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August, 2011

  1. Barcamp Blackpool 3 needs sponsors!

    August 26, 2011 by lallyd

    So, this week I’ve been helping the lovely Gem with getting some sponsors interested in Barcamp Blackpool 3.

    So far I’ve sent off a handful of emails and have already had an encouraging response from the local college, and am awaiting responses from a few local businesses.

    I’m really passionate about Barcamp Blackpool, and feel really honoured to be allowed to help in organising stuff for this year’s event. I think Barcamps are a fantastic way to bring together like minded people to share their knowledge. At the last Barcamp organised by Gem, I learned about bitcoin, artificial intelligence, knitting, tattooing and soldering and that was just during the talks. In the evening I got chatting to some new and familiar faces and discussed everything from the pros and cons of Google+ to the difference in the taste of water between Lancashire and Yorkshire!

    I’m really hoping that lots of people from the local community will come along to this year’s Barcamp, and as a result those people will also get to hear about Blackpool Geek Up, which I blogged about earlier this week. To be able to convert some of the attendees into regular Geek Up goers is my personal goal for the weekend!

    What Barcamp Blackpool is lacking at the moment, is not the people to attend the event, or the talks to engage the attendees, but the funding to keep those people fed and watered for the weekend. The sponsorship that we’re hoping to raise will help further establish the importance of Barcamp Blackpool to the local community and hopefully engage new people with our existing events, like Geek Up!

    So what will sponsors get? The sponsorship packages are available to view on the website, but more than just having your name or company logo around the venue, you or your staff get the chance to engage with local people who are potential customers for your business. Explain to them what it is you offer and how that can be of benefit to them in a relaxed and friendly environment. Set to rest any worries people might have about your products or services and most of all have fun!

    Barcamps isn’t a trade show, and the attendees shouldn’t feel like their being sold to but equally, it’s a great platform to spread brand awareness. In the last 12 months alone, I’ve taken home branded merchandise from eBuyer, Brightbox, North51, Esendex, Adobe, Minutebox & Starbucks not to mention many more, and as a result I now know what those companies do and have even recommended them to people off the back of being sponsors for some great events!

    So don’t hang about, get in and sponsor a great community event and reap the rewards!

    Email gemma.cameron@gmail.com, call 07766695302 or tweet @ruby_gem

    The sponsorship packages are as follows;

    £50 – Funny Girls Logo on opening and closing presentation
    £100 – Winter Gardens As above with link and logo on website
    £200 – Pleasure Beach As above with logo displayed on schedule and around venue
    £500 – Golden Mile As above with thank you tweets before, during and after the event and logo prominently displayed around venue. Also logo prominently displayed on back of t-shirts (should enough funding be raised)
    £1000 – The Big One As above, with additional link & logo on eventbrite page and option to set up tradeshow signage and/or a small booth/stand at the event

     

    Lally.

    edit; There are a handful of tickets left for this event, which you can register for here

    Category Events | Tags: ,,,,,,,,, | No Comments

  2. Blackpool Geek Up

    August 23, 2011 by lallyd

    So last night I attended the second ever Blackpool Geek Up (#geekupthetower).

    For those that don’t know what a Geek Up is, it’s a “grass-roots knowledge sharing and networking social for folks involved or interested in all forms of technology and creative media.” Which has kindly been organised by Les Pounder.

    Unfortunately I wasn’t around to attend the first one, but by all accounts it was a success, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how many folk turned up to this month’s event. Although I would liked to have seen more familiar faces, as there are plenty of geeks whose absence was noticed (ahem, Jaime, Steve & Dan)

    The monthly meet ups are being held at Gillespies on Topping Street in Blackpool which seems a decent spot, with friendly staff, reasonable facilities and  a decent selection of drinks including non-alcoholic ones for anyone driving. There’s street parking available on many of the surrounding roads which is free after 6pm and a 5 minute walk from the train station for those coming in from further afield.

