Gnomedex 6.0 is now under way. I’ll be posting links to photos here throughout the event.

Photos from the Pre-Gnomedex 6.0 Pre-Gnomedex BBQ (Wednesday)

Photos from the Gnomedex 6.0 Networking Mixer (Thursday)

Photos from Gnomedex 6.0 Day 1 (Friday)

Photos from Lockergnome’s Museum of Flight Party (Friday)

Photos from Gnomedex 6.0 Day 2 (Saturday)

Photos from Experience Music Project Party (Saturday)

UPDATE: Here are more Gnomedex 6.0 photos from Ted Leung and Kris Krug. For even more photos, check out Flickr’s “gnomedex6″ tag.

I’m in Seattle this week for Gnomedex 6.0, which starts tonight. Last night, on the way back to the hotel, I stopped and shot some night photos of Seattle’s famous landmark the Space Needle, located in Seattle Center. The Space Needle was built for the 1962 World’s Fair. Here’s some more history.

Back in January I had written about how much I love EV-DO. Well things just got even better. I recently purchased the Kyocera KR1 Mobile Router, which is a 4 port D-Link router that has a slot for EV-DO cards and a USB port for EV-DO phones so you can setup and even share an EV-DO broadband connection through a wireless network or ethernet connection. I ordered it through the fine folks at EVDOinfo.com, who provide excellent up-to-date EV-DO news and info. The unit is fairly compact (the size of a normal 4 port router) and even comes with a vehicle power adapter. This really opens up the possibilities for how this can be used. In fact, imagine its potential with a portable power supply.

The setup was a breeze (standard router configuration wizard) and it worked with my existing Kyocera KPC650 card that uses Verizon’s BroadbandAccess EV-DO network. I had the router configured as an access point with a working wireless network in about 5 minutes. I was also able to setup WPA encryption, with no problems connecting to the network using both Mac and Windows. I did some speed tests from Laughing Squid’s San Francisco headquarters and I’ve been getting around 500-900 Kbps down and 100-120 Kbps up (the max for EV-DO is 2.4 Mbps, which is in fact possible in some areas).

Now my portable broadband network is ready to go. I just show up with it, plug it in and in a minute or so the wireless network is live. That’s all there is to it. All I need is power and Verizon EV-DO coverage. Have an old laptop without a wi-fi card? No problem, just plug it into one of the 4 ethernet ports.

I’m going to bring the EV-DO router up to Gnomedex this week and see if I can get it to work at the conference and maybe do some testing with distance and number of users.

First there was Scoble, then Om, then Gates and now my good friend David Beach is leaving Yahoo! to work for social search startup Wink. I heard a rumor that he was leaving, so I called Beach on his cell phone to confirm the news (as Scoble recommends, always call first before blogging) and Beach told me that he in fact gave notice last week at Yahoo! and will be taking on the position of Director of Product Management at Wink. Congratulations to Beach and to Wink founder/CEO Michael Tanne, who is quite fortunate to be able to add Beach to his team.

Beach had this to say about the move:

I love Yahoo!, it was a difficult decision, but i feel that Wink is doing something very special in the social search space, and I couldn’t turn it down. It’s an indie search engine…like the Sub Pop of search.

Beach has been doing amazing stuff on the web from the very beginning when he was the Art Director for the legendary Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA), one of the very first influential music websites. In 1995 he co-founded LVL Interactive, an early pioneering web development company, which is where I met Beach, when I worked there from 1997-1998 (Beach is my metaphoric bridge from Web 1.0 to 2.0). LVLi was way ahead of it’s time and produced the online magazine i-STORM as well as developing the first full website for Burning Man in 1996, before it was brought in-house by the Burning Man organization. Since 2001, Beach has worked at Yahoo!, primarily in Yahoo! Shopping where he headed up social commerce application development. Here’s Beach’s personal bio.

UPDATE: Beach has posted about his Yahoo departure on his blog.

BarCamp San Francisco began Friday night with a pre-party and will be running throughout the weekend. I’ll there off and on shooting photos.

Photos of BarCamp San Francisco Pre-Party

Photos of BarCamp San Francisco (Saturday)

BloggerCon IV takes place today and tomorrow over at the CNET headquarters in San Francisco. I’ll be there all day today shooting photos and there is a BloggerCon webcast and IRC channel if you want to follow along. Doc Searls is also taking notes which are being posted live to Scripting News.

Photos from BloggerCon IV

On Monday Digg will be releasing version 3 of their website, so tonight they had a small party at Anu in San Francisco to celebrate the occasion. Here are a few photos, including some screenshots from v3. For more on the Digg v3 launch, check out TechCrunch.

Photos from the Digg v3 Party

This was the 2nd Digg party in a week. Last week Kevin, Alex and the Revision3 crew had a Diggnation Episode 50 & 1 Year Anniversary Party.

Speaking of Digg, this post is up on Digg of course, so Digg it!

UPDATE 1: So, shooting photos at a Digg party gets you dugg. Friday morning it was the top story on Digg.

UPDATE 2: Geek Entertainment TV just posted their video from the party.

I’m at the Supernova 2006 conference this week in San Francisco shooting a few photos.

Photos from Supernova 2006

Jason DeFillippo is also on the scene at Supernova shooting, here’s his photos. Here’s more Supernova 2006 coverage on via Flickr and Technorati.

Microformats, a collaborative standards system for open data, recently passed the one year mark, so last night they had an anniversary party at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. Here are a few photos.

Photos from the Microformats One Year Anniversary Party

Here’s some more info on what Microformats are all about. If you are interested in getting involved, visit the Microformats wiki.

Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today, microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns (e.g. XHTML, blogging).

