a little bit, try it out, maybe derive an new transform from an old one because you just need to change part of it (did he say "derive"?).

We will dive into the basics of XSLT, writing an XSLT program in modules (just like you do with C# and VB.NET), debugging XSLT, using XSLT standalone, and embedding XSLT into a .NET program.

Speaker: Dan Sullivan
Dan is an independent consultant, author, speaker, and an instructor and course author for Pluralsight. He likes data; pointy data, rectangular data, even data just lying around on the floor.

He is a co-author of the book 'A Developers Guide to Microsoft SQL Server 2005'. His articles have been published in MSDN Magazine and SQL Server Magazine and he has spoken at WinDev, Microsoft events, and developer groups.

Dan has been active in computer technologies since before they were fashionable. In the distant past he wrote the microcode for one of Digital Equipment Corporation’s computers. In the recent past has taught and written about most of the development topics in Microsoft Windows technologies, from .NET, to XML and Web services, to SQL Server. He does consulting through Danal Technology Inc.

Agenda:
6:00 - 6:15 Food!
6:15 - 7:30 Presentation
Q & A and door prizes

The mission of this group is to provide in-depth technical coverage for developers focusing on Microsoft technologies, specifically .NET technologies. MaineBytes (MB) focuses on providing architects and developers with solutions-oriented presentations on using the .NET Platform to develop the next generation of Internet and Enterprise applications.

Location:
Meetings will be held each month at Unum's Home Office 3 building at 2211 Congress Street.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Java User Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Using GWT and Eclipse Equinox to Build Interactive Plugin-based Web Applications - with Peter Murray, Quantrix.

About the Presenter: As founder and CTO, Peter has led Quantrix from its concept stage through development of the commercial application used today in more than 40 countries. Previously, Peter was CTO of Subx, a company that developed Java applications. Prior to Subx, he served the B-to-B Seafood Exchange Gofish.com as their CTO, successfully aligning their technology plan with their business goals.

Peter was also founder & CEO of New England Internet Services (NEIS), an early ISP and consulting organization, which was acquired by CommTel in 1999. Prior to NEIS, Peter was lead engineer at Lighthouse Design, where he led the development of Quantrix for the NeXTSTEP operating system.

Peter serves on the Board of Directors of TechMaine. He also sits on the Technology Business Review Board for the Maine Technology Institute. Peter was named CxO of the Year for 2008 by TechMaine for his contributions to the local software industry.Peter graduated from Stanford University with a degree in symbolic systems and artificial intelligence.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in door prize drawing for a copy of the new book, Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages – Volume 2: Advanced Technologies, courtesy of Sun Microsystems. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

MaineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Monday & Tuesday, September 29 & 30, 2008
2008 Maine EPSCoR State Conference
Time: ...
Location: UMaine Orono Campus

Network with a wide range of program officers from the national Science Foundation and learn more about the mission, new initiatives, and funding opportunities in NSF's many Directorates and Offices.

Participate in special grant-writing workshops

Learn more about EPSCoR/IDeA programs and funding opportunities

No Conference Fee

Watch for additional information to be announced

2008 Maine EPSCoR State Conference

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Usability / User Experience User Group (UUUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

UUUG Design Challenge

Hope you all enjoyed the summer break! UUUG's next meeting is September 30: Mark the date as you won’t want to miss this one.

September we’re holding a design challenge. You’ll be given the details of a faux project (client background, business objectives, user details, essential requirements) and will have 1:15 hours to brainstorm and sketch a design solution. You’re free to work alone or in teams, and free to bring whatever tools or technology you feel comfortable working with. We’ll then use the last half hour to go around the room and have people share their ideas on how to meet the needs of The Project. The short time frame and great minds in the room is sure to lead to some really great, inspired, out-of-the-box thinking!

