B. Mann Consulting

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I just got back from the Vancouver Geek Dinner. There were 6 of us, which was a nice size for really getting to know everyone and discussing things.

In the picture, clockwise from the left, are me, Mary Brennan, Ed, Roland Tanglao, Avi Bryant, and Walter Selent.

We actually spent the first little while agreeing about too many things (Microsoft bad, open source good), so Avi decided to heat things up by playing the "which programming language is best?" card.

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Things that may be of interest that I mentioned:

• E-smith:

  Ottawa-based company later bought by Mitel that developed an open-source Inter/Intranet server designed for small and medium businesses. The link goes to the main community site. You might also want to look at my local collection of e-smith material.

• Net Integration:

  A commercial Linux-based offering that is similar to e-smith, but more robust
  (the OS resides on a solid-state chip) and fully commercially supported. Includes Outlook-compatible Exchange clone and other niceties. My former company is a reseller if you can't find one in Vancouver.

• Zerendipity:

  where my obsession with profiles has lead me. Contact me if you want an invite. Lots of business/tech focused people in Vancouver are members now. Lots of cool future plans.

• Simple External Authentication (SEA):

  Avi, post us some pointers to MISO, and join the mailing list. To be honest, there has been pretty much zero activity on this. I'm sure Julian would be thrilled to have your ideas thrown against the wall as an implementation model. Except, of course, it might have to get coded in PHP... :p

• TalkBroadband:

  Check my VoIP category for my recent posts about TalkBroadband. I also have a forum setup for some more free-form discussions.

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Did I mention virtually everyone had a Computer Science degree? And that 5 of the 6 went to school in BC? And that all three universities (UVic, UBC, and SFU) were represented?

This bunch of highly educated coders got pretty thirsty after the dinner at Hon's, so we went next door to Fogg & Sudds and ordered the "Tower of Power" that Mary is cradling. She drank the last drop, too.

Roland's post probably does a better job of mentioning all the various things that came up. Thanks, Roland, now I have to strive for coolness AND knowledge! Congrats on the baby, and yes, lets definitely do this again. Actually, I'll likely be doing an "Intro to Disc Golf" event sometime soon -- Avi and Mary have already tentatively agreed.

All the pictures I took are in the Vancouver Geek Dinner category. I'll put them on Flickr, too.

I almost forgot -- my fortune from Hon's:

Relax and concentrate on your career plans.