iHull Social Media Training Programme Launched : Interested in Social Media?

"More than two-thirds of people in the UK now use social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, making them one of the best ways for businesses to communicate with their customers.”

HSBC, Knowledge Centre, www.knowledge.hsbc.co.uk

Commencing on the 4th August 2010, iHull - the University of Hull Institute for Creativity and Innovation launched its funded social media training programme.

This programme is supported by The Enhancement Fund which is funded by both Yorkshire Forward and the European Social Fund, co-financed by the Skills Funding Agency where eligible businesses only pay 40% of the course fee.  

The funding is available only till 15th October  and is open to all businesses and organisations in Yorkshire, with discounts being offered to public service and NHS.
 
The courses cover LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media activities such as podcasting, creating a video for your business and blogging with Word Press - including the all important SEO aspects of online publishing. There is also a course for developing a social media strategy that will achieve results for your company.

These courses have been developed for entrepreneurs, self-employed, SMEs, organisations and third sector organisations, to enable them to maximise the potential of social media for their business to build relationships, to gain business,  access information and share success stories and work.

The aim is that through these courses, to develop and consolidate networks of developers, producers, distributors, retailers, customers and consumers of cultural products and services which will establish the region as a world-class cultural hub.

So let's help iHull and Yorkshire businesses out and get the message to as many people as possible -- it is the new email, fax, telephone way of communication!

Courses are being delivered at the University of Hull, Hull and Scarborough Campuses.

Find out more about the Application Process.
Find out more about the courses, dates and fees.

HTML5 - The Future of the Web - By Jennifer Robinson (c) 2010

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Steve Jobs was recently quoted as saying "No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5" igniting interest in HTML5 and sparking numerous debates online in blogs and forums.

Jobs' prediction that flash is dead invokes memories of the famous Mark Twain quote "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated". While the debate rages on over the future of Flash, HTML5's destiny is assured.

It's not just Apple pointing to HTML5 as an internet revolution, Microsoft, Google, Opera, Mozilla, W3C and even Adobe themselves agree. In fact HTML5 may become historic for that very reason. It is arguably the only time Google, Microsoft and Apple have ever agreed on anything.

How HTML5 evolved was largely due to a disagreement with the W3C over Error Handling and the failure to embrace modern Internet applications. In 1997, W3C announced it would no longer extend HTML4 and saw XML and XHTML as the future. Draconian Error Handling, (Draco was the Greek leader that issued death penalties for minor offences), instructed that browsers were to treat all errors in XML as fatal. With 99% of web pages showing minor errors, and the lack of new features in XML, many webmasters ignored the new standard or continued to serve their websites as HTML, even when adopting XHTML. 

In 2004, a group of developers and browser vendors including Apple, Opera and Mozilla gave a presentation to the W3C on evolving HTML4 to include new features for modern web applications. The W3C rejected their proposal of extending HTML and CSS. Those interested in evolving HTML4 rebelled and broke away from the W3C, forming their own working group called WHATWG (Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group). At the core of the WHATWG beliefs was backwards compatibility and forgiving error handling. WHATWG's vision was to extend HTML features including form handling while ensuring that it would degrade gracefully in older browsers. While the W3C wanted the world to move to a new standard XML, WHATWG planned to evolve existing HTML to support a modern Internet.

In 2006, Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the W3C, recognized that the rebels at WHATWG had gained momentum and announced that the W3C would work together with WHATWG to evolve HTML. The W3C HTML Working Group was formed, working with HTML in conjunction with XHTML. HTML5 was officially born. In October 2009, W3C shut down XHTML2 making HTML5 the future of the Internet. The pirates had taken over the ship.

HTML5 marks a change in attitude from the W3C and seeks to support the diversity of HTML rather than just enforcement of web standards. It is an incredible achievement that HTML5 is backward compatible, meaning most of HTML5 can be used straight away albeit with some JavaScript hacks on semantics for IE. Ideas from W3C, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Opera and many other experts combine to pull the best bits out of HTML and browsers past into an exciting upgrade of the HTML language that promotes inclusion not exclusion.

In many ways HTML5 simplifies web pages, taking laborious tasks such as form validation away from web authoring and into the browser. The idea of making the browser do the work probably stems back to IE3, where Microsoft provided the first browser to build in CSS support. HTML5 introduces new tags for page structure and semantics of documents.

New markets in Typography are opening up with the implementation of "@font-face", meaning designers at last can transfer the visual appeal of print to the web thanks to advances in CSS and HTML5. Large JavaScript libraries such as MooTools and JQuery can be slimmed down as HTML5 transfers many common tasks directly into the browser. Client side storage, session storage and client side posting are set to change how we communicate on the web. Web applications such as video are embedded by HTML without the need of JavaScript. Sites will begin to move away from Flash to deliver their video and onto HTML5, especially when current codec concerns with Mozilla Firefox are resolved.

New HTML5 API's, such as drag and drop, are reverse engineered from Microsoft, ensuring that they are supported from the start by IE. What developers of HTML5 such as Ian Hickson (Opera) have done is to view the modern web and say, "OK that's what people are trying to do, how can HTML5 support that".

Unlike previous web standards based releases such as XHTML 1.1 and the never finished XHTML 2.0, HTML5 is backward compatible and is here to stay. With the involvement of people that have been critical of the W3C, HTML5 brings a standard based upgrade of HTML that is fully supported throughout the industry. HTML5 will genuinely future proof your site without the danger of your markup depreciating in a couple of years.

