Hi all,

You might be interested to know that David and Katherine have uploaded the slides[0] from their talk on Wednesday. They're in OpenDocument[1] format, so you might want to get a copy of OpenOffice.org[2] if your normal presentation software can't handle that format. You might also be interested in reading a number of more detailed introductions and guides[3] to some of the tools they mentioned.

[0] http://www.palepurple.co.uk/files/php-oxford-compsoc-talk-November-2006.odt [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument [2] http://download.openoffice.org/ [3] http://codepoets.co.uk/docs

This week, you might be interested in:

* A talk by Ian Livingstone of Eidos at the Said Business School (which is not actually anything to do with Compsoc :-)) tonight, * The Compsoc Termly General Meeting (with sausages) on Thursday, and * Murray Stokely (of Google's) talk on Friday.

I'll deal with them in reverse chronological order!

Google's Distributed Computation Infrastructure ===============================================

Date: Friday 24rd November Time: 20:00 Place: Denis Sciama Lecture Theatre, Denys Wilkinson Building

Murray Stokely of Google will introduce four of the key components used to build massively parallel applications on Google's infrastructure: GFS, MapReduce, Sawzall, and Bigtable. The talk will also describe the recent Summer of Code[4] program which several Oxford students participated in.

[4] http://code.google.com/soc/

If you are unsure where the Denys Wilkinson Building is, then http://tinyurl.com/yeqtzg should help! Also, Murray mentioned that he's bringing some Google swag "to give out to anyone that wants one at the talk".

Termly General Meeting ======================

Date: Thursday 23rd November Time: Sometime after 19.00 --- to be confirmed! Place: The Big Bang, 124 Walton Street[5]

Come along, hear the committee report on how the term has been for Compsoc, raise and discuss any issues facing the society, then eat sausages! The idea is to arrive at Big Bang, order food, and conduct the meeting while waiting for it to arrive.

I'm going to book a table later today, so if you haven't already said you want to come, push that Reply button!

You can read the minutes from past meetings at http://www.ox.compsoc.net/info/minutes/ if you like!

[5] http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Big_Bang

Ian Livingstone OBE, Exec Chairman Eidos and Director at SCi ============================================================

Oxford Enterpreneurs sent us the following:

Entrepreneur Seminar - Ian Livingstone OBE, Exec Chairman Eidos and Director at SCi

Wednesday the 22nd of Nov 2006 @ 7:15pm to 8:45pm

Renown computer games entrepreneur, founder of Lara Croft's Tomb Raider, Ian Livingstone's 30-year entrepreneurial career in games includes the founding of The Games Workshop and White Dwarf. He is now the Executive Chairman of Eidos and a Director at SCi Entertainment plc. SCi has a market capitalization of £330m and an iconic games portfolio including Conflict, The Great Escape and Tomb Raider. Ian will be sharing his thoughts on trends and opportunities in the games industry.

All welcome - please arrive at 7:15 for registration. The talk will begin at 7:30.

Venue: Said Business School Event type: OE Speaker Event Provided by: Oxford Entrepreneurs Email: events@oxfordentrepreneurs.co.uk Please Login at www.bouncewithit.com to book a place.

I don't know you actually need to book, or indeed anything other than what you just read!

Thanks for reading all the way down here! :-)

wjt -- Will Thompson, Oxford University Computer Society President http://www.ox.compsoc.net/