Boston is the hot place to be for in the next few weeks for geeks. With BarCamp Boston on the 17th and 18th, and Ignite Boston 3 on the 29th, there is no end to the “unConference” fun.

BarCamp is the epitome of an unConference, and as the website says, is organized “on the fly by attendees, for attendees.” There is no registration fee, but don’t let that stop you from thinking that this will be a beneficial event. Rather, think of it as an opportunity. This is two days of discussions, demoing projects, and joining cooperative events–for free! Topics from open source software to RSS Feeds to Social Software will be covered, and more. Check the BarCamp Boston website for more information.

This two day event will be followed by Ignite Boston 3–a fun, energetic evening of talking, learning, collaborating and drinking! As usual, Ignite Boston will be held at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square. Presentations are still being submitted, so if you think you have what it takes to give a 5 minute presentation with 20 slides that rotate every 15 seconds, sign up here.

For more information about Ignite Boston 3, check out ignite.oreilly.com, and have fun in Boston!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

That’s how ABC 7 News reporter Terry McSweeny described Maker Faire this morning as he visited the San Mateo fairgrounds to explore the much-talked-about event.

Arriving at 4:30 this morning to set a 30-foot-tall sculpture entitled “Epiphany” on fire, McSweeny went on to see the life-size mousetrap complete with a bathtub and crazy stairs, with the “trap” being a 2-ton safe that crushes cars, motorcycles, and wedding cakes. Yes, the wedding cake from the first wedding ever happening at Maker Faire in the “Never Was Haul” mobile home that runs on steam.

From 6-foot long battle ships launching bbs at each other to robots hurling iron balls at each other, there will be no shortage of excitement at the event this weekend.

Check out the video from this morning’s newscast on ABC 7 News, as well as makerfaire.com, for more information.

This weekend is the time for a highly anticipated event in the DIY community — Maker Faire. And along with this highly anticipated event comes… the Ultimate WALL·E, iDance WALL·E dancing boombox, and a remote control flying Tinker Bell — every DIY kid’s dream come true.

These three new robots — based on the Disney*Pixar new movie WALL·E and the classic Tinker Bell — will debut at Maker Faire. The Ultimate WALL·E is also MP3 compatible and features built-in speakers.

Come join us at the San Mateo fairgrounds for hours of fun this Saturday and Sunday. For more information about Maker Faire, visit makerfaire.com or view the press release.

For more information about the robots, see the press release from Disney Consumer Products.

Inspired by a slide in Christian Crumlish’s presentation on Graphing Social Patterns, I thought I would nudge you to discuss the Ignite event last night — a great gathering for those attending the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

Topics ranged from giant monsters and journalism tactics to running a marathon and online voting. Vinnie Lauria talked about how to use your users to make a better website–specifically highlighting interns–which immediately reminded me of our Hackerteen helper Dylan (see Making Connections With Hackerteen).

Still another presenter - David Calkins - deferred to robots and their amazing abilities to help around the house, entertain, and in general make our lives easier.

Fritz Nelson referred to the event in his blog entry entitled It’s Simple, But Not Easy” on InformationWeek this morning, acknowledging that while the presentations appeared to be simple, they were in fact, extremely difficult to put together with the given constraints. But as James Levy (left) demonstrated, anything simple can be done well with enough notes and a good audience.

In general, it was a night for fun, for networking, for interacting with fellow geeks, and for seeing how the minds of geeks work when restricted to 5 minutes and 20 slides that rotate every 15 seconds. So, cheers to those who succeeded at the task, and best of luck to those who try to tackle the challenge in the future. If you’re interested in trying out an Ignite of your own, check out ignite.oreilly.com, or email ignite@oreilly.com for more information.

all photos compliments of Steve Rhodes

keep an eye out for more for more photos and videos from Ignite! Web 2.0 Expo SF on ignite.oreilly.com

If you’re attending the Web 2.0 Expo this week, you’ll know that there are more sessions and activities going on than you could ever attend. There is one evening event that you don’t want to miss however — Ignite!

Ignite is known for their lightning talks — 5 minutes on stage with 20 slides that rotate automatically after 15 seconds. Geeks all over the world have been pulling together to participate, discovering what can be accomplished in this short amount of time, and one will be hosted at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco tomorrow night.

Join us as the doors open at 7pm and the talks begin at 8pm. For more information on the various talks and times, check out ignite.oreilly.com.

If you’re interested in starting an Ignite! in your area, check out the How To portion of the website for information about submitting your event, obtaining a logo for your event, and setting up a website to blog on as your event gets closer.

There’s a great amount of buzz in Sonoma County around Hackerteen right now — from teens to school officials to individuals at the county office of education — and a big thanks is owed to Dylan, one of our high school interns here at O’Reilly.

A junior at a local high school with a focus on technology, Dylan has been a great asset to our PR department, and has recently been doing some PR for “Hackerteen.” While at a robotics competition, he struck up a conversation with a local member of the Sonoma County Office of Education and arranged to give a presentation on “Hackerteen” at their symposium conference yesterday afternoon.

