Well, the stars definitely weren’t aligned for the first attempt at a Beyond Second meetup in 2009, as the meeting place (Café Di Luna) abruptly closed and the alternate (Midtown Cinema) was booked out.

Fortunately, Café Di Luna has reopened and is available, so we’re going to try this again. I hope to see a good turnout for the Beyond Second Meetup.

My company recently completed the Educator’s Technology Clinics Sub-site for Harrisburg University.

As a teacher myself, I find the concepts covered in these upcoming clinics interesting. The tools for teaching have changed over the 5 years I’ve taught (off-and-on), and I’m always looking for ways to make learning easier for students. For instance, I set up a blog with RSS and an iCal schedule for a photography class I’m teaching this semester. I spoke with a philosophy professor that was creating podcasts for his students and using Blackboard, and have had recommendations for class assignments using online postings.

Still, I’d love to see how other instructors are integrating Web tools in their classrooms; if anyone has any resources or links I’d love to hear about them.

Well, the turnout was a little less than one would have hoped (thanks to the nasty ice storm), but by all other accounts, the first BarCamp to be held in Harrisburg, PA was a success. The topics ranged from Drupal to Photoshop, to social media in Harrisburg to WordPress, SVN, and Ruby on Rails.

Thanks again to Temple University, Hauck Interactive, and Factory 44 for the venue, Nuts About Granola for the breakfast, andCulture for the coffee, Judge for lunch, and MudBrick Creative for the t-shirts.

Ironically, most of the people I initially met with that embraced the idea of BarCampHarrisburg were apparently detered from attending by the weather. Fortunately, there was still a decent turnout, including one attendee from Williamsport and another from Virginia.

The overall feedback was that everyone had a good time and that more events like this would be welcome again in Harrisburg. I had a few people ask when the next one will be held–securing a venue is always the tough part, however, we might look into hosting another one at the end of the year or the beginning of 2010 (definitely during nicer weather to yield a higher turnout, though).

Taken during Dave’s Drupal and WordPress plugin tips. I had to post this. It just reminds me of a cheesy stock photo

The traditional session schedule photo-op. We had to cut the morning sessions a bit short, thanks to the weather.

BarCampers grabbing lunch sponsored by The Judge Group and delivered by Nonna’s.

Dave, me, Dave M. and Dan (shooting photo) at the bar afterwards. Dave M. didn’t exactly organize, but was a huge help in closing up, plus drove from Williamsport, so he gets a bye.

Here’s some of the posts already on BarCampHarrisburg:

• Roxbury News
• Courtney’s Feedback (Facebook)
• Shawn Farner’s videos

If you attended, feel free to leave comments or post. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the event.

I recently found Nexus for Facebook (via Flytip), a pretty cool social networking visualizer.

The graph it generates looks like something straight out of Clay Shirky’s class, and the lower sphere definitely serves as a testament to how well connected ITP alums are.

I have a Facebook friend over at Microsoft and I just viewed their graph–which looks like it has about 7000 more connections than mine. I definitely need to get out more.

After waiting a few days for my account to auto-confirm my submission status, I posted a picture I took of Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina onto Wikipedia.

I’m kind of proud of it–not the picture, since I unfortunately couldn’t offer a better one–but the fact that I actually found a place on the site where I could actually contribute. Granted, Wikipedia is always evolving, but it always seems pretty complete whenever I browse through its articles (I suppose if one felt so compelled to contribute they could vainly write up a biography of themselves…come to think of it why doesn’t that happen more often?).

I was required to place the picture under a GNU Free Documentation License–which is perfectly fine with me, although it makes me wonder if the license then pertains to the uncropped version of the photo (I shot it with a telephoto lens from the upper deck and the original has quite a bit of the field left in). It probably doesn’t, but shouldn’t it?

My friend Jon and his friend Christian recently launched Simple Spark, an online catalog of Web applications. Check it out.

One of my criticisms about the project is that, while it allows for star ratings of applications, it doesn’t display the number of votes or user names of those who voted–something vital to any rating’s legitimacy. I also thought that user-generated categories or tags would be more usable, since we’re all about bottom-up over top-down heirarchy these days (I should note it’s still in beta, and Jon assured me that these are features to be addressed later on).

Regardless, I think these guys did a nice job with the design and IA, not to mention that they’ve filled a void for the rest of us. I’m slowly compiling a list, but this project is definitely unique, and could potentially become the definitive site for finding the best Web applications available.

I thought I’d share a shameless plug for my friend’s up-and-coming social network for designers, design:related. It sports a very clean interface, a growing international user base, and is a nice place to hang up that portfolio piece.

I think part of the challenge with getting designers to comment on work is that critiques should be handled during the design process, not afterwards. I hope to see opportunities for more involvement . . .

I’d also love to see a resources section for designers the includes business forms and possibly advice, as well as perhaps some competitions, but one thing at a time.

Check it out.

Today marks the relaunch of BeyondSecond.com, the Harrisburg photo sharing site that I originally launched with my friend Dave back in 2003. The site was due for a redesign for quite some time, and I think the result not only addresses user requests, but also reflects how much social networking tools have evolved on the Web since we first launched it. My hat’s off to Dave for spending so much of his spare time in the site’s development.
While every other startup is trying to use the social network as a business model and where traditional businesses attempt to implement “Web 2.0″ technologies simply to drop buzzwords they don’t fully grasp, I’m very proud that Beyond Second is different. We’re not building it to cash in, but to support the community that has rewarded us with a glimpse at some amazing photography.

I’m currently involved in a month-long online exercise with about a hundred other artists called Creative Act II. Basically, we spend 20 minutes to an hour every day working on a weekly theme and posting the results to a blog. This week, I’m reworking photographs using Photoshop.

I don’t know if any of you are like me, but anytime I see a composition or shot I remotely like, I take it. I’ve been doing this for years now and have a hard drive full of pictures that don’t really make my cut on their own. What I’ve liked about joining Creative Act II is that it’s inspired me to spend some time each day and revisit these photos. Furthermore, it limits my Photoshop work on them to about 20 minutes, so It rarely feels like I’m overworking them.

In some regards, it has that solemn quality of painting, where a final image evolves through the application of  layer upon layer (of course, my drawing tablet doesn’t hurt, either). On the other hand, there’s this tinge of malcontent—it’s cheating—I’m not painstakingly mixing paints on a palette to accomplish this, and ultimately, it’s just hiding an inferior photograph—isn’t it?

I must be crazy.

Well, somebody signed me up for Mouna’s Creative Act II (thank ZeFrank for Creative Act I), so February’s going to be a busy month.