Now that the “start your engine” cliché is behind us, let’s talk about Hack Dat; a code competition taking place in New Orleans on December 9th through December 11th.  Code competitions have become popular because they allow people to come together and create something with the help of others. Usually done in teams, the groups that is formed codes an application within a designated time frame for fame, money, or prizes (namely $1000 for first place and $750 for second place)

Hack Dat, will be a 48 hour code competition in which programmers, developers, designers and anyone else who is interested that can form teams to build a web application in order to win prizes.

Rules

All the rules can be found at http://hackdat.org/rules.html but the important ones to remembers are:

• Teams can be solo or up to 4 people
• No digital assets can be created beforehand (this includes ready to slice graphics, code snippets, etc)
• The application can make use of any non-paid and publicity available 3rd party web service
• Teams must be present on the night of Friday and the night of Sunday of the competition
• Judges will look at your work in the areas of completeness, usability, originality, and execution

More Info

If you already have a team in mind or if you would like to do it solo, you can register before the event.  Hack Dat will take place from December 9th at 6:00pm and last until December 11th at 6:00pm. The judging event will take place starting at 6:30 on the 11th at LaunchPad as well.

The actual event will be held wherever you are doing your work; in other words, there is no central location that you are required to be at for the duration of the contest. All we care about it that you show up for the judging event at LaunchPad at 6:30 on the 11th with an app in hand!

If you are a developer or programmer, chances are you've at least heard about Drupal. (If you haven't, its the third largest content management system available.) Well, New Orleans, we have the honor and privilege of hosting this year's Drupal summit, Drupal on the Bayou.

"It's a Drupal Summit, At a Casino, In New Orleans"

On December 8 and 9, developers from around the country will gather at Harrah's in the Central Business District, and Drupal is not playing down New Orleans' assets a single bit. For our of town visitors staying at Harrah's Hotel or surrounding accommodations, you are on the very edge of the French Quarter and the Mississippi River. There is no need to describe the French Quarter; to anyone, it is a place of legend. However, if you are looking for local shows and eats and avoiding touristy traps, the Historic Warehouse District boasts great bars and appetizing offerings at some of the best restaurants in the city. Github is even holding an event opening night at the Howlin' Wolf.

Visitors will also enjoy direct access to the streetcar and metro transit that can bring you to Frenchmen Street, Magazine Street, and more. The only sad thing I have to tell visitors is that the Apple Store is not located in New Orleans; this news surprises many, so come prepared or ready to take a cab to Metairie if you have Apple products in your arsenal.

The Details

Drupal and local developer communities have organized two days jam packed with tons to encourage participation. Keynote speaker, Angie "Webchick" Byron, kicks off the event on the morning of December 8. Byron is described as "a rock star in the Drupal World… Director of Community Development at Acquia, core co-maintainer for Drupal 7, recipient of the Google-O'Reilly Open 2008 Source Award for Best Contributor, co-author of the O'Reilly book Using Drupal, and an open source evangelist who lives and breathes Drupal." Not only does she boast amazing credentials in the world of development, but she also defies the stereotypical male developer role. It is rumored that she is an extremely helpful lioness.

Registrants can choose between different categories of sessions, or mix and match, based on what interests them: build, design, and business. The summit also offers a range of difficulty levels in sessions, from the newly trained to the wizened veteran. Offerings include Training Your Drupal Clients with Steve Burge, A Real Time Demonstration of Scaling Drupal 7 with Nathan Goulding, and many more sessions to fill your craving for Drupal studies.

Registration for both days is a measly $125.00, but summit participants are out for their own lunch. Student and funds are low? Register for free! Looking to learn Drupal or feeling like you need a refresher? LevelTen Interactive is offering preliminary training days before the event for a fee. On Monday, December 5, LevelTen will instruct novices in Drupal in a Day. Tuesday and Wednesday, December 6 and 7, delves deeper into Drupal 7 with a complete course on site building and best practices in developing with Drupal.

This year's Drupal on the Bayou promises to be an enlightening and promising summit for developers, local and from afar. For those of you who have not heard of Drupal or have had limited experience, you should consider taking this opportunity and attending Drupal on the Bayou to introduce yourself to new horizons. With Drupal's market share rising and boasting over 13,000 developers, Drupal offers a wide frontier of opportunities open for developers of any level to explore.

