Finally we’ve now got all the videos online from last summer’s Xero Summer Seminar Series.

Nitish Verma – Decoding Enterprise IT

Social Media Panel

Featuring Kaila Colbin, Jeremy Wilson, Tom Reidy and Luke Nicholas

Techbiz Panel

Featuring Dave Moskovitz, Melissa Clark-Reynolds, Lance Wiggs and Glenn Andert

Roger Brown – Snapper TechTalk

Owen Evans – Test Driven Development

Finally we are getting some of the videos from last summer’s Xero Summer Seminar Series up online for you all to watch.

Currently up are:

John Clegg – IT Career Pathways

Luca Fascione – TechTalk on Production Rendering

Mike Riversdale – Little Fluffy Clouds

More will be online very soon, so keep an eye out on the Summer of Tech YouTube channel

Monday 8 Feb is the very last seminar in the Xero Summer Series.  And it’s all about Test Driven Development, a technique you’ll most likely come across in software development. Developed as part of Extreme Programming techniques (XP) the techniques exposed in TDD are used throughout  a whole host of Agile methodologies.

Think you can avoid it if you’re not a tester/developer? think again. Agile techniques are about everyone having an input so it’s important for everyone to understand the aims.

Don’t miss this session, more info & rsvp here.

Yikes, next week is shaping up to be super-busy, but the place to be for lunch on Monday 18 Jan is the top of the Majestic Centre, where a panel of experts will wow us with their insights into what it takes to start, run & grow a technology company in Wellington.  Join us for super-cool networking with the Summer of Code, and wider Wellington IT and business community.  More info & rsvp here.

Last week’s Social Media panel raised all sorts of interesting questions – does the internet generation really not care about privacy?  can anyone build Luke’s dream social media API? how do businesses find the kitchen?

A great start to the 2010 SoC calendar, look forward to more insights, discussions, and of course excellent networking, on Monday.

For a social start to 2010, the first Xero Summer Seminar for the year will find us drinking beer and talking social media next Monday evening.

Kindly hosted by YouDo (note change of venue), you’re invited to bring your questions, your mobile devices and be ready to meet… The Panel:

Thanks for the great turnout to Monday’s seminar on Little Fluffy Clouds (a.k.a. cloud computing).  Now we know that Cloud Computing is “ours” and “everywhere”, and changing very very quickly.  The next instalment of the XSSS is all about Enterprise IT, which is intrinsic to the way large entities manage their information & data.

Presenter Nitish Verma will help us decode the ins & outs of Enterprise IT, plus the team from Kiwibank will give a 5 minute pitch on what they’ve been up to.

Plus lunch & networking with Summer of Code and the wider Wellington IT community.

Rsvp – here

Join us at Ocean on Monday: Mike Riversdale will take us on a journey into the Cloud, giving us the low-down on how to make the most of Cloud Computing.

Lunch, a tech-talk, 5 minute pitch from ProAxiom, most excellent networking – see you there!  …but not before you rsvp… here

Make sure you don’t miss this one… Luca Fascione is the presenter at Monday’s XSSS lunchtime seminar.  Luca is Rendering Research Lead at Weta Digital, and will outline the way Weta approaches the challenges encountered in software engineering for rendering. Come along for a behind-the-scenes tech talk, SoC Company Pitch from Provoke, lunch, the best view in town…

and fantastic networking opportunities!  RSVP here

We had a great crowd at the first instalment of the Xero Summer Seminar Series on Monday.

Craig did the first SoC Company Pitch, giving us a super-top-secret-pre-beta demo of Xero Personal.  Can’t tell you any more than that (or actually this), you had to be there to be “in the know”

John’s seminar was on IT Career Pathways, and the rules of the game.  He covered the pros & cons of being an employee, vs. contractor/consultant vs. startup entrepreneur.

