Florida Creatives Jobs Group July 2, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Career, Orlando, Web Sites, floridacreatives, miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Brevard, Gainesville , add a commentRe-posted from New Group: Jobs on FloridaCreatives.com
Since the beginning of Florida Creatives, the people have always clambered for a place to post and seek jobs. In the past, I have used the FLCreatives blog for this purpose, or some folks have used the Google Groups list: those days are over.
The ground rules:
Use this space to post job availabilities, or say that you are looking for work. Please understand that joining this list will (by default) sign you up to receive email for every post or comment in this group; you can always unsubscribe and re-subscribe any time you like.
NOTE: if you are posting jobs, please do not post the jobs to other groups, such as regional groups, without permission from the group’s moderator. Dozens of people receive emails for each of the groups on our site, and we do not want to be labeled as spam.
Any comments should be directed to the complaints department at 1 /dev/null Ln, Peoria, IL 31337.
Post and seek as needed within the network.
Thanks @danielrsmith for being the final catalyst to set this up.
Likemind.orl and Drupal June 19, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Drupal, Events, Coffee, floridacreatives, Likemind.orl, Teaching, open source , 2 commentsIn about 10 hours a group of likeminded folks will get together for good coffee and conversations with friends and strangers. We do this once a month at the Lake Eola Panera Bread.
Likemind Orlando is part of a larger group of events which started in New York with two guys who were having good conversations online, and decided to move them to the coffee shop. Their friends in other cities liked the idea, and now, Likemind groups meet in more than 50 cities around the world on the same day every month.
Chris Scott will now be officiating over Likemind with me, since Alex left and got himself a house and a life on the East Coast (of Florida). Congrats and best of luck to Alex and Kathryn.
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Also coming up in the next few days is the 3rd installment of he Florida Drupal User’s Group. Myself and Mike Anello will be teaching classes on CCK and Views, respectively. You are all certainly invited to check out this event and ask tons of questions - we have left ourselves 4 hours to cover these topics, as each of them is kind of a big deal on its own.
You can get information and directions about how to get to the MindComet offices on groups.drupal.org/florida - the office is in Maitland.
Florida Drupal Group
Saturday, June 21st
1pm - 4pm
MindComet - Maitland
What do you hope to get out of Doterati?
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Markteting, Orlando, floridacreatives, Doterati , 6 commentsA particularly salient comment by Mr. Alex on this Doterati thread:
We have three of the top 10 largest universities in the country within striking distance and a low cost of living. We have a ton of available angel money and an eager local government. We have affordable bandwidth and office space. We have a strong creative community in part from our proximity to Universal and Disney.
I’d say the Space Coast and lots of the engineering stuff in the area adds to the caché as well, and lots of folks have been quoting EA Games as a big deal… which it is. I think Bonnier (my employer) could be more active in the community as far as corporate presence and making Orlando look cool - what are we really doing on that end? I didn’t even know they were here until I found out about the job opening, and most people working next to me would say the same thing.
What do I want to get out of Doterati? Let’s have the ability for folks in other parts of the world search for something simple on Google like “Orlando tech” and find all of the great stuff happening here - which I think this group will accomplish.
Funny, I know that some folks (myself included) have tried to keep the “agendas” and “special interests” out of this - but the agenda is to make us look cool, plain and simple. The means to that end have been supplied in the posts all over the site.
Doterati Drama June 12, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Events, Web Sites, floridacreatives, Social Networking , 13 commentsLast night I actually took some time to start getting involved with the discussion over at Doterati, and then this morning, I am treated as though I am a hostile outsider, and I was told by Mark Krupinski to go and read the other blogs and comments that have shaped his comments into being so aggressive.
Apparently, everybody hates Ted Murphy. I don’t. I think he’s a smart guy who wants to do his job. The fact that he’s associated with this community is actually a boon, because he’s had several successful businesses. More than I can say for myself.
I thought Tara Lamberson and Ted were doing lots of the work, but I had noticed Dan Kinchen, Robert Dempsey and others leaving lots of “Welcome” comments on everyone’s profile. It actually seemed to me like there was a concentrated effort for one of those 4 key folks to leave a comment on every profile, so when I pointed this out to Mark, I used the s-word: spam. Apparently, this is some sort of a curse word. I was just calling it like I saw it. Not trying to stir up s-word.