NODE’s plan focuses on three strategies: 1. Infrastructure development and the creation of a High- Speed Broadband Corridor. 2. Workforce Development and Training 3. Entrepreneurship and New Venture Development. With the creation of a High-Speed Broadband Corridor, it will open up communications across businesses and individuals located in that area with increased broadband speed. This could bring more creation in innovative applications. Workforce Development and Creation will help to begin to prepare residents for this emerging industry. New Orleans Video Access Center is a perfect example of proper training bringing individuals to work in New Orleans film industry. Also, with their strategy we could see more encouragement for individuals to start digital media business in New Orleans and learn this is an emerging, collaborative movement that is bigger than just the digital media incentives.

To stay in line with the long strategy plans to focus on business attraction, retention and expansion, and marketing. Of the most important in my opinion is the marketing. NODE’s goal is to position and establish New Orleans as a hub in the global network of the Digital Entertainment Industry. Operating at the intersection of the entertainment and technology sectors, NODE will build awareness of cluster businesses and of New Orleans as a hot spot of Digital Entertainment activity. What our Digital Entertainment Industry needs more than anything is a voice to make everyone aware of the talent and amazing projects in New Orleans. NODE has a great opportunity to establish this hub that could speak volumes to the world. NODE plans to focus on retention on digital entertainment companies here by providing them resources and developing opportunities to actively support the industry, which in term will aid in bringing new businesses to New Orleans.

To aid in their efforts NODE will work closely with the State of Louisiana Office of Entertainment Industry as well as other strategic partners. This project is an initiative of the New Orleans Business Alliance which is the official public private partnership for economic development in the City of New Orleans. Its mission is to grow jobs and wealth in the city with a focus on business retention, expansion, prospect engagement, negotiation, small business services, entrepreneurship and strategic planning. NODE ties directly into their mission by most importantly unifying and creating resources to thrive digital entertainment in the city.

The city was recently chosen to receive the fellowship grant for 2012. This grant will sent fellows to New Orleans, where they will work with city government, citizens, and the technology community to build a web application. The fellows will meet up in San Francisco in January 2012 to attend the Code for America Institute, and then proceed to New Orleans in February. In February, these fellows will learn how city government works, meet with community members, the developer community, and locals. For the next nine months, they will work to develop a solution to a problem area that the city has defined. Alissa Black, the Government Relations Coordinator at Code for America and the liaison for the New Orleans fellows sees a great opportunity to help the city move forward. “Our primary goal is to help build technology that makes government more efficient, transparent, and engages the community,” Black said.

What Will The Grant Provide?

During the application process of the grant, the city stated that it wanted a system to"allow community stakeholders to submit bulk information to the city about their neighborhood, view existing relevant city data, and receive statuses for each of the ongoing issues in their neighborhood". Many cities' already have systems like this in place. Residents in Portland, Oregon use a PDX Reporter Android App that allows them to report graffiti, potholes, plugged storm drains/inlets, street light outages, and park maintenance issues right from their mobile phone.

New Orleans wants to build something similar called the Batch 311 Reporting System where neighborhoods can submit lists of complaints and get back results that show the status of each, sending those that are not already being worked to the appropriate department to fix the problem. The focus will be on reporting lists of blighted properties, but the application will be adaptable to take in reports of broken street lights, abandoned cars, clogged catch basins, and more. Once the list of blighted properties has been uploaded, the addresses will be compared to addresses already in the pipeline for blight remediation. Those addresses not already in the system will be routed to the Code Enforcement & Hearings Bureau for inspection. The resident will receive back from the application the status of each property in their list.

How This Can Help Our City

The city has repeatedly said it would like to reinvest in a 311 service to provide residents with more tools that will make the city efficient. Many of these projects such as AskNOLA, NOLAStat, and eCity Hall are in the works. The Batch 311 Reporting System coupled with other public-related IT services could help citizens better communicate problems to city hall. “This competitive award and support will to allow us to enhance our work with neighborhood groups and individual residents in the fight on blight,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “I’d like to thank Code for America for choosing our city on this initiative. As we roll out 311 next year, the tools these fellows develop will continue to improve our customer service interactions and responsiveness with residents.”

The Design

I’ve reviewed many apps for New Orleans Tech, and some of them have been questionable when it comes to design. When this happens, I do my best to focus on the functionality of the app and how it will help the user. However, the Naked Pizza app is not only user-friendly, but the design is beautiful. It was built with design standards in mind: stunning topography, usability, and crisp images.

Start Screen

The start screen shows three boxes to begin your order, login for returning customers, begin making your pizza, or the option to learn more about the company. The app also asks you to turn on location services so it can select a Naked Pizza shop near your location.