    The talks last night were on Android and IT in Education. I was thoroughly engaged by both speakers, despite the commentary for Tottenham vs Man Utd blaring from a speaker above my head. There was even a projector made available for the evening, although I didn’t manage to get on the wi-fi whilst I was there, but maybe that was my mistake? Anyway, 3G served in it’s absence.

    Two observations about the attendees, 1) age and 2) gender; the crowd was predominantly male and over 30. Other than me, and a female friend I had asked to come with me there was one other lady who I didn’t get chance to speak to representing the fairer sex among a group of maybe 20 people.

    As a bit of a barcamp veteran I’m fully aware that guys out number girls significantly at these sorts of events, but I was disappointed that there weren’t more women there, especially as the event is in it’s infancy and hasn’t been established as a guy-zone?

    I’d really like to encourage more women to attend these types of events, to prove that there are women working and studying in science/engineering/technology in Lancashire and that they do want to be part of the community. When I go back to Uni in a few weeks I’ll definitely be telling my classmates about the event and encouraging them (but especially the girls) to come along and check it out, and maybe even contribute in time.

    The other observation is the age. Not that I particularly think that the age of the people attending affects the success of the evening (nor would I say that gender has an affect) but it would be nice to see some younger faces in attendance and again, when I go back to Uni I hope to encourage a few of the other students to take part in local tech events.

    The next one will be held on 26th September from 7pm & hopefully I will see some of you there!

     

    Lally.

    Category Events | Tags: ,,,,,,,, | 3 Comments

  3. Tasty food for dieters?

    August 11, 2011 by lallyd

    So, it seems that being on a diet and having a sweet tooth don’t mix.

    Since Monday I’ve been trying to lose weight by keeping a food diary, doing 30 minutes of yoga every day and avoiding all “junk” food, ie; crisps, chocolate, fizzy drinks, cakes etc as well as aiming to keep my calorie intake under 1500k per day (recommended daily for women is 1940k, 2450k for men) but anything under 2000k a day is good by me, as long as it’s the right types of food; fruit, vegetables, lean meats etc.

    Unfortunately for me, trying to avoid sweet things is like asking a dog not to bark! So I’ve been on a mission for the past couple of days to find a healthy but tasty treat to make, and here’s what I found; Banana Flapjack.

    Now don’t get me wrong, it’s still a high calorie snack, but the combined calories for the batch  is about 2000k and I plan on getting about 10 slices out of it, so at 200k per piece it’s roughly the same calorie content as a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar, but lower fats, saturated fats and salt (in fact, no salt at all). Not to mention that flapjack is much more filling that a packet of crisps so likely to quash hunger pangs for longer, as well as being a high energy combination, good for after a work out.

    The calories break down (roughly) thus;

    • 75g  margarine (I used butter) = 500k
    • 2 tablespoons honey =150k
    • 75g soft brown sugar = 400k
    • 1 large banana mashed = (I used 2 medium) = 180k
    • 200g rolled oats (porridge oats) = 800k

     

    Would you believe that the highest calorie count is the oats at 800k for 200g!? Since keeping an eye on calories, I’ve been astounded by the high calorie count of most high fibre foods, eg; 1 slice of granary bread is approx 150k, a 50g bowl of muesli with nuts/raisins is around 300k. I’m trying not to get too bogged down in counting every calorie, and if I don’t know the exact figures I’ll just guesstimate but it does make you take stock of what you’re eating and whether you need to of not.

    The flapjacks are currently cooking in the oven and smell delicious and hopefully will do the job of substituting chocolate and sweets for a while.

    Please add a comment if you know any other low-cal recipes that I can try.

     

    Lally.

    Category Food | Tags: ,,,,,,, | No Comments

  4. Leeds Hack 2

    August 8, 2011 by lallyd

    So, this weekend I attended the second Leeds Hack, which is an event organised by Dom “The Hodge”  Hodgson. The purpose of a Hack Day such as this is for teams of people, usually around 4 per team to get together and create a “hack” for example a web application, a mobile app or maybe even just a simple site in just 24 hours. This year’s main sponsors; Esendex, Affiliate Window, eBuyer and Coding Futures all provided prizes for the teams to compete for which involved using the services laid on by the sponsors as a part of the hack.