I also stated my distaste at using Ning, which ships with tons of features, over starting with a blog or a forum and throwing a few widgets, then seeing where everything goes from there. On this point, I am corrected. Apparently, Mark and the rest of the Membership Committee (what, they have one of those, there have been seven meetings? was there an invite list for this?) decided to set up Ning to facilitate their own internal conversations, but I was getting lots of pings to come check out the site, so I thought that was the plan - Ning forever, go Ning! Ning is King!
Appartenly Mark was not ready for the onslaught of people. This is fine.
With an onslaught of people, especially people who have read or heard lots of crazy things about Ted Murphy, who is tangentially involved with this project, that is bound to bring down a lot more s-word and f-word and c-word and l-word.
Thus far, I have yet to weigh in on the subject. Some other folks have.
Alex Rudloff left some initial Orlando Tech Association thoughts on his blog which generated some discussion. Alex tends to be good at that. In his blog, he links to a post by Lawrence Salberg on the evil Ted Murphy and his attempt to start up a social network in Orlando. I believe Lawrence missed the target by a huge degree.
I have seen Ted Murphy’s social networking outreaches, and they are always way more obvious than just putting your name at the bottom of the page. I actually joined their meetup.com group because I will be attending the IZEA Fest (which is across the street from my house) because there will be some great speakers there. What I thought was outre was the message I was sent a few minutes later - get your friends to sign up and get 25% of their ticket price! Ah, there’s the PayPerPost we all know and love…
Just in case I haven’t made it clear Ted != Doterati. Ted is a member like anyone else, and from what I can tell, each member chooses his or her level of involvement, which is as it should be. Ted put up a few dollars to buy a domain name and a Ning account. That’s fair. My name is on the Florida Creatives domain, but I don’t claim ownership of the concept. Honestly, the meetup was originally conceived as a way to get everyone in the same room so we could talk about having conferences - which he have done, and the events were great. Really great.
I can only look ahead to the future of tech in Central Florida optimistically - in my own universe there used to be zero user-groups for PHP and Drupal, and now there are 3, and I’ve been asked to speak at all 3. Rock.
We are not operating in a silo here - there is a need for lots of cross-pollination and kumbaya here. If someone makes a comment against Doterati, don’t take it personally - what you have in fact found is a passionate participant who wants to be there, and clearly has an idea of how things should be done - encourage the commentary! Maybe after they’ve whined for a few minutes they’ll stop and take a look at the potential of the thing and set up in the corner holding a sandwich board, ringing a bell and crying about how everyone should be there and sign up for the site!
Once the snapback comes on this and folks can get over it, we can all take a deep breath, have a beer, and wonder what it was we all got so flustered over. For now, I’ll try to re-read my comments before I post constructive criticism.
I love all of you guys. Hope to see you all this Monday for Florida Creatives Happy Hour or Wednesday for the Doterati Town Hall.
Orlando PHP Tonight: Drupal May 27, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Orlando, Drupal, Events, floridacreatives, Teaching, Programming , 1 comment so farAt DeVry University near the Mall of Millenia, tonight at 7PM, I will be presenting at the 2nd ever Orlando PHP user group meeting. David and Derek asked me to come talk about Drupal after my peanut-gallery comments during last month’s framework shootout event.
Topics for discussion:
- What is Drupal? (origins, community, open source)
- Everything is a node, except the things that aren’t.
- What’s in a name? Drupal Taxonomy and Categories
- “Go ask your mother”: Drupal’s Access Control system.
- Modules, data types, and hooks, oh my!
- What’s on the menu? Everything!
- Flexible sidebars with blocks, regions, and visibility.
- Content vs. Layout - Drupal Themes
I will also be showing off some of the features we used to construct the OrlandoFringe.org, FloridaCreatives.com and Petentials.com websites.
For those curious to learn more Drupal, we have a whole slew of lectures planned into the fall through the Florida Drupal group on groups.drupal.org - our meetings are second? Saturdays of the month at the MindComet offices in Maitland, just off of 434.
In other PHP UG news, the Meetup.com PHP group, hosted first Thursday of the month at the Bonnier Corporate HQ in Winter Park Village (above Brio) will be coming up June 5th. 4 programmers representing Zend Framework, CodeIgniter, CakePHP and Symfony will be building a blog in 10 hours using the same database tables, then taking another 10 hours to extend the blog platform. Hopefully this will serve as a fun and informative hands-on introduction to the strengths and weaknesses of these 4 popular PHP frameworks.
