Return On Intention » New Mexico

Dave Thomas speaks about Linux and Nagios

rgivens — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:54:51 +0000

Dave Thomas was the last presenter at this years barcamp. He spoke about Linux, open source software, and what the state government is doing with it. I was amazed to hear that the Justice Department where Dave works used any open source software at all. I though that Microsoft and other large companies had the government wrapped up in a little bow, but according to Dave, that is not the case. With the need to cut costs continuing to be important, many state agencies are looking to open source software to help out.

Daniel Lyons presentation on ReST

rgivens — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:08:01 +0000

What is ReST? So much less than you’ve heard, according to Daniel Lyons. Daniel is a technologist and my business partner at seven-gen. His presentation at this years BarCamp was an overview of ReST (Representational state transfer). There are some code snippets and comparisons you may not be able to follow in audio, but a good overview non the less.

Jack Moffitt’s talk X is for XMPP: An Open Messaging Primer

rgivens — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:30:59 +0000

Jack Moffitt spoke twice at BarCamp this year. On day one he covered Start-ups and you can find that talk here. On the second day he covered XMPP, a messaging protocol he has been looking into and using. This talk covers some groud to get you up and running with XMPP is and can do.

Michael Bernstein talks about the Hidden Treasures of the Zope 3 Community

rgivens — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:29:59 +0000

Michael Bernstein was the first speaker at Albuquerque BarCamp 3 Day 2. His presentation on the Hidden Treasures of the Zope 3 Community fell victim to some slight first-thing-in-the-morning technical issues, but he recovered well and finished the talk. Michael wrote the book on Zope, but as you will hear, you shouldn’t buy it… it’s now slightly dated.

Chad Davis speaks about Public Media in a Web 2.0 World

rgivens — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:49:40 +0000

Chad Davis is the Director of Content for KNME, the New Mexico PBS station. In his position Chad has had to figure out how Public Media in the traditional space needs to embrace and grow into the new media channels. In this talk, Chad goes over some of the challenges and solutions that KNME has come across in the transition to the digital world.

Jack Moffitt speaks about start-ups

rgivens — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:27:11 +0000

Jack Moffitt presented at BarCamp Albuquerque about start-ups and start-up related ideas. I’m pretty sure that Jack qualifies as a serial entrepreneur. I believe he is on his sixth start-up at the time of this writing. Jack also spoke on day two of BarCamp about xmpp, so stay tuned for that.

Upgrade NM covered in the Albuquerque Journal

rgivens — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:03:20 +0000

In todays Albuquerque Journal, in the Living section – page E5, is an article about the Upgrade NM initiative. Here is my account of the two days:

Upgrade NM 2008 Has Come To A Close With Success
Upgrade NM 2008 – Day 1

What was left out of the article is the address to the temporary site we posted so visitors can see it. You can find the 1st-mile redesign here.

Emily Lewis presents “Web Standards Primer”

rgivens — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 16:07:30 +0000

Emily Lewis spoke on the first day of BarCamp Albuquerque about web standards and markup. Her presentation wasn’t in keynote or powerpoint but rather a small standards compliant website you can find here.

Barriers to purchase may be lower than you think

rgivens — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:50:31 +0000

Me and my wife met in Tampa, Florida over 10 years. I had an interesting time in Florida, being a transplant from New Mexico, it was quite the culture shocking experience. While we now live in New Mexico, and my wife is now over the culture shock that she faced, we are pretty happy here. There is one thing that could use some work in the beautiful Albuquerque area, and that’s the seafood restaurants.

Wy wife has spent over 30 years in Tampa before she was dragged across the country to the middle of the desert. She loves seafood. There isn’t alot of seafood in New Mexico. Burritos, Yes. Crab legs, not so much. You can imagine the excitement she felt when during a trip to WalMart we discovered you could buy gift cards to restaurants. In between the gift card for Chili’s and Applebee’s was one for Eat at Joe’s Crab Shack. We had no idea there was a Crab Shack here in New Mexico. We rushed home and looked on the interweb to find our Albuquerque Crab Shack location only to find that there isn’t one.

I understand that you could buy one and mail it to someone in another state, but by having this card in there for a restaurant that is 8 eight hours away in another state doesn’t do me much good for local family or friends. What this has essentially done has made me not buy ANY gift cards from WalMart because I have no idea which ones I can use here and which ones I can’t. If that sounds a little silly to you, then I suggest you talk to your customers more. You’d be surprised the things that make them not buy.

This whole thing could be cleared up with a sign, or some section devoted to local or non-local chains. That is all it would take. Its the simple things that can reduce the barriers to purchase and give you more share of wallet.

Chris Kenworthy on Web Analytics, Heat Maps, A/B Testing

rgivens — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:10:17 +0000

Chris Kenworthy is the owner of the premier development site Dream In Code. Chris spoke at BarCamp Albuquerque this year about all the experience he has gained from launching and bringing Dram in Code to profitability. Chris says that to get real results from a website you need to pay attention to the numbers. In this talk he goes over Web Analytics, Heat Maps and A/B Testing.

As it turns out, I believe that Chris is now offering his expertise to clients as a consultant.