London Google Technology User Group

Summary of 2011

2012-01-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

2011 was my first year organizing London GTUG, and proved to be an amazing experience that introduced me to some great new people. This is a quick summary of what we did, and what's next.

Our first event was Google Maps Code Jam in January, where we had two talks from Google's Mano Marks and Keir from Google Maps Mania. We also had a small hacking session to try out the APIs.

In May it was Google I/O, so we had a two day Extended event to stream over the announcements from Mountain View. We even had an exclusive intro from Google's Vic Gundotra. The event saw our highest attendance yet with over 100 people over both days.

In June Google Software Engineer Riccardo Govoni gave a talk on Google Chart Tools, and in September Vojta Jina came over from Google Mountain View to talk about developing with the JavaScript framework AngularJS.

We've been quiet for a few months, but there are things in the pipeline and hopefully some announcements very soon. I'm keen to talk to anyone interested in getting involved London GTUG, whether it's helping to organize new GTUG events or collaborating with tech events you're already planning. Look forwards to seeing you in 2012!

November Events

2011-11-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

November looks set to be a busy month for developers, with loads of great events happening in London and elsewhere. London GTUG is partnering with a number of these, including discounted ticket prices on certain events. Here's a few things you might be interested in:

Mozilla Festival (London, Nov 4th- 6th '11)
The Mozilla Festival is a yearly celebration that brings together hundreds of passionate people to explore the frontiers of the open web to make things that can change the world.
50% London GTUG Discount

AnDevCon II (San Francisco, Nov 6th-9th '11)
AnDevCon II is the technical conference for software developers building or selling Android apps, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Power of One (London, Nov 11th '11)
Power of One is a day for developers and entrepreneurs to get together and celebrate how much the individual can achieve in today's tech industry.
50% London GTUG Discount

Google Developer Day (Berlin, Nov 17th-20th '11)
Join us in Berlin for Google Developer Day 2011 to explore advanced technical content on Google platforms and products from the teams that work on them.

Startup Weekend - London EDU (London, Nov 25th- 27th '11)
An intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application with an education focus which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend.

AngularJS - Slides and Links

2011-10-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came to our AngularJS talk last Tuesday with Google's Vojta Jina, we were really pleased with the turnout and feedback AngularJS has been receiving.

If you couldn't make the talk or need a refresher, you can see all the slides here: vojtajina.github.com/ng-slides/2011-09-27-london.

As well as the AngularJS.org website, you can find some more useful links at vojtajina.github.com/ng-slides/links.html. Also, check here for help about making your AngularJS apps crawlable.

Lots of great Google related events coming up, have a look on our Events Page for details.

Announcing Developing with AngularJS

2011-08-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

On September 27th we're pleased to welcome Vojta Jina from Google Mountain View for a London GTUG talk at TechHub, Old Street.

He'll be talking about AngularJS, a great new open source JavaScript framework that's been used in a number of Google projects, such as Google+ feedback. Find out about the core features and ideas of the framework, as well as a run through of how to build a simple app. Pizza and beer will be provided thanks to Google London.

For more details and (free) registration, see our website:

http://www.london-gtug.org/Venue/developing-with-angularjs

Google Charts Tools - Slides

2011-07-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came down to our Charts Tools event, I hope
you're all now as keen to get charting things as I am.

Big shout to Riccardo Govoni for giving a great talk, if you need a
refresher or weren't able to make the event, you can see all the
slides at Riccardo's site:

http://www.battlehorse.net/page/2011/07/01/charts_at_london_gtug.html

Announcing Google Charts Tools

2011-06-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to announce that Google's Riccardo Govoni will be giving a talk for London GTUG about Google Charts Tools on Wednesday 29th June in TechHub, London.

If you are interested in data visualization, or you already work with the Google Chart Tools but are not aware of the latest additions, we hope you'll be able to join us for the evening, where Riccardo will present many use cases along with code snippets, demos and documentation pointers. The talk will appeal to a range of experience levels and
backgrounds.

For more details and registration see http://www.london-gtug.org/Venue/google-charts-tools.

Google I/O Extended 2011 - London

2011-05-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

As part of the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, we held our own Google I/O Extended event so UK developers could watch the Keynote streamed live from TechHub in London. Registrations filled up in less than 24 hours, not bad for a streamed event!

Day 1 started out with a great turnout of around 80 people. We kicked off with a special intro that Google's SVP of Social Vic Gundotra had filmed especially for us!

