Archives For Technology

MBTA introduces mTicket, but not for us (yet)

Jef Nickerson —  November 12, 2012 — 2 Comments

Update 11/27: An update of the App was just pushed out on iOS which now includes the south side stations, including Providence.

Apparently, Wickford Junction is not yet included. MBTA says it will be added in the next update.

The MBTA’s new mobile Commuter Rail ticketing app, mTicket, launched today, but only on Commuter Rail lines out of North Station.

We can expect the mTicket system to be available for trips on the Providence line starting later this month, and monthly passes for December will also be able to be purchased using mTicket. The MBTA has an FAQ to answer any questions about the system.

mTicket is available to download for free for the iPhone through iTunes and for Android devices through the Google Play store.

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I spent all night playing “Fart Cat!”

Jef Nickerson —  September 7, 2012 — Leave a comment

News arrived yesterday of the release of Fart Cat!; a new iPhone game by Summer Camp Studios, a group of programmers that formed out of the ashes of the 38 Studios debacle. So, I’m not into cats, and I’m not into games, and I guess I’m not really into farting either, but I decided to drop 99¢ in the App Store to see what it was all about.

Then I played it all night, stopping only long enough to update my bewildered iPhone friends on my progress (I’ve made it to level 15 in case you were wondering).

The game is amazingly simple and stupidly fun, you feed the cat what it wants to eat and try to make it full before its annoying owner pets it. You then tap the cat’s belly and it farts. What is not to love? The devlopers describe it:

Our debut title, Fart Cat!, began as a thought exercise and quickly evolved into a fun game through our newly adopted iterative development process. In order to transition out of the mindset of massive, 200 person projects to the (comparatively) light and fluffy land of iOS development, we needed a simple game concept that would not only teach us how to deliver on a completely new platform, but also show us how we wanted to work as a team! Fart Cat! fit the bill beautifully. It’s a fun, simple arcade game that game be enjoyed by all ages, and has plenty of room for expansion if the crowd demands it.

Seriously, download this thing!

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providence geeks

Providence Geeks – September 12, 2012

gcpvd —  September 6, 2012 — Leave a comment

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012, 5:30 – 8pm
AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence, RI
FREE (buy your own food and drink – it’s cheap)
RSVP at Facebook

faniumWelcome back everybody! After taking August off, it’s time to get our Geek Dinner on again.

In a small office on North Main Street in Providence, a young team of six developers and designers works long hours in their quest to shake up fantasy sports world.

Founded in 2011, Fanium has already launched a Yahoo! Fantasy Football companion for iPhone and Android. With over 1,500 NFL expert Twitter accounts aggregated, the app filters out unnecessary information, and only displays news that they need to know regarding their fantasy teams in real time.

Fanium’s Fantasy Football app serves as a perfect complementary “second screen” to a given NFL game, while always monitoring your fantasy football team.

At Wednesday’s Geek Dinner, 22-year old Brown senior and CEO Grant Gurtin will tell the Fanium story, demo their impressive app, and give a sneak peek into where this promising startup is headed.

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A Better World by Design Conference, September 28-30, 2012

gcpvd —  August 30, 2012 — Leave a comment

A Better World By DesignEach year, A Better World by Design brings a global community of innovators to Providence, Rhode Island to reach across disciplines and unite under a common goal: building a better world. Internationally acclaimed and led completely by students, ABWxD creates a multidisciplinary community; engineers, architects, industrial designers, graphic designers, educators, and many others come together to discuss their work and share their ideas.

This year’s conference, the fifth annual A Better World by Design conference, will be held September 28-30 in Providence, RI! For three days, speakers will share engaging stories, workshops will teach creative skills, and discussions will re-frame perspectives around sustainable and socially responsible design. In celebration of the fifth anniversary, there will be many exciting new forms of creative content as well as extraordinary opportunities to mingle with fellow conference-goers.

Join the Better World community for three days of collaboration and inspiration! Learn more by visiting the ABWxD website and registering today.

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We’re updating the theme on the site and fixing some stuff/moving stuff around. You can view the site and comment and whatever, but stuff will at times look wonky as we change and test various items.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if every now and then the site just completely goes down while we implement a change. Have fun watching our progress.

Posted by gcpvd on July 7, 2012 In Technology
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providence geeks

Providence Geeks, July 11, 2012

gcpvd —  July 6, 2012 — Leave a comment
Jerry the Bear

Jerry the Bear. Image from Sproutel.

