Category Archives: geekgather

Geek Gather 6.12.07

Mark your calendars, geeks. The next GG is on at the Chatterbox in St. Paul (any objections?) on 6.12.2007 around or after 6.30PM. Does anybody have a specific topic they’d like to highlight? I intend to bring some vacation pictures from Portugal in case anyone cares to see them. By then I should also be able to talk about my hands-on experience with Lacie’s Ethernet Disk (and mini server). I look forward to seeing you and catching up.

Geek Gather 2007.03.13

It is time, once again, for us to gather and partake in our particular and peculiar brand of smack talk, hack talk, and even Mac talk.

When: 6:30pm Tuesday, 13 March, 2007
Where: Chatterbox Cafe, 800 Cleveland Ave S, St. Paul, 55116
Theme: I have no suggestions at this time, but I bet that Patrick would be happy to show off his pictures from Spain.

The food is good, they have beer, and their WiFi was working fine last time. They don’t even mind when we plug in a multi-outlet strip to power our collection of nerd gear.

Geek Gather v2.01

Ladies and Gentlemen, Geeks and Geekettes, Sharks and Jets:

Happy New Year!

The time has come for another installment of that dodeci-annual hit, Geek Gather!

Where: Chatterbox Pub
When: January 9, 2006, 6:30pm or when you can get there
Theme: In the spirit of Tuesday, let’s make it a twofer: Gadgets you got for Solstice/Xmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa and predictions for the New Year.

After the Gather

Damn that other Tim and his speedy posting! Despite *his* follow-up post, I will still post my post, and *I* will have links! What was discussed at the Geek Gather, you ask?

Replacement Firmware for MP3 Players

The Magic of Zune

FreeBSD, Solaris for x86

Parallels: Virtualization for the Mac 

VMWare: Virtualization for Everyone Else 

MS Office on Linux/Mac via Crossover Office

LinkedIn: What’s it good for?

And probably a few other things.

Geek Gather, follow up

For those of you who couldn’t make it yesterday, we had a good turnout with about nine of us populating the area surrounding the fireplace at Dunn Bros. We saw some IntelMacs first hand, surfed the web with Ubuntu, talked about virtualisation, music, music players – and I am sure a whole lot more that I did not overhear. So join us again next time – we will announce time and place on this website, as ususal.

Geek Gather – First Tuesday

OK, I am proposing the first Tuesday of the month for future Geek Gathers. The first one being:

Place: Dunn Bros. – 821 W. Lake St., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55408

Date: October 3rd, 2006

Time: 6:30pm or as soon as you can get there.

I think this is a fairly central location for everyone as it is in the heart of the Lyn-Lake neighborhood across from Bryant-Lake Bowl. They have free wifi. A nice big fireplace surrounded by comfy chairs. A good set of tables and (from what I remember) available power outlets. Oh, and caffine! Hope everyone can make it. No theme, just bring something to work on, especially if you need help from the hive mind.

Backpack Gets My Money

Geeks,

I’m an educator. I’m a pretty damn good potter, an avid doityerselfer, and a wannabe geek. But at the end of the day, I’m an educator. But, lately I’ve been struggling with my own levels of productivity.
I know I can get more done during my day at school and at home, but so many things get in the way.

So, when I came to the first GGM over at Patrick’s house and started perusing his journal, his efforts at coming to terms with his org-fu, as he calls it, struck a cord with me. The theme of de-cluttering rings true with me, as does the mantra of less, less, less.

I signed up for a free Backpack account and started using it as my website at school for parents and students to visit for assignment information, extra credit offers, additional information for curious students, etc. I thought I’d give it a try before ponying up the $5 per month that they ask for for a real account. And, happily, that’s lasted me for quite some time.
Here’s one of the uses I came up with: Spanish Immersion Backpack page

But, the ghosts of scattered brains still haunt me.

I emailed the nice people at 37signals.com in response to their offer of a free Basecamp account for educators. They hooked me up and I dived right in, trying to see if this were the tool for me. It’s more than I need. And it’s really geared toward project management and collaboration, which isn’t really waht I need. It’s myself I need to collaborate with most of all!

So now I know what BP can do for me and am familiar enough with it to say that I think it could help in other aspects of my life- Today I made the decision to really give Backpack a try and I upgraded my account. I think there’s money to be made in creating a webapp like Backpack for teachers…

I’ve created pages for different home projects, areas of my professional life including the two thinking-skills initatives I’m leading at school, a text formatting tips page for easy access, and a page dedicated to creating a business for my pottery.

I’m more curious now then ever to see how Patrick is organizing his pages, and I’m wondering if any of you geeks out there are also using Backpack. (If not, just mention my referral number when you sign up ;) )
I suggest we have a GGM centered around organizational tools we all use- tools that really help, rather than bog you down.

Gather is a Go!

Well it seems as if the planets are in the proper alignment and weather condition forcasts ideal to set the launch window for the next Geek Gather to March 4th, 2006 at 11:00AM. This bird will be taking off from our St. Paul location: The 627 Ashland Avenue Space Center. Here are the full deets:

  • Vehicle: Geek Gather
  • Destination: 627 Ashland Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55104
  • Coordinates: Google Map: 627 Ashland
  • Date: 3.4.2006
  • Time: 11:00:00 CST – 15:00:00 CST
  • Discussion: New uses for old tech. Have an old PC that would make a great firewall or music server? Maybe an old Mac laptop that, with a little geek love, would be good for diplaying family photos? Bring it along and we will see what we can do. Those of you with appropriate install disks (Suse, Unbuntu, Myth TV, etc.) should bring them along. Help a geek brotha out!
  • Supplies: Food, Drinks and pocket protectors.

I will follow up a little later with an e-mail out to the list but I am way overwhelmed and leaving for NYC later this week. I will also send out a 30 boxes invite to those that have me as a buddy and vice versa.