When: Every Week, on Friday

Now moderated by Ted Curran, Digital Media Educator and Blogger

12:30-2:00

Cost: $5-10 sliding scale

Do you want to share your thoughts on topics that make you feel passionately? Do you want to connect with your audience on your own terms? Are you a blogger?

Bloggers are people who write about their passions – from music to history to architecture to local news – on the Internet, in a medium where the world can find them.

The Bloggers Support Group at Tech Liminal is an informal gathering of local Bloggers that arose out a desire to continue the supportive, creative atmosphere of the first Beast Bloggers Camp. We are a mix of technical, creative, and inspired people who work together to increase our understanding and output.

Bring your lunch to this drop-in event. Please email info@techliminal.com or call (510) 832-3401 if you are coming so we can reserve you a seat.

About the Facilitator

Ted Curran has been a high school teacher for over eight years, teaching Advanced Digital Media Arts, English Language Arts, and Social Science in public charter schools– most notably Envision Schools in San Francisco. A renaissance geek keenly interested in education, technology, arts, communication, and language, Ted continually experiments with ways to integrate these passions towards the ultimate goal of empowering people. Check out his blog at www.tedcurran.net.

Leave a comment below to be added to our reminder list

Meet other East Bay fans of WordPress, fast becoming the Internet’s best dynamic content management system. We’ll gather and discuss the best ways to design and work with WordPress sites. We welcome WordPress newbies who want to learn the basics and also to intermediate/advanced users who want to get even more out of WordPress.

Join us on March 28th from 1-3 PM, when Ann Zerega will show us how to design beautiful WordPress sites. (No, you are not restricted to someone else’s design…unless you’re on WordPress.com.) This is theme design from the designer’s perspective. We’ll have theme design from the developer’s perspective at a future meeting.

As usual, we’ll set aside some time for general WordPress questions and answers.

Go here for more info and to register.

Sunday March 28th 1pm-3pm

Cost: $3

Tonight’s workshop included someone who is new at Digital Photography. We filled him in on a few of the basics, which was a good review for the rest of the group.

How do you organize your photos?
Not unlike the shoeboxes of yore, the “My Pictures” folder is insufficiently robust to keep your photos organized and easy to find.  There are many available tools that can be used, but only two really stand out for ease of use and universal access:

1. Picasa – Google’s photo organizer is available for Windows and Mac (Intel Chips only!).  It will look on your hard drive for all photos, finding every jpeg, Photoshop file, and tiff you’ve ever uploaded onto your drive.
2. iPhoto – If you’re on a Mac, this comes with iLife, which is either included on your computer or can be had for a mere $79.

Both of these will do the following:

• Allow you to do some basic photo manipulation, like correct white balance, crop, resize, change colors, etc.
• Allow you to label and tag your photos
• Identify photos of people and let you specify who’s who.  Later, you can search for them.
• Let you assign a location to your photos so you can see them on a map.
• Let you create albums and slideshows.
• Let you send photos to printers, calendar makers, and more.

Hours of fun!  But wait, there’s more.

How do you upload them?

Uploading your photos “to the cloud” means that you can access them from any computer, anywhere with an internet connection.   There are a zillion photo sharing sites, and with all of them you need to start with:

1. Set up an account.  If you have a gmail account, you have free access to Picasa’s online sharing site, Picasaweb.  If you have a Yahoo account, you have access to Flickr.com.  Otherwise, you’ll have to sign up for an account.
2. Some sites charge, others are free.  Read the fine print.

We recommend the following sharing sites:

1. Picasaweb.google.com – Google’s photo sharing site starts out free, and lets you share photos with people by sending them a URL.  There isn’t a lot of community on here, but it’s a good site.
2. Flickr.com - Millions of photo afficionados upload photos, comment, organize, print, etc on what is an amazing fun online experience.  You can add photos to group pools, share with others, and add photos to other websites.  You can
3. Smugmug.com – This is more of an album-focused site that allows individuals and families to create some pretty fancy showcases of their photos.  You can even sell prints.

We are at the end of the workshop, and didn’t answer all the questions, but everyone is left ith an assignment – organize and prepare photos for uploading and sharing, which is going to be a continued subject in our ongoing workshops.

Thanks as always to Ted Curran, our fabulous instructor.

See you next time!

Thursday March 11th 11AM – 6PM

Has your computer been slowing down, or has it stopped working altogether? Does it work fine most of the time, but get temperamental from time to time? Bring it to Sick Computer Day at Tech Liminal to get those kinks worked out. Whether it needs a tune up or major surgery, our onsite tech consultant offers free inspections and quotes, and competitive prices for tune-ups and repairs on both PCs and Macs.

Pre-registration recommended.

By bringing your sick computer to Tech Liminal, you allow our technician to work on several systems at once, which means you are not paying for the time time it takes to load software, run virus scans, or transfer data – which can take hours. We have simple flat rates for most services.