So sharpen your pencils (or Wacom pad, Photoshop skills, etc) and join us for a fun night of design.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new book, Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World, by Peter Merholz, Todd Wilkens, Brandon Schauer and David Verba, courtesy of O'Reilly Media.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience User Group. No charge; open to the public. Visit The UUUG Web Site for more information.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Oracle User Group (ORug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Discover the Hidden Treasures of Toad - with Devin Gallagher, Quest Software

As a developer or DBA, you may already be using Toad to build and maintain programs, debug, tune code or automate administration tasks. But did you know you can use Toad to do even more? You can use Toad to:

Manage development projects and share project assets such as templates, scripts and code snippets
Record workflow steps for playback or schedule them to run at a later date
Extract objects and data from an Oracle export file, instead of having to import everything
Perform code quality reviews and easily find problematic code
Automate the SQL optimization process

About the Speaker: Devin Gallagher is a Solutions Architect for Quest Software, with more than 12 years of experience with database development and administration. Devin has been supporting Toad for Oracle since 1999, and now also supports a number of different products in the Toad family, across multiple RDBMS.

The University of Georgia, located in Athens, provided Devin with a tremendous educational and social opportunity, during the 1990s. While earning his BBA in Management Information Systems, Devin embraced Southern culture. Although now forever a Georgia Bulldawg, Devin returned to his New York roots, and now travels around the country helping those in need of database development and administration consulting.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices, Second Edition, by Steven Feuerstein, courtesy of O'Reilly Books. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine ORACLE User Group (ORUG): ORUG meets every other month on the 1st Wednesday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

ORUG is sponsored by: ORACLE Corporation.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Metro NETpm
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Location: HMG Search Marketing, 428 Fore Street, Portland

It's another great party with the team from HMG Search Marketing!

Join TechMaine and HMG on Thursday, October 2nd for good food, good drink, and great people at the HMG offices at 428 Fore Street, Portland from 5:00 - 7:00 pm.

We will close out the workday in style with NETpm. Meet your friends and network in a relaxed, unstructured atmosphere. Admission is free. Please register online here for this event.

Metro NETpm is presented on the first Thursday of every month by TechMaine, and HMG Search Marketing is our generous host for this popular gathering of TechMaine friends and associates.

HMG Search Marketing is a full-service boutique search engine marketing firm based in Portland offering search engine optimization, paid search, link building, SEO PR and social media solutions for clients in a wide range of industries. They specialize in developing branding/traffic building and lead generation campaigns for both B2B and B2C companies. HMG's mission is to develop and execute high impact search engine marketing efforts that are aligned with their clients' overall strategic goals and initiatives.

HMG is a tight-knit group of senior-level marketers who love working together to help clients succeed online. When working with HMG, you'll never hear a sales pitch, hype, or excuses. Simply put; real people—a team of intelligent, dedicated, down to earth people working together to get results for you.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
.NET Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Unum

Speaker: Fritz Onion

Check back for more details

Monday, October 6, 2008
MTI Development Award Deadline
Location: www.mainetechnology.org

Up to $500,000 per project available.

Please note that there have been changes to the Development Award Request for Application. Please click here to review the changes.

Complete applications must be in the MTI office by 5:00 p.m. on the deadline date
405 Water Street, Suite 300, Gardiner, ME 04345.

For details, forms and online registration, visit: www.mainetechnology.org.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Drupal User Group
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Setting Up Image Portfolios and Photo Galleries in Drupal - with Todd Woofenden

How do you build a photo gallery, product gallery, art portfolio or similar feature into a web site? If you use Drupal, the open-source website content management system, you're in luck, because - to employ the Drupal mantra - "there's a module for that."

In this meeting Todd Woofenden will show one way to do it in Drupal, using Imagefield, Imagecache, Thickbox and Views. Woofenden will show how he is building a new art portfolio feature for a forthcoming site, Morphee. The site owner wants to be able to create lots of different portfolios to showcase her graphic design work. Requirements for the feature include:

Easy creation of new portfolios to show items by subject or by client
Easy addition of new images to any or all portfolios
A nice slide-show function to show all the images in a portfolio
Optional detail pages where lengthy descriptions of items can be posted
Automatic re-sizing of uploaded images to create thumbnails and other standard sizes.

