So I spent the afternoon yesterday trying to repair a leak in the Injen Super SES Exhaust system that was on the 350z when I purchased the car back in January. Sometime in March the exhaust started leaking and it has slowly gotten worse. Normally I would of just scrapped it and put something else on, but with all the life changes (new job, moved to California, trying to sell the house in Colorado, prepping for our first child) we’ve been going through the budget hasn’t allowed for that at this point.

If you haven’t been reading my blog lately (what’s the matter with you?) you may have missed the couple of blog posts about the upcoming St. Louis Day of .NET that is going on in St. Louis. If you’ve missed those posts, check them out.

In conjunction with that event (which is on a Friday the 20th and Saturday the 21st) we’ve been planning another event more specific to DotNetNuke in conjunction with the local user group. We are glad to announce the next DotNetNuke Hackathon. As with the previous Hackathon events (held in Orlando and Washington DC) we will be broadcasting this event live online, and encouraging people both in St. Louis and around the world to get involved.

This event will be held at the Steady Rain offices (a DotNetNuke Gold Partner) in St. Louis Missouri on August 18th, 2010 at 6pm. This event will be streamed live online, visible on the DotNetNuke Hackathon page so you don’t have to be local to be part of the presentation and event.

The basic premise of the Hackathon is this, we want to help stimulate your minds into doing some mobile development for DotNetNuke. To do that, we are going to be presenting a sample DotNetNuke mobile application, an application that will run on the Android Smartphone OS. We will be demonstrating how you can use some common development tools such as Appcelerator’s Titanium Developer to get up and running on developing mobile applications that interact with DotNetNuke and work on various mobile devices.

As with the previous two Hackathon’s there will be an associated development contest following the event on the 18th. We aren’t limiting you to any specific project type or platform for the contest, but do suggest that you develop an application for either Android, IPhone or Windows Phone 7 devices. What your application does is completely up to you, the idea behind a Hackathon is to create a quick application that is easy to build and shows off unique functionality. You don’t have to be one of the top notch developers in the DNN community to enter or even win, so start thinking of ideas for your project, there’s no reason you can’t start on the development right now.

We will be announcing more details on the contest here in the next few days.

Prior to the Hackathon myself and Joe Brinkman will be blogging to get you up to speed before the event on mobile development, highlighting some of the tools you can use. We are also going to be blogging about some potential project ideas for those of you who might need some inspiration to create an entry for the Hackathon contest. We will also likely be posting some sample web services for a few key DNN datasets that you might find useful in your applications, as well as highlighting how you can use other tools such as iWeb to interface with DNN data from a mobile device.

Stay tuned as we get more information together on the Hackathon page here on DotNetNuke.com

Right now here are some of the pertinent details

Topic: Mobile DotNetNuke

Date: August 18, 2010

Time: 6pm

Location: Steady Rain Offices, 716 Geyer Avenue, Suite 400 St. Louis, Missouri 63104-4073 (map)

Contest submission deadline: TBD, likely 8/26/2010

Prizes: To be announced

More ...

It looks like www.OurColoradoLife.com and of course the precursor, www.going2colorado.com are quickly coming to an end. As of yesterday we have a signed contract on our house in Parker Colorado. Hopefully by this time next month we'll be free and clear of the house and able to move on with our lives here in California.

Myself and a buddy headed down to Plugin2010's public night down in San Jose this evening. To be honest, there wasn't much to be learned there, though there were a few interesting things to see.

They had the usual blue Leaf that has been around California a few times now (I've tracked it down and photo graphed it twice), though tonight was a little different. There were no red ropes this time, so people could get right up on the car. It was mostly unlocked, but they weren't too happy when people opened the doors (I swear I didn't! but saw a few try). The car was cleaner than when it was out on display in the open as I've seen it before, though had a number of finger prints on it by the end of the night. They also had the various accessory lights on, see some of my photos for those.

Nissan also had a battery pack on display, that was cool to see. 
 

In addition to the Nissan info, there was an AV Charger there on display, I got a number of photos from that.
  



