Support USM's CS Programming top

The USM Computer Science Department has a long history of placing well- prepared, change-effecting graduates in business and industry. In conjunction with the Research Computing Group, they are seeking to increase their visibility and to continue to improve the quality of their programs. They are actively seeking ideas and support from business and industry so that they can provide the best possible computer science academic and research and development experiences for students and collaborators in the private sector.

This is a critical time for offering your input and guidance regarding how to best strengthen USM's programs and R&D&C activities. Please contact either Glenn Wilson or Charlie Welty at USM with your ideas and support for both academic programs and research and development and commercialization initiatives.

Support Maine's Tech Sectors top

TechMaine is all about community, workforce and economic development; but we can’t do it alone. We need your support to continue our efforts! Membership Dues and Sponsorships are crucial for us to help grow Maine’s economy and support our technology sectors. TechMaine is supported by YOU; we are not a publicly funded organization. Memberships and sponsorships are very affordable and offer a significant ROI. Please contact me today joe@mesda.com and tell me "I want to help"!

What can a TechMaine membership do for you? I had a member call the other day thanking me because our codeME business referral program generated an additional forty thousand dollars in revenue for him in 2007!

Perhaps this is a good time to highlight TechMaine's mission statement:

TechMaine supports its members by serving as the leading resource and advocate for Maine technology-reliant companies, bringing together technology, community, and education to enhance career opportunities, increase workforce development, and support rich economic growth in the state of Maine.

Project Leadership Users Group top
Monday, March 3, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Project Manager Effectiveness: What Really Matters - with Lori Willette, PMP Director, Project Management Office, UNUM

What attributes; knowledge, experiences and personal traits combine to make the most effective project managers? Are you focusing on your strengths and implementing improvements that will increase your effectiveness? Unum Group has recently participated in the PMO Executive Council’s 2007 Project Manager Effectiveness Diagnostic. As a result of this collaboration, Unum is using the quantitative analysis to validate their beliefs and experiences in what drives project manager performance. They have also evaluated the results against what may be considered myths in project manager effectiveness. Join this discussion as Lori Willette, Director of Unum’s PMO shares their findings and experiences regarding what are the drivers of project manager effectiveness. Participate in a dialog in what practices we, as project managers and leaders of project management can leverage to continue to improve project manager effectiveness.

About the Speaker: As Director of the Project Management Office (PMO) for Unum, Lori Willette holds responsibility for the company’s Portfolio Management and Project Methodologies. As a Member of the Leadership Team, she supports portfolio planning and resource management, project consultation, process improvement, and methodology development.

Ms. Willette has more than 20 years of IT management experience in insurance, financial and manufacturing industries. Before joining Unum, she held senior leadership positions with companies in Maine in Project Management, Business Development and Product Management. In addition, she held various IT leadership position within Information Technology.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a copy of the new O'Reilly book, Head First Software Development, by Dan Pilone, Russell Miles. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

PLUG is sponsored by Tyler Technologies; Tyler’s software and services enable the public sector to be more efficient, more accessible, and more responsive to the needs of citizens.

PLUG meets bi-monthly. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

Drupalcon Boston top
March 3 - 6, 2008
Location: Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

DRUPALCON IS THE EARTH’S LARGEST GATHERING OF DRUPAL PROFESSIONALS!

Drupalcon Boston
March 3-6, 2008
Boston Convention & Exhibition Center
Boston, MA
http://boston2008.drupalcon.org

Drupalcon Boston 2008 is now sold-out! We're pleased to announce that Alper Caglayan of Milcord LLC is the winner of the Conference pass that TechMaine offered to one of its member companies. Yet another benefit of being a TechMaine member!

To see the fun in store for Alper, visit http://boston2008.drupalcon.org.

Ruby Users Group top
Monday, March 10, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

RUBY Users Group meeting

Details soon. General schedule:

• 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Ruby Beginners: a Ruby newbie half-hour. You other seasoned Ruby pros are welcome to help answer questions as well, so everyone should still show up at six o'clock.
• 6:30 to 7:30: Regular topic.
• 7:30 to ??: Informal discussion at the pub down the hall.

RUG meets bi-monthly, on the second Monday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

Network/Systems Administrators Users Group top
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Messaging "Face-Off"

This meeting of NETSUG will focus on messaging solutions: Exchange, Notes, Zimbra, etc. Details soon, but you can sign up to attend now!

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of a new O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

NETSUG meets monthly, on the 2nd Tuesday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

InfoSecurity Users Group top
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

RFID: New Technologies with Security and Privacy Ramifications - with Tiffany Strauchs Rad

Radio Frequency Identification is a practical and useful technology for locating items without the requisite close proximity as needed with older technology, such as bar codes. However, new technologies such as RFID “powder,” internal pre-crime detectors, and insertion into children’s clothing and other items have pros and cons associated with the practicality of its use. In addition, RFID use in access control, identification documents, and banking cards, while convenient, may lack important security features to prevent unauthorized scanning and usage of the data contained. This discussion will examine current RFID technologies as well as security and privacy of its applications and relevant legislation.