Begin Your Order

When you begin your order, you can choose to start building, view favorite pizzas that are already built, and get extras such as salads, bread sticks, drinks, etc. Because I am not that familiar with Naked Pizza, I liked the “View Favorites” area. I was presented with six different styles of pizzas that had preselected bread, meat, and toppings. From there, I could select the pizza size--10, 12 or 14 inches--and proceed to checkout.

Recommended Pizza

Other Naked Stuff

In the “Other Naked Stuff” area of the app, I was able to choose from a range of sides and drinks. Selecting an item would allow me to add it to my current order or review my completed order once I was done.

Other Naked Items

Build Your Own

Picking my side items and having the app select a pizza for me was fun, but the entertaining part was when I had the chance to build my own pizza. Unlike most pizza-building apps, the Naked Pizza app uses simplistic 2D graphics during the ordering process. In my opinion, this made the app better than most because it was straightforward and very user-friendly. There are only three pages to build your pizza throughout the entire process. On page one, I selected my crust, sauce, and cheese. One page two I selected my vegetables. I noticed that there is a large variety of vegetable toppings, ranging from bell peppers to spinach. On the last page, I selected my meats--chicken, ham, hamburger, pepperoni-- and more cheese. Also, when selecting a topping, there is a sleek circle pop-up that allows you to place toppings on the left or right side of the pizza, the whole pizza, or enables you to add extra toppings if desired.

Selecting A Topping & It

Wrap Up

My two favorite geeks words are functionally and usability. The Naked Pizza iPad app excels at them both. If you are already a Naked Pizza customer, you’ll definitely want to use their app over and over. They just made ordering pizza fun again.

Systems Analyst- Loyola University

Computer Services Lab Support Specialist- Loyola University

PC Specialist- Children's Hospital

Sr. Database Administrator- Tulane Univerity

Senior Cognos Applications Developer- Tulane University

Desktop and Server Support Manager- Dillard University

Director of Technology Services- Our Lady of Holy Cross

PHP Developer- Susco Solutions & Touch Studios

Part Time Data Support Assistant- Via Link

Web Development- CRED, LLC

IT Manager- Zehnder Communications

Programmer/Systems Analyst- The Historic New Orleans Collection

Ruby on Rails Developer- Susco Solutions & Touch Studios

Computer Repair Technician- Remote/Business Support- C4 Tech & Design

Front-end Web Developer- Kickboard, By Drop The Chalk

.Net Software Developer- Archon Information Systems, LLC

IT Help Desk Analyst- Southern Eagle Sales

Interactive Web Designer- Radolo

TeachUp! Internship

In Louisville, Ky., they created a website called “Your Tax Dollars At Work” that allows residents to see where city revenues comes from, how money is budgeted to the various departments, where expenditures are going, city employee salaries, and the status of stimulus funds.  The city of Boston is well known for its Citizens Connect App, which is a mobile application that allows residents to submit problems such as potholes, graffiti, and other issues.

In addition to other cities, New Orleans is making moves to push the city and government into the 21^st century.  The city’s Information Technology & Innovation (ITI) department has outlined how it will strategically use technology to make processes more efficient.  They have acquired a steady budget and outlined various goals for 2011-2012 to meet challenges that the city faces such as customer service, data management, and innovation.  While the ITI department inherited problems from the past administration, they have been actively working to turn the perception of the words “technology” and “New Orleans” around.  They may get some help with this in the form of a fellowship grant from an organization called Code for America.

How Code For America Can Help New Orleans

Code for America By The Numbers

Code for America, a non-profit organization, enlists people who are in the tech industry to help with public service projects. For years, Code for America has helped cities such as Seattle, Boston, and Philadelphia tackle ongoing problems that communities face by placing web developers, designs, programmers, and even entrepreneurs to help build applications.  Code for America focuses on helping local governments become more effective through the use of technology.  The organization feels that the problem with governments is that they are saddled with legacy systems, bloated budgets, and a dispirited IT staff. According to their website, 84 percent of cities face financial difficulties, 92 percent of local governments have trouble meeting citizens’ needs, and 60 percent of city workers are retiring in the next five years.

The organization sees the opportunity to make a difference in New Orleans and in 2012 the city has the potential to benefit from their Code for America fellowship grant (CFA 2012).

“New Orleans stood out because its proposal reflected an understanding of the power that technology can bring to cities,” said Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America.

Interim GIS Manager Denice Warren Ross and Chief Information Officer Allen Square applied for the Code for America fellowship in February 2011, and the city was announced as a finalist in June 2011. In their application, they stated the technological challenges that the city faces.  One of the main projects will be to develop a light-weight application to allows community stakeholders to submit bulk information to the city about their neighborhood, view existing relevant city data, and receive statuses for each of the ongoing issues in their neighborhood. From this, they will be better able to advocate and support their neighborhoods.

