BCS Oxfordshire Branch January 2009

If you would prefer to read this email, or previous issues, online, the newsletter archive is at: www.oxon.bcs.org/eBCSOxon.php
January 2009

Dear branch member,

Very best wishes for 2009 to you from the Oxfordshire Branch Committee.

In this issue: details about our first meeting of 2009, on Thursday 22 January, early information about our February meeting and some other snippets including a couple of surveys you might find interesting. We do hope to see you at one of our meetings.


Thursday 22 January 2009: How to Solve IT Problems in 97% Less Time

printable meeting posterICT Departments are coming under increasing pressure to fix problems quickly and fix them for good. Our speaker will show how method-based problem diagnosis can find the root cause of a problem consistently faster than any other approach.

...more


Tuesday 27 January 2009: BCS/IET Turing Lecture 2009: Information Engineering and its Future

The annual free Turing lecture will be given this year by Professor Sir Michael Brady, who will explore the question "What is Information Engineering?", drawing on the experience of his 20 years work at Oxford University.

Summarising his knowledge in the areas of mobile robotics, computer vision, signal processing, medical image analysis and artificial intelligence, he will then examine what information engineering really means and the possibilities for the future of this field.

...more


Thursday 19 February 2009: Real World RDF Databases

Correction: We apologise that the version of this newsletter emailed to members in early January accidentally gave the date as 26 February. We apologise for this mistake and will emphasise the correct date in our February newsletter.

Those of our members who attended our 2007 Christmas lecture will remember Tom Ilube's talk on Identity Fraud and the measures his company, Garlik, is taking to help prevent it. In passing, Tom referred to the huge database of billions of RDF triples which underpins Garlik's Data Patrol service.

At our February meeting we will have the chance to hear from Christian Davis, Development Director & Steve Harris, Head of Architecture at Garlik about the design, architectural and development challenges involved in building such a highly scalable system, which powers qdos.com and foaf.qdos.com as well as garlik itself.

...more


Tuesday 3 February 2009: W-Tech 2009

W-Tech 2009, a free inspirational recruitment showcase on in London on 3 February 2009, brings together some of the most well-known employers with women already working, or who are interested in working, in the IT profession. Come along, get CV advice, meet employers, attend workshops, and get connected.

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Survey of the Highly Skilled – Oxfordshire

Professor Helen Lawton Smith has asked for input to this survey of the highly-skilled in Oxfordshire. Surveys should be completed by the end of January. A prize of a £50 M&S voucher will be give to a lucky entrant drawn at random at the beginning of February.

Any questions should be addressed to Professor Helen Lawton Smith, AcSS, Director of Research, Oxfordshire Economic Observatory, School of Geography & the Environment, Oxford University, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, Tel: 01865 766163, Fax: 01865 275885, http://oeo.geog.ox.ac.uk.

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Christmas Card Survey

Last year a number of members took part in a survey to gauge public opinion towards electronic Christmas cards versus the traditional printed card.

The results proved very interesting and such was the success of that survey that Prof. Nigel Linge of Salford University would like to repeat it this year, and would be very grateful to anyone who would take part in his short survey at www.christmascardsurvey.co.uk.

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Tech Stuff

The tenth Oxford Geek Night is on 21 January 2009.

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Branch Meeting Programme

Our full meeting programme for 2008/9 is on the branch website.

As usual, in late August 2008 we posted details to BCS members of the branch who live in the UK or mainland Europe. If you missed it, there's a pointer to a downloadable copy on our branch downloads page.

...more


Specialist Groups

Did you know that BCS members can join up to five BCS Specialist Groups online?

Just sign on to the Members' secure area, and click on "Specialist Groups" in the box headed "Manage your membership". You should then be able to join several Specialist Groups.

...more


BCS email management online

BCS members can manage all their BCS email subscriptions online by logging on at https://wam.bcs.org/wam/lsm.aspx.

...more


About this newsletter

Want to know more about this newsletter? There's an article on the branch wiki.

You can now subscribe to the text-only version of this newsletter. The BCS online interface doesn't support this option - see below for how to request it.

...more


Are we addressing you correctly? If you would like us to use a different or more friendly greeting, please reply with the text "%Email% greeting:" followed by your preferred salutation.

Regards
Adrian
Adrian Walmsley
Webmaster and email co-ordinator
BCS Oxfordshire Branch
BCS

Coming Events etc

Oxfordshire Branch meetings are open to BCS members and non-members. Unless otherwise stated, there is no charge and you don't have to book.

For other events, check the links.


13 January: BCS West London: Enterprise Architecture Maturity Assessment

14 January: BCS North London: Anywhere AnITime in 2009?

15 January: BCS Wiltshire: Forensic Computing

21 January: Oxford Geek Night 10

22 January: Oxford Internet Institute: The Story of Sophos

22 January: BCS Oxfordshire: How to Solve IT Problems in 97% Less Time

27 January: BCS/IET Turing Lecture: Information Engineering and its Future

3 February: W-Tech 2009

5 February: BCS Computer Journal Lecture: Computational Service Economies: Design and Applications

7 February: BCS Wilts Security Career Day

Full Branch Programme

Oxford Internet Institute events

Science Oxford events

BCS Events Calendar



Feedback
We'd love to hear your comments, views and opinions on this newsletter and on the branch programme. Please use the feedback form on the branch website.

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