During his presentation Dylan explained the need for a book such as “Hackerteen,” which can help prevent teens from becoming “black hat hackers” (or hackers who use their knowledge to their advantage). He also went through some of the typical vulnerabilities in school network systems, and explained how the book, as well as the idea of mentoring young tech students, would be beneficial in our society. He then opened the floor up for questions from the tech heads of various schools. The questions included examples of network vulnerabilities, practical ways the book could be used, and advice on how to set up teacher/student mentoring programs for students to gain knowledge in tech areas.

Although “Hackerteen” and graphic novels invoke a new area for O’Reilly to be exploring, we’re very excited about the feedback we’ve gotten as well as the enthusiasm from the local school districts and administrators.

If you think “Hackerteen” could have an impact on your community in the same way or have any ideas on how “Hackerteen” could best be used in our communities and schools, leave a comment detailing your suggestions — I’ll send a free copy of the book to the first 10 people who respond!

Check out Hackerteen for yourself, and find out more information about the book from the press release. Be sure to pass along the information to your tech-centric teen friends as well. And keep an eye out for the next volume of Hackerteen to be released soon.

I remember the first time I realized that dragging something to the trash bin on a Mac meant the icon crumpled up and the object got “thrown away.” I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and made my friend show me over and over again.

Then I realized the animation that happened when you removed an object from the dock… and got excited all over again.

An upcoming book from Pragmatic Bookshelf entitled Core Animation for OS X deals with animations like these — ones that show movement and animate simple tasks such as deleting a file.

Author Bill Dudney recently did an interview with Daniel Steinberg regarding user interfaces on the iPhone and desktop, and how you can develop programs using core animation on the desktop and apply it directly to iPhone development.

Check it out on Pragmatic Programmer’s podcast website: www.pragprog.com/podcasts and stay tuned for more podcasts in the future.

Unless you’re up on geek lingo, “hacking” isn’t usually associated with a good group of people trying to fix programs and use shortcuts to solve problems. However, if you are involved in the geek community, hackers are a common commodity.

When No Starch Press first published Hacking: The Art of Exploitation in 2003, it illuminated the poorly understood and undeservedly maligned practice of hacking.

Since the 2nd edition was released in January, hackers and computer geeks all over the world are ready to tackle a whole new slew of problems and challenges with new tools.

Praise has come from various places, including Slashdot reviewer David Martinjak:

[This is] one of the quintessential books for its subject. A book this good is a rare find, and certainly worth the read for any individual interested in security.

For more praise and additional information, view the press release for Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, Second Edition or see the catalog page to purchase the book or submit your own review of the book.

That’s the theme of the upcoming OpenWeb Vancouver 2007 Conference, to be held in beautiful Burrard Inlet between Gastown and downtown Vancouver.

As the website declares:

The goal of the OpenWeb Vancouver 2007 Conference is to showcase open web technologies, communities and culture, and to discuss related issues with developers, designers, organizers and the community at large.

For the third year running, geeks and open web technologists along will invade Vancouver, BC April 14-15th, learning from innumerable sessions on PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, XUL, Linux, Django and Drupal.

See the conference’s website for more information and to register, and check out their Facebook Event Page to see who else will be attending.

The Adobe AIR poster that Sara spoke about last week turned up in India at a User Group event focusing on Flex 3/AIR 1.

With about 60 user group members in attendance, Uday made a presentation about FLEX and AIR. The newly founded group, the Chennai ColdFusion User Group, was excited to see so many in attendance and hope to continue a great number of attendees in the future.

To see more pictures of the event, visit the group’s Picasa Web Album.

The guys and gals over at the Facebook Blog have been busy lately! From a new “Facebook en Espanol” allowing hispanohablantes everywhere to view Facebook in their native language (and promises to soon release a French & German front as well) to solving the problem of application spam to a brand new look for Facebook profile pages, there’s plenty of information to keep any Facebook fanatic busy for a while.

And while all you Facebook fanatics are searching for more uncharted waters to explore, check out the O’Reilly presence on Facebook. Whether you become a member of our group, which hosts contests and keeps you up-to-date on the latest book releases or become a fan of O’Reilly, the Missing Manual series, or the Head First books, there is plenty to keep you occupied. Let us know if you like our books or if you have ideas for future books, post your own pictures and feedback from recent conferences, and check out the links to our various blogs.

And if Facebook has you overwhelmed, or if you simply want to know how to use it more effectively, check our new Facebook: The Missing Manual.

In today’s world where certain technologies are hot one day and not the next, it’s difficult to create lasting products and services. Luckily, four authors from Adaptive Path came together with O’Reilly Media to write a book that would clear up some of this confusion — Subject to Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World.

Authors Peter Merholz (president of Adaptive Path), Brandon Schauer, Todd Wilkens, and David Verba clearly outline how businesses can–and should–use customer experiences to inform and shape the product development process, from start to finish.

Check out the Adaptive Path blog for upcoming information about the book, specifically Dan Harrelson’s post in which he posted a chapter from the book.

Or simply visit our press room for more information, and the catalog page for Subject to Change to purchase your copy today!