About the Presenter: Todd Woofenden works at TechMaine as User Group Coordinator. When he's not at the TechMaine Technology Center he runs Signal Light Host, a small Drupal site development enterprise. Some of the sites he has built include SEC Union.org (the union of SEC employees), Bowdoinham.com (the website for the Town of Bowdoinham) and Subchaser.org Todd's naval history site.

But wait, there's more! In the "Know your Modules" segment we'll take a quick look at fckeditor, one of many WYSIWYG modules (tools that allow a content editor to add text formatting without typing html). And, bring in your Drupal questions for the post-presentation development/troubleshooting discussion.

General Meeting Format:
I. Know your Modules: 15 to 30 minute quick-presentation(s) on useful modules.
II. Featured Presentation: 60 minute regular presentation.
III. Hands on Drupal site development/troubleshooting.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the book, Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache, All in One (Fourth Edition), by Julie C. Meloni, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Drupal User Group (DRUPALug): DRUPALug meets monthly on the first Tuesday of the month. Meetings are open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

10-08-08 meeting CANCELLED
Information Security User Group (InfoSEC)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

No meeting of InfoSEC this month. The next meeting will be 11-12-08 (details soon!)

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Rich Internet Applications User Group (RIAug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Dojo Toolkit - with John Moore

The Dojo Toolkit is an open-source, industrial-strength JavaScript toolkit for building rich web applications. Dojo is a lightning-fast, robust, full-stack toolkit, providing UI widgets, ajax functionality, animation, DOM manipulation, eventing and much much more. Dojo supports Internationalization (i18n) and Accessibility (a11y), and is being supported by companies such as IBM, Sun, AOL, Zend, and more. Come learn more about what Dojo has to offer, and how to evaluate when it is appropriate for your applications. Find out what's new in the world of Dojo and get a peek at some cool code.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the Addison-Wesley book, Refactoring HTML: Improving the Design of Existing Web Applications, by Elliot Rusty Harold, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday, October 13, 2008
Ruby User Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Selenium with Rails - Eric Draut

Eric Draut will be presenting a quick tour of Selenium with Rails: integration tests through browser automation.

Then we will resume our presentation_missing() format: attendees are encouraged, but not required, to bring 3 topics about which he or she can speak knowledgeably or start a conversation for 5 to 10 minutes.

Important Notice for Members of the TechMaine RUBY User Group:

Addison-Wesley / Pearson Education has generously donated a conference pass to the upcoming RUBY conference in Boston. We are raffling it off at $10 per ticket, with the raffle open to members of the RUBY user group. (You are a member if you have attended at least one RUBYug meeting.) One ticket purchase per human, please.

Raffle Tickets on Sale for:

One Conference Pass to

Voices That Matter: Professional Ruby Conference: Nov. 17, 2008 - Nov. 20, 2008 in Boston

The drawing will be at the TechMaine RUBY User Group meeting on October 13, 2008. Meeting starts at 6:00 p.m.)
You don't have to be present to win, but you should come to the meeting anyway.
You can buy your ticket online, here, up until noon on 10-13-08.
One entry (one ticket) per human being, please.
You can also attend the meeting, and buy a ticket. (Cash only, please, if you buy a ticket at the meeting. No checks, money orders, stamps, bearer bonds, etc.)
We will draw one name from all the entries, and that person gets the seat at the conference. (TechMaine will submit the winning name, and the winner will receive via email instructions for getting registered.)

Thanks to Addison-Wesley / Pearson Education for the generous donation of this conference pass to RUBYug!

