We are pleased to announce that O’Reilly Verlag GmbH & Co.KG will be donating three (3) of their publications for Raffle at the Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner #2 on Monday Dec. 8, 2008.

1. IT-Karrierehandbuch , Martina Diel

2. Geek Kochbuch , Mela Eckenfels, Petra Hildebrandt

3. Dein Gehirn: Das fehlende Handbuch, Matthew MacDdonald

The these amazing books will be mailed to the three (3) winners.

For more information about where you can get these books, log onto O’Reilly Verlag GmbH & Co.KG.

You can also contact Corina Lange .

Just a quick note: The Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner #2 will be held UPSTAIRS in the Saal.

We received a great response from people wanting to attend that we had to change

to a larger venue.

Reminder: The event will be on Monday, December 8, 2008 at the Brotfabrik in Hausen-Frankfurt.

It starts at 6:30pm and should end promptly at 9:00pm.

Please register by emailing: contact@frankfurtgirlgeekdinners.com.

The event will also take place simultaneously in Second Life at the Twitter Cafe.

We will be live streaming the event into Second Life.

The Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner #2 will also be held in Second Life at the Twitter Cafe in tandem with the Real Life event that will take place on Monday December 8, 2008.

The event will start simultaneously with the Real Life event.

For those people wanting to attend a Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner or a Girl Geek Dinner and are not able to make it, being present at the tandem event in Second Life is the next best thing.

The Real Life event will be live streamed into the Twitter Café on Merx.

Date: Monday December 8, 2008

Location: @ the Twitter Café

Time: GMT + 1: 6:30 pm (local), PST: 9:30 am (Second Life)

SL Hosts: Ysabel Isabella & Darla Mack

Simply log into Second Life and click on the SLURL (Second Life URL) below:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Merx/29/98/25

If you don’t have a Second Life account, clicking on the SLURL above will have a “sign up” button on the upper right of the web page.

Hope to see you there!

If you have any questions, please email carmen@frankfurtgirlgeekdinners.com

You can also read about the event by clicking the Events Calendar on the Second Life site.

An invitation to a Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner is always OPEN.

You can view our ONLINE INVITE for more information.

For updates and details, please visit our Official Site.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about Girl Geek Dinners in Frankfurt you can send us an email at contact@frankfurtgirlgeekdinners.com.

Our 1st Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner was a success. October 2, 2008 came and went and all of a sudden November creeped up unannounced. How unfair is that?!

As much as we would have loved to host a November Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner the concept of *busy* kept coming up over and over again until it got a hold of us and we had not other choice but to wait until December.

With December just around the corner, we wanted to give a heads up on the December date for our 2nd Girl Geek Dinner.

Date: Monday December 8, 2008.

Time: 18:30pm – 21:00pm

Place: /kp-21 Cafe, Brotfabrik, Frankfurt-Hausen

RSVP to contact@frankfurtgirlgeekdinners.com by Sunday December 7, 12 noon.

Reminder: This is a Girl Hosted Event. We welcome guys but they would need to bring a female with them.

Please visit our Official Site for more information and a List of Confirmed Guests.

You can receive live updates on the Web 2.0 Expo event from the sixgroups.com Live Community – here.

Visit the Web 2.0 Expo’s Live Community Website.

Girl Geek Dinners BERLIN

Heading the work week was Berlin’s Girl Geek Dinner, organized and hosted by our amazing Nicole Simon. It is actually an International Girl Geek Dinner since so many Girl Geeks are in Berlin for Web Week.

For updates and recaps on the Berlin Girl Geek Dinner and the Web 2.0 Expo, head on over to the Web 2.0 Expo blog powered by Janetti Chon.

Some girls get excited about a new pair of shoes, a great sale on an amazing peacoat or concert tickets to see Il Divo. I’m excited about the confirmation for a Media Pass to the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin.

It’ll be a great opportunity to mix and mingle with the “who’s who” in the German/European Web 2.0 – New Media circle and a definite chance to make friends.

Thanks to Maureen Jennings and Tim O’Reilly for facilitating the Media Pass approval.

