I stumbled across these excellent books which are great for anyone who wants to learn about electronics. The website contains a complete series of college textbook style books in HTML and PDF format. They provide links to download the entire collection with one click. Check it out!
The opensource http://www.dimdim.com software is Free for up to 20 people and only $99/yr for 100 people. User Brimstone from hackerspaces was nice enough to join a conference with me where we tested the software by sharing a PowerPoint presentation and a Whiteboard. I was able to call into the Free conference phone number as well as communicate via voice using a microphone.
Unfortunately, people on the microphone can not be heard on the phone. Also one other limitation pointed out was that there is no time stamp in the chat room. Other than that the software is super cool. It’s fast and full of features.
I would like to use this software to hold Free webinars and possibly even webinars where we would accept donations to help raise funds for Harford Hackerspace. This software will allow us to reach beyond our own hackerspace to teach and learn from hackerspaces all over the world.
Brian Dolge, organizer of the Baltimore area RepRap group has invited us to join them at HacDC on: Saturday - March 21, 2009 between 12pm and 4pm
This would be a great opportunity for anyone interested in seeing how a hackerspace is operated to visit. Everyone who attends will have a chance to help finish building the RepRap which was started during the HacDC RepRap Build-A-Thon. Visit www.hacdc.org for more information and directions to HacDC.
We are all familiar with open source software and how much good it has brought to the world. Apache, PHP, MySQL to name a few. So why not open source Hardware? www.harkopen.com is a website setup to educate everyone about the Open Hardware initiative. harKopen is your one stop shop for Tutorials, News, and a comprehensive list of Open Hardware Projects.
I took the family to see the FIRST High School robotics competition at the Washington, DC Convention Center. My brother in-law held 2nd place throughout the competition with his 007 “Thunderbot” but was later eliminated in the alliance competition rounds. Check it out!