Buy Your Raffle Ticket Here:

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Green Supercomputer
Time: 11:30 am
Location: Wells Conference Center; UMaine Orono

Computer Science Department Seminar -- The Green Supercomputer

Energy is a concern to everyone these days, as people struggle with doing more with less. Computer Science is one field that has continued to improve in its energy usage over many decades. At one time computers took up entire rooms and would cause all the lights to dim in a building when they were running. Over nearly six decades, the performance of computers has continued to increase dramatically, while their power consumption has also decreased dramatically.

On October 15, 2008 the University of Maine Computer Science Department, in cooperation with Scicortex Corporation of Maynard Massachusetts, will demonstrate the first Green Supercomputer in the State of Maine. Part of the demonstration consists of a team of eight bicyclists from the UMaine Cycling Club powering one of the Scicortex supercomputers The demonstration will begin at 11:30 in Wells Commons and will be followed by lunch. After lunch, additional technical sessions will be presented for those people who want to learn more about Scicortex's amazing, energy-saving, computing technology.

If you are interested in attending, please contact George Markowsky (207-581-3940; markov@cs.umaine.edu) by Tuesday, October 7.

Thursday, October 16, 2008
MTI SEED GRANT Deadline
Location: www.mainetechnology.org

MTI SEED GRANT Deadline

Up to $12,500 per project available.

Complete proposals must be in the MTI office by 5:00 p.m.
405 Water Street, Suite 300. Gardiner, ME 04345. For an application visit: www.mainetechnology.org

Monday, October 20, 2008
Web Designers User Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Making Better Web Sites - with CSS with Rob Landry and Jennifer Ecker

Learn how to build better Web sites through the effective use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). When combined with that other acronym (HTML), CSS can help you create sites that download much more quickly, are less costly to maintain, are more accessible, are more search engine friendly and are more flexibly structured. This session will give you a brief overview of the basics, a look at practical approaches to solving challenging design and layout issues as well as some advanced razzle-dazzle (that's the technical term for it).

About the Speakers: Rob Landry and Jennifer Ecker of Pemaquid Communications, LLC have their black belts in CSS and Web Standards-based design techniques. Pemaquid was one of the first Web design studios in Maine to use CSS exclusively for layout. Pemaquid Clients include Camden National Corporation, Oakhurst Dairy and the Maine Lobster Festival.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the Sitepoint book, The Art and Science of CSS, by Cameron Adams et al., courtesy of O'Reilly Books. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About the TechMaine Web Designers User Group (WDUG): WDUG meets monthly, on the 3rd Monday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting, visit the WDUG website or contact the Users Group Coordinator for details.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday, October 27, 2008
Software Testing / QA User Group (STQA)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Writing Testable Requirements -- with Steven Rakitin, Software Quality Consulting, Inc.

Many software quality problems are the result of poorly written requirements. On average, 40-60 percent of all software defects are caused by errors in requirements. What this means is that for the typical project that has say, 500 defects - as many as 300 could be caused by poorly written requirements.

While most companies recognize the importance of having requirements, many have not recognized the importance of having good requirements. While there are many attributes of good requirements, the most important attribute is that they are testable. Many factors affect requirement testability. Usually, people with little or no training in requirements writing are responsible for writing requirements. As a result, requirements are often ambiguous, incomplete, inconsistent, and as a result, not testable.

This talk will show how the principles of Design for Testability can be applied to requirements in order to improve the testability. Several alternative techniques that can be used to express requirements in a manner that allows them to be more testable will be discussed. Applying these techniques will result in higher quality and fewer customer-reported defects.

About the Speaker: Steve has over 30 years' experience as a software engineer and software quality manager. He frequently speaks on topics related to software development and software quality at conferences worldwide. He has published several papers on the subject of software quality and a written a book titled Software Verification & Validation for Practitioners and Managers. As President of Software Quality Consulting, Inc., he works with clients who are interested in improving the predictability of their development processes and the quality of their products. Visit his company’s website at Software Quality Consulting, Inc..

