17:00 Doors open – Drinks, complimentary snacks, and networking opportunity

18:00 “Enterprise and eBusiness Search Technology”

Connie Chen, Transparensee, New York City (speaker kindly supplied by US Department of Commerce)

18:30 Q & A

18:45 “Security Loopholes and Hacking Updates”

Mark Mann, Webtech Software, Ballasalla, Isle of Man

19:15 Q & A

19:45 Optional meal with the speakers and BCS Isle of Man committee

(£15 for 2 courses in Coast restaurant)

It sounds like a fascinating event for ICT professionals and also others interested in the sphere of technology, certainly more fun than shopping for rustic log beds, which is something else you could be doing.. Entrance is free, but please email events@bcs.org.im to ensure a place is reserved for you.

I’m planning to go; anyone else coming?

The first session will start at 5.30pm and is entitled Understanding and applying your relationship tendencies.  There will then be a short break for tea/coffee etc, and the second session will start at 6.45pm and is entitled Managing conflicts collaboratively.

As you can imagine, we’re quite maxed out with the twins, but I’ve got a pass to go out that evening as I believe this session will be quite interesting. Technical skills are relatively easy to amass, you learn a subject, you practice and achieve proficiency. Soft skills are a totally different matter. It’s important to understand your personal strengths and weaknesses and also learn to read those of the people around you, to help you be successful in what you do. And this applies to all sorts of companies. You could be a joke shop with an online presence, an Orange County computer support specialist or even just a corner shop trying to deal with staff, suppliers and customers; soft skills will serve you in all walks of life.

If you’re interested in attending, check out the Isle of Man BCS website and drop Events a line using the contact form.

Looking back from the pre-history of Linux, and the events that would lead up to the first public announcement of the Linux kernel in 1991, up until the present day – the events that shaped this operating system, and how it would develop. Linux is the first major and undoubtedly most prominent success of the “internet bazaar” style of collaboration and development. Many notable accidents of computing history have made Linux possible – from AT&T’s policies in the 1980s over Unix that resulted in the birth of the Free Software Foundation, as well as one of Britain’s least successful personal computers. Along the way, Linux has garnered criticism from academics and praise from corporations, to attempts at destruction from some corporations, and adoption by academics. Today, Linux is still an ongoing project – like many major efforts in software, development is a never ending task with new concepts being applied in areas thought to be mundane and settled, such as the filesystem and scheduler. To understand why Linux is where it is today, the talk will cover the history and events surrounding this operating system, from the pre-history of 1969 up to the present day.

Should be a great talk. More details on the BCS website

Next Tuesday, the BCS is organising a talking on Virtual Worlds. A friend of mine, Dr Toni Sant who’s a lecturer at the University of Hull is flying over to share some of this background and experience in the field. Here’s some more information about the event and the speaker:

Second Life is a 3D multi-user role-playing online environment. Unlike other virtual worlds, created as games with set rules and stock characters, most of what goes on in Second Life is created by its users. This makes it an ideal playground for all sort of creative people. At any given time, there are no fewer than 20,000 people active in Second Life. Over a period of 60 days as many as one and a half million registered users log in. Building on over 10 years of experience with text-based virtual worlds on IRC, MUDs and MOOs, Dr Toni Sant has more recently been exploring Second Life as the next part of the evolution of virtual worlds on the Internet. His work on this subject has been published in the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, and in the book Learning & Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life (Trondheim – Norway: Tapir Academic Press, 2009).

About the speaker:

Dr Toni Sant is Lecturer in Performance and Creative Technologies at the University of Hull’s School of Arts & New Media in Scarborough, where he also serves as Subject Group Leader for Interdisciplinary Studies. He is currently writing a book called A History of the Future: Franklin Furnace & the Spirit of the Avant-Garde (Intellect, forthcoming 2010). He also podcasts and blogs regularly at http://www.tonisant.com

More information (and a CPD certificate to download) can be found at the BCS website

The Isle of Man Section of the BCS is organising a talk tomorrow focusing on Dependency Injection as a coding technique. Here’s some more detail about the event:

