Recent News
Scribd Store a Welcome Addition to Ebook Market (and 650 O'Reilly Titles Included)
The document-sharing site Scribd has launched a new "Scribd Store" selling view and download access to documents and books. As part of the launch, there are now more than 650 O'Reilly ebooks now available for preview and sale in the Scribd store, and all include DRM-free PDF downloads with purchase. (Scribd will soon be adding EPUB as a format, and we'll make that available as soon as possible.) Announcing InsideRIA Conference
Yep, you heard correctly in association with the 360Conferences guys, InsideRIA is having its first conference August 23-24, 2009 in San Jose, CA at the eBay facilities. This 2-day event will into the nitty gritty of developing for the Rich Internet Application (RIA) space. Sunday will be hands-on workshops to get you familiar with a few of the RIA platforms. Monday will be a full day of sessions with 3 distinct tracks: Development, Design/User Experience and Business Development. All 3 tracks will be aimed at the RIA platform in general. Being a Suggested User Leads to Thousands of Twitter Followers
Ever since Twitter started suggesting accounts to new users, it was clear that those on the suggested users list were gaining thousands of followers. Setting aside the fact that number of followers is a poor gauge of influence (see our Twitter report for details), I wanted to know how many followers a suggested account gains by appearing on the list. Space Shuttle Atlantis during Solar Transit
In this tightly cropped image, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis is seen in silhouette during solar transit, Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida. This image was made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 had grappled the Hubble Space Telescope. Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault) Thierry made this image using a solar-filtered Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 5D... Free Live Webcast - Twitter Power Tips with Tim O'Reilly & Sarah Milstein - Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 10 PT
Twitter Power Tips — In this webcast, Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein, Twitter experts and coauthors of the The Twitter Book, will show you how to use Twitter more effectively, whether you're on the site for personal socializing or to meet business goals. They'll explain why Twitter is emerging as an important channel, and they'll share key tips--along with compelling, real-life examples--from power users. The presentation will be followed by attendee Q&A.; Attendance is limited, so register now. Building Higher Performance RIAs for Smart Phones
With the growing popularity of smart phones like the iPhone and Google’s Android, as well as new players on the market like Palm’s Pre, the idea of having an always-connected general computational device is finally being realized. Today’s smart phones are not only used for making calls, taking pictures, and listening to music; now people are using their phones to do business, build presentations, make quick edits to important files, and even surf the web. Yet contrary to what the commercials would have you believe, few smart phones provide a web experience equivalent even to a netbook. Credit card company data mining makes us all instances of a type
The New York Times has recently published one of their in-depth,
riveting descriptions of how
credit card companies use everything they can learn about us.
Any detail can be meaningful: what time of day you buy things, or the
quality of the objects you choose. So who gave them permission to use our purchase information against us? What law could possibly address this kind of power play? There's another disturbing aspect to the data mining: it treats us all as examples of a pattern rather than as individuals. Google's Rich Snippets and the Semantic Web
There's a long-time debate between those who advocate for semantic markup, and those who believe that machine learning will eventually get us to the holy grail of a Semantic Web, one in which computer programs actually understand the meaning of what they see and read. Google has of course been the great proof point of the power of machine learning algorithms. Earlier this week, Google made a nod to the other side of the debate, introducing a feature that they call "Rich Snippets." Basically, if you mark up pages with certain microformats ( and soon, with RDFa), Google will take this data into account, and will provide enhanced snippets in the search results.
User Group Feeds:
Contact
If you have any questions or comments concerning the O'Reilly User Group & Professional Association Program, or would like to update your contact information, please notify:
Marsee Henon
707-827-7103
|
Register your User Group or Professional Association
We invite group leaders to register for the O'Reilly User Group & Professional Association Program. Please note: To avoid duplicate registrations, we require that group leaders, not members, register.
The O'Reilly UK User Group Programme -- covers Europe (except Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Lichtenstein), Middle East and Africa. Should you be living in these areas, please register your group by completing this form. Should you need more information, please email
O'Reilly User Group Program in Germany -- German-speaking user groups and professional associations can belong to both our U.S. and German programs. Get more information or sign up now.
Follow the O'Reilly UG program on Twitter at twitter.com/oreillyug
O'Reilly User Group & Professional Association Wiki
O'Reilly's User Group Wiki is up and ready for action. Try it out by listing your group to promote your events, projects, and
yourselves to your fellow O'Reilly User Group members.
Wiki quick links:
From Tim O'Reilly
"User groups represent the spirit of the frontier, a community getting together to do things that no individual ought to have to do alone. The pioneers of the American west got together for barn raisings, cattle roundups, and the occasional party. The pioneers of new technology get together for installfests, new user training and support, and just plain fun. Being part of a user group is the best way to get more out of your computer, and lets you make friends while you're at it."
— Tim O'Reilly
Resources
Book Review Guidelines and Suggestions
User Group Newsletter Archive
User Group RSS Feed
O'Reilly Book Widgets for your site - New!
New Releases
Most recent releases.
Upcoming Titles
A look at new titles just ahead.
Featured Reviews
Current reviews from other user groups. you can use these in your monthly newsletters.
Sample Chapters Online
Use our sample chapters or sample hacks for your group's web site or newsletter. Just reprint the article and include a URL back to the original page.
User & Professional Group Graphics
Please support O'Reilly by choosing a graphic for your User or Professional Association website or newsletter.
O'Reilly User Group & Professional Association Programs and Resources
O'Reilly RSS Feeds
O'Reilly Events
|
