Beyond the myth of the digital deviant

What is a hacker? Here’s one profound answer to that question, offered by sudoroom.org:

“When kids on Myspace learn HTML, then eventually create their own websites, they are hacking web technology. The experiential approach with an ethic of borrowing, tweaking, and improving is a form of hacking practice. But also as learners–young folks constantly discover new and novel approaches to concepts and problems we can easily recognize as bold and creative! That’s hacking, and it doesn’t stop as we get older.”  (Read more definitions of “hacker”).

Fundraiser for Sudo Room

Sudo Room hackers have been gracing Tech Liminal with their ideals and ideas on our own Wednesday Hack Night, a place for those working on mobile apps or electronics. Expansive thought is welcome. One of Sudo Room’s goals is to create a bridge between technical knowledge and all the “squishy stuff” (non technical knowledge – humanities, social science, arts, crafts). Look for future collaborations as Sudo Room seeks a creative community hacker space in the East Bay and Tech Liminal seeks its new home.

Open Hack Night happens every Wednesday, but check our calendar to be sure. 

RSVP for Open Hack Night by leaving a comment here

Help Sudo Room create a hacker space in Oakland! Attend the fundraiser on May 4!

Register for Sudo Room fundraiser now

"Ruby on Rails is letting me write web applications almost as fast as writing blog posts." Dave Doolin

A workshop is only as good as its teacher. Fortunately, the East Bay Rails Meetup is facilitated by Dave Doolin. Dave is a bit of a “tech translator”. In addition to writing code, he also blogs. And if you’re interested in perusing his thoughts on Ruby on Rails before attending the Meetup, he’s written extensively about it.

How does Rails measure up? How easy is it to learn? Dave asks and answers “why Ruby?“. You can find a plethora of information about Rails online, but before embarking on your own, take a quick look at his review of Railcasts. Are you interested in building applications with Rails? He’s written about that too.

Get into the nitty gritty by understanding how Rails is used with Subversion - or compares with Python. If you’re not a programmer, check out his nuts and bolts SEO advice in articles like “SEO for writers and artists – or how to date your search engine.”

Above all, don’t be intimidated. Dave is a smart guy, but he’s also a very patient teacher.

East Bay Rails happens on the first Thursday of the month, but check the Meetup to be sure…

RSVP for East Bay Rails Meetup now

Good food always makes information go down easier.

There’s something soothing and magical about meeting over yummy breakfast and coffee to talk about blogging (= writing process + marketing + technology).

Our super community-driven friends at Blue Heron Catering are about to launch their new blog, so they’ve been sponsoring this event, providing all kinds of scrumptious treats, such as frittata and fresh breads, breakfast burritos, coffee and juice.

Host Cheryl Liquori cultivates a space full to the brim with literary and social media tips. Breakfast Blogging Club  is a little like an edible compass gifted to the muse lost in the maze inside of you. When she finds her way home this time, she’ll have a business-savvy twist. Good morning!

Third Thursday of every month, but check the Meetup to be sure…

Register now

Make your WordPress theme look just the way  you want it

If you are already familiar with WordPress and know some HTML, consider taking the upcoming CSS for WordPress course offered at Tech Liminal. Web developer Karla Leibowitz will be sharing her expertise customizing WordPress websites; she  will help guide students through the features of CSS in two themes: Weaver and 2010. Some of the topics covered: CSS effects, CSS fundamentals like divs, spans, ids and classes, advanced layout and adding graphics.

Four sessions Wednesdays in May (May 9 – May 30).

Register now

What is CSS?

Ever wonder how web pages get their design, color and format? Files called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) control the presentation of the content on a web page, creating the look and feel for the site. These style rules work with the HTML that defines each webpage.  Using CSS allows for multiple pages with similar markup to share the same design elements. The “cascading” aspect of the stylesheets refers to the fact that the order of style rules specifies the priority of one rule over another.  This allows the designer to have one look for the site overall, and smaller adjustments on individual pages or in specific fields.  While it may sound dry, it’s really the stuff that dresses up the site with the color, the fancy fonts, and the splashy backgrounds.  And who doesn’t want to play with that?

April 19  6PM – 9PM

Are you curious about Pinterest? This super-visual social bookmarking site has made major waves.Creative businesses are using this new social media channel to attract and delight customers.

Or maybe you’re a Pinterest Power User who’s been creating and using boards to inspire your creativity.