    I didn’t compete in any of competitions and I wasn’t officially hacking, so instead I decided I’d try my hand at learning Ruby. With much encouragement from many of the other people at the hack day, and with a small group of others trying the same thing I had a go at using Try Ruby and Hackety Hack to create simple bits like a Hello World! I really enjoyed using Ruby, but the environment wasn’t quite right for me to really learn anything as there was far too much other exciting stuff  to do like chat to people about what they were hacking, and filming Dom being wrapped in bubble wrap!

    The hack day was a brilliant event, which brings together so much knowledge into such a small space and encourages people to share and use it over a 24hour period. The final product of the team hacks (although a few people crept off before the presentations) ranged from a dieting/food diary web app (which I’m going to try out myself over the next few weeks) to a wire-framing app, an app that allows you to text via an interface on your computer and the hack that I contributed to by pointing out flaws and providing moral support – PleasePledge, which is an app that helps charities to get the things they need by appealing to their supporters to pledge money via text.

    The hacks that came out of the 24 hours were outstanding, and as many people at the event said I hope people continue to develop them and even take some of them to market.

    Huge thanks to the sponsors who provided lots of swag, as well as sweets, drinks, crisps, beer and the funds to attempt the UKs biggest take away order from Just-Eat! Thanks as well to the organisers who did a brilliant job of keeping people motivated, creating a fun and friendly atmosphere and encouraging me to go and learn something new! Finally a shout out to the venue, the Mint Hotel in Leeds who let us come back for a second year, provided some delicious food, a greate venue and have the friendliest staff I’ve ever encountered!

    Lally.

     

    Edit: Here’s the link to all the Hacks submitted over the course of the weekend.

    Category Events | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  5. Goats Cheese Pizza

    August 1, 2011 by lallyd

    So, this afternoon I opened the oven to retrieve the left overs from yesterday’s roast chicken dinner and to my absolute horror, out flew two giant flies! I was planning on making a lovely chicken and mushroom pie, but my plans were scuppered and the lot went in the bin.

    So what to do? There wasn’t much else in the fridge bar a few leftover ends of cheese, a packet of bacon and the bag of mushrooms.

    We’ve also recently harvested a bumper crop of home grown potatoes, so I wracked my brains for a recipe that would combine these ingredients (and avoid a trip to the shops!), but nothing came to mind.

    I quickly searched on BBC food website for goats cheese and found no inspiration, when I stumbled upon a recipe for a goats cheese pizza!

    Another quick google search for “pizza dough” led me to this recipe which I realised I had all the ingredients for.

    So following the instructions (but using a combination of 1/2 plain white and 1/2 strong white bread flour) I made the dough, although I cheated and used a mixer instead of kneading it by hand. I did knead for the final 5 minutes to get the right consistency, I also found I used a considerable amount of extra flour to stop the dough feeling too sticky.

    After allowing the dough to rise for about an hour and a half and taking great pleasure in punching all of the air out of it I spread the dough over two cookie sheets, about 1cm thick on each and topped the dough with pasata, then goats cheese, fresh vine tomatoes and mushrooms and finally a rasher of bacon cut into 1cm strips on each base.

    I covered the whole lot in about 100g of mild Cheddar (50g on each pizza) and put in a preheated oven on Gas Mark 6 for 20-25 mins.

    I swapped the two pizzas over about half way through the cooking time and this is what I ended up with (x2):

    20110801-195818.jpg

    On reflection I would add a few herbs to the pasata next time. To serve I just ground a little bit of black pepper over the pizza and accompanied it with some home made coleslaw (Mum’s secret recipe) and a beetroot and tomato salad. It was nommy!

    Lally.

    Category Food | Tags: ,,,,, | No Comments