Shropgeek.

Review written by: Dave Blencowe (@dblencowe)

I’ve spent this evening at the Admiral Benbow, with a great set of people and we’ve discussed some great topics, had a good laugh, and at one point cried… In a good way… Yes, tonight was the once-a-month meeting for the Shopgeek crew that consists of Jamie Biddle, Kirsty Burgoine, Zach Beauvais, Stewart Noble and finally Steph and Myself (Also Heather, @salt_events for a short time!).

The night has consisted of some great chit chat, ranging from the extensive functionality in Zach and Jamie’s iPads through to the actual uses for Linked In and its popularity in today’s world of information technology.
For Adam, Steph and I the night started at about 7.30, although when we arrived at the Benbow we found that Stewart, Heather, Kirsty and Zach were already sitting comfortable in the beer garden, watching Adam lead two knew sheep in to the Back Room.

Yet after a quick look in there and finding our peers in the quite chilly beer garden we relocated to the cosy Back Room and quickly got acquainted. From then on we got some great snippets of conversation on a range of different topics including Linux administration and how well the latest Ubuntu supports hardware, the iPad, it’s uses, and whether our guys found the novelty wore off and finally how well established Linked In had become in today’s world and whether businesses were actually using it to find prospective employees, which I’ll add is a resounding yes from several of the accomplished members of the group.

Finally, we didn’t finish off the night as late as the others, but Adam and myself finished of the night with a short chorus of build me up buttercup followed by night fever complete with short bee-gees style dance before leaving for home and fervently awaiting next months Shropgeek meeting, which I will surely be trying my hardest to attend and of course, encourage as many people to attend as possible (Even if they think they aren’t geek enough! )

Over and out!

March’s meetup was once again a complete success. Held at The Admiral Benbow in Shrewsbury. Its little room at the back and the on-tap local ales make it an ideal meeting place for geeks. However, the background music played was eclectic to say the least. This was commented on several times, but one person in particular seemed to be enjoying ‘build me up buttercup’ rather a lot (you know who you are).

What I love about the shopgeek meetups is the variety of different people that come along. Each meeting is completely different and this month was no exception. All of the regulars were there including @zbeauvais, @jamiebiddle, @adam_griffiths, and me (@kirstyburgoine). Also @stewartnoble (not to be confused with any other Stuart Nobles there may be out there), a guest appearance from @salt_solutions, and @chrispallet all came along for beers and geekery.

As always there was a myriad of topics discussed …

As most of this months ‘geeks’ were very tech orientated, there was lots of discussions about Server environments, a brief mention of the impending iPad, how much apple keyboards cost in comparison to PC ones (I still think mine is worth every penny), the iPhone app ‘Sleep Cycle’ and its benefits, and a general comparison between the iPhone, Android phones and Blackberries.

@zbeauvais told us all about the various conferences he’s been to/spoke at and the recent Talis Open Days he’s involved in running (you can find out lots more info about that here), Oh, and more importantly, as he had come straight from work he had his mac book with him which I was allowed to play with (briefly).

@adam_griffiths shared with us what he’d discovered about barcodes and security systems for his college project and spoke a little about his up coming book on CodeIgniter.

Chat Roulette, the latest craze to sweep the internet, was also discussed at length with some of the ‘geeks’ having had some humorous experiences.

Over all it was a great turn out, looking forward to the next one!