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Current Events

Even more online tech events happening this afternoon and evening (Monday, February 15, 2021)

If you can’t find the kind of event you’re looking for in my weekly list, perhaps you’ll find something in this list of events taking place tonight!

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Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, February 15, 2021)

It’s hard to believe that’s it’s the middle of February already! Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, February 15 through Sunday, February 21, 2020.

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

For the time being, I’m restricting this list to online events. We’re still deep in a pandemic, and the way out is to stop the spread, however we can. In the age of broadband internet, smartphones, and social media, it’s not that hard. Stay home, stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

Monday, February 15

Tuesday, February 16

Wednesday, February 17

Thursday, February 18

Friday, February 19

Saturday, February 20

Sunday, February 21

I’ve running an event on Monday, February 22!

My Programmers of Portables Meetup will have its first session on Monday, February 22nd at 7:00 p.m.. We’ll be using Python and Pygame to write a simple game about the “Super Bowl Streaker”. Want to know more? Check out the Meetup page!

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


Categories
Current Events Programming Tampa Bay

“Programmers of Portables” Meetup on Monday, Feb. 22: Let’s write a game!

It’s high time for the Programmers of Portables Meetup group’s first meeting. It’s called “Let’s write a game (with Python and Pygame)!”, and it’s happening online on Monday, February 22nd at 7:00 p.m.!

In this meetup, we’ll use the Python programming language and the Pygame collection of game development libraries to write a game similar to this “Super Bowl Streaker”-themed parody of the old videogame Tecmo Bowl:

That’s right, we’re going to build a game where the player controls the guy who ran onto the field in a pink leotard during the Super Bowl, and the goal of the game is to dodge security for as long as you can.

While writing the game, you’ll learn about key game programming concepts including the main event loop and collision detection, as well as everyday programming topics including object-oriented programming and data structures.

This is going to be a “code along with the instructor” exercise. I’ll explain a key concept for the game, and then we’ll code it together. By the end of the session, you’ll have a working game that you can play but even modify and improve on!

Register here to join us on Monday, February 22nd at 7:00 p.m., and let’s write a game!

What will you need for the Programmers of Portables Meetup?

Compaq 610 laptop
Even this decade-plus-old hardware (which I own) will do.

Aside from a computer (which could run macOS, Windows, Linux, or Raspberry Pi OS) made sometime in the past ten or so years and an internet connection, you’ll need:

  • Zoom (I’ll provide a link to the Meetup as the day gets closer)
  • Python 3 (version 3.6 or later — I recommend Anaconda’s distribution, although the Python.org distribution is also good)
  • Pygame (version 2.0; once you’ve installed Python 3, go to the command line and execute the command pip install pygame==2.0.0)
  • You favorite code editor. I’ll be using Visual Studio Code.

All you need for this session is just some programming experience, and it doesn’t have to be in Python. If you can code a “Magic 8-Ball” in JavaScript, you’ll understand most of what we’ll cover when writing our game.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, February 8, 2021)

This will be a very busy week!

This will be a very busy week for these reasons:

  1. Chances are that when you read this, the Big Game (I can’t call it by its official name because the NFL guards its trademarks a little too zealously) will have come and gone, and Tampa Bay will have emerged the victor. Congrats, Tampa Bay!
  2. Chinese New Year happens on Friday, February 12, and this year is the Year of the Ox — or more specifically, because each year name comprises the name of a zodiac animal and an element, it’s the year of the Metal Ox. 恭喜发财 / Gōngxǐ fācái / Kung hey fat choy!
  3. Valentine’s Day is Sunday, February 14.

…and it’s also another week in Tampa Bay’s tech scene, where there’s always a lot going on. That’s what this list is for — connect, share, stay safe, and Make It Tampa Bay!

This week’s events

Monday, February 8

Tuesday, February 9

Wednesday, February 10

Thursday, February 11

Friday, February 12

Saturday, February 13

Sunday, February 14

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


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Programming Tampa Bay What I’m Up To

Tampa iOS Meetup is changing its name to “Programmers of Portables” (or PoP for short)!