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012, 5:30 – 8pm
AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence, RI
FREE (buy your own food and drink – it’s cheap)
RSVP at Facebook

It’s already time for the last Geek Dinner of the Summer (since we take August off). Can you believe it? So let’s do it right:

Providence-based startup Sproutel makes interactive toys for children with chronic illnesses, starting with diabetes, asthma and obesity. Their first product – Jerry the Bear – takes a high-tech, but playful approach to teaching kids how to properly manage their health.

At the July Geek Dinner this Wednesday, Co-Founders and new minted graduates of Northwestern University, CEO Aaron Horowitz and CCO Hannah Chung (recently named one of Inc. Magazine’s “15 Women to Watch in Tech”) will tell the story of Sproutel, introduce you to Jerry the Bear, and share their big plans for helping millions of kids take care of themselves.

This is not to be missed!

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Providence Geeks, June 20

gcpvd —  June 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

geeks-240Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 5:30 – 8pm
AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence, RI
FREE (buy your own food and drink – it’s cheap)
RSVP at Facebook

Sick of trying to keep track of who-owes-what with your roommates, friends, colleagues, etc? How about of the resulting awkward conversations?

Fear no more. It’s Providence-based Splitwise to the rescue.

By perusing its mission to take the pain out of sharing expenses, the Splitwise team has made a national name for themselves as “fairness experts.” Thousand of users currently rely not only on Splitwise’s awesome mobile & web-based tracking tools, but also on their sage advice about to equitably split expenses.

At the June Geek Dinner this coming Wednesday, CEO Jon Bittner will tell the history of Splitwise, give an overview of the startup today, and demo – for the first time ever – their new web platform.

WooHoo!!!

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Epic webhost #FAIL

gcpvd —  June 10, 2012 — 4 Comments

Internet

If you tried to visit our site at any time since Tuesday morning, you were likely met with an error message of some sort, or a temporary message about our site being down. Temporary turned into five days as our hosting company, Dreamhost failed us spectacularly this week.

If you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, you got the play by play of our annoyance and desperation through the week as we submitted support ticket after support ticket with no response other than cryptic “we’re working on it” messages from reply robots.

The short story is, the server our site is hosted on had a hardware failure on Tuesday morning. Dreamhost attempted to move everyone on that server to new hardware, but that process failed, forcing them to fix up the old server, restore from backup, then move to a new server. While our site was half moved from one server to another, then back, then restored from backup (kind of), various things within the WordPress install reported back failure errors to anyone trying to visit the site.

Over the days we received various automated replies about things supposedly being back “tomorrow” and some people having service, but slow. With our random WordPress error messages and our inability to get a handle on where exactly Dreamhost was in their process (since we never got a human response to any of our requests for information), we were left to twiddle our thumbs and fume.

Continue Reading…

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NECN Video: Worcester, Mass. transit authority switches to Charlie Cards

gcpvd —  May 3, 2012 — 3 Comments

New England Cable News:

On Monday, the WRTA switched from paper tickets to the Charlie Card.

“It’s convenient, effective and efficient, but whenever you have any sort of change, there’s going to be some problems in the transition but so far most people seem to like it,” said WRTA’s customer service employee Mike Moore.

It’s the same pass that’s used on the MBTA.

Riders can load money onto the card or they can purchase a monthly pass.

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Providence Geeks, Feb. 15

gcpvd —  February 13, 2012 — Leave a comment

Providence Geeks Dinner

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012, 5:30 – 8pm
AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence, RI
FREE (buy your own food and drink – it’s cheap)
RSVP at Facebook

Lullabot – arguably the world’s top Drupal consultancy – is one of the Providence tech scene’s best kept secrets. From their headquarters in the Jewelry District, Lullabot has become an internationally distributed team of 36 and growing (fast).

Not content with that, Lullabot is now expanding into “product.” Built originally for Drupalize.me – their online school for learning Drupal & JQuery – Videola is an enterprise-strength video management & delivery platform. Think build-your-own Netflix-style streaming video web site.

At the February Geek Dinner this coming Wednesday, Lullabot/Videola CEO (and former Orbit frontman) Jeff Robbins (@jjeff) will tell the Lullabot story, give a Videola demonstration, and share the vision for where Lullabot is headed next.

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