Don’t forget about the Forums.  Yes they are still there.  Dave Sieg just posted a job opening there.

There is an RSS feed available for the forums if that makes it easier to follow along.

This Saturday, June 20th at 5pm, come out and get your grill on.

The cookout will be at Jose’s house (which you can find here).  Just bring yourself, your beverage of choice (alcohol allowed), and a side (chips, coleslaw, baked beans, whatever).  Jose & Shannon will be supplying the dogs and burgers!

It is very important that we have a head count, so please leave a comment on this post indicating if you are coming and what side you are bringing.

Please pass this along to everyone, I’m a bit late at getting the word out.

The end of the analog television era has been years in the making, but enough uncertainty abounds that Congress has pushed off the transition date, requiring broadcast companies to justify their switch to digital on the original February 2009 date.

Tim Siglin, contributing editor for Streaming Media magazine will separate fact from fiction on the television switch as well as provide details on the various standard- and high-definition formats that many broadcasters are moving to. We’ll talk about 720p, 1080i/p, H.264 and the potential for web delivery of live HD content.

Also on hand will be Dave Sieg of ZFx to comment about the issues we are facing here in the Tri-Cities with receiving Over The Air HDTV.

The April 2009 GeekSouth meeting will happen on April 30th at 7:00pm at Kingsport Grocery in Kingsport, TN.  Kingsport Grocery is located at 453 East Main Street in Kingsport, TN (google map).  Look for us on the 2nd floor.

As we were leaving last night’s GeekSouth, Ben and I found a small notebook with a silver cover and the Eastman logo on it. Someone had forgotten it on one of the tables. If it’s yours, please get in touch and we’ll get it back to you.

- Cam (cam [at] theblissagency.com)

Come out to Machiavelli’s in Bristol, TN (google map) on March 24th @7pm for the next Geeksouth Meet up. This month we’ll have another presentation on Google Apps by Ben & Cam of Bliss Technology, a spinoff company from The Bliss Agency that has specialized in Google solutions beyond search.

They are going to endeavor to bring everyone at GeekSouth up to speed on all the latest at Google and their “cloud” concept which is starting to really prove itself right here in the Tri-Cities as a serious way to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

For example, many people are familiar with Gmail and quite a few have caught on to the iGoogle portal. What many may not know is the “Google Apps” suite that includse Gmail, Calendar, your Start Page and a whole lot more is an amazing  resource available to businesses and organizations. This was all made possible when Google opened up these tools to ANY domain. So now, instead of just having a @gmail account, you can create yourdomain.com Google Apps account and start setting up email and more for your business quickly and easily. The secure web-based simplicity of Gmail is second to none, although SSL POP, iMAP, blackberry, iPhone, etc are supported. And with shared calendar and documents accessible online and offline, Google Apps is a legitimate contender for businesses software.

But Wait There’s More! This time around, we’re going to only touch briefly on Google Apps - primarily to clarify the “pro” version of Google Apps, which is called Premier - and try to cover a lot of other ground depending on available time. Topics include but aren’t limited to:

• Google Maps maps.google.com/a/
• Google Health google.com/health/
• Google Custom Search google.com/cse/
• Google Analytics google.com/analytics/
• Google Android code.google.com/android/
• Google App Engine code.google.com/appengine

Please sign up here if you plan to attend.

When the GeekSouth website was first setup, we created this main site (using Wordpress), a Wiki (now dead), and the Forums (using Vanilla).

The forum never really gained a lot of traction for whatever reason, so now we need to try and decided what to do with it.  I’ve had a few people ask me lately about being able to post jobs at geeksouth.com and wanting to know the best way… the forum may be an option for that.

We can switch to bbPress (by the same group that created Wordpress), which will remove one obstacle… the need for yet another password… as you can use the same login as you do for this site.

Or we could leave things the way they are. Or we can kill the forum.  Or maybe you have a better idea.  So take the following poll and have your vote counted.

Update: All votes so far are for bbPress, so last night I took a few minutes and got it installed with Wordpress integration. First Post!

I know that tonight is the February event, but it is already time to start thinking about March. Please vote in this poll for what day you’d like to meet:

Update: Looks like Tuesday, March 24th has won by 2 votes. Ben Collins has us booked at Mach’s for this day. Lookout soon for a post with more details about the March GeekSouth meet up.

Our friends across the mountain with Meet The Geeks have helped to produce a film about what makes Asheville a great place for technology:

Asheville is at the center of a diverse technology community and outstanding resources to support new-economy industries.This 10-minute film explores a range of assets in the area which help entrepreneurs, software developers, advanced manufacturers, and engineers move their businesses forward in Western North Carolina. A solid technological infrastructure, skilled workforce and committed support system make our region a true hotspot for innovative progress.

You can check it out here. It is well done and good stuff. Would love to see us get something like this organized for the Tri-Cities.

Where’s our stuff?

Adventures of a corporate digital librarian

In the 1990’s, most organizations thought that a search engine like Google would allow employees to find everything on their networks.  Now, a growing number recognize that search is only part of the solution.  Jean Graef, of  The Montague Institute, will discuss how she helps cross-functional corporate teams create and customize systems that make documents and human experts quickly and easily accessible.

Please come one, come all to the February 2009 GeekSouth meetup.  This meetup will be held on Tuesday, February 24th at Pepper Jack Grille in Bristol, VA (click here for directions).  Start time is the normal 7:00pm.

As normal, click here to go to the signup page and add your name if you are coming and be sure to tell all your friends, neighbors, cousins, pets, and enemies.

I’ve had GeekSouth.com setup on Google Analytics for quite some time now.  However, suddenly I’ve realized that to this point I’m probably the only person who can see all the pretty graphs.

Never seen Google Analytics?  Or just curious in general?  If you’ve got a GMail account email the address to me (Austin) and I’ll add you to the list.