P.S. See Eric’s Blog for a description of the Shootout rules.
Orlando Fringe Begins! May 16, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Orlando, Events, Reviews, Fringe, floridacreatives, bloggingfringe , add a commentLast night was the first day of shows for the 2008 Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival, and I must say the Fringe has got a lot of great stuff going on! So many wonderful shows, both from Orlando regulars and some new folks as well - there’s even a show that takes place in the women’s bathroom! No matter what happens at this year’s festival, you’ll be sure to find daily updates at http://www.bloggingfringe.com
First thing you’ll notice is that the size of “The Green” has about tripled in size, with the Beer Tent remaining the center of attention. Because of the Fringe Membership drive and the special treatment for VIP members, beer/wine tickets are now $4 each, but I’ve seen some folks getting $1 off with their badges.
I saw Voci Dance’s “Perfectly Broken” at the Red (outdoor) Venue at the Orlando Shakes (the old beer tent location, and I think this is such a great use of this space! Even if the conflicts with the Orlando REP are resolved next year, I still would love to see this extra venue stick around or replace the old Red Venue, which was so tiny and hard to find.
Voci didn’t disappoint either, with an all-new show - lots of solos, more dance pieces that tell short stories over the course of two or three pieces, a live two-piece band and some really amazing dancing. I also liked the “Vocitini” table they had set up outside.
Some cool things to check out are Tod Caviness’ Poetry Vending Machine - $5 gets you a custom-written poem by one of the poets in residence. Also check out the Saturday night Poetry Smackdown events.
Another interesting addition is the Digi-Dada Theatre - Mark Biddle from The Office Art Gallery has written a series of short skits for Fringe Patrons to perform on camera in his mini-TV studio at the Shakes Fest, and he will be compiling the clips into a longer surreal piece to show off sometime soon.
Check out both Tod and Mark talking up their respective projects over at bloggingfringe.com/category/video/
I also went to the opening night of Gemma Wilcox’s “Shadows in Bloom”, which feels like a prequel to last year’s “The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over”. I’d like to ask Gemma and see what she has to say about this. Lots more characters, and lots more Gemma!
We are just getting started, but there is one more thing I’d like to mention - anyone and everyone has the ability to get their 15 minutes in this year, thanks to Blogging Fringe. I will be syndicating blogs - it’s simple and you get to keep all the publicity! Just send me a link to your blog or your blog’s feed - I’ll filter out posts that mention the Fringe Festival and re-post them to Blogging Fringe. When people check out the most recent posts on the site or do a search, they’ll see your posts, but when they click the links, they are directed to your blog, so you get to keep all the comments and maybe make some new friends in the process. Contact me through www.BloggingFringe.com or MySpace/Facebook to get listed as a Contributor.
Last but not least, come join the Florida Creatives on Monday for a visit to the beer tent and some socializing - we’ll be there from 6PM until 7:30, then we’ll head to the Shakes for Barry Smith’s show, American Squatter.
Hope to see you all out at Loch Haven Park this week! Happy Fringe!
May is a Kickass Month for Arts Events in Orlando May 15, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Orlando, Music, Drupal, Events, Film, Fringe, floridacreatives, Likemind.orl, OrlandoScene, Arts, bloggingfringe , add a commentWhy is May such a great month for holding events? Sure, for our Northern friends, it means the end of bad weather, the opening of roller coaster parks, and a change in the scenery as the trees and flowers start to show their summer colors, but here in Florida, it’s more like the start of the summer’s hot, humid, rainy monotony, the arrival of the tourists, time-share owners, kids on summer vacation, religious zealots protesting Gay Days, and of course, bad drivers in rental cars.
The main reason I look forward to May every year is the arrival of the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival (Thursday the 15th through Monday the 26th). Every year, theatre companies, dancers, comedians, clowns, musicians, improv actors, writer/directors, solo acts and large ensembles, exuberant teenagers and road-hardened veterans alike grace Loch Haven Park with their creativity and energy, and Orlando gives every ounce of it (and more) back to them as many of the national and international acts begin their Canadian Fringe circuit, which brings them to a new city every two weeks. Show prices range from free (as in free software) to $10, and all shows require the one-time purchase of a $6 festival button - 100% of your ticket money goes to the artist. This is one of the only unjuried, uncensored events I know of in Orlando outside of a few open-mic nights, and even some of those are passing judgment on the performers (the other best example here is BarCamp).
