Tech in Motion: Philadelphia, an inclusive group of local tech lovers and enthusiasts, is having their first event on May 10, 2012.

This group of geeks will discuss how to improve efficiency and scaling in the cloud. They won’t be talking about rain. Weathermen should not come, unless they are interested in hearing Phil Ives talk about his 14 years of experience delivering mass appeal consumer facing technology or Don Norbeck talk about long term product strategy.

Cloud Reality: Improving Efficiency and Scaling in the Cloud Environment
Thursday, May 10, 2012, 6:00 PM

The folks over at SEOMoz will be hosting a (now fully booked) free event at the SEER Interactive “Search Church” on Thursday, May 10th. SEOMoz CEO Rand Fishkin and Wil Reynolds, Founder of SEER Interactive, will be leading the event which includes presentations by the local web marketing community of Philadelphia.

Earlier this month, SEOMoz announced the full speaker agenda after potential participants were invited to submit presentation pitches for review. The speaker lineup will feature several eight minute presentations by a selection of Philadelphia web marketers.

Topics will include link building, content strategy and web scraping amongst others. The speaker and presentation topics are as follows:

Wil Reynolds
Topic: TBD

Annie Cushing
Topic: Web Scraping for Code-ophobes

Eppie Vojt
Topic: The Linkbuilder’s Guide to Scraping Everything

Ian Howells
Topic: Using the Location Report in GA for Content Creation

Rachael Gerson
Topic: Developing KPIs – Top Goals & Pitfalls for SEO Projects

Purna Virji
Topic: Good Karma Link Building

Chris Countey
Topic: Everything You Need to Know about Google Authorship in 8 Minutes

Joanna Lord
Topic: Retargeting 2.0

Rand Fishkin
Topic: Manifesto of Content Strategy — (via SEOMoz)

You can still register to be on the waiting list but do not fear! Geekadelphia will be attending and covering the event.

Phorum, a new technology conference for business and IT executives, launches next Wednesday, March 28th. The goal of this new conference, according to the Phorum website, is “to explore emerging technologies as they transition to mainstream adoption and to educate executives on the practical application of these technologies in business.”

The one-day conference will discuss Cloud technology, and how it can transform the way companies “do business, go to market, and compete.”

For a new conference, the speakers are pretty impressive. The keynote will be delivered by Nick Carr, Pulitzer prize finalist and author of The Big Switch and The Shallows. You can scope out the full list of speakers and panelists on Phorum’s official website.

However, for a new conference, the ticket prices are pretty up there ($350 for full-conference ticket). If you’re part of the Philadelphia Startup Leaders though, you can score tickets for a sweet $100.

You can learn more about the conference on their official website.

I need constant stimulation. Any down time in stimulus leaves me antsy and fidgety. I’m the guy who checks email on his phone while stopped red lights, the guy who needs the TV on for background noise. Imagine my restlessness when I use the microwave. Time passes so much slower when I’m hungry and I can see a countdown of the time until I can house some Hungry Man frozen dinner. Good thing some University of Pennsylvania students created the μWave (pronounced micro-wave, mu-wave, or u-wave), a device that helps ease my hunger pangs by distracting me with Youtube videos.

The μWave is a combination of an Internet enabled tablet and microwave. When a user inputs a cook time, the μWave finds and plays a Youtube video the same length as the cook time. Brainchild of UPenn students, the device won first place in the PennApps hackathon securing the students $2,500 and the chance to present their hack to Google NYC.

The μWave is the classic “why didn’t I think of that” hack that solves a problem I never knew I had. By just knowing the μWave exists, I find myself more impatient than usual when I warm up day old pizza. Suddenly, I wish there was a Youtube video playing at work while I nuked instant oatmeal. It would make the office microwave line less awkward and I wouldn’t have to fish for topics to talk about. Waiting for the microwave timer to tick down is more painfully boring than ever.

Using established familiar technology means it is easier for the hack to gain consumer adoption. There’s no new cutting edge hardware with the μWave. There’s no new complex software to learn since nearly mostly everyone can figure out how to use a microwave. The incredible insight comes from the alleviating the minor distress of waiting for something to heat up. That small downtime is replaced by having Youtube entertainment beamed into my eyes while my popcorn is beamed with 2.5 gigahertz waves. The future is now!