I was told that it would be challenging to get a Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner started but with Nicole Simon’s encouragement, Claudia Rauch’s network of friends, and placing announcements on other online sites, we managed to host an event of up to 33 people. Not bad for the 1st Girl Geek Dinner in Frankfurt.

No sponsors were found (yet) however, 1st TOUCH Magazine was kind enough to donate our banner and some funds for miscellaneous expenses. We also managed to obtain a photographer for the event, Andreas Malkmus.

I wanted to surprise the guests so I invited a few other people along. They attended via video.

Jeff Pulver

Tim O’Rielly

Chris Brogan

We had three speakers:
1. Harald Seeley, Crytek
2. Andrea Hamilton, London – Sydney – Frankfurt
3. Megan Richardson, South Africa’s Technology Challenges

Two activities were planned and executed.
1. Breaking the Barriers: White balloons were given, representing the many barriers experienced globally. The air inside the balloons signified the “true nothingness” of the barriers that stand in the way of our progress, in any aspect. Guests were asked to “pop” the balloons as a symbol of “breaking the barriers”.

2. Collaboration in Motion: Five teams were given each a piece of nylon string and 20 beads. The team that managed to string their beads first (using only one hand each) was the winner. Since technology and social medial platforms have made it possible for people to collaborate on projects all around the world (often without having ever met), I wanted to see if people still remembered how to work together, face-to-face, without the use of technology. The winners were, interestingly enough – a group of four people, representing Crytek.

It was great having a venue that was equipped with wifi because it allowed the Girl Geeks to man their laptops and blog, twitter or livestream the event.

We had a handful of men that found the event interesting and enjoyable (And why wouldn’t they? After all, they were surrounded by amazing girls!) We were also pleased to have had Emma with us. Emma was our smallest Girl Geek.

We had a problem with sound during the first part of the presentations because the venue was playing music overhead. I had gotten so excited about starting that I forgot to tell the venue manager to turn off the music *oops*. It would’ve been great to have had a microphone. The venue manager was asked early on if one could be provided but unfortunately we were not able to get one. Perhaps next time.

Also, individual introductions were said after the presentations. We decided to start the presentations while a few people were still eating because it felt like “we just needed to start”. Normally, individual introductions would be said first however, I did point out that, “… now that everyone has warmed up and has had a few drinks, no one should feel shy about getting up in front of everyone and introducing themselves.” Great recovery, I know.

We want to thank all those that came out to support our 1st Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner. Thank you everyone for making the evening a great success!

Hosts:
Claudia Rauch + Rany Keddo
Carmen Villadar + Marcus Link

Presenters:
Harald Seeley, Crytek
Andrea Hamilton, Dell Business Development
Megan Richardson, Nintendo/Apple South Africa

Distinguished Guests:
Alexandra Leisse, KDE
Delphine Ménard + Arne Klempert
Emma our smallest girl geek
Claudia Weinert + Mariano Kamp
Gesche Roy + Daniel Brachmann (Fengor)
Miriam Lux
Bianca Thater
Bärbel Buck + Hannah
Nauroz Banu + significant other
Birgit Riester + Markus Riester
Marilou Irineo
Doris von der Ahé
Megan Barrios + Scott Voyles
Chris Evans + Colleen Cuca
Veronique Kramer + Marcus Scheibenzuber
Sarah Nikolaus
Juergen Thau
Andreas Malkmus, Photographer

The Frankfurt Girl Geeks are gearing up for their 1st Girl Geek Dinner.

Thursday October 2 at 6:30 pm is when things start rockin’ and rollin’!

Come on out and join us at the /kp – 21 Café at the Brotfabrik in Frankfurt-Hausen.

The /kp – 21 Café is the perfect place to hold Frankfurt’s 1st Girl Geek Dinner.

Perhaps you would like to check out their food and beverage menu before hand?

Spots are still available. To reserve your seat and/or your guest’s seat email us at:

contact@frankfurtgirlgeekdinners.com.

This event is for women to get together to share a common platform.