Key learnings:

• know your strengths (SoC 09 interns go to Strengths Finder 2.0 to find em)
• know the rules of the game
• find good people
• find a mentor
• build your networks (via UP, NZCS, User Groups, etc)

Thanks to Xero for sponsoring the 09/10 seminar series, thanks to Ocean for hosting us (cool venue)

See y’all next Monday, 30 Nov, when Luca from Weta Digital will talk Software Engineering & Rendering at the Chamber.  RSVP, like, now!

In between mad-busyness with all sorts of interesting new developments, Craig from Xero just confirmed he’s stepping up to talk at the first SoC 09 summer seminar, lunchtime on 23 November (make sure you RSVP!)

This year we’re asking a bunch of SoC 09 companies to enlighten us with a quick talk on their current developments, and Xero is stepping up for the first SoC Company talk.

Make sure you’re there for the first in the XSSS – hear about what’s coming up in the series, and the latest & greatest innvotions from inside some of our fine Wellington companies.  Oh yeah, lunch is included.

We are live for registrations for the first batch of SoC 09 events!  Check out the lineup… and make sure YOU signup… here!

Thanks to SoC 08 company LearningSource for powering up the platform

Announcing the upcoming Xero Summer Seminar Series (XSSS) designed to get the top talent & top companies involved in SoC 09 well & truly networked with the wider ICT community.

Xero have stepped up to sponsor our lunchtime tech-talk seminars.  We are pulling together the programme right this very minute, but have locked in some dates and venues, so this is your headsup (open your diaries now…)

Xero Summer Seminar Series (XSSS) – weekly (ish) from 23 Nov – 8 Feb
Here are the first 4 dates, they’re all Mondays, all starting at 12.15pm, finishing by 1.15pm.  Lunch is included, and there will be no charge for SoC 09 participants:
23 November – XSSS Kickoff (at Ocean Design)
30 November (at the Chamber)
7 December (at Ocean)
14 December (at Ocean)

We will update with more details asap, but while students are in exam mode, we’re in countdown mode to a hot Summer of Code 09.

Also stay tuned for more on the SoC 09 Xmas party!!!

… to be held on a boat, on the evening of 17 December (more info coming soon

We had a blast with the boot-camps. We hope you have too. As promised, here are the materials and slides from all the Summer of Code Bootcamps of 2009.

• DB 101 – Francois Marier . Slides: DB101 Bootcamp Slides
• HTML 101 – Isha Hartono. Slides TBA
• Code Management 101 – Thong Kuah. Slides: Slides at Slideshare and workshop files.
• Resume Writing 102 – John Clegg. John did a review of CVs handed in so far, and how to improve your CV.
• PHP 101, and Rails 101 – Nik Wakelin. Workshop files can be found here.
• .NET Bootcamp – Craig Walker, Kirk Jackson and Owen Evans. Slides TBA
• Communication Bootcamp – Bernie White. Very helpful session on Networking successfully.

Got any questions? Feel free to ask any questions to info @ summerofcode.co.nz and we will gladly direct them to the speaker. Otherwise, we will be seeing you at the Meet and Greet tonight!

Additionally, you can download the workshop files below:

• Workshop in pdf format
• Workshop in HTML format

This weeks bootcamp

Thursday 5:30pm @ Cotton CO238 Victoria University

Code Management 101
Code is subject to change, and often by a team of developers. Thong Kuah from ProjectX will be talking about the importance of code management and will show the fundamentals of version control software. Come to this bootcamp to learn about what’s version control, and know how to use Git (a version control software).

Resume writing 102
John Clegg continues his series on how to write a better CV. John will be leading a Resume workshop and helping students figure out what’s good and bad with their CV.

Bring your Resume or what you have to the session and we’ll help you build it out. If you haven’t read resume slides.

Also John will provide info on this years Summer of Code Test – how it works and how to succeed.

For Summer of Code students ONLY (Must be in Engineering / BIT / BE / Information systems.) RSVP is essential.

Coming soon : PHP and Rails.