Join us at Tech Liminal for an evening of exploring the latest Social Media craze, Pinterest! Munch on some pie and share what you know with other creative or skeptical people in our Downtown Oakland salon.

Cost: $10 (Free if you bring some Pie to share, or if you’d like to present how you use Pinterest in your work)

(Why Pie + Pinterest? Because Anca loves Puns. And Pie.)

RSVP in the comments below, or Join our Facebook Event to get a reminder.

Ann met Anca Mosoiu in the spring of 2008, before Anca founded Tech Liminal. “She was helping out at a neighborhood center just when I was starting the book project with a couple of other teachers. No one knew about us then. Anca said, ‘Why not build a web site?’ ‘Oh, that’s too hard,’ I said, but she set us up on WordPress and coached me on how to do it myself until I could.”

At Tech Liminal, Ann first learned how to build out her own web site in WordPress in only a month of weekly meetings. “It’s an amazing model. I update my site all the time now, including the blog. There are a few sections that only the Tech Liminal team can touch, but the rest I can do on my own. The best thing about what Anca did was – she made me do it myself. She’s a natural-born teacher: patient and willing to help you figure it out.”

Ann applied for various grants, and got on Facebook. Then Ann took a second class at Tech Liminal on Social Media for Social Activism, and now uses both the web site and Facebook to reach an audience many times the size of what it was formerly. She found out that Google offered free accounts to non-profits, and went through their rigorous qualification process.

East Bay Children's Book Project Volunteers learn about Social Media at Tech Liminal from Kwan Booth of OaklandLocal

The EBCBP grew fast, as measured by number of books collected and given away. Ann doesn’t even remember how many books they collected prior to getting online -  “Maybe a few hundred.” The first year after getting the web site up, they gave away over 12,000 books. By last year, they were giving away over 135,000 books, and Ann estimates that this past year they will have given away 200,000 books in over 100 cities and even in foreign countries. Ann tracks every single book that goes through her organization, using a system created by Ann’s grown children, who are both accomplished IT developers themselves.

How do people find her? “Every week I get cold calls from new groups who found me online,” says Ann. You can search for “free books” or “children’s books” and find me.” The organization runs on staff of 20 volunteers. Some of them meet biweekly to sort through donations, others do pickups, or provide graphic design services and other support. The organization runs on a shoestring, with minimal hours.

“I adore Anca,” said Ann. “I couldn’t have done it without her.”

I’m still decompressing (and haven’t even finished downloading all the photos) but here are some highlights of Saturday.

And some of the tweets:

level up Arduino: today learned how to bring in controls like knobs+buttons, and how to use a breadboard :D #WorkshopWeekend

— Lisa Ballard (@BasilLeaf) March 19, 2012

OH at #workshopweekend: I was expecting a bunch of guys hovering over laptops, but this is so diverse and fun!

— Tech Liminal (@techliminal) March 18, 2012

OH at #workshopweekend “I went on a mission to find fungi in my fridge — but I think this is bacterial”, holding up a yogurt container.

— J.D. Zamfirescu (@jdzamfi) March 18, 2012

And what is culture hacking? Take different disciplines, professions, and cultures, mix with some creative project and a drive to make something.

Her job didn’t have many expectations as far as using technology. It only required her to carry a Blackberry, respond to text messages, and use a database called City Works. Then in July of 2009, disaster struck. “There were three of us, and then budget cuts came,” said Tora. “Suddenly I was responsible for 12 other sites in addition to the Rose Garden. I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I needed volunteers.”

Tora had already started a volunteer group called the Dedicated Deadheads to maintain the Rose Garden, and she wanted a web site to post volunteer events and coordinate them. “I went everywhere. I talked to all sorts of web consultants who claimed to work with nonprofits, and they were all quoting me $4,000 or $5,000. We had no money… and how were we going to get donors without a web site?”

Then Ann Katz of the East Bay Children’s Book Project told Tora to contact Anca Mosoiu at Tech Liminal. Anca quoted her a fraction of what the other consultants had. “Are you kidding? I asked her. ‘No – no, I’d love to’ she replied. I was in shock,” said Tora.

What Tora wanted was a web site similar to the San Jose Rose Garden which at that time posted all hours worked by volunteers in a competitive format that encouraged volunteers to log their hours and compete against one another. However, that group had a fully dedicated web team to manually input everyone’s hours, and Tora didn’t have the manpower for that.

