Ann Arbor Computer Society

For our September meeting we tried something a little different. We used the open spaces format to self organize our meeting topic. It was a huge success!

Agile Software Development with Scrum

by John Fohrman

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

This session will present:

· defining Agile, Scrum and the relationship of the two

· essentials of the Scrum methodology

· advantages and benefits of Scrum

· how and when to use Scrum

· a comparison to other methodologies

· a case study of one of the presenter’s Scrum-based projects

John Fohrman, Certified Scrum Master, is a Senior Software Engineering Consultant and Project Manager with Stout Systems. (www.stoutsystems.com). Since 1992, John has managed and developed numerous projects for organizations ranging from start-ups to the State of Michigan, the City of Detroit and two-thirds of the Big Three.

Using Ruby to Create Domain-Specific Languages
by Eric Ivancich

August 6th, 2008


Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are tailored to solve a particular
problem.  They're designed around a domain, focusing on abstractions
specific to that domain, which makes them distinct from general purpose
languages.  Specifications written in a DSL can often be read, understood,
and verified as correct by a domain expert who is not a programmer.  And
sometime DSLs are designed around the goal of enabling domain experts to
write their own specifications.

In this talk we will look at the features of Ruby that lend themselves to
the creation of domain-specific languaes, some expample DSLs, and examples
of the underlying Ruby code.

An Introduction to Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing
Chris G. Sellers
Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

EC2 (http://www.amazonaws.com/) is a buzzword cloud computing model. Amazon hosts servers running Linux that allow you to fire off virtual systems quickly and easily and you pay per hour.   This model has taken the hosting industry and added a whole new aspect to it; creating a rich and easy environment for developers to stand up servers to test their applications quickly and easily, and then tear them down when not needed, saving ongoing costs.

Why use EC2? What about backups? Can I run Windows? Can I see it in action?   Stop by and get some answers and ask your own questions.

About Chris G. Sellers... Currently Chris is the Lead Internet Engineer working at NITLE (http://www.nitle.org), a non-profit higher education partner organization based out of Ann Arbor and Georgetown, Tx.   Chris's background and experience ranges from hosting engineering to desktop and technical staff management. Chris spends much of his spare time fixing up his house and trying to stay active in the Ann Arbor community.

PostgreSQL 8.3 and Beyond
Aaron Thul
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

There's lots of exciting things happening the world of relational databases in the Open source world. Aaron Thul will show some of the awesome new features in PostgreSQL 8.3, which was released on Feb 4th.

Ubuntu 8.04 and Developing w/Mono
Jorge Castro
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

Ubuntu 8.04 was released and includes some excellent new features for developing software.

An Introduction to Boo and DSL
Jay R. Wren
Wednesday, April 2, 2008, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

DSL shwee ess ell. Isn’t this a Digital Subscriber Line? Domain Specific Languages get all the lip service and none of the implementation or use. Real world DSLs are hard work. Boo makes it much easier. Just what does it take to make a DSL with Boo? Why would I use Boo instead of that Ruby thing I keep hearing about? You might get some answers here.

About Jay R. Wren... Currently Jay is an independent contractor working on Windows Forms applications for tuning embedded software control modules for a US auto manufacturer. Jay spends his free time writing more software, baking, and watching far too much television. Jay's blog is at http://jrwren.wrenfam.com/blog/

So You Want To Be A Consultant?
John Stout
Wednesday, March 6, 2008, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

About John Stout... John W. Stout is the founder and president of Stout Systems, an Ann Arbor-based software development and technology talent search firm whose motto is "Consider It Done". John has both a consulting and software development background over a nearly 30-year career, and he is a featured speaker at industry events.

Ubuntu Linux with Kevin DuBois
December 5, 2007, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

Linux is making great strides onto the desktop operating system market with advancements that make it easier than ever to switch from Windows or Mac. In my speech, I'll be illustrating some of the new features Ubuntu Linux has incorporated in its latest release, 7.10, "Gutsy Gibbon." Some of these features include a revamped graphical installer and LiveCD, the first GUI configuration tools for some parts of the system, as well as a basic 3-D accelerated desktop environment. Furthermore, I will demonstrate Compiz Fusion, an open-source, 3-D window manager that provides eye candy for the Linux user that rivals what is found on Mac's OS X. I will also briefly demonstrate some open source alternatives that can be used as replacements for some commonly-used Windows or Mac media utilities and productivity tools. Lastly, I'll dive a little under the hood of the latest stable Linux kernel, 2.6.23, to talk about some of the improvements and alterations made to the heart of the Linux operating systems, like the new Completely Fair Process Scheduler that allocates processor time more effectively for pressing, real-time computations, as well as the burgeoning number of device drivers that are included in a standard kernel.

About the Speaker

Kevin DuBois is currently an undergraduate computer engineering student at the University of Michigan. He works part time for a local Ann Arbor streaming television startup called Zattoo. Kevin has been an advocate and user of open source for two or three years now, since high school. Kevin is a member of the Michigan Ubuntu Loco team, and is currently focusing on aiding the developers of a 3-D window manager called Compiz Fusion, and the media player, VLC.

No Meeting in January!
Relax, enjoy the new year. Watch some football. See you in February.
We don't know yet what the topic will be for March, but we can assure you it will be much more interesting than the January meeting.