It’s been way too long since I’ve held a Tampa iOS Meetup. Between the pandemic and all sorts of employment issues arising thanks to the pandemic, I managed to hold just one Tampa iOS Meetup in 2020. It’s a shame, especially since Tampa iOS Meetup made the list of Tampa’s top ten tech meetup groups for 2019.

At the same time, while I’ve wanted to keep covering iOS, I also wanted to expand into other portable platforms, namely programming Android, smart watches, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino devices.

I’m going to scratch these two itches by re-tooling Tampa iOS Meetup into a new meetup called Programmers of Portables, or PoP for short. If you want to know what kind of platforms and programming this meetup will cover, just read its motto: “If it fits in your hand, it’s on-brand!”

Some of the topics I’m planning for this year:

  • iOS and watchOS programming with Swift
  • Android programming with Kotlin
  • Cross-platform mobile programming with Flutter
  • Raspberry Pi programming with Python
  • Arduino programming with Arduino’s C-like programming language
  • Wearables (after all, “portable” is related to the French verb porter, which means “to wear”)

I’m going to keep the beginner-friendly focus with this revamped meetup, but don’t let “beginner-friendly” fool you into thinking that it means “simple”! In some  of my “beginner-friendly” classes, we wrote:

  • Our own version of Frogger,
  • the iPhone version of Google’s Tilt Brush, the 3-D AR “paint” application
  • our own version of the IKEA Place AR app,
  • a machine learning app that tried to identify common objects,
  • a machine learning app that tried to identify the kind of room your were in, and
  • a machine learning app that could identify various members of the Avengers.

My plan is to return to regular meetups, which will be Zoom-based until the pandemic gets under control.

I’ll announce the first meetup shortly. In the meantime, let me know what topics you’d like me to cover at PoP. You can do it in the comments for this post, or on my Twitter or LinkedIn accounts.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

New video: “TAMPA BAY: An Unexpected Destination for the Tech Industry”

Among the YouTube videos produced by the Tampa Bay Super Bowl LV Host Committee, there’s one promoting Tampa Bay as as the tech hub you didn’t expect: TAMPA BAY: An Unexpected Destination for the Tech Industry, which you can watch below:

It’s a great promo for the tech virtues of “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”, featuring these locals:

  • Jacqueline Darna, CEO and Medical Inventor of Nomo Nausea
  • Joy Randels, CEO and Founder of New Market Partners, person behind a lot of things in the Tampa Bay tech scene, and indirectly the reason I live here now
  • Brian Murphy, CEO and Founder of ReliaQuest
  • Sheryl Hunter, Founder and President, Hunter Business Law
  • Ryan Nece, Managing Partner, Next Play Capital

The only thing I’ll nitpick about the video is that St. Pete and Clearwater are underrepresented, appearing only as beach scenes. Let’s let the world know that they’re part of Tampa Bay, and home to Tech Data, Jabil, KnowBe4, The Penny Hoader, and Malwarebytes’ east coast office to name a few players, as well as the birthplace of Wikipedia!

In fact, when it comes to “Tampa Bay”, I view it as the area served by Tampa International Airport (TPA). This means that I count Sarasota County —  home to advertising and marketing tech companies and agencies including AdRizer, DealersUnited, FloorForce, Perform[cb], and Revcontent — as part of Tampa Bay.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, February 1, 2021)

Welcome to the first week of February 2021, and Happy Groundhog Day in advance! Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, February 1 through Sunday, February 7, 2020.

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

For the time being, this list will include only those events that can be attended online because…

  • 1 in 12.6 Americans has contracted COVID-19 (26 million cases out of a population of 328 million, which is 1.1 million more than last week).
  • 1 in 747 Americans has died from COVID-19 (439,000 dead out of a population of 328 million, which is 22,000 more than last week).

…and we’re still experiencing a post-holiday spike that has a number of ICUs across the country running at maximum capacity.

We live in the age of broadband and ubiquitous computing — make the best use of it. Stay safe, stay connected, skill up, and #MakeItTampaBay!

This week’s events

Monday, February 1

Tuesday, February 2

Wednesday, February 3

Thursday, February 4

Friday, February 5

Saturday, February 6

Sunday, February 7

Don’t forget that The Big Game (I can’t use its official name, because the NFL are rather litigious with people who use it without paying licensing fees) happens this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!