November 2013 Summaries

Last Sunday's third annual dodgeball tournament was a successful and enjoyable event, raising significant funds for various charitable causes. Heroku emerged victorious, winning their second consecutive OctoTrophy, with numerous companies such as Constant Contact, Twilio, Atlassian, and Airbnb participating in the spirited competition. The event supported four nonprofits: Streetside Stories, Second Harvest, Year Up, and Family House. The World Dodgeball Society provided exceptional refereeing, while SportNGIN facilitated the tournament’s scheduling and scoring. Participants enjoyed culinary treats from Slider Shack and Garden Creamery, adding to the day’s festivities. The tournament highlighted community involvement and the spirit of charity.

A recent security incident on GitHub involved the compromise of user accounts with weak passwords through a brute force attack using nearly 40,000 unique IP addresses. In response, GitHub reset passwords, revoked personal access tokens, OAuth authorizations, and SSH keys for affected users, urging them to create stronger passwords and review their accounts for suspicious activity. The platform is taking further steps, such as implementing additional rate-limiting measures and banning the use of commonly-used weak passwords for logging in. Users with strong passwords or two-factor authentication may have also observed failed login attempts, highlighting the importance of maintaining robust account security. GitHub emphasizes the necessity of strong passwords and two-factor authentication while continuing to investigate the incident and monitor for unauthorized activity.

GitHub encourages its users to participate in a short survey to share more about themselves, aiming to gather insights on how to enhance the platform's user experience. Authored by Chrissie Brodigan, the message highlights the diverse community on GitHub and expresses a desire to connect beyond physical events like conferences or charity activities. It invites users to contribute to the platform's improvement by providing feedback and encourages them to spread the word to others.

Kelly Watkins and colleagues, including @brntbeer, @pmn, and @brianburridge, are attending Visual Studio Live! in Orlando. They are inviting attendees to join them for a social gathering at Ember on Wednesday, November 20, at 8:00 PM, where they will be offering drinks to those who come.

Fall has arrived in the Northwest, coinciding with the gathering of Microsoft MVP Summit attendees, but the event welcomes all developers, not just MVPs, to join Phil Haack, Brendan Forster, and Jesse Liberty for an evening of pool, conversation, and drinks. The meetup is scheduled for November 19th at 8:00 PM at Parlor Billiards, located on the third floor of Lincoln Square in Bellevue, WA.

GitHub has historically supported global developer communities through events such as drinkups, conferences, and training sessions, but had limited exposure to the growing tech scene in sub-Saharan Africa. To explore and engage with these communities, GitHub representatives partnered with The AfricaHackTrip, a group of developers and designers from Europe, to sponsor and participate in hackathons and BarCamps in four African cities. Their journey began in Kigali, Rwanda, where they observed local innovations, including the use of Arduinos for agricultural solutions and challenges with internet connectivity. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, they noticed collaboration among tech hubs and hosted a well-attended Git & GitHub workshop. The trip continued in Nairobi, Kenya, where they visited the DEMO Africa conference and tech hub iHub, meeting startups and organizations like Ushahidi, BRCK, and Akirachix, which empowers underprivileged women by teaching them programming skills. GitHub remains committed to supporting developer communities in Africa and the developing world, offering sponsorship and collaboration opportunities for tech events and projects.

The third annual OctoCat Dodgeball Invitational is set to take place on Sunday, November 17, at the Gene Friend Recreation Center in SOMA, followed by an after-party at Lucky Strike, where attendees can relax with billiards or bowling and celebrate sportsmanship. The event supports charity beneficiaries such as Family House, Year Up, Second Harvest, and Streetside Stories, and features a roster of teams competing, with the final eliminations broadcasted on big screens starting at 5 pm. While those unable to attend can still participate by donating to support the charities, attendees are encouraged to RSVP for the evening which promises both competitive action and community spirit.

GitHub has introduced a new feature called the Explore email, which allows users to stay updated with popular and trending projects on the platform without needing to visit the website daily. As GitHub approaches 10 million repositories, the volume of activity continues to grow, making it challenging for users to keep track of new and interesting projects. The Explore email offers a convenient solution by delivering updates directly to subscribers' inboxes on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, according to their preferences. This new feature enhances user engagement by providing an easy way to stay informed about developments within the vast GitHub ecosystem.

A group is planning a meetup in Toronto to spend time with local figure @raganwald and wishes to connect with some of their superfans. The gathering is scheduled for Thursday, November 14th, starting at 7 PM, and will take place at The Rhino Restaurant + Bar located in Parkdale at 1249 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. The event is organized by Reg Braithwaite, known by the handle @raganwald.

Join the next installment of the Passion Projects talk series on Thursday, November 14th, featuring Ligaya Tichy, known for her expertise in the early stages of startups. With a track record of launching new markets for Yelp and building the Airbnb community from scratch, Ligaya now advises and invests in companies like Skillshare, Threadflip, and Microryza. The event will take place from 6:30 to 8:00 pm at GitHub HQ in San Francisco, CA, and due to limited space, registration is required to attend.

John Britton and Matthew McCullough are organizing a series of events across Japan in November, featuring talks and social gatherings aimed at both newcomers and experienced users of Git and GitHub. The events will include two main talks: "Git and GitHub Foundations," which will cover the basics of distributed version control and practical usage tips, and "Git Internals: Graphs, Hashes, and Compression," which will delve into the underlying technical mechanisms of Git, such as algorithmic processes and data structures. Each talk will be conducted in English with live Japanese translation, and registration is required for participation. The talks will take place in various cities, including Tokyo, Fukuoka, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nagoya, with accompanying drinkups to be announced later.