Apple's New Leopard OS with John Hickey
November 7, 2007, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

The Ann Arbor Computer Society invites you to attend our next tech update. Our presenter from Apple will be John Hickey, a Senior Systems Engineer with Apple, Inc. In this seminar Mr. Hickey will present Apple's next generation operating system (Leopard). In addition he will share details about Apple's new products that have been recently announced - including the new iMac and iPods. As a separate topic we will also look at Apple's server offering: Leopard Server.

About the Speaker

John has expertise in enterprise design and deployment strategies. He also has a strong background working with security in enterprises. Prior to working at Apple, John worked in both Academic and Administrative computing services for private universities in the midwest. John now serves higher education customers in Michigan. His other interests include hiking, camping, college sports and photography.

Turbo Gears with Mark Ramm
October 3, 2007, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

TurboGears is part of a new generation of web development frameworks designed to make development of database-driven, Ajax-enabled web applications easier. The discussion will cover:

How well designed frameworks can increase productivity, maintainability, and generally make web application development more fun.

How Ajax is integrated into the core of TurboGears, and how you can use it to make your web applications more dynamic and easier to use.

I'll also compare TurboGears to some other popular web development environments, so you can better evaluate when TurboGears might be the right tool for the job.

About the Speaker

Mark Ramm is the author of the forthcomming "Rapid Web Applications with TurboGears." He is IT Manager for Humantech, Inc. Over the years, he has programmed Web applications in a wide range of technologies, including Python, TurboGears, CGI, Perl, PHP, ASP, Java Struts, and Ruby on Rails. He has written for Linux Magazine and various online publications, and maintains an IT Management blog at http://compoundthinking.com.

Estimating FPGA 64-bit Floating Point Performance with Date Strenski
September 5, 2007, 6:00 pm
At SPARK, 330 East Liberty, Downtown Ann Arbor

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) have gain in popularity for High Performance Computing (HPC) over the past several years. They have proven to be great for accelerating calculations that can handle reduced precision, but the question is how do they stack up against 64-bit HPC type applications. This talk will give the audience a basic understanding of the architecture of the Xilinx Virtec-4 and Virtex-5 FPGA chips, give examples of how they are integrated into HPC systems, and walk through a process to estimate the FPGA 64-bit performance.

About the Speaker

Dave Strenski is an Application Analyst for Cray Inc., which designs and manufactures high performance computers. Prior to Cray, Dave held a variety of technical positions at several computer and research organizations. Dave holds degrees in Land Surveying, Civil and Mechanical Engineering. His publications include works in the areas of parallel computing, numerical consistency, genomic data searching algorithms, other computer related topics, and was issued a patent on a meshing algorithm for threaded fasteners. As a hobby, Dave plays with solar power, and helped design and install the photovoltaics system at the Ypsilanti Food Cooperative.

An AACS tradition is back! This month AACS revives the "So You Want to be a Consultant?" session given by John Stout of Stout Systems Solutiuons.

Is it possible to survive today's computer industry as an independent contracting consultant? We'll discuss real world business essentials such as: How do you evaluate technologies for their future potential? How do you get new customers? How do you effectively promote what you can do? What should you charge for your services and how to you make sure you get paid? What laws, regulations, business practices do you need to know? How do you turn consulting into a ongoing, prosperous career? Even if you aren’t going to be computer industry consultant, this talk also has lots of information you can use to help make your career choices.

Faking the Type System: Implementions in interfaces and non-existent types.

by Bill Wagner

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008, 6:00 pm
At SRT Solutions, 206 South Fifth Ave, Downtown Ann Arbor

Extension methods provide a mechanism for C# developers to define behavior in interfaces. You can define an interface with minimal capabilities and then create a set of extension methods defined on that interface to extend its capabilities. In particular, you can add behavior instead of just defining an API.
You’ll probably use a number of constructed generic types in your application. You’ll create specific collection types: List<int>, Dictionary<EmployeeID, Employee>, and many other collections. The purpose of creating these collections is that your application has a specific need for a collection of a certain type and you want to have specific behavior defined for those specific constructed types. To implement that functionality in a low-impact way, you can create a set of extension methods on specific constructed types.

With more than 20 years experience in software design and engineering, Bill Wagner has led the design on many successful engineering and enterprise Microsoft Windows products and adapted legacy systems for Windows.

In 2000, he started using .NET and now spends his time facilitating the adoption of .NET in clients’ product and enterprise development. Knowledgeable in all .NET areas, Bill’s principal strengths include the C# language, the core framework, Smart Clients, and Service Oriented Architecture and design.

December 3rd, 2008

George Azrak will be speaking about the type of software help needed in an entrepreneurship environment, outsourcing the safe way and how the Computer Community in Ann Arbor can help make Michigan a better place to be an entrepreneur.

Mr. Azrak is the founder of the Azrak Group, an IT Architecture consulting company focusing on design, improvement, integration initiatives using technology tools. Special focus is on Bio-Banking and life science research solutions.

Mr. Azrak began his career as an IT professional in 1978. He has a strong track of leadership with a variety of companies and industries, including Asterand as the General Manager and CIO, Domino’s Pizza as a Senior VP of IT and Advantage Computing as a Chief Software Engineer. Mr. Azrak’s expertise involves managing software development and providing solutions for clinical data collection, ERP systems, Supply Chain Management, data warehousing, business intelligence, financial reporting and electronic commerce.

Mr. Azrak is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Masters in Computer Engineering and a Professional Engineering Degree.