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the Addison-Wesley book, The Craft of System Security, by Sean Smith and John Marchesini, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About STQA: The TechMaine Software Testing / QA User Group meets on the last Monday of the month. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Meetings are free and open to the public.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the drawing.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Usability / User Experience User Group (UUUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

XhibitNet Case Studies in Learning Experience Design with Dana Hutchins

Dana Hutchins will be the speaker at the October UUUG meeting. Dana is the President and Creative Director of Image Works, a 31 year old interactive media design firm, and of XhibitNet, a digital learning experience design firm. Dana and his associate, Misty Mallar, will present highlights of the user experience design process they’ve used on recent learning experience projects. These include the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s LabVenture Stations, and the current Vital Signs 2.0 rich internet applications to be used on all of the 35,000 Maine Learning Technology Initiative Mac laptops.

Dana’s firm works on a wide variety of user experience projects. He and his talented staff have recently completed 6 months of user research, IA and site redesign for Unum.com. Over the past 2 years they have also redesigned most of Unum’s secure customer-facing web interfaces.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Statistics in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference, by Sarah Boslaugh and Dr. Paul A. Watters. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience User Group. No charge; open to the public.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

October 28 - 29, 2008
New Brunswick Innovation Forum 2008
Location: Saint John Trade and Convention Centre, Saint John, New Brunswick

The New Brunswick Innovation Forum 2008: Your Fast Track to IT Opportunities, hosted by the National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Information Technology (NRC-IIT) on October 28-29, 2008 at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre, Saint John, New Brunswick. At this highly focused matchmaking event, 42 New Brunswick IT companies, researchers, academics and funding agencies will present their most innovative ideas and business opportunities to Canadian, US and international companies, investors, scientists and researchers who are looking for new market opportunities, collaboration partners, IT solutions to support their business procedures, or clients for funding (VCs, etc). The event is designed to encourage exchanges and create real opportunities leading to technology transfer, commercialization, collaborations and partnerships.

The four themes for 2008 are: Health/Life Sciences, Advanced Learning Technologies, Energy, and other ICT Products and Services

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Java User Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Spring Integration - with Mark Fisher.

An overview of the Spring core support for Enterprise Integration and then adding "patterns" with Spring Integration. Mark is the lead developer on the Spring Integration project.

About the Speaker: Mark Fisher is a Senior Software Engineer with SpringSource and lead of the Spring Integration project. As a core developer for the Spring Framework, he played a central role in developing the annotation-based configuration features of Spring 2.5. He has also provided consulting and training services for clients across numerous industries throughout North America including several fortune 500 companies.

In addition to the "No Fluff, Just Stuff" symposium tour, Mark speaks regularly at conferences such as The Spring Experience and SpringOne. He has also presented at Java User Groups throughout the United States on various Spring-related topics.

Mark holds certifications from IBM, Sun, and Oracle and is co-author of "Semantic Enterprise Content Management" in The Practical Handbook of Internet Computing. He is a contributing author of the forthcoming book, Beginning Spring 2.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in door prize drawing for a copy of the Pragmatic Bookshelf book, Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java, by Scott Davis, Venkat Subramaniam, courtesy of O'Reilly books. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

MaineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Thursday, October 30, 2008
.NET Users Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Unum

Topic: .NET Micro Framework, with the .NET Micro Framework team

Check back for more details

Thursday, November 6, 2008
Metro NETpm
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center
It's time for a sneak-peek at the new TechMaine Website. Learn what you need to know before we launch the site. Join TechMaine on Thursday, November 6th for good food, good drink, and great people at the TechMaine offices at 506 Main Street, Westbrook from 5:00 - 7:00 pm. We will close out the workday in style with NETpm. Meet your friends and network in a relaxed, unstructured atmosphere. Admission is free. Please register online here for this event. Metro NETpm is presented on the first Thursday of every month by TechMaine.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Ruby User Group (RUBYug)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Ruby#presentation_missing(): Lightning Talks on current topics.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the hot-off-the-presses Addison Wesley book, Ruby Phrasebook, by Jason Clinton. Courtesy of Pearson Education.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Information Security User Group (InfoSEC)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Information Security Awareness Training: How to Maximize Your Training ROI. - with David Jacquet

Training is always touted as the best ROI for your security dollar. In this presentation, we will study why that is, what can be gained from information security training and how you can maximize your InfoSec Training ROI.

