GeekAustin co-conspirator Whurley wants to know a little bit about you use the internet. Please take his survey at http://www.polldaddy.com/survey.aspx?id=20acbf3fc0bafaff
As part of moving Geekaustin from Slashcode to Wordpress last weekend, I was reviewing the most popular posts over the last 7 years. I discovered that the most popular posts were from people trying to get advice about connectivity — who was good, who was bad, how much SBC sucked, how bad texas.net sucked, etc. Some of the events we witnessed were the buyout and subsequent closure of Jump.net, and the discontinuation of most independent ISDN and DSL offerings in town — like those from Realtime Communications, Illuminati Online, Texas.net, Eden.net, Constant.com. We’re really down to a few choices. Even Speakeasy was bought by Best Buy.
Girlstart is looking for professionals in game development to volunteer for a one-time ad hoc advisory committee to guide us as we develop our Project IT Girl* curriculum for the spring semester. Specifically, Girlstart is looking for folks with project management experience that can help us apply some of the principles that are used in the for-profit gaming industry to our non-profit program. We need help defining milestones for individual game designs, choosing a versioning system, creating test plans, and training our classroom leaders to manage all this coding. Project management in our classrooms will be a bit different from traditional software, since girls are not working in teams on one game but instead supporting each other as they develop their own game individually.
Committee members will participate in one working lunch on Wednesday, November 14th from 11:30-1pm and then be available for technical assistance via email or phone over the next few months. The total time commitment is less than 3 hours total.
If you’re interested in volunteering your expertise for this ad hoc committee, please RSVP to Audrey Warren at audrey@girlstart.org.
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* Project IT Girl is a Girlstart program that teaches 60 high school girls throughout Austin how they can change the world by using Information Technology. This year, Project IT Girls are learning basic programming concepts through weekly lessons on the Python programming language. The girls are designing, programming, and marketing their own educational games, and the top game designs will be submitted to One Laptop Per Child for inclusion on their ultra-low-cost teaching laptop for children in developing nations.
William Cook needs a copy of CodeWarrior for Mac OS — version 8 or 9. “Its discontinued, by I need to build a legacy product, a photoshop plugin, and in this is the only way to do it! I live in Autin and since MetroWerks is/was here, i thought somebody must be able to…” Contact him at: william@fineEyeColor.com
Vito writes: Maybe I just don’t know where to look, but I’ve been utterly unable to find a working, clean Apple IIe in town. Goodwill Computerworks doesn’t have any. Craigslist hasn’t had any for as long as I’ve been looking. eBay is getting increasingly expensive, particularly when you factor in shipping.
I’m looking for one to buy to install a rare SwyftCard (Jef Raskin, Canon Cat, etc.) into as part of a class project at UT, if that makes any difference for anyone. I already have the SwyftCard, just need the Apple.
Anyone have one they’re looking to get rid of? Or know where to look for one? Ideally it’d be a platinum (the one with the extended keyboard), have at least one floppy drive and a serial card. 80 column card, speech synth, additional RAM, printer or monitor optional, but I’d be interested in any of them. (vito_geekaustin at perilith dot com)
Anonymous Coward writes “Just got a certified letter from Hosting.com- they’re terminating my DSL service (the bastards), effective April 30. I guess this has to do with the recent ruling from the FCC(?) about the baby bells not having to share their lines at cost. I’m looking at speakeasy, but are there any other options where I can get decent service and a static IP with no server restrictions?
I’ve been with Jump.net (and then hosting) for >3 years and had virtually no downtime. I guess the good times have to end sometime. I really don’t want to go to RoadRunner.”
Fred-B86 writes “Need low-tech sushi after a high-tech coding session? Austin’s first full-out sushi buffet has just opened, according to www.austinsushi.com. Oishi Sushi House (located in the old Mason Jar restaurant at 6718 Middle Fiskville Road) has a 20-foot sushi buffet and a 20-foot hot food buffet. Austinsushi.com sez that the prices are $24.95 dinner and $11.95 lunch — quite a bargain if the sushi is any good at all…..”