What Happens Next?

New Orleans is one of ten city finalists for CFA 2012.  If New Orleans is selected, it will allow the city and Code for America to create a partnership by which fellows can come to New Orleans and work on solutions to the challenges outlined in the application.

Code for America finds the talent, places them in the city where they are needed, and lets these two parts collaborate on the best way to get the job done.  They are now taking fellowship applicants from the New Orleans area and around the country; the deadline is July 31. The organization is looking for those with multiple skill sets that have a passion to help change government and contribute to civil projects.  Selected fellows will receive a living-wage stipend, travel expenses, healthcare, and also the training and support to be positioned as a leader in business, public service, or both.  The recruiting process is conducted across the country by Code for America.  In the past, they have had 362 applications apply and have only allowed 20 spots for the fellowship with a 5.6 percent acceptance rate. This makes the applicants who are selected highly qualified, said Abhi Nemani, Director of Strategy and Communications for Code for America.

The fellows will meet up in San Francisco in January 2012 to attend the Code for America Institute, and then proceed to their respective cities in February. In February, fellows will partner with the city, learning how city government works, meet with community members, the developer community, and locals.  For the next nine months, the fellows will be working with their selected city to develop a solution to a problem area that the city has defined.  Alissa Black, the Government Relations Coordinator at Code for America and also the liaison for the New Orleans fellows sees a great opportunity to help the city move forward.  “Our primary goal is to help build technology that makes government more efficient, transparent, and also engages the community,” Black said.

Technology That Will Empower People

Hopefully, New Orleans is selected as one of the CFA 2012 cities.  Code for America fellows will be able to use their talents to create a platform, software application, or service that will empower the people of New Orleans.

The Content Group at BarCamp NOLA 4

This past weekend NOLADex.org was created at the the second day of BarCamp NOLA 4 as the groups Hack Day project. Traditionally, BarCamp NOLA is split up into two days: day one is for presentations and workshops while day two brings the group together to work on project for the greater good of the community. Last year, Hack Day has produced a project with 4.0 schools which helped them build a platform for educators to collaborate. Two year ago, the group also created nolaschoolvolunteers.org as a way to thank the many volunteers that have come to New Orleans to help rebuild our schools.

Screenshot of NOLA Dex

This year the focus was on creating something that would display the creative community and talented people that call our city home. The creative class of a city can include many things but it is sometimes defined as web designers, programmers, graphic designers, photographers & videographers, coders, digital media people, or anyone that builds and creates something. The site explains it a little better by stating: NOLAdex is simply a digital rolodex, a collection of the many talented people of Greater New Orleans. The group saw other cities that had produced simple yet beautiful website such as Portland (http://prtlnd.com) and Des Monies (http://desmob.com) and wanted to mimic this for New Orleans. The team split up into two groups: the content group and the developer group. The content group worked on images, display, wording, while the developer group worked on things like the code, layout, and CSS.

Tips On Using NOLA Dex

1. Visit the "Add Yourself" area of the website
2. Type in information such as your name, e-mail etc. You can add up to 3 hyperlinks
3. Special Note: To keep things uniformed and organized, make sure you upload a photo that is 300 px by 300 px
4. Select of the following options (Create, Build, Organize, Heal, Teach) from three areas and complete a sentence that best describes you
5. Sit back and feel good about adding yourself to the creative class of New Orleans

If you encounter any bugs or problems, please feel free to use the Contact Us form at the bottom of the NOLA Dex page. The site will continue to be maintained by local programming group GNO Code.

Update:  NOLADex.org now gives you the ability to sign in to your account to update your profile, photo, or links!

2008 Electronic Art Louisiana Impact

(Photo Credit: louisianaeconomicdevelopment.com)

Electronic Arts Inc. is an interactive entertainment software company. EA develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the internet. The organization started in 1982 with headquarters in Redwood City, California but has expanded globally with 8,000 employees worldwide as of March 2011. In 2010, EA had 27 titles that sold over 1 million copies, with such major sellers as Madden NFL and The Sims.