Men can surely come but they need to bring a female guest. )
(Men, please email us at the email listed above with your name and the name of the female guest you intend on bringing).

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

kp-21/open mind
in der Brotfabrik
Bachmannstr. 2-4
D-60488 Frankfurt am Main

Directions

Our traveling Frankfurt Girl Geek, Claudia, is busy. As part of the KDE team of Frankfurt she connects with other geeks from all over the world, attending international conferences.

Note the laptop in front of her. That laptop is not just for show. She is actually working on our 1st Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner event on Thursday October 2, 2008.

Can’t wait to see what she’ll blog about. Stay tuned.

Tags: FrankfurtGirl Geek, KDE, OpenExpo KDE Booth, @frankfurtine, frankfurtinem flickr

October is the month for our 1st Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner. We’re excited and looking forward to this event and we hope you are too.

Our 1st Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner will take place on Thursday, October 2, 2008 at the Brotfabrik. An old bread factory in the Frankfurt neighbourhood of Hausen.

It will actually be in the very comfortable kp-21 Café. You’ll be able to find drinks and a wide variety of delicious treats to enjoy while the evening rolls out. We’ll be expecting you at 6:30pm for the “mixer & elixir” part. This is where you don name tags, settle in, grab a drink (elixir) and mingle with others (mixer).

We should all be seated around 7:15pm just in time for the usual Welcome & Introductions. Feel free to enjoy your meal while the talks get underway. We’ll start the presentations when everyone appears finished with their eats.

There will be a program and it will involve your participation ).

We’ve set an initial seating limit to 20 people. If you plan on attending please let us know ASAP by registering via email at contact@frankfurtgirlgeekdinners.com. Deadline for registration will be Wednesday, October 1 at 12 noon.

Guys can definitely attend but you need to bring a female guest. If you plan on coming with a female guest please include your name and her name in the email.

We’ll be posting a list of names of people (and their guests) that have registered via email on the *official* site as we get them.

We hope to see you there.

Brotfabrik Hausen e.V.
Bachmannstr. 2-4
D-60488 Frankfurt am Main

Tel. 069/24790800
Fax.069/24790809

Directions

~
The Frankfurt Girl Geeks

If you’re not Open Source you might as well stay in the closet. With that said, Ma.gnolia has just unveiled their Ma.gnolia 2 this morning at Seattle’s Gnomedex 2008. Ma.gnolia 2 or aptly named M2 is the newly improved version of their original.

The Ma.gnolia team has been busy with the new makeover and what a makeover it is. Now that it’s gone Open Source people will be able to download and install their own Ma.gnolia.

You might wonder, what makes Ma.gnolia different or dare I say, better than any of those other social bookmarking sites. Chris Brogan poses this question in another way.

You can find out more at http://ma.gnolia.org/.

Not to sound sexist or anything but the fact that our *Official* site (that will officially launch when we have our 1st official Girl Geek Dinner) is having DNS issues almost at the same time as ‘yours truly’ is having PMS issues, is quite interesting.

PMS (Potential Multi-tasking Surge) is a term I’ve coined to describe a state where too much internet activity may lead to an overload of brain sensory stimulation – think power surge or voltage spike. Not this power surge but this one.

Not that DNS issues directly translate to PMS issues, it just appears strange in an almost idiosyncratic synchronous way.

Needless to say, I am not too happy with the service of a certain hosting company. I’m glad the site hasn’t officially launched, however, I am still keeping the links to that site active so if anyone happens to click on the link to the official site – it’ll return an error. Grrr….

I should probably remove the active links but as it stands I’m way too busy and I’ll probably forget to activate the links again. And that my friends was an administrative decision that I decided to execute myself.

It’s not about being THAT *Official*. It’s about being able to manage content, members and contributing writers. I’m only looking to the future.

The decision to create an Official Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinners website was solely based on the need of a platform that could handle easy upgrades and manage member registration. A content management system was the way to go.

The Official site went live today, August 8, 2008 but the official launch will correspond with our 1st Official Girl Geek Dinner.

If you’ve been following Vivaty closely you’ll realize that this little start-up has certainly started off on the right foot.