About the Speaker: Tiffany Strauchs Rad, MA, MBA, JD, is the CEO of ELCnetworks, Inc., a technology and business development consulting firm with offices in Portland, Maine and Cambridge, Massachusetts. ELCnetworks, established in the Old Port in 2001, assists new companies in their formation and strategic business and technology development. She is also a part-time professor in the computer science department at the University of Southern Maine teaching computer law and ethics. In addition, Tiffany is a technology and computer law and policy columnist for Congoo.com. Her academic background includes study of international law and policy at Oxford University in England, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Maine School of Law, as well as intellectual property at Franklin Pierce Law School in Concord, New Hampshire.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of the book, Virtual Honeypots, by Niels Provos and Thorsten Holz, courtesy of Pearson Education. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

InfoSEC meets monthly, on the 2nd Wednesday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

Web Designers Users Group top
Monday, March 17, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Ten Minute Topics: Free or Open Source Web Development Tools - with YOU.

Another of our popular "ten minute topics" nights, at which attendees offer mini-presentations. This time, it's free or open source web development tools. Do you use a free or open source application, web-based tool, or other web design tool in your work? Come tell us about it.

You can still come, even if you don't have a topic to present, of course. But bring one. We want to hear about it.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a ddrawing for a new O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

WDUG meets monthly, on the 3rd Monday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

Maine Investment Exchange (MIX) Forum top
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Time: 7:30 - 10:30 am
Location: Woodlands Club, Falmouth

The purpose of MIX is to provide opportunities for entrepreneurs who are seeking risk capital to make brief presentations to audiences of potential investors.

To Present: Entrepreneurs must submit an Application Form, two copies of their business plan, and an executive summary.

For complete information and registration with instructions, please visit www.maineco.org.

User/Usability Users Group top
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

UX Clinic

The March UUUG meeting will be a "UX clinic," in which attendees can bring in a user interface to be exaluated, and learn from the evaluations of others' interfaces. (Feel free to attend, even if you don't plan to have your user interface evaluated)

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the new O'Reilly book, Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications, by Toby Segaran. First Edition August 2007. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

UUUG meets monthly on the last Tuesday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

JAVA Users Group top
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

Groovy - with Erik Olsen

This is the regular meeting of MaineJUG, the TechMaine Java Users Group.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a door prize drawing for a copy of an O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

MaineJUG meets monthly on the last Wednesday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

Software Testing/QA Users Group top
Monday, March 31, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

How to keep and motivate your QA team --without increasing your budget -- with Marina Gil-Santamaria, Empirix

Have you ever heard comments such as "Anybody can do QA," "QA is boring" or "A QA Engineer is really a Developer Wannabe?" If you have, and you are not in agreement with them, you should attend this session!

Key points covered:

• 5 worst QA miss-conceptions that we have all heard about
• Why they are wrong (so you can neutralize them if needed)
• 10 helpful (and free) pointers and guidelines that you could easily apply within your organization to boost QA team’s morale and sense of appreciation

STQUG meets monthly, on the last Monday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

Oracle Users Group top
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: TechMaine Technology Center, 506 Main Street, Westbrook

New Database Management Features in Oracle 11g - with Bill Keiran, Senior Solution Architect, Oracle Corporation

An overview of new management features in 11g including diagnostics, automatic sql tuning, partition advisor, and SQL access advisor.

About the Presenter: Bill joined Oracle in the summer after spending nearly 12 years as an Oracle Database Administrator and architect. At Oracle he helps customers with RAC, high availability and designing scalable database systems. Bill came from a large .COM where he designed and deployed multi terabyte databases on Oracle 10g RAC.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for a new O'Reilly book, title TBA. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

ORUG is sponsored by Oracle.

ORUG meets bi-monthly, on the first Wednesday of the month. Please Register Here to attend the next meeting: include your email address to be notified of any change in schedule.

The Governor’s Energy Efficiency Summit top
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Time: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm
Location: Augusta Civic Center, Augusta, Maine

The Governor’s Energy Efficiency Summit:
Strengthening Business Through Energy Savings

Do you want to reduce your energy costs and improve your business operation? Learn from the experts how best to manage your energy use as well as what resources are available to help. This is a tremendous opportunity to share your views and needs while hearing from others how they made the difference in their operations. You will reduce energy costs while enjoying the benefits of:

• New jobs: green energy jobs and services for Maine’s economy
• Reduced energy costs: meaning a stronger bottom line
• Improved business climate: increasing awareness of how effective products and services stimulate the availability of new and better products, encouraging further innovation.
• Reduced volatility: the less energy we use the less vulnerable we are to rising costs.
• Improved productivity: there is a proven relationship between energy efficiency, higher productivity, and increased investment.
• Environmental leadership: we all share environmental responsibility for reducing energy use wherever financially feasible.

For More Information or Registration

Maine Technology Awards Gala top
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Time: TBA
Location: Eastland Park Hotel Ballroom

SAVE THE DATE

The 2008 Technology Awards Gala will be the largest ever celebration of Technology in Northern New England. Watch for exciting details!