“I didn’t want to upload all their hours – no time for that. There had to be a way for volunteers to do it themselves,” said Tora. Tora knew she was asking a lot. Anca not only created a tool for this, but the tool, called Our Volts, is now available nationwide for any nonprofit to log volunteer hours for free.

“I wanted to go to the moon and she built me a rocket,” said Tora. “Now all my volunteer hours are in one location.” The number of hours worked is a critical factor in grant applications, with each hour worked being worth approximately $22 of grant money. That’s “social currency” with a vengeance. “If I need to talk to the City Council or to a grant organization, I can log into Our Volts and tell them exactly how many people worked where, and how many hours. I’ve got 3200 hours logged and that’s still only half of them, because some volunteers just go and work and don’t tell anyone.”

After taking workshops at Tech Liminal, Tora had developed a slew of new skills, which she used to promote park events and even to just share moments of wildlife. She posted regular updates to Facebook on volunteer activities, learned how to take photos with a digital camera and upload them to Flickr, and used both these means to keep in touch with an ever-growing community of local followers. She learned to create presentations in Keynote and upload online videos.

A strange synchronicity seemed to follow in Tora’s wake like a vortex. Anca nicknamed Tora “the Toranado” because it seemed that as soon as they would talk about a third volunteer – that person would walk right past the door! “I wanted to start a composting program, but it turned out that there are strict rules about the temperature of the compost,” she said. “Then another Tech Liminal volunteer created a wireless gadget that actually sends the temperature of the compost right to my phone! How cool is THAT?”

“Tech Liminal attracts people with a high level of both brilliance and caring. I mean, how many hacker groups are reaching out to municipal parks? The storefront feels more like a lounge, or a social space… or a library. It doesn’t feel commercial, like someone’s trying to sell you something. Ordinary people can go in there and get information without feeling threatened, or pressured.”

Tora also learned how to use Facebook and Twitter. “I could sent out a tweet when I was at the garden – and all these people would just show up. I never thought of social media as a great gardening tool before. And now – I’ve been promoted, and I’m in charge of 100 sites, not just 12.”

In addition to being the penultimate Santa’s Helper, Anca had the ability to make technology accessible and understandable in lay terms. “She can take all that high-value jargon and make it available to everyone. When I wanted that web site, she didn’t ask me questions like did I want it on Tumblr or WordPress. She just asked me what I wanted it to look like.”

“She never dumped jargon on me or treated me like a child. All these young techie guys would talk to me in this jargon, and if I didn’t understand it, they’d treat me like a child. Well, one time I started talking to them about botanical names and said, ‘Now you know how it feels.’ Anca has a natural ability to make people feel comfortable.”

“When I walk into Tech Liminal, I feel like a sponge. And I want to learn more… I knew nothing about social media two years ago, and now I’m pretty fluent in digital photography, social media, web sites.” In addition to pulling all this off and getting a huge promotion, Tora started a nonprofit. As if she didn’t have enough to do!

Then she went on to talk about her new and current projects, which include starting pollination and habitat gardens to teach kids about the relationship between pollinators and food. And, she’s raising monarch butterflies at home for a new endangered butterfly zoo.

“Here’s another example of synchronicity where all I have to do is think about something and it’ll happen. I was releasing three monarch butterflies in the park one day, and it just so happened that a teacher from the Oakland Environmental Sciences Academy just happened to be passing by. When I told him what I was doing, he asked me to wait and he went and got his entire class from across the street to come and watch.

“The kids were crazy about it, and they ended up taking more monarch caterpillars home and raising them as a class project. Who knows, if we get the kids interested now, maybe one of them will grow up one day to transform the Department of Agriculture, steer it away from big business and encourage more environmental activism.”

Tech Liminal isn’t just about computers. One of their hands-on projects included making special vests for Tora’s Dedicated Deadheaders – the Rose Garden volunteers. “They earn a vest when they become master gardeners. Of course, being deadheaders – I suppose it’s the connection between the Grateful Dead and all the roses in their art work – the vests had to be tie-dyed.” So, a crew assembled at the Tech Liminal headquarters, made 27 vests, and then retired to the Rose Garden for the tie-dye portion.

“I asked Anca for a Volkswagen… and got a Porsche… or maybe a Batmobile!” laughed Tora, a Tech Liminal evangelist to the end.

We’ve been working on Jennifer’s site and new blog.  I found this image really beautiful, especially how the chair curls match the carpet.