I am first to admit that the premise of this device, fulfilling the need for constant stimulation, is far from a good thing. I’m ambivalent to having so much content readily available to consume through computers and smart phones. Sometimes it’s great because I feel connected with the world and what’s happening. Other times, I feel like I’m missing out if I don’t consume it all. The second I stand in a line I pull out my phone to check Facebook and Twitter. When I wake up in the morning I rollover and turn on the TV to find out the news and weather. There’s never a time when there isn’t something to do, when there isn’t something to consume. It’s great and horrible at the same time.

In order to consume and do as much as I can, I find myself multi-tasking constantly. There are only so many hours in the day and I feel like I need to cram as much into it as possible. I answer emails on the toilet, eat lunch at office meetings, and confirm friend requests waiting for the train. The μWave lets me heat up a Hot Pocket while watching a cat video. Essentially, it fulfills my strange wants.

These UPenn students are perceptive to notice how people use something as simple as a microwave and improve upon it. Some may see their hack as silly and useless, but I see it as insightful and clever.

Opened in March of 2011, Microsoft’s Technology Center campus in Malvern, Pennsylvania is one of only eleven MTC’s in the United States. The Technology Centers themselves serve as collaborative environments where customers can envision, design and deploy their product while being provided access to innovative technology, specialists and Microsoft staff.

The idea behind these state-of-the-art Technology Centers is to utilize Microsoft resources in order to shorten time-to-market production while conceptualizing the best solutions for customers. By integrating Microsoft products and technologies, companies can benefit from such a powerful organizational resource.

I had the opportunity to take a personalized tour of the Malvern facility. And while I’m far from being Charlie Bucket and finding a golden ticket in my Wonka bar, Microsoft did their best Willy Wonka impression when they gave this geek the keys to their Chocolate Factory!

As I was waiting for MTC Director, Bob Kuhns to begin our tour, I couldn’t help but notice how aesthetically pleasing the office space was. Even though the space had a sterilized technological feel to it, it still had lots of plant life, rocks and waterfalls to seem warm and inviting. All elements of life appeared to be represented and manipulated in some way or another. To the left from the waterfall were fluorescent glowing server racks and uninterrupted power supplies sealed off in a custom transparent room. It was perfect balance, I debated that maybe… I finally achieved Zen? The energy in this space was unmistakable and I could already begin to understand why people come here to help conceive their ideas.

Bob Kuhns, my tour guide insists that we begin in what is referred to as the Envisioning Center. He stresses that this room is where ideas finally become interactive. The purpose of this Envisioning lab is to demonstrate new technology and have the customer start interacting with the product for the first time. Here, Microsoft attempts to recreate the environment where we normally do work: the office, at home, at the airport, traveling, etc.

“The Envisioning Center gives the customer the opportunity to truly feel immersed into the product at this stage of the process while in a practical environment,” Bob stressed.

At this point during the tour, Eva Dickerson, Microsoft’s Operations and Community Manager joined us in the Envisioning Center where I asked her about Microsoft’s role in the Philadelphia community.

“We’re seeing an increasing interest in technology from children today, Microsoft’s role is to show youth the possibilities of this technology,” Eva clarified.

While actively participating with the Boys and Girls Club of Philadelphia, Eva doesn’t hesitate to point out that technology awareness can ultimately help cultivate future IT careers. Through cooperation with local school districts, Microsoft has also implemented organized technology-related school activities and has assisted in coordinating technology curriculums across Philadelphia. In addition, awarding various scholarships and internships to inspired young thinkers is a terrific way to encourage growth within the industry. Microsoft is clearly passionate about learning and it’s evident in my conversations with Eva and Bob.

Wrapping up my tour, it was my pleasure to spend a few moments with Brian Marranzini who is one of the Lead Technology and Infrastructure Architects at the Malvern facility to get some one-on-one Windows Server 2008 and Active Directory tutorials. I was also encouraged to drink more coffee (quite the lavish kitchen!) and play as much Kinect/XBOX360 as I could fathom. I suppose this was my Veruca Salt moment. Saddened that my time in the Chocolate Factory was up, I thanked the Microsoft Technology Center, Malvern staff and was on my way. But I didn’t leave without playing with a few of their awesome toys!

For more information on the Microsoft Technology Centers and Envisioning Labs, visit their official website.

When it comes to geeky documentaries, I am pretty sure it doesn’t get any geekier than a doc about the Amiga, which was THE computer to have in the late 80s and early 90s.