How it works

You can make an appointment with our specialist between 11 AM and 6 PM by calling (510) 832-3401 or emailing info@techliminal.com. Bring your computer to the shop at that time, and Kenji will diagnose your problem and give you an estimate.

Appointment availability is shown in the table below

Price List:

Virus Removal – $150 Flat Rate
Complete removal of infection(s), along with tips to prevent recurrence.

Tune-up – $80 Flat Rate
Insuring your machine is running optimally, and in many cases speeding things up a notch. Includes check/repair of hard drive, reclamation of unused disk space, and program setting recommendations for best performance.

System Recovery – $120 Flat Rate
Full reinstallation of your operating system (OS X or Windows).

System Recovery with Data Transfer/Migration – $150 Flat Rate
Full reinstallation of your operating system, plus restoration of your exisiting data/settings.

Quick-fix – $35 Flat Rate
Straightforward service, like a simple hard drive replacement or memory installation. (At my discretion.)

Onsite Home Service – $80/hr.
Estimate of hours and work to be done available on request.

Onsite Nonprofit Service – $80/hr
Onsite Business Service – $100/hr
Support for your mission-critical infrastructure.

Call (510) 832-3401 to make an appointment today.

About Kenji Oshima

Kenji Oshima has been toying with computers since high school (1980) and has had years of experience as a repair person in a few trades, and as a computer geek officially, for four. Calling himself the Compassionate Computer Geek Kenji provides software (desktop) support and specializes in being the mild manner repair/training person to a dozen private clients in San Francisco.
While his speciality is Mac he’s proficient in most PC issues as well.

Tuesday March 9th 6:30-8:30PM

In this meetup, we will look at 6 of the most useful sought after web-based applications and tools that help you find, attract and build new business, work with your partners and teams, and establish a strong, solid reputation for your business venture’s future.

Join us for a fun, upbeat and powerful session to jump start your new business ventures. Please arrive early around 6:30pm for networking, and bring your laptop as wifi is available. Full program starts at 7PM.

RSVP’s are encouraged, $5 admin fee, please arrive early, space is limited, pre-registration encouraged!

RSVP here

*RESCHEDULED* Wednesday, March 3rd* 6:00 – 7:30PM

Following our January series, this ongoing, monthly workshop will help you learn to share and use photography and video online. Learn to use Google Picasa, Flickr, and Facebook to share with your friends and family. Keep up with new equipment and technology!

Cost: $20

To register please go to http://techliminal.com/photography/

Tuesday, March 2, 7:30 PM – 9 PM

Greeting Makers!

This month we have a lot of stuff planned. First, lets make some musical drawings with the Drawdio mini-project! Check out the videos of it in action. Since this project requires a little more equipment then usual kits will be a $15 for members and $20 for non-members.

Then we are starting the Remake America series with Esperanza Pallana an urban farmer living in Oakland. You may have seen her article in Make 18. She will speak about on how you actually make farming in a city work and how you can begin farming your self. If you have any questions you want answered, post them on the message board under the “Do you have questions on urban farming?” topic and we will pass them on to her.

The Remake America series is inspired by the Welcome and the projects in the Remake America issue of Make Magazine. It will be a series of speakers, projects, and demos all within framework outlined in the that issue. The goal we have is to create a community of people who are all building a sustainable future. So, if you are already working on a sustainability project we want to hear about it. If you want to start a sustainability project we will help you get started. If you want to learn more come see a speaker or do a mini-project in the series. Lets get started!

This fun-for-all-ages event starts at 7:30pm. Children under 14 need to be accompanied by an adult.

New to Make:SF. Here is what you can do:
- New to making? Come and explore with a fun mini-project.
- Have an idea? Come and we will help you get started making it.
- Making something? Come and demo it. Get feedback and network with the Makers.
- Come to see the speakers we bring in talk about their projects, tools you can use, etc.

Drupal 501(c)3 at Tech Liminal, 2-4 pm Fridays, 268 14th St, Oakland

A Drupal group for non-profits using or considering Drupal, and for the developers who help them.

Drop by and learn more, or leave a comment to be added to our announcement list.

Tuesday, Feb 2, 7:30 PM – 9 PM

The Oakland meetup for Makers of all stripes and experience levels. We do a mini-project that combines crafting and electronics, discuss ongoing projects for members, and enjoy speakers from local Maker organizations.

This fun-for-all-ages event starts at 7:30pm. Children under 14 need to be accompanied by an adult.

Learn More and RSVP

New to Make:SF. Here is what you can do:
- New to making? Come and explore with a fun mini-project.
- Have an idea? Come and we will help you get started making it.
- Making something? Come and demo it. Get feedback and network with the Makers.
- Come to see the speakers we bring in talk about their projects, tools you can use, etc.