About the Speaker: Dave Jacquet is a senior information security consultant and practice director for InfoSecurus, Inc., an information security consulting firm located in South Portland, ME. He has been serving banks, government agencies and private companies in New England for the past twelve years. David has been involved in penetration testing, information security training, content development and compliance engagements. He has published 12 IT-related books, and prior to working in IT, was an instructor for such institutions of higher learning as Bowdoin College, MIT and the Naval Academy. David is a CISSP, a CEH, a CCE and a CEI.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the new Addison Wesley book, The New School of Information Security, by Adam Shostack and Andrew Stewart, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register to attend and be present to win.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Thursday, November 13, 2008
Rich Internet Applications User Group (RIAug)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

ExtJS - with Kirk Hill

Ext JS is a cross-browser JavaScript library for building rich internet applications. It includes:

High performance, customizable UI widgets
Well designed and extensible Component model
An intuitive, easy to use API

This presentation will give an overview of the fundamentals of ExtJS and show some examples of ExtJS in action.

About the Speaker: Kirk Hill co-founded Quai, Inc. in 1996. He is fulfilling the corporate vision of building a premium Internet consulting firm that is focused on exceeding customer expectations and maintaining the highest standards for its clients. Kirk has over a decade of consulting, architect, programming and development experience leading diverse technical teams and initiatives. He is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Programming Flex 3: The Comprehensive Guide to Creating Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex, by Chafic Kazoun and Joey Lot. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Monday. November 17, 2008
Web Designers User Group (WDUG)
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

How to Leverage Universal Search to enhance your Search Engine Marketing Results - with Monica Wright, HMG Search Marketing, Inc.

According to Monica, “Search engine optimization alone should not be relied upon as a single strategy, but rather be considered in light of other efforts.” Her presentation will focus on three key areas: the impact of Universal Search on SEO; Social Media and how it works together with SEO; and SEO and your audience. As Organic Search Manager for HMG, Monica manages clients’ search engine optimization efforts, link building campaigns and social media campaigns. Monica brings 12 years of marketing, branding and online product development experience, with a strong focus on driving audiences to media companies.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of a the new O'Reilly Book, Painting the Web, by Shelley Powers. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Java User Group (MaineJUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Creating a real world application in GRAILS: A review of my experiences creating the www.nejug.org website - with Mark Johnson.

(Note: In November we are meeting on the third Wednesday instead of the 4th, to avoid conflicts with Thanksgiving plans.)

When you download Grails and run 'grails create-app Something' create a few domain objects, and then run 'grails generate-all {domain object}" it is very exciting. Here is a fully functioning web program. As you continue working on the application you start to realize there is more work to do to make the application production-quality. There are tests to write, security to setup, customization of templates and web pages, and deciding which plugins to use, just to name a few of the concerns.

This presentation will go through the hands-on process of creating an application while discussing some of the technical and architectural decisions necessary to make the application production-quality.

About the Speaker: Mark Johnson has over 20 years of software development experience in industries including Healthcare, state government, and strategic sourcing. Mark most recently has spent the last 3 years working with Commonwealth of Massachusets EOHHS to develop the NewMMIS application. The NewMMIS application makes use of J2EE, Portal, and Web Services technologies designed to modernize the existing Medicaid processing. In addition, Mark is active in the software community as the President of the New England Java Users Group. When not working, Mark can be found riding his mountain bike on local trails and playing with his family.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in door prize drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer, by Venkat Subramaniam. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

About MaineJUG: MaineJUG is the TechMaine Java User Group. We meet on the last Wednesday of the month, at the TechMaine Technology Center in Westbrook. No charge; open to the public. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine Users Group Coordinator for details.