My faith in YouTube led to the the intro being cut short, so we went on with the stream! The Day 1 Keynote was mostly focused on Android, including some amazing updates on Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich, as well as exciting new developments in the Music Beta, Open Accessory development kit and Android @ Home. You can now watch the entire Keynote on Youtube here.

After the stream most of us stayed for chat, pizza and drinks, as well everyone getting one of our I/O Extended T-Shirts (thanks to Google London!).

We started Day 2 with a more successful rerun of the intro video, followed by the live Keynote that was mostly Chrome-related. The big news was the announcement of the first Chromebooks, you can watch the whole things on Youtube here.

The day finished with more gifts from Google, this time some great laptop cases and skins!

I had a great couple of days and I hope everyone who came enjoyed it too. Big thanks to Google for the gifts and intro video, TechHub for providing the event space and doing a brilliant job in setting it all up, and everyone who made the effort to come down.

Same time next year?

~Mark

Facebook Page

2011-02-28T12:25:00.000-08:00

London GTUG now has a Facebook page, currently here (until we get enough Likes for a proper URL):

http://www.facebook.com/pages/London-Google-Technology-User-Group/154...

If you Like the page you'll get updates about upcoming events in your Feed. I'll also be posting photos there too.

All updates will still be posted on our Google Group, on our Twitter (@londongtug) and I'll also be updating this Blog more regularly.

Google Wave Talk by Lars Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon

2009-12-04T00:54:00.000-08:00

Google Wave is already 'rocking' the tech world. Some people love it, some hate it, while some just don't understand it, but no one can ignore it. It is an innovative, and possibly a game-changing product. Admittedly it is not a polished product yet because it is still in 'Alpha' stage. Google decided to release their product early on to users and developers to gather their feedback, and discover new use-cases for Wave by letting developers create extensions and robots using the Wave API.
I have used Wave on several occassions, and found it very useful when I am having a technical conversation with my colleagues, or taking notes on a public Wave at a conference which is co-edited in real-time by other attendees.

On 26th October, 2009 London-GTUG was excited to organize a Google Wave API talk by Lars Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon. The event received an overwhelming response. Over 350 people registered for the event, and around 200 people attended the event. The event was held at a swanky conference room in Park Plaza near Riverbank London.

Lars and Stephanie talked about the Wave API, what you can and can't do with it. They also briefly talked about the future development plans for Wave.

Some of the highlights were:
1. Users will have more control over their 'waves', they will be able to organize, prioritize their waves etc. They will also be able to merge their waves eventually.
2. An extensions gallery is in the works, and will be published in the coming months. At the moment your apps will run only on the app engine
3. More of the Wave code base will be open-sourced
4. Extensions and Robots API will continue to improve and change
5. No plans to merge Gmail with the Wave in the near future.
6. Businesses will be able to manage, secure, syndicate their own Wave servers using the Wave Federated protocol

After the talk some of us went to the pub next door for further discussions, and netwoking. If you are interested in Wave APIs, join the Google group for latest dev updates and news. I'd like to thank Google for sponsoring and co-organizing this event.

Also, Please subscribe to London GTUG google group to hear about future GTUG events.

-Anup

Opensocial API talk by Chris Chabot

2009-09-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

London GTUG had it's first meetup on Friday evening(11th Sep), and I am very pleased to announce that it was a success! The talk was about the Opensocial platform by Chris Chabot. Chris is a Developer Advocate at Google, who's interested in Open Source, OpenSocial, and trying to do the impossible. Most recently he's been the driving force behind PHP Shindig, the reference OpenSocial server implementation, Partuza a popular open-source example social network site that shows how to use OpenID, OAuth and OpenSocial, and the OpenSocial PHP client libraries.

The event was hosted and sponsored by Google UK at their London office.

The agenda was as follows:

* 6:00-7:00pm Arrive & mingle

* 7:00-7:15pm General Announcements

* 7:15-8:15pm OpenSocial Presentation

* 8:15-8:40pm Q & A

Over 35 developers attended the event. The presentation was excellent and very well received by members I spoke to after the event. The talk was a right mix of technical and introductory level information aimed at developers who would like to work on the platform and want to understand the present and future goals of the platform.

The Open & Social Web - London GTUG

View more presentations from chabotc.

Thank you Chris for the entertaining and insightful talk. I'd also like to thank Google for supporting the event.

Please note that if you'd like to be notified of future London GTUG events, please join our google group:

http://groups.google.com/group/london-gtug

or follow us on twitter @londongtug.

- Anup Jadhav

(http://london-gtug.org)

Hello World!

2009-07-27T03:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to London-GTUG! For more details go to http://london-gtug.org.
Watch this space for event details!

-Anup