In 2008, EA placed its U.S. video game testing center at LSU South Campus location, named North American Test Center, which provides quality assurance services to EA studios across the globe. EA only anticipated 20 full-time jobs and 200 part-time jobs in which they quickly outgrew. EA was one of the success stories of Louisiana Economic Development, in EA received digital media tax credits. The Digital Media Tax Incentive offers 25% tax credit against production expenditures and 35% against labor expenditures made in Louisiana; which has provided great incentives for the company and will definitely bring about more substantial credit as the company grows within Louisiana. EA formed partnerships with the state of Louisiana and LSU to create a great example of how collaboration between the state and the private sector can work.

The organization currently employs 200 full-time positions and 200 part-time positions making a huge impact on Louisiana economy. With the move to the new facilities EA plans to drastically increase their employment numbers of 400 to 600 positions within three to four years.

Center for Computation & Technology Utilizes Cyber-fracture to aid in Louisiana Research

In conjunction with NATC will be the LSU’S Center for Computation & Technology, which will house instructional space and aid academic research in the areas of digital media and software development. CCT is an interdisciplinary research center focused on computational applications to aid research and develop solutions. The center is currently working on cyber-advancement, grid computing, coastal hurricane research, cultural computing, also computer systems science and engineering. CCT has access to some of the most advanced cyber infrastructure in the world including Louisiana Optical Network Initiative and Tezpur. Tezpur was one of the 50 most powerful supercomputers when it launched. LONI is a high-speed, fiber optic network that links the state’s major research institutions supercomputers, allowing collaboration on research that provides faster and accurate results. LONI is one of the most advanced optical networks in the country and has powerful supercomputing resources to help any academic community. The move to The Digital Media Facility will help further the technological advancements that the CCT is currently working on.

Digital Media Facility Impact

Construction of this project is set to begin summer of 2011 and to open by fall of 2012. The new building will consist of coffee shop, audio-visual equipment, conference rooms, auditorium, and classrooms in the three-floor space; Center for Computation & Technology will occupy the third floor of facilities.

The $30 million project is receiving funding from the state capital outlay budget, Louisiana Economic Development and U.S. Economic Development Administration. This capital outlay budget is $20 million in set-aside state construction dollars. $1 million of operating dollars will be funded by the Economic Development Department and $3 million from Federal Development Administration Grant. The new Digital Media Center will require nearly $6 million more to demolish LSU’s Sheep and Swine Exhibit, which has not been approved yet. EA will pay $465,000 annual rent, with Coffee Shop profiting estimated $13,000 per year, in which this deal will be active until 2018.

The project would positively affect Louisiana economy and bring more recognition to the creative culture and the technology industry being developed throughout the state.

The Website

Before the chatter starts on Twitter/Facebook, the rumor start about who'll be performing, or the mobile app get updated with new schedules, people flock to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival & Foundation website. The most revered prize? The Jazz Fest music schedule, also known as "The Cube". A PDF document that people pine over to see who will be playing on what days. But the folks at Jazz Fest have really stepped up their website this year: an interactive web schedule, live web casts, and a listing of every food stand and what they will be serving. My favorite feature would have to be the create a schedule area.

Adding An Artist To Your Schedule

I can create my own account (or login with my Facebook account) and create my personalized Jazz Fest schedule on the web. From there, I can "Like" certain acts or print/e-mail my schedule. Capitalizing on open ID login using Facebook is a plus because it also allows you to see which bands your friends have selected, gives you the ability to share your line-up, and easily post your schedule on your Facebook news feed. At the time of this article, Jazz Fest had 17,419 fans on Facebook and 12 of my friends created custom schedules. Hovering over an artist's name provided you with a pop-up of how many people "Liked" them, a link to add them to your own schedule, and which one of my friends added them to their own schedule.

The Apps

This year, both iPhone and Android users have their own app for the Jazz Fest and both apps are free! Made your custom schedule on the website? Not to worry...with the app you can sync your phone and take it with you. The app lists the schedule of every performer on every stage each day. There is a Jazz Fest news column and a map of the fair grounds. A cool feature added to the map is that you can touch on an area the map and it will take you directly to all the artist who are going to be performing in that area on that day. There is a section dedicated to all the food vendors at Jazz Fest and a searchable directory by name or type of food. There's also a button that allows you to take a photo and "Facebook It". Why the extra functionally when you might already have the Facebook app on your phone? I couldn't tell ya...but hey, anything to get people to talk about Jazz Fest, right? There also is information about airlines, patrons with disabilities, faq's, hotels, and transportation.

The Hashtag

The #jazzfest hashtag

If the website and the apps aren't enough and you crave up to the minute details about Jazz Fest, you're in luck. It's as simple as launching your favorite Twitter app on your phone and searching for the hashtag #jazzfest. You can also follow the official Jazz Fest Twitter account for updates.