MaineJUG is sponsored by Starlit Software.

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Using Social Media to Get Your Brand to Go Viral
Time: 11:30
Location: TechMaine Technology Center

We still have availability for the Maine Marketing Association November Lunch & Learn "Using Social Media to Get Your Brand to Go Viral." This event will be held Thursday, November 20, 2008 at TechMaine. Rich Brooks of Flyte New Media will provide a thorough overview of social media to help you determine if it's a good fit for your brand. Key topics include popular social media websites, how to use blogs and podcasts to engage prospects, how to connect with like-minded people for business opportunities and how to promote events and seminars using social media.

You'll learn:

The most important, popular social media websites
How to use blogs and podcasts to engage prospects
How to connect with like-minded people for business opportunities
How to promote events and seminars using social media

Your Lunch & Learn leader: Rich Brooks is founder and president of Flyte New Media, a Web design and Internet marketing firm in Portland, ME. He writes a monthly email newsletter, flyte log, and blogs regularly at flyte blog: web marketing strategies for small business ( www.flyteblog.com) and at MaineToday.com on Web marketing topics such as search engine optimization, email marketing, business blogs and building Web sites that sell. He teaches a Web marketing course for entrepreneurs at the University of Southern Maine's Center for Continuing Education. He is also the "tech guru" on WCSH Channel 6's evening news show, 207, and has been interviewed by the Channel 6 news team for technology reports.

This looks to be a well-attended event, so make sure you register early! The cost is just $10 for students, $15 for TechMaine and Maine Marketing Association members and $25 for non-members. Delicious burritos, beverages and cookies will be provided by Costa Vida Fresh Mexican Grill.

To register, please click here. Please register by Friday, November 14, 2008. Because lunch will be ordered in advance for you, registration is required.

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Bioinformatics Special Interest Group (BioSIG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Spectral Scripting for Cancer Phospho-proteomics with Python - with Manor Askenazi, Blais Proteomics Center, Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Manor and his team at Dana Farber have developed a toolbox of applications that analyze mass spectrometry data "every which way." It is called MultiplierZ, which is a very clever pun on the idea of a pair of pliers that has multiple functionalities, as well as the MZ nomenclature of mass spectrometry. MultiplierZ is written in python.

About the Speaker: Manor Askenazi is a doctoral student in bioinformatics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but he spends most of his time as a senior computational scientist at Dana Farber Medical Center in Boston. He has been an application software engineer for ThermoFisher where he was the principal author of Sieve, Thermo's multivariate analysis application for peptide/proteomics data. Before that, he was a staff developer for Microbia, a biofilm company in Cambridge, MA. In addition, he runs a computational and numerical analysis consulting firm called Vox Numeri. He lives with his family in Arlington, MA.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Visualizing Data, by Ben Fry. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of BIOsig: The TechMaine Bioinformatics Special Interest Group. No charge; open to the public. Contact The Techmaine Users Group Coordinator for more information.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Progress User Group (ProgressUG)
Time: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m.
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Progress Buffet: Understanding the many Progress products - with Bob Trabucchi

We'll start the meeting with introductions, and brief summaries of how each of us (or each team) is using Progress. And then, the main event.

Once upon a time there was just Progress -- dbms and language. Then we had Webspeed, which derived directly from Progress. But now there are many products, including Open Edge, Apama, Actional, Sonic, DataXtend, DataDirect, EasyAsk, and ObjectStore. Bob Trabucchi will help us understand the role of these products, and how they might compliment or in some cases replace the core Progress product that most of us have been using. Even if you're going to stay with the 4GL (uups, now ABL), this should be an informative and entertaining presentation.