Our next event is about a programming technique called Dependency Injection. Here’s a brief outline:

As software applications grow in complexity de-coupling your code becomes more important. Dependency injection is one of these de-coupling techniques. Explore dependency injection and inversion of control design principles and how they lead to loosely coupled code (a good thing), very testable code and more flexible applications. We will also look at the use of DI containers as an aid to Inversion of Control. See how you can start using these today

The talk is aimed at professionals involved in different aspects surrounding the development of software. The talk will be presented by Zakir Hoosen, from Fuzzelogic Solutions, who specialise in the provision of technology services over a range of different technologies and methodologies. You can read more about them on their profile.

More details and  CPD certificate available for download on the BCS Event Details page.

I’m planning on being there. Any others with an interest in programming coming along?

• Social Media Club (Third Thursday) - There’s a whopper of an event focusing on eDemocracy by Simon Collister, a Manx-born social media guru whose areas of expertise focus around democracy, politics and public policy and studying how it adapts to new media and social networking. It’s a 7:30am start, and a great way to start the day before going to work.
• Implications for Project Management in an uncertain Island Economy – a talk organised by the BCS looking at how project management disciplines operate in an Isle of Man environment and how these translate from global governance models. This one is after work with a 6:30pm start, right after the BCS AGM which starts at 6:00pm.

Both events are a great networking opportunity and aimed at slightly different groups of people. However, they both intersect my sphere of interest, so I’ll be at both. Long day, but should be fun!

• 12:30 Paprazzi: IOM Third Thursday social media club: More on Strive’s website

• 18:00 Claremont Hotel: Podcasting event organised by BCS: More on the BCS website

If you’re interested in social media, be it for work or for pleasure, pop in, I’m going to be at both events. It might be interesting to look into a live stream or webcast one of these days for the events here. I know a friend of mine from Canada expressed interest in the podcasting event ( Hi Heather ). Maybe we could hold a future event on live event video streaming or something similar.

An introduction to a number of development practices, particularly discussing Unit Testing, Test Driven Development (TDD) and Behaviour Driven Development (BDD). The talk will focus on discovering what a unit test is, the how and why? We’ll then explore TDD and uncover the tools, benefits, steps involved and “move the mindset” into design. We’ll then introduce BDD and look at the differences, talking about how you can get started right away.

The talk will be given by Fuzzelogic Solutions and will be held at the Claremont on the 13th of January. It’s nice to be able to have events like this here in the Isle of Man and a huge round ot thanks goes to my mate Zak for putting himself forward for it. This talk will be a bit technical, so if you don’t know a class from a box cutter you might want to read up on software development and design before coming to this one.

Just wanted to let my Manx readers about the BCS Christmas Quiz which is happening next Tuesday. Here are the details:

Our next event is the BCS Christmas Quiz. We have had this for the last few years and it has proven to be a great success for our members. It’s a great opportunity to test your knowledge, network with other BCS members, have a few drinks and some nibbles (a buffet will be provided).

Come along, as part of your team of 4, or alone and we’ll form a team for you. The BCS Christmas Quiz will take place at the Prospect Pub in Douglas on Tuesday 2nd December 2008 at 18:00.

The event is also open to non-members but please contact Publicity to confirm you attendance.P rizes generously donated by WiManx and Central Software. More info here

Wikis are information websites that allow any person to register as a user for the purpose of adding to the pages directly with their knowledge and experience on the specified subject. In the case of ManxWiki the subject is simply “The Isle of Man”, any aspect of local life that is deemed to be of value or interest for the benefit of others.

The beauty of ManxWiki is that if you find a page that is missing data that you already know about, YOU can easily add to the page for the benefit of others.

It’s at the Claremont Hotel at 6:00pm on 12th November and we should have some refreshments available on the day. Evenings are started to get a bit colder, so a hat and coat are in order (and maybe a couple of NFL jerseys underneath), but it should be a good talk. We’ve had a couple of good talks this year, particularly focused around Internet topics, and we should have some interesting ones next year.

So, if you’re in the Isle of Man .. come an join us! More on the BCS website.