HTML5 timetable for completion is in 2022, which has left many webmasters confused as to its relevance now. However, any website can begin using the new specification immediately by simply changing the doc type to "", the lowest number of characters required to trigger standards mode in IE. Currently, only beta versions of browsers IE9, Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera support advanced HTML5 elements. However, typography "@font-face" is fully supported in current browsers. For more information have a look at Ethan Dunham's "FontSquirrel.com" and Jeffrey Veen's "Typekit.com". Other HTML5 features such as "Drag and Drop" and "ContentEditable" are also currently supported. You can follow the implementation of HTML5 in modern browsers at "HTML5Readiness.com" and "Caniuse.com".

Further information:

     http://www.whatwg.org

     http://diveintohtml5.org

     http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html

About The Author
Jennifer Robinson currently works as an underpaid freelance writer for Online Connect, a supplier of photocopiers and Document Management. Visit their website at www.onlineconnect.co.uk

Jasmine Cornes gets interviewed by BBC Radio Humberside's Helen Philpot

Did you miss the interview? Listen again here!

HEY! Girl Geek Dinners : BBC Radio Humberside Interview

imaginedpm's Podcast

IT'S NOW CHIC TO BE GEEK! GIRL GEEKS UNITE IN HULL AND EAST YORKSHIRE

Kingston-upon-Hull, East Yorkshire, 27^th April 2010

So you think that “Geeks” are not cool – that they sit in a cupboard somewhere, tapping away at their computers without a social bone inside them.  Well – if this is your impression of the millenium geeks – females studying Computer Science and who are in the business community in Hull and East Yorkshire will prove you wrong.  As the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones reported in 2000, it is now "chic to be geek."

HEY! Girl Geek Dinners joins an international community of women who meet regularly at Girl Geek Dinner events to socialise and share their passion of technology, gadgets and science without being put into “social outcast” land.  Women come together to enjoy some food and drink whilst socialising and networking with the city's brightest creatives, technologists, programmers, entrepreneurs, marketeers, PR professionals and digital girls. Men who support women in technology are welcome too, as long as they bring a woman “geek” as well.

The Girl Geek Dinners concept was founded by Sarah Blow, a software engineer for a medical devices company in London, in 2005 after  she attended a conference of 150 and only 7 were women.    These numbers are reflected at the University of Hull with females in the Computer Science department. Amanda Millson, Department of Computer Science, University of Hull confirms saying, "The number of female students who enter into computer science are outnumbered 10 to 1 yet they are performing as well as their male counterparts."

Jasmine Cornes, one of the organisers who is studying computer science tells us, “It's hard being female in a male dominated sector, especially when you need someone to talk to.  HEY! Girl Geek Dinners is about providing that support, connecting with women in business and hopefully, in the future, to go into schools and show girls who are interested in technology AND science, that it is cool and fun!  And that we are not freaks, nerds or dorks.”

The next event is being sponsored by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) who hope to recruit more ambassadors to their STEM Ambassador program.  Mike Cargill, STEM, “There are lots of young women who enjoy science, technology and engineering but are put off studying it due to the social stigma attached to these subjects.  Female students at the University and women in business, will hopefully creates opportunities to inspire young people, especially girls, in science, technology, engineering and maths.”

The next HEY! Girl Geek Dinner is being held on Tuesday 4^th May at the Koo Bar on Newland Avenue.

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For contact details see our Press Release Page

STEM Ambassadors Required :-)

The next HEY! Girl Geek Dinner is going to be sponsored by HETA, with Mike Cargill of STEMNet (STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) telling us a little about the STEM Ambassador Program,  and 

hope to recruit more ambassadors to their STEM Ambassador program. 

We're also very happy to hold the event at the Koo Bar on Newland Ave who are also going to support us by providing the beverages!  They have free wi-fi as well so we will be doing a quick spell on social media and all the lovely places that you can find and chat to HEY! Girl Geek Dinners.

The NEXT Hull Girl Geek Dinner Event : 4th May 2010 @ Koo Bar, Newlands Avenue

This is the second meeting whereby local business women (and men) and university students are getting together. We hope that we will be able to build this community to encourage ladies and supportive men, from schools, colleges, university and employment /industry to engage with each other and share their tech stories and support.

HEY! Girl Geek Dinners is about bringing together women who like science and technology or work within science and technology, which is pretty much everyone these days.

so what's a girl geek dinner anyway? -- click the link for more information about the Girl Geek Dinners around the world (yes - this is a global community!)

The evening will be informal, friendly and chilled. For just £10, you can enjoy some food, drinks and the chance to hang out with the city's brightest creatives, technologists, programmers, entrepreneurs, marketeers, PR professionals and creative & digital girls - we only have 30 places available for the event so you'll need to be quick!

AND Boys/Men? Of course you're welcome!

Why not join the Facebook Community to keep in touch or follow on Twitter @HEYGGD

Emma McGrattan confirmed as speaker at first HEY! Girl Geek Dinner for 2010

Emma McGrattan; is the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Ingres. She is responsible for the development and integration of the Ingres database and associated products and technologies. A leading authority in DBMS technologies, Emma has been instrumental in the ongoing success of the Ingres product line. Emma joined Ingres from CA where she held a similar position and was responsible for the Ingres family of relational database management products. She started her career with Ingres in 1992, and has held a variety of senior development and management positions.

Not only a talented engineer and manager, Emma is also a great communicator as transpires from her blog and many speaking appearances. Balancing intelligence with humour, she is known to have been referred to as a "firecracker" at more than one instance.

Born in Ireland, Emma earned a Bachelor of Electronic Engineering from Dublin City University. Recognized for having open source development at heart, she is also a member of the board of directors for the Eclipse Foundation.