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I managed to arrange a business meeting near Cambridge to be held yesterday, so that I would have a good excuse to stay on in the evening and attend the first ever Cambridge Geek Night event at the Maypole Pub.

Arranged by @vero, the event was very well attended with standing room only by the end.

I enjoyed @garethr’s talk on Asynchronous Messaging for Web Apps, it was a great intro taster to the subject. You can view his slides here.

Then we had a lightning talk from @martinkl about his new browser testing software Go Test It, and a lady called Helen from @HoldsworthPR on a startups conference being held soon.

There was also plenty of opportunity to socialise and have a few beers (shame I was driving). Good to see so many locals in attendance as well as a few of us from further afield.

I shall keep my eye out for the next one. Stay informed by reading the Cambridge Geek Nights blog, and come along next time if you are in the area! You can also follow the tweets here.

This Geek Dinner saw us in a new venue, Ye Olde Cock Tavern on Fleet Street, since our old haunt, The Bottlescrue has called time for good. The new place is actually better, I think, because we can have one floor of the pub to ourselves and not encroach on anyone else too much. And the food was much better, too! Thanks to Ian for finding such a great place for us to meet.Becky Hogge was the guest. She heads the Open Rights Group, and explained the work of the ORG, who summarise their goals as:

• To raise awareness in the media of digital rights abuses
• To provide a media clearinghouse, connecting journalists with experts and activists
• To preserve and extend traditional civil liberties in the digital world
• To collaborate with other digital rights and related organisations
• To nurture a community of campaigning volunteers, from grassroots activists to technical and legal experts

[Becky explains the work of the Open Rights Group]

[Attentive audience]

The ORG’s website is well worth a read if you are interested in any issues regarding digital rights of various kinds.

BarCamp Presentation
I’m happy to have finished writing my presentation for BarCampLondon2. I’ve decided to do a spot on Better Picture Taking as there seem to be plenty of folks with digital cameras who want to know more about getting the most out of their gear. It won’t be technical, and it won’t be biased towards any particular type or brand of camera. Instead, I’ll be covering the basics of good composition and lighting, plus editing your pictures for showing to friends. After BarCamp, I hope to blog most of the content for those who couldn’t attend.

I’ve gone for a non web-related topic as I figure I’ll be teaching many of the attendees how to suck eggs if I talk about web standards or css. Others have said that some of the most interesting topics last time round were those which were a bit off the beaten track. So here’s hoping it will go down well.

Geek/Girlgeek Dinners
I notice there are a couple of geeky dinners coming up soon. They seem to have shot themselves in the foot slightly in that they’re both on the same day! So, clone yourself or toss a coin to decided which of the following you’d rather attend on 21st February:

• London Girl Geek Dinner 10 Sponsored by Amazon!
  The speaker for the evening is Jeff Barr from Amazon and he will be speaking on web services.
• Geekdinner with Tara Hunt & Chris Messina of Citizen Agency
  Both Tara and Chris are best described as Upstanding Citizens of the Internet world. They are well known for looking at the longer term view and talk with words like vision, attention to detail, community, sustainable, open, higher purpose, etc.

Unfortunately, I’m unable to attend either event as I’m already busy, but I will be keen to read any blogs about them afterwards. Please let me know if you write a review.

WSG London #3 – Accessibility
Stuart has put together another great programme for the forthcoming WSG meeting on 28th February. Now that’s one I will be able to attend, and am looking forward to what Anne McMeekin, Niqui Merret and Mike Davies have to say on the subject.