Well local Philadelphia filmmaker Zack Weddington is sharing his love for the Amiga with his documentary Viva Amiga, currently in production. You can also donate to his Kickstarter here.

I’m quite possibly the only geek on the site to have owned an Amiga during its heyday, and look forward to checking out this great looking documentary when its finished.

As a film geek and someone who is currently in producing a short film, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to take a day and learn something new about one of my favorite video editing programs on the Mac platform.

This course which runs 3 days and will be held every 2 to 3 weeks on Thursday, Friday and Saturday is meant to prepare students for Apple Certification in Final Cut Pro.

The classes are pleasantly small, which is great because there was plenty of time for the students to interact with the instructor and ask plenty of questions. Which when dealing with a complicated program like Final Cut Pro, is definitely a much needed plus.

Students learn by working on Mac Pros with footage from various television shows and standard promo fare. The day I attended they were using a sequence from Leverage to learn the finer points of honing an edit and editing a two camera shot. I think the hands on approach is a great one when dealing with these programs, where there is about 3 different ways to do one particular thing.

The class is a very intensive bootcamp approach to one of the most difficult programs on the Mac. The class is meant to help ready students for the Apple Final Cur pro certification test which they take on the final day of the course.

While I wouldn’t suggest the course to anyone looking for a more general look at Final Cut Pro, I would suggest it to someone with prior experience looking to get Apple Certified. This is due to the fast paced nature of the course and the high difficulty of the program. I see it as ideal for film students and people with some editing experience already under their belt. You can find out more about the course here.

Guest Post By Jared I. Greene

A well known torrent site – www.suprnova.org – recently decided to leave the torrent business and move to something less controversial. Suprnova.org owner Andrej Preston plans to completely change the direction of the content while keeping the same name. Preston has always loved entertainment, but recently decided that he no longer wanted to consume media, but also create it. Thus, his decision to change Suprnova.org to a TV website hosting original, reality-based short shows that are 1-7 minutes long.

The power of instant feedback in the internet drives the website, users will have the ability to make requests and comments on the show, what they’d like to see and what they wouldn’t. Preston says, “I want the content to be user inspired. I want all the shows to also be created in a way where people are encouraged to say how they feel about something and instead of just watching the show, participate in a discuss(ion) that goes on way after they have seen an ‘episode’.” Shows will give viewers a dependable, continuous source of entertainment, rather than random video clips (virals anyone?)

He says, “The goal is also to get community involved and be able to participate in forum like discussions based on the episode that they just saw” which will give viewers an interactive experience with the shows unseen with television, “I want the content to be user inspired.”

I know what you’re thinking now, a website that allows its users to request videos and comment on them, sounds like Youtube or Dailymotion to me. The new Suprnova.org, will not be “anything goes” as Preston points out, “It is intended for shows which are released weekly and people know what they will get instead of watching a brand new clip of a double rainbow (if you know what I mean).”

There are four videos currently in production, the website is planned to launch some time in January 2011.

Also, be sure to note that www.suprnova.com still exists, but it is clone scam site, it does not offer torrents; it just steals your money, and is in no way affiliated with suprnova.org, despite the fact that it looks identical to the old layout of suprnova.org. Don’t be fooled!

My friend Justin was observant enough to catch this and post it on his blog, and I was just so giddy with Apple glee I just had to share it.

Looks as if they are FINALLY putting up the Apple logo on their Center City store on 1619 Walnut St., and it’s about damn time. When this store will open has been subject to much rumor and speculation. All we do know is they have been taking applications on Apple.com for over a year.

This newest Apple store in the heart of Center City doesn’t bode well for me and some of the other Apple fanboys and girl on this site. Expect us all to declare bankruptcy a few months after the store’s opening.

Photos Courtesy of Justin Campbell Check out his blog here.

Microsoft Student Insiders interview Twitter Platform Team from Hilary Pike on Vimeo.

To end our journey to Las Vegas for MIX 10 in March, Tom Ziegmann and I sat in on Raffi Krikorian’s session titled “Adding the Where to the When of Social Applications” to learn more about our favorite internet obsession, Twitter. More specifically, we learned a bit about where the social is network headed, but still wonder why it’s watching us. It’s kind of creepy.

Thankfully, we later had the chance to ask him some burning questions about geotagging, which helps reveal exactly where the 7-11 is in which your friend just bought milk (you heard it here first, folks). More importantly, we discussed geotagging’s social and security implications as well just who is the real Raffi. Speaking of which, I need to form the search party!