Steve Gotz, of alt|start fame, will be giving a presentation on starting a business with the alt|start program and the benefits for students and researchers in terms of focus, one-to-one guidance and advice and funding that all budding entrepreneuers can benefit from!

He’ll also be speaking on how university doesn’t prepare you for the real world, and about some of the skills you’ll need to bridge the gap between education and employment/entrepreneurship.

The presentation starts at 1.00pm in Lecture Hall 3. Bring you lunch and your friends! Entrance is free courtesy of the NCI Computing Society

Hello All,

In continuation of our series of events, bringing you, the students of NCI the most valuable and up to date information from industry leaders, we present our second in the series of talks:

“Best Practice Software Development & Web Entrepreneurship”
(Key skills you should know)

with Qamir Hussain

Topics to be covered:
* Web 2.0 technology
* Source Control Management (SC)
* Design Patterns
* Web Entrepreneurship
* More

The talk will be approximately 45minutes with time left over for Questions and Answers afterward.

Attendance enters you into a free draw. Last week we gave out two copies of Microsoft Visual Studio, Windows Server 2008 and MySQL Server along with USB Keys and a leather jacket. Similar prizes will be available for this event where possible.

Again, I’d like to remind you that the larger our events the more we can offer you. This event is free, but the larger our attendance the more can offer you in future, including LAN Gaming event (with game prizes), Project Hosting on a dedicated society server and more.

We hope to see you there.

Best Regards,
Sean Nicholls
NCI Computing Society President

Footnotes:

If you would like to contact Martha Rotter, her email address is martharo@microsoft.com. Additionally, if you have any questions on XNA or would like to see what some students have done in past years with XNA, you can contact us via the contact page.

The third year project I mentioned that we made is called SmartGate and is available to download free.

We will continue to book events for the NCI Computing Society, we have Qamir Hussain coming in for a talk next week (more details to follow) and are lining up speakers and events after that, but we are really interested in your input. Is there a something you would like us to cover, an event (social or technical) you’d like us to hold? Please tell us.

Resources:

• XNA Creators Club Online
• Official XNA Team’s Blog
• Michael Klucher’s Blog
• Shawn Hargreaves Blog
• XNA Ireland User Group
• XNA UK User Group
• ZiggyWare XNA Community
• SKA Studios

Hello All,

This Wednesday, October 7th 2009, Martha Rotter from Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Group in Microsoft Ireland will be holding a talk in lecture hall 3 from 1pm to approx. 3:30pm in The National College of Ireland.

The talk will cover important topics such as Microsoft technologies, C#/XNA Game Development and will touch on Microsoft DreamSpark and ImagineCup competitions.

There will also be spot prizes of Microsoft software including Microsoft Visual Studio and maybe even an Xbox game!!

If you have any interest in computers, programming or technology in general and/or want to help support the NCI Computing Society, we all hope to see you there in Lecture Hall 3 in NCI on Wednesday 7th, entrance is free to all students and faculty.

Remember, we’re the first Computing Society NCI has ever had, so we appreciate your support, so please show it by turning up – the bigger our events, the more we can offer you in the future!

Next week we will have Qamir Hussain from QHC Consulting who will give a talk on Web 2.0, Source Control Management (SCM), Design Patterns and various other topics of great interest to computing students.

Sean Nicholls
NCI Computing Society President

First off I’d like to thank everyone that took the time to come to our stall at the Clubs & Societies sign-up yesterday. We got a pretty healthy response from everyone but If you couldn’t make it or are otherwise interested send us your name, student number and email address with the heading ‘Sign Me Up’ on our contacts page, registration is free for students.

Now onto the good stuff…!

Anyone that comes to an NCI Computer Society event will be in with a chance to win some seriously nice swag, including: messenger & laptop bags, Frisbees, usb keys, cd/dvd cases and even copies of Microsoft’s Windows Server Launch Kit which includes: Microsoft Visual Studio Standard, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008.

did I mention Frisbees? lots and lots of Frisbees

So if you like technology, computers or even just the chance of getting something for nothing, come to the NCI Computer Society events. There will be announcements, posters and of course we’ll keep you updated right here on this blog in advance of all events.

Hi Everyone,

Next Tuesday (15th September) is Clubs & Societies Signup Day. All Day. That means if you want to join the NCI Computer Society, which is completely free, just come up to our stall and we’ll join you up there and then.

We have a number of things planned for the coming year, including having Martha Rotter (Developer and Platform Group in Microsoft Ireland) come in to do a workshop or two on Microsoft Live, XNA and C# or whatever else you might have questions for her.

Most of all though we want your input on what you want to see in the coming year, project workshops or tutorials or even fun gaming events, let us know!

Just to wrap things up, if anyone is interested in helping the Society or being part of the committee, we are looking for two more members – Public Relations Officer and Treasurer. If you think you can add some value to the society, please consider helping us make the NCI experience a hell of a lot better.

Ps.
Yes we are thinking about a LAN Gaming tourney, with prizes for winers, show us your support and we just might make it a reality!

Regards,
Sean Nicholls
NCI Computer Society President

" A wiki is a collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone with access to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. "

The Computing Society has a brand spanking new Wiki available for members. The wiki will be a place where members can collaboratively create articles of interest to the rest of the society. We will also post the minutes of any meetings and any society business relevant to members in the wiki.

Naturally, because the wiki contains members-only information, it will be necessary for NCICS members to login before accessing the wiki content. In addition, we would remind you that all members of NCICS have signed a usage agreement and are required comply with it to access any NCICS provided resources.

There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition!

Lectures and workshops are all well and good, but everyone needs a bit of time off now and then and what better way to cool off than by playing Counter-strike or Halo competitively against your class mates for bragging rights and prizes.

But we need your support, its all well and good us organising these events for everyone but if we want to get sponsorship for food or prizes, we’re going to need to get everyone whos interested to show their support.

Join the various facebook, bebo and linkedin groups! Theres also a twitter.

Keeping you upto date on the latest technology, NCICS will be presenting workshops and lectures on Java, C# and XNA, Ruby on Rails, Objective-C, Unix/Linux and many more exciting topics from September onwards.

If there is any subjects your particularly interested in, whether it be how to build and maintain your own custom PC, Robotics and AI or even computer fairs, we’re open to all good ideas that come our way. Please contact us with any ideas you have.

Have you taken a look at our News section lately? Its crammed full of some of the latest and greatest tech news gathered from all over the web.

We regularly post news items whenever we see or hear about something we think is influential, game-changing, important for graduates to know or just plain gorgeous geek porn to behold (I think I’m in love with the Peggy 2 RGB).

If you see or hear about something news worthy, tell us on twitter! @ncicompsoc