Vivaty just launched Vivaty Create today, opening its doors to 3D content creators/developers. They’ve only just gone public beta about a month ago and already they’re allowing people to get in early to help shape and mold Vivaty into what it could be.

We’re beginning to open our platform to outside developers, meaning everyone can now create content for Vivaty Scenes. Whether you use Max, Maya, Google Sketchup, or any other tool that exports to COLLADA , you can now send us your content for Vivaty’s platform, win cash, and share your ideas on how our developer program can best work for you. – Mark Hull, VP Product

Vivaty Create, considered as the pilot phase of a new developer program is really a smart move. There are many 3D content creators waiting to get a chance to help design the look and content of a 3D platform. By opening their platform early in the game, Vivaty gains a stronger foothold on the new virtual world start-ups like Google’s Lively.

It won’t be all a creation fest mayhem either. Every step of the way Vivaty listens to developers’ comments and feedback ensuring that suggestions from those more experienced in 3D content creating are carefully considered.

If you are a Girl Geek content creator why don’t you make your mark on Vivaty.

It’s like this, you log onto a site (Google probably) and type a key word or two in the field and click ’search’.

So what’s sexy about that? Nothing. But, if you’re Searchme.com you may have taken the task of searching to a whole other level – sexy.

Instead of sifting through links upon links of possible search results, Searchme.com allows you to see what you are searching for. It actually allows you to see the web pages whose content may contain the information you are looking for.

Still fairly new, you can actually submit your website to be included in their 3D visual search.

A Hamburg, Germany police woman, Carmen Kibat developed a bullet proof bra for herself and 3,000 other front line women in the German Police Force.

Police women are now required to wear these bras during shift for their safety. Ms. Kikat developed the bullet proof bra after many female officers complained that once they took a bullet to the chest, their normal bras that were made with wiring and metal caused injury to their bodies after the impact.

Hmmm, wonder if Ms. Kikat’s bullet proof bras will be sold worldwide to other police women. The bras would have the label “Made in Germany” and hopefully not a “Made in China”.

I give Ms. Kikat a Girl Geek Dinners recognition for her ingenuity.

Girl geeks and guys too can now b*tch about things that get on their nerves.

A site called Bitchy Betty is providing a platform for this kind of stuff. Its aim is to use the platform for people to instigate ‘local or global change’. Think of it as an empowerment platform with a twist.

The word bitch, referring to a female dog has evolved over the years from one with a negative connotation into a word that now appears to indicate empowerment.

Men call women “..a bitch” – using it negatively. They usually say it when women complain also referred to as ‘nagging’.

Now, women have learned to turn that word into a positive trait.

In Stephen King’s movie, Dolores Claiborne, Kathy Bates‘ character, Dolores, said to her daughter, “Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to.” This was in reference to all the years of abuse both her and her daughter was subjected to from Dolores’ alcoholic, abusing husband.

The word bitch in this case is seen as a trait that represents strength and survival.

Bitchy Betty is not the only site that promotes this kind of flair but it IS one of the newest ones and its popularity is growing. If you have anything to bitch about that you feel adds to solving or even bringing awareness to a local or global issue then why don’t you click on over to Bitchy Betty and say your peace.

Hang in tight. The Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinners are opening their offices, virtually that is, in Second Life.

We’ve contracted a designer to create our 3D presence and she tells us it’s almost done. Hooray.

I wonder when it will be done since I happened to have caught her on Torley Linden’s new island HERE, sitting in front of a huge screen. Hmmmm….

Firef.ly

We have Twitter for the entire world and now there’s Firef.ly, a little java code that turns your entire website (every page on it) into a translucent chat screen.

Firef.ly that launched in beta today is described as:

a real-time social messaging system. – Bill Chasen, developer at Betaworks, NY

All that’s involved is you needing to put a little cute java code before the </body> of your template, preferably the footer (so that the chat feature is enabled on all your web pages) – and voila!

The FrankfurtGirlGeekDinners site is Firef.ly enabled. Just switch the slide to turn ON the chat feature, sit back and start typing anywhere on the screen. You can also view the chat history at the bottom of the screen that’s organized like a timeline.