BarCamp San Francisco, the first actual BarCamp in San Francisco (the orginal was in Palo Alto), takes place this weekend. It starts with a kick-off party on Friday, June 23rd, which Laughing Squid is sponsoring, along with Automattic and Stormhoek. Then there will be two full days of BarCamp on Saturday, June 24th and Sunday, June 25th. All of the BarCamp San Francisco events take place at Microsoft’s San Francisco office. I know, how ironic for an open conference, but the people there, especially Nima Dilmaghani, have been really great when it comes to making their space available for small events.

Here’s more info on BarCamp San Francisco, including the schedule. If you plan on attending, be sure to add your name to the wiki. To get a better idea of what BarCamp is like, here are my photos from the two BarCamps I’ve been to, Palo Alto (August 2005) and Austin (March 2006).

This week is becoming San Francsco Geek Week, with the following events taking place:

MashPit San Francisco III (Tuesday @ Wharton West)

Microformats.org One Year Anniversary (Tuesday @ 111 Minna Street Gallery)

Supernova 2006 (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday @ Wharton West and The Palace Hotel)

dorkbot-sf (Wednesday @ Rx Gallery)

BloggerCon IV (Friday & Saturday @ CNET)

BarCampSanFrancisco (Friday, Saturday, Sunday @ Microsoft)

Oh yeah, and then there’s Gnomedex 6.0 next week in Seattle. This Summer is really starting to get really busy.

UPDATE 1: Chris Messina recently posted a similar breakdown of this week’s events as a Microformated list.

UPDATE 2: On the BloggerCon blog, Dave Winer points out that both SF Pride 2006 and a series of SF Giants home games are taking place this weekend, which should make things really intresting since all of these geek events are either near Market Street or in SOMA.

June’s dorkbot-sf takes place this Wednesday, June 21st at Rx Gallery in San Francisco.

Wednesday, June 21, 7:30pm
Rx Gallery (132 Eddy St, San Francisco)

FREE ADMISSION but donations to our hosts much appreciated

speakers:

Jeremy Fitzhardinge - Constellation
Yes, many of you saw this at the maker faire -get the scoop from jeremy himself (i’ve been waiting for about a yr now for him to do a dorkbot on it!).

Shannon Wright - Animating Principle
She will talk about her mechanical sculptures and their relationship to the notion of ‘agency’.

Michael Laine - Liftport: Opening Space to Everyone - A Space Elevator Presentation

open dorks:

Kal Spelletich and Anu Vikram - Frankenstein Theory of Robotics: a Survey of Robotics and New Media Art

Leila Hasan - The Gigapan (CMU and NASA’s Gigapixel Panoramic Imaging Electromechanical Device)

RoboGames 2006, which I blogged about earlier this week, is now in full swing. I went yesterday and shot a ton of photos. The event still going all day today, so if you haven’t been yet, you still have a chance to check it out.

Photos from RoboGames 2006

Here’s more coverage from Violet Blue, including video and photos. Here are more photos from a Eddie Codel and Bre Pettis.

UPDATE: Here’s a GETV interview from RoboGames with Monty Reed of They Shall Walk as well as some video of Megabyte vs Devil’s Plunger.

Here are some photos I shot at yesterday’s public opening of “Passage”, the amazing sculpture created by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito, which was installed on San Francisco’s Embarcadero by the Black Rock Arts Foundation. The new Pier 14 opened to the public at the same time. If you find yourself down by Mission and the Embarcadero, you should stop by and check it out.

Photos of “Passage” Public Opening

Last night Rubyred Labs founder and stuffed animal mutilator, Jonathan Grubb invited some friends to celebrate his birthday in an Airstream 310 RV parked in the middle of Valencia Street across from Ritual Roasters. Back in the cafe, Jonathan unveiled his latest creation, the “Religious Monkey”. Here a are a few photos. Happy birthday Jonathan!

Photos from Jonathan Grubb’s RV Birthday Party On Valencia Street

Legendary raconteur and showman Chicken John recently returned from his travels throughout western Asia. Last night he had a few friends over to his warehouse to show us photos and tell amazing stories about dilapidated Chinese amusement parks, severed Yak legs, rivers of garbage, his attempt at climbing Mt. Everest and how he tried to teach the Tibetans to make baloon animals. Hopefully he’ll be sharing these experiences online in the near future.

Photos from Chicken John’s Warehouse

Excerpt from Chicken John’s newsletter:

It is for no reason in particular that I decide to wear priest robes on the rest of the trip. I look ridiculious. People are staring at me and have no idea what to think. They just look like priest robes. It’s really a choir robe. Anyway, I’m wearing it and I like it. It’s comfortable. It’s keeping the mosqitos off me which is important as I’m not on anti-malarials and while I’m in Western China, there is a small chance of infection. They keep me cool and scare the shit out of children. I must look like Darth Fucking Vador. The robe is black and go past my ankles. The colar is like a priest color without the white middle part. It’s like a nehru colar. With my asian hat at a distance I look like something from the 15th century. My backpack has a pair of shoes hanging off it, a sleeping bag hanging off it, 2 jakets, a hat and another bag. I look like the top of a Gautemalan bus. I’m a walking junk store. I have enough balloons with me to start an international incident.

As an added bonus, eclectic San Francisco icon Frank Chu was there last night, hanging out after a hard day’s work spreading the word about the 12 Galaxies and so on. He was at the party without his trademark sign, jacket and sunglasses, just kicking back, enjoying a beer. Of course when I talked to him, he gave me an update on his latest media adventures. He’s still pissed at Clinton about something, but I forget exactly what it was.

Here’s a blog post that I wrote about Frank back in January, as well as some previous photos that I have shot of him over the last year or so.