In addition to the AV charger on display there were a TON of other chargers available. I talked to one of the Coulomb Tech reps for a bit (I think he was a founder of the company) and he seemed to talk like their charging units (mainly the free ones) would only be made available to the GM/Ford/Smart car buyers, not to Nissan Leaf buyers, but we'll see how that plays out. Since they are local I am hoping to reach out to them again soon and see what more info they can provide.

Check out all of the rest of the photos posted from the night

Good news today on the Nissan Leaf front! They bowed to the pressure from all of us at LeafOwner.com (kidding of course) and went with a 8yr 100k mile warranty for the leaf!
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/07/27/...

PRESS RELEASE

Nissan Announces National Market Roll-Out Plan for Zero-Emission Nissan Leaf

- More than half of 17,000 reservations located in initial launch markets -

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today, nearly 17,000 future Nissan Leaf drivers are learning when the world's first affordable all-electric, zero-emission vehicle will be available in their markets. Consumers who have placed reservations for the Nissan Leaf received a communication today regarding market timing and next steps in ordering the all-electric vehicle.

Nissan Leaf first will be available to consumers in December, in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee. These areas are home to The EV Project – the largest electric vehicle and infrastructure deployment ever undertaken. The EV Project is a result of a partnership with charging infrastructure provider ECOtality and partially funded by a grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy. Customers in these first five launch states, who represent more than 55 percent of total Nissan Leaf reservations, will be able to place firm orders for the Nissan Leaf starting in August.

Nissan Leaf will be introduced to Texas and Hawaii shortly thereafter, in January 2011; North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina and Alabama follow in April 2011; and be rolled-out to the balance of the nation beginning in Fall 2011 with availability in all markets nationwide by the end of that year.

"We are pleased to see so many people making a choice for a zero-emission future by placing reservations for the Nissan Leaf," said Brian Carolin, senior vice president, Sales and Marketing, Nissan North America. "Consumer feedback and market readiness have been key drivers in developing our phased rollout. Nissan is able to target areas of customer demand for early launch, while continuing to work in future markets to ensure the continued success of electric vehicles."

Nissan North America also is informing its consumers that the lithium-ion battery pack that powers the Nissan Leaf will carry a warranty of 8 years or 100,000 miles – matching U.S. market competitive conditions.

Consumers who have reserved the Nissan Leaf online will be invited to place orders through their dealer for the vehicle in advance of market roll-out timing, allowing time for consumers to select a dealer and assess home charging needs. Nissan is continuing to take reservations for the Nissan Leaf through its website, www.NissanUSA.com. Interested consumers are encouraged to place a reservation, which entails a $99 fully refundable fee to secure a spot on the list to place an order.

The reservations process has educated Nissan about more than just geographic distribution. Some information we've learned about future Nissan Leaf drivers includes:

* Favorite color: The favorite color of Nissan Leaf owners is blue. More than 30 percent of reservations are for blue Nissan Leaf electric cars. Silver is a close second, at about 26 percent. The remaining reservations are close to evenly split among red, black and white.
* Trim level: About 75 percent of Nissan Leaf orders are for the SL trim level, which adds a rearview monitor, solar panel spoiler, fog lights, and automatic headlights.
* Home and Parking: About 75 percent of people who placed reservations own a single-family home. About 68 percent have attached garages, while an additional 18 percent have detached garages or carports. Home ownership and dedicated parking are important factors for Nissan Leaf drivers who plan to charge their vehicles at home.
* Purchase time: About 67 percent of Nissan Leaf reservations holders have indicated that they'd be ready to purchase or lease a Nissan Leaf within one year of placing the reservation. An additional 24 percent indicated they would be ready in one to two years.
* Interests: Several primary interests are inspiring people to order a Nissan LEAF. Cited interests include energy independence (35 percent); environmental consciousness (34 percent); and cost/fuel economy (20 percent).


In North America, Nissan's operations include automotive design, engineering, consumer and corporate financing, sales and marketing, distribution and manufacturing. Nissan is dedicated to improving the environment under the Nissan Green Program 2010, whose key priorities are reducing CO2 emissions, cutting other emissions and increasing recycling. More information on the Nissan Leaf and zero emissions can be found at www.nissanusa.com.

SOURCE Nissan North America