Try out Firef.ly today. It’ll add more interactivity to your site!

… and I don’t mean “D” cup either although I’m sure we have a few girls that are (grrrr….I barely reach “B”). I’m talking about 3D.

That’s right! You can now view our 2D website and visit us in 3D. Thanks to ExitReality’s amazing 3D engine that converts any website into a 3D virtual world. Just visit their 2D site, sign up to get the download plugin, launch the plugin and voila!

You can literally type in any address in the blank field provided and visit that 2D site in 3D! You can even add 3D content to sites that allow you to. Since this is so new, you can literally add ‘digital graffiti’ on every site! I did – on Mashable and Oprah. )

Girl or Boy, if you’re a geek you’re a geek. Whatever level of geek you fall under chances are you’re predisposed to higher levels of emf’s (electromagnetic fields) than the average person.

EMF’s, found in devices like the tv, microwaves, cell phones and power lines are all said to contribute to what’s been called, “electropollution”. Research has shown that constant exposure to electropollution has given some people a sensitivity to them thus affecting some of their normal bodily functions.

One such effect that has been noted through the research is fat retention. EEK!

So if you’ve been putting on that extra weight or are unable to shake off those few unwanted pounds/kilos, girl geeks, we NOW have an excuse. It’s not because we sit all day in front of our computers (net)working or twittering on our mobile phones (well it is), but it’s the emf’s baby.

Thank goodness it’s the emf’s. I thought I might have to cut down on my habit of “junk food” munching.*

*Munching as in ’snacking’, ‘eating’ and not as in the Munching Square.

del.icio.us is re-vamping itself. Apart from a possible new frontend design I would imagine their backend is due for an overhaul as well. To make sure their members don’t get lost in the shuffle they’ve made a Public Service Announcement outlining what people should do to ensure their accounts remain active.

If you have a del.icio.us, it may be a good idea to follow their advice.

Synchronicity and complementarity. That’s how I would sum up the underlying theme for the First Unofficial Girl Geek Dinner.

What was supposed to be a short, spontaneous meeting of a few Frankfurt girl geeks eventually became the setting for what could be considered a Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner, unofficially.

The event was held at the Comet Bar & Coffee on Kaiserstrasse 39, near the Hauptbahnof. There were 8 people in total and the split between girls and guys was 50/50. Great topics were brought forward and the group really hit it off. Interestingly enough, everyone that was there seemed to have a genuine interest in what the others did, where they came from and how they got to where they were today. The stories shared provided enough content to write a good book.

Although we really didn’t plan on having a dinner per se, everyone did their part to act as ‘presenters’, sharing tidbits of information about their skills and what projects they were involved in where their skills were valuable.

The members and their guests were:
Claudia Rauch & Rany Keddo co-creator and founder of boomloop.
Eugenie Edquist & Peter Söderbaum, environmental artist at Crytek.
Magda Prochniewicz
Brendon Kelly, particle artiest at Crytek.
Karl ___?____
Carmen Villadar

Computer Science professor Randy Pausch, after a short bout with pancreatic cancer, passed away today. He was 47 years ago.

Dr. Pausch was well known for working on the Alice program, an animated educational system for high school and college students. He also founded the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Pausch’s last lecture was at an Oprah Show where he re-prised a lecture he gave in front of faculty and students at Carnegie Mellon University. His last lecture topic focused on ‘achieving your childhood dreams’.

Microblogging just went LIVE? 12seconds.tv, still in alpha, has come up with an interesting concept. People can soon share moments of their life in a 12 second video footage with their family, friends or the world.

According to research, anything more than 12 seconds starts to fall into the category of boring. Similar to Twitter, where people have only 140 characters to tweet, people using 12seconds.tv have 12 seconds to record video.

Sol and Beach, founders of 12seconds.tv explain it better on their blog.

A request to test out their alpha was sent, of course. You can sign up for an invite here.

Canadian based Just Leap In, a 3D Virtual World that can be accessed from your browser via a plug-in seems to be starting on the right track. A recent blog entry post on user generated content and 3D standards has gotten me thinking.