18 months ago, I started gathering a group of my friends together every third Monday of the month for an event called Florida Creatives Happy Hour (Monday the 19th, 6PM @ Loch Haven Park). Now, those original 8 friends are hardly in the same room, but the group has grown to something resembling a small political party representing the creative professionals and hobbyists here in Central Florida (with a group getting started in Jacksonville as I write this). This month’s Florida Creatives falls during the Fringe Festival, so at 6PM on the 19th we will be descending upon their “Green Lawn of Fabulousness” to have a beer and some soul food and socialize. At 7:45, we will be attending American Squatter, starring Barry Smith, the creator of last year’s sell-out hit Jesus in Montana. Tickets are $10 plus your $6 Fringe button.
Despite the fact that Fringe starts on the same day every year, another festival seems to think they are better than the Fringe, by starting on the exact same day. Yes, the Florida Music Festival runs Thursday the 15th through Sunday the 18th this year, at pretty much every available venue downtown. In past years, you’ve been able to buy a one-time pass that gets you in to all the shows for the whole weekend, as well as nightly passes - buying a ticket to just one show will hardly do such an event justice. The festival also has a short film as well as an art contest, check these out too if you can find the time in between all of the other events happening at the exact same time.
What other events? How about that bizarre craft bazaar held semi-bi-anually at Stardust Video & Coffee, Grandma Party? (Saturday the 17th, 10AM to Sunset) For some reason they opted out of celebrating Earth Day in favor of overlapping with FMF and Fringe this year - the reason why is left as homework for the reader. Actually, if you find out, please try to explain this one to me too. At G-ma Party, you’ll not only find loads of handmade goods, like the cereal-and-eggs inspired work of the Breakfast Bunch, but trendy t-shirts, buckets of buttons, live music by some of Orlando’s best local bands (at least those who are friends with the festival organizers), a bal-looney community pool, and of course rummage piles and raffles.
Not as culturally significant, but still worth a mention, the second ever Florida Drupal User Group meeting will be held at the offices of MindComet in Maitland this Saturday (May 17th, 1PM). Check out the event and any follow-up at groups.drupal.org/florida.
Still more to come in this round-up of events, because I couldn’t write such a blog post without mentioning the Corazon Art and Music Festival being held at the Orlando Brewing Company (Sunday the 18th, starts 1PM, All Day). As I’m writing this I don’t have access to any listings, but I know tickets are $5, and I can give a serious recommendation, as this event is being thrown by Robert and Jonathan from Gamble Records, the folks who brought us the ELLA Music Festival in October. I expect you will see lots of singer-songwriter type acts, and you can trust Robert Johnson’s rolodex to bring you some great music (and art?).
There must be more happening during the next two weeks, but isn’t that enough? Of course, we can’t forget about this Friday (May 16th, 8AM-11AM) and the Likemind Orlando coffee meetup at the Lake Eola Panera Bread. This month there will be free coffee and hopefully a few free copies of a book called Murketing - I don’t have a lot of details about it, but I know the publishers of the book are sponsoring the coffee and snacks all over the US, so they get serious props.
If I’m missing anything here, please leave a shout-out, and I’ll try to include it in the next bulletin. Until next time, have a great May!
Hacking as Art April 28, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Reviews, Books, floridacreatives, Arts, Programming , 2 commentsLast week, I started the discussion of programming as a form of creative expression with some of the kids at work, and Kevin pointed us to John Littler’s Art and Computer Programming article. That led Eric to post a link to Paul Graham’s essay on Hackers and Painters, which I gobbled up and loved.
Again, I’ll say that I don’t like the use of the word renaissance, since the medium itself has hardly affected 5 generations of men and women. This next wave where we move toward semantic web and a mixture of online and offline applications shows lots of promise, but I won’t agree that this era can be referred to as a rebirth for many years to come, when I’m old and I’ve had some time to look at it from a distance.
Just that first essay where Paul talks about getting a day job and hacking at night is certainly how I’ve always felt about podcasting - I love it, and I’d love to get paid for it, but to do it 40 hours a week would really feel like implementing someone else’s plan instead of creating the art myself.
