Rain got you down today? Go to BarCamp Boston!
Now, I can finally promote BarCamp Boston, which Shimon has been hoping I’d do all week.
If you’re interested in an informal environment where you can quickly learn about a range of tech projects and meet some really cool programmers, developers, geeks, etc., etc., this conference is for you. And, yes, librarians/archivists/information specialists are more than welcome to join the mix. You don’t have to be a techie to go. You just have to have an interest in technology. Did I mention it’s free?
I was there for most of the day yesterday. I got dragged into a session about Wikimania as soon as I arrived. I then got to hear Shimon’s ideas about user interfaces and what’s up at Lycos. I led a session about why and how librarians and techies could collaborate. I spent a lot of time with Alexis, Steve, and Chris talking about their sites, reddit and lipstick.
Chris Ball, a man who helped program Dasher, a really amazing program allowing people who can’t really type to type, explained the application to me and a whole bunch of people over and over and over. It’s so cool, I’ve asked him to come to blog and technology group to give a demo and tell us about it. The way it works is rather amazing. I can’t really describe it to you well. I had to see it in action for it to make sense to me. As well as helping the differently abled, it could also be really fabulous for people using handheld devices and people with certain language challenges, like dyslexia or an inability to spell. I downloaded a version from their Web site. It’s terrific. It’s going to take me a while to learn how to use it well, but it seems pretty easy to do. I find the intelligent spelling impressive. It guesses the next letter a user might want based on the previous six letters.
I began talking to him because a friend said I needed to see his amazing adaptive … keyboard on a trackpad. It’s TouchStream by Fingerworks. Apparently, Apple bought the rights to their products, so the company is no longer making the equipment. I want to start a campaign to get Apple to distribute the … can I call it a keyboard? It would be so useful for people like me. It’s a little bit too big for my hands, but I want one or something like it anyway. Chris has a photo of it and his laptop on his blog.
I wasn’t planning to go to BarCamp today, but I’m starting to convince myself that I should. But first, I should stop blogging so I can finish working.
Technorati tags:
barcamp,
barcamp boston, barcampboston
(I’m really glad the server’s back. Do you have any idea what it’s like going around a tech conference handing out blog cards and saying, “Well, my blog might still be down …” Thanks for reviving it, Weblogmasters!)