Bob Trabucchi is a sales engineer with Progress Software. He started at Progress Software in 1992 as a product developer and was part of the original WebSpeed development team. In 2000, he founded Pelorus Technologies, an independent consulting company that served a variety of clients including Sonic Software, Progress Software, PeerDirect Software, and Power Steering Software. He then returned to Progress Software in 2004 tasked with introducing Progress/OpenEdge customers to our latest product offerings. He has over 20 years of experience in the technology industry and has specific hands-on experience with Internet technologies, network security products, and application integration frameworks. Prior to working at Progress Software, Bob worked as a software developer and team leader at Digital Equipment Corporation, and Lockheed Martin. Bob earned a BA from Saint Anselm College and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Lowell.

About ProgressUG: ProgressUG is the TechMaine Progress User Group. Membership is open to any member of the Maine community, and any other people the Group may invite. Please attend a meeting or contact the TechMaine User Group Coordinator for details.

Monday, November 24, 2008
MIT Enterprise Forum - "Future of Wireless Communications"
Time: 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Location: TechMaine Technology Center

Smart Phones, But Dumb Approach?
"The Future of Wireless Communications"
This is a Video Broadcast

Moderated by Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal and presented by the Atlanta MIT Enterprise Forum.

Smart phones, but dumb approach? When will users have more control over key elements of buying and using their mobile phone? Join moderator Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, cellular thought leaders and rabble rousers as we look into the future of mobile telephony, asking questions such as:

Where is mobility really going?
Is it a phone or a TV set?
What are the limitations of our mobile devices?
When will we have more control over the phone/carrier combination?
What opportunities still exist for entrepreneurs?

Complete details may be found at www.mitenterpriseforum.org

Please Register Here to attend this meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Drupal User Group
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Installing and Setting Up Drupal 6 - with Todd Woofenden

This will be a live, real-time demonstration of installing the latest 6.x version of Drupal. All I'm going to do ahead of time is set up a domain name to point to an empty web folder on a server, so we have a domain name to work with.

At the meeting, I'll start from scratch and show how to get the Drupal program files, upload them, set up a database, run the installer -- the whole deal.

By the end of the meeting we will have a live, operational Drupal 6.x site. Time allowing, I'll show how to add custom themes and some of the "must have" modules.

Note: There are all kinds of different server configurations and tools that people use for uploading files and so on. I will probably show how to set up Drupal using a typical cPanel environment on a commercial shared-server hosting solution, but it's more or less the same process if you're using a terminal window or some other means of moving files around.

About the Presenter: Todd Woofenden is the TechMaine Operations Manager, and serves as User Group Coordinator. When he's not at the TechMaine Technology Center he runs Signal Light Host, a small Drupal site development enterprise. Some of the sites he has built include SEC Union.org (the union of SEC employees), Bowdoinham.com (the website for the Town of Bowdoinham) and Subchaser.org Todd's naval history site.

General Meeting Format:
I. Know your Modules: 15 to 30 minute quick-presentation(s) on useful modules. NOTE: For the December meeting I'm going to skip this and jump right into the demo. If we have time, we can look at some cool new modules afterward.
II. Featured Presentation: 60 minute regular presentation.
III. Hands on Drupal site development/troubleshooting.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Visual Communication in Digital Design, by Ji Yong Park. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

Please Register Here to attend the next meeting. There is no charge for this event. Please include your email address so that we can notify you if there is a change in schedule.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Usability / User Experience User Group (UUUG)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook

Ten Minute Topics

This month’s meeting will be a series of 10 minute presentations by our members. Everyone is welcome to participate — just pick a subject that interests you and that you and then show up ready to share. Any user experience related topic is fair game. Last time people spoke on a range of subjects from mind mapping to accessibility. Both speakers and listeners are welcome to attend.

Note: We moved the Nov. 25 meeting to Dec. 3

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of a new book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience User Group. No charge; open to the public.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Tuesday & Wednesday, December 9 & 10, 2008
TechMaine Annual Conference
Time: SAVE THE DATE
Location: TBA

TechMaine’s 16th Annual Conference will be held on December 9 – 10, 2008!

2008 Technology Events

2008 Technology Events

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