From Paul Graham’s original Hacking and Painting essay:
If a hacker were a mere implementor, turning a spec into code, then he could just work his way through it from one end to the other like someone digging a ditch. But if the hacker is a creator, we have to take inspiration into account.
I say this all the time, but one reason why I think so many folks at the Florida Creatives Happy Hour are programmers is because of the nature of the medium. We hack in our spare time, we release the apps quietly, thousands of people anywhere in the world may use and love the results of our labors of love, but we don’t get to see them face to face - painters, filmmakers, actors, poets, all have the ability to be present with their audience the first time they experience it. Television and radio are more removed. Web apps further still. We crave that human interaction, and the validation you can only get from your peers and your audience. That’s why all the hackers are there.
One of these days I’ll get some Processing projects going, and have some literal art created by a hacker to show off. When I get some free time, you’ll see. Whenever that happens.
For Post’s Sake! April 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, News, Blogging, Orlando, Links, Drupal, Events, floridacreatives, Likemind.orl, OrlandoScene, Friends, Petentials, PopSci , add a commentFeeling like I haven’t blogged in a while, so here are some things that have happened.
I saw (and played a bit at) an awesome marathon show by marc. with a c. on Saturday at Stardust. I used to be in the band, and I remain a fan. Marc just released his latest album, Linda Lovelace for President
We had a super-awesome Florida Creatives Happy Hour last night - HUGE thanks to all the first-timers, and of course our repeat offenders. If you haven’t seen or registered for the new site yet, surf on over and create a group, get organized, or otherwise try to toss some useful information in there.
Went to an inaugural Refresh Central Florida and Orlando PHP group (seperately). Refresh may or may not be the “tech association” that everyone has been hububbing about - there was talk of turning it into a “United Arts for Geeks”, supporting local groups and individuals. Actually, I was thinking of using United Arts as a channel to have a Florida Creatives professional grant that gets specified in all the same ways the regular UA grants go, just sponsored by us.
Things have been going gangbusters for pet dating site Petentials.com in the last few weeks our US ranking for Alexa is hovering around 100K (we’re more like 400K globally). We’re currently on the second page of Google for “Internet Pets”, but not too high for “pet dating”, hence the googlebombing you may or may not want to participate in… ha!
We’re planning a downtown Orlando photowalk as part of an episode for OrlandoScene.TV - this will be either May 10th or 11th, barring weather, number of RSVPs and other factors. Bring your SLR and your eyes. We’ll be doing interviews with photographers and linking to photosets and whatnot. The idea is to get a little co-promotion on, and get a hold of some much-needed production stills for Orlando Scene. In the AXIS Mag article, well, globe with a network cable… yikes.
Did I mention the kick-ass Drupal meetup we had last week? That was a fun time. I signed up to talk about Drupal Theming with Zen and… I think Views sometime this summer, but I know for certain that our next meetup will be held May 17th in Maitland. Check the Florida Drupal Group page for more info.
Ah, let’s not forget Likemind - we ARE still doing that - now we’re back at Panera Bread by Lake Eola. The next one of those should be May 16th. I have a picture of that somewhere… check the Ryan Price and the Media feed for those bonus Flickr pics you get in there from time to time.
I’m sure I’m missing lots and lots and lots. I have been SO busy lately.
BTW, over at Bonnier (the makers of PopSci) we’re hiring a MySQL Admin. If you are an experienced database administrator, or you have several years of experience with MySQL, send us an email.
P.S. I almost forgot! If you like the movie Clue, Improv Comedy, theatre, mystery, games, or if you’re my friend then you MUST MUST go and see “Murder We Wrote” over at Rollins College this weekend. YOU WILL THANK ME.
I’m in Axis Magazine talking about Internet Video April 9, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Career, Video, Trends, Newspaper, floridacreatives, Magazine , 3 comments
No, that’s not me in the white suit and glasses.
I was interviewed this month by John Theisen, who runs the Enzian FilmSLAM, the FMF Indie Film Jam, and works for United Arts.
Go pick up the magazine, on Newstands all over Orlando, but here’s a teaser:
Yes, that’s a picture of a network cable next to a planet. I think I was supposed to get John some pics or logos… sorry!
“Ryan Price, producer of OrlandoScene.TV and FloridaCreatives.com has been making his mark in Central Florida’s web forums and has tried to add his own quality content to its ever-shifting environment.”