If 3D virtual worlds are the future what will they be the future of? What industries stand to gain from having a presence in these platforms and what will this mean to a society where efforts, money and time are spent in these virtual worlds?

Being a lover of the ‘beta’, I’m in most virtual platforms. Why? Because I can. I have seen the tremendous advantages as well as disadvantages that these platforms can create and I wanted to bring up this topic to the Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinners.

Are you on a virtual world? If so, which one(s) and what do you do there? If not, why aren’t you? What are your thoughts in general, on 3D virtual worlds?

Solution sharing is not a software but a concept in which companies share some of their more challenging issues with the rest of the world.

Innocentive, is an open community where businesses allow people to come up with solutions to some of their most toughest problems. Those that find a solution can win between $5,000 to $1,000,000. Businesses from all industries, profit and non-profit alike post their ‘issues’.

This would be something interesting to get Frankfurt Girl Geeks into talking about. Heck, if we find a solution to even one of the problems listed we’ll be able to sponsor one of our own dinners! Now that’s empowerment both ways. We should also leave some money left over for pedicures!

In keeping with our Empowerment Theme, Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinners will be holding workshops on various Web 2.0 topics, resources and internet tools.

The workshops will be held monthly and will not coincide with our Girl Geek Dinners. A list of topics will be displayed later on this site for members and guests to review and to sign up for. As soon as we get a good number of interested participants for one class (3 – 10) then a calendar schedule will be created for members to sign up on.

If you are interested in hosting/teaching a class please email Carmen Villadar with your topic(s), most likely available days in the month and times.

Workshops will be held at the Comet Bar & Coffee on Kaiserstrasse 39, just blocks away from the Hauptbahnof. Directions and information will be provided once the workshop dates and times have been confirmed.

General & Business English Classes will also be offered at a Special Discounted Rate for Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinner members. More information to follow.

I’ve taken the time to make out our August Shopping List. If I’ve missed any item you feel should be on the list, please let me know.

1. Members, members and more members.

2. One Sponsor.

3. One venue.

4. One organizing committee.

5. Members.

6. One more Presenter.

7. Menu for food and drinks.

8. Name tags.

9. Give-a-ways.

10. A clone of myself. Make that two clones of myself.

Facebook is taking on the monumental task of re-designing its profile page. Monumental it must be after having played around with the date of July 16 as being “facelift” day and yet – nothing. Justin Smith of Inside Facebook announced that this evening, Sunday July 20th, Facebook will come out with its beta redesign.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

And here’s something to mull over while having breakfast … a little bird has been chirping the news that Facebook is buying MySpace.  Gulp!

Yay! Frankfurt will now be hosting the famous Girl Geek Dinners. Special thanks goes to Nicole Simon for bringing the concept over to Germany and starting up Girl Geek Dinner Deutschland.

In following with tradition, Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinners hopes to bring together a collaborative group of likeminded women (and men) who are interested in new media, technology, Web 2.0. and other related issues that are driving the future of information transfer and communication.

It is our goal to provide Frankfurt members with the latest news, tools and hot topics that are constantly emerging out of the Web 2.0 era.

We recognize that technology has been the driving force that has changed our lifestyle, societal values and more importantly, the ability to communicate and connect with others globally.

Europe has always been a platform for the potential growth of new technologies and Germany, being centrally located, will become the hub of communication for all of Europe. Frankfurt in particular, known to be the financial capital of Germany is on the verge of the European Technological Frontier. We’re just going to help it along.

The growth of women pursuing careers in technology is exponential. Young girls are now interested in areas that were once only associated with boys. With that being said, there are still many challenges that women face in these ‘tech’ fields, primarily – finding other women like them.

Frankfurt Girl Geek Dinners will be an avenue where engaging discussions occur between women (and men). It will serve as a ‘meeting place’ where people can get together to help one another understand the intricacies of the technological world we live in. Through this platform we will help enrich one another’s understanding of where we fit in – in relation to one another as women and men, as a city of Germany and as a nation of the world.

Join us!