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I’m really looking forward to attending the upcoming Unsheffield event which kicks off next Friday evening. It is brought to you by the same team that organised BarCampSheffieldII last year, but they felt that they wanted to deviate a little from the standard BarCamp format, hence the rebranding of this new event.

I will endeavour to write more about the event during or shortly afterwards.

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.

Another trip up the North for BarCampLeeds this last weekend. I had been to OBH for PhotoCampLeeds in February, so knew the venue would provide us with a great space for a BarCamp.

There was much bribery going on during the sessions this time – some lovely ladies baked us cupcakes to entice us into their discussion, and Alistair brought along his trainset so that a few more folks would attend his session:

[The Cupcake Express hauls its cargo]

The afternoon saw lots of geeks outside on the lawn enjoying an impromptu circus skills workshop:

[Alistair juggles with pepsi cans whilst The Hodge falls off a unicycle]

And if that wasn’t silly enough, after we had all enjoyed the party on Saturday night and arrived back on Sunday morning [not] nursing hangovers, there was also Twister to play with:

[Twisted fools!]

… and the trainset was back, this time with added constructions fashioned out of sponsor’s mugs!

[Tom watches Mr Duck watching the train run round in circles]

A few of the participants also managed to find a cache when the fun was over too, so all in all a grand weekend.

Having heard good things about BarCampNorthEast1, I was determined to attend the second helping which was held on 16th-17th May in Newcastle.

As expected, the northern hospitality was greatly appreciated, and there were some really interesting sessions. I was a relatively small BarCamp, but I do like the smaller ones as they seem more friendly and it’s easier to get to talk to people than at some of the bigger ones.

I particularly enjoyed @ajkavanagh’s session on Procrastination (we talked a lot but didn’t find any solutions!) and @sctv’s Hardward Hacking for under a fiver:

[Cannibalising stuff for spares - things bought from the Pound Shop often contain components you would be hard-pressed to buy cheaper than that]

James Rutherford also did a fantastic tongue-in-cheek (or should that be geek?) look back at 20th Century websites and what we thought was good at the time. A sobering thought – what we do right now will often look equally naff in a few years’ time!

[James Rutherford - so last century!]

There was also the usual evening fun and games, including Werewolf and PowerPoint Karaoke organised by The Hodge:

[Alistair waves his arms about during the PowerPoint Karoake, in true Magnus Pike style]

I decided not to run a technical session, but instead taught a few folks to play Carcassonne on Sunday morning:

[Strategic thinking during a game of Carcassonne]

Yahoo!’s Open Hack London was held at the TUC Congress hall on 9th and 10th May. It was another great opportunity to learn about APIs, hacking stuff together and generally geeking out.

[Yahoo! boss David Filo welcomes the geeks to Open Hack 2009]

I had a play about with the BOSS search API, but wasn’t in an actual team as such. I also enjoyed an evening bike ride on the Flickr Bikes – which automatically took a photo every minute when the bikes were in motion. Riding round central London on a push bike was a bit of a hairy experience, but we returned unscathed to tell the tale!

[The two Flickr Bikes were available for a ride]

There was, of course, a little problem with the wifi (isn’t there always?) but the team from Yahoo soon sorted it out. And the was, of course, plenty of fuel for hacking geeks:

[Essential supplies for the hacking geek]

It was great to be in the company of such innovative minds (and a little intimidating too!). There were some great ideas put together during the session. Mr Duck was even on the winning team for Best Harware Hack! Clever duck…