Blog

Thanks Liberty IT and Kainos

Thanks Liberty IT and Kainos

We are delighted to have the support of Liberty IT and Kainos for the NewTech conference on Saturday 7th march 2020. Liberty IT an official "Great Place to Work,®" but as our name suggests, it's all about the technology. We don't just get things done, we excel at engineering, and we build creative solutions through team collaboration across all levels of experience, allowing us to deliver business value in a big way. Kainos develop IT solutions for businesses and organisations particularly in the public, healthcare and financial services sectors. Kainos are huge contributors to the tech community with initiatives including…
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Busy 2019, Hectic 2020

Busy 2019, Hectic 2020

2019 has been a very busy year for Newry Digital and there have been many acheivements to celebrate. We organised tech meetups thoughout the year including: Tech careers (17th Jan, The Hub)Journey of a Start-up (13th Feb, Flexispace)Remote sensing & Geospatial Techniques (5th March, SRC Greenshoots)Coding Katas (28th March & 30th May, 11th July , The Hub)Intro to Docker and Containers (15th May, Flexispace)Terraform & Ansible (25th June, The Hub)Social Night (25th July, The Bridge)Containers & Kubernetes (27th Aug, Flexispace)Women in Tech (15th Oct, The Hub)Digital & Health (15th Oct, SRC Greenshoots)Service Design (13th Nov, McCooeys)Women in Tech Raspberry Pi…
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Code Kata – Fizz Buzz

Code Kata – Fizz Buzz

This week's code kata was a session on test driven development using the Fizz Buzz exercise or here http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest Solutions http://codingdojo.org/kata/FizzBuzz/ http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest https://github.com/jkisor/FizzBuzz/blob/master/src/FizzBuzz.java http://codingdojo.org/kata/FizzBuzz/ https://hackernoon.com/python-basics-8-fizzbuzz-441e97c6c767 Discussions during the Session Statically typed vs dynamically typed languages Java Replacing If Statements TTD test given development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development https://medium.freecodecamp.org/test-driven-development-what-it-is-and-what-it-is-not-41fa6bca02a2 Writing effective tests http://www.se-radio.net/2016/05/se-radio-episode-256-jay-fields-on-working-effectively-with-unit-tests/ PHP/Laravel - Excellent starter tutorials on learning php and laravel using tdd https://laracasts.com/series/build-a-laravel-app-with-tdd Legends mentioned every session http://blog.cleancoder.com/ https://martinfowler.com/books/refactoring.html Test strategies / test pyramid https://blogs.agilefaqs.com/2011/02/01/inverting-the-testing-pyramid/ Mob programming - programming in a large group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming Workshop tools: https://www.cyber-dojo.org IDEs https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/ https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ https://www.sublimetext.com/ Random/banter Weaving on a Jacquard Loom at the Irish Linen…
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Coding Kata Meetup

Coding Kata Meetup

The October 2018 meetup was held in Finnegan & Son in Newry.  Organiser Joe McKevitt guided attendees through exercises in refactoring legacy could with a test-driven development approach. Links Introduction into http://www.cyber-dojo.org Session id - 4bPhxc Teams used on the night - join team , lion, zebra, buffalo, rabbit, eagle, kingfisher Speed car Kata - TirePressureMonitoringSystem exercise https://github.com/emilybache/Racing-Car-Katas Article explaining the merit of TDD, refactoring and good design principles (including sample solutions for the speed car kata) https://github.com/lucaminudel/TDDwithMockObjectsAndDesignPrinciples Good examples of other submissions https://github.com/trikitrok/tire_pressure_monitoring_system_20160505/tree/master/src/main/java/tddmicroexercises/tirepressuremonitoringsystem Usage of builders (Test builders) https://github.com/trikitrok/tire_pressure_monitoring_system_20160505/blob/live_version_magento_20160505/src/test/java/tddmicroexercises/tirepressuremonitoringsystem/tests/helpers/AlarmBuilder.java Links/References on Test driven development (TDD) TDD does not drive…
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Innovation Nation: Newry 2018

Innovation Nation: Newry 2018

The inaugural Innovation Nation: Newry 2018 is taking place in Newry Town Hall on Thursday 27th September. The organisers have kindly offered a small number of complimentary tickets to members of the Newry Digital network. If you would like to avail of this opportunity please contact us and we will forward your information to the organisers for registration. Tickets will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, so don't delay! More information about the event is available here: https://nmdinnovationnation.com/ Regards, The Newry Digital Team
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Slack Channel

Slack Channel

We have opened a ‘channel’ on Slack for discussions around tech in Newry. First Time SignUp Instructions: Visit https://nitech.herokuapp.com/ Enter your email address and click ‘Get My Invite’ Your request will be queued and after manual approval should be accepted so be patient it could take a few hours! When approved you will receive an email and you should click the ‘Sign-In’ link Complete the registration process by choosing a password Signing In You can use Slack on your phone, desktop apps or on the web at this address: https://nitech.slack.com/ Sign in using the email address you registered with and the password…
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Cybersecurity Meetup

Cybersecurity Meetup

The July meetup was held in the original co-working space in Newry - The Hub. Suzanne & Paddy welcomed us on the 26th July as we heard from Peter McCaul about local startup Péarlí who operate a retail loyalty fob service in several shopping centres and are beginning to expand. Péarlí share office space with another local tech company - FieldMotion - who produce software to support field services staff. So for the August meetup on Cyber Security we were invited to the Field Motion / Péarlí offices. During the CyberSecurity meetup Jonny McCullagh demonstrated manual techniques used in cyber…
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Blockchain Meetup

Blockchain Meetup

Almost 30 people joined us in the air-conditioned surroundings of Newry's latest co-working space: Flexiwork.space Garrett of Flexiwork.space welcomed the audience with pizza, beer and soft drinks into the cool surroundings of a space that is sure to attract freelancers and home workers who want to mingle with other creatives.   The theme for the evening meetup was blockchain and the main speaker was Eamonn Hynes who has been working with blockchain technologies for several years and writes articles on Ethereum. Eamonn briefly described the evolution of Distributed Ledger Technologies including BitCoin, Ethereum and the more recent developments of HashGraph.…
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Co-Working Space in Newry – The Hub

Co-Working Space in Newry – The Hub

We thought we would take a look at the co-working, shared / virtual office spaces in Newry that are available to support freelancers, start-ups and small business. To that end we are starting with a look at The Hub who have been supporting the local community for the past 6 years from locations at Abbey Yard and John Mitchel Place in the heart of the city. We met up with Suzanne who showed us around and explained the benefits of the space for remote working and meetings. The Hub is vibrant and colourful compared to most workplaces, with plenty of…
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Internet of Things Meetup

Internet of Things Meetup

Newry Digital Meetup held an IoT meetup on Tuesday in conjunction with DigitalNMD (Newry, Mourne, Down District Council), Southern Regional College and South-Eastern Regional College. Michael Forster started proceedings explaining the local council's DigitalNMD programme to support local business in the use of emerging technology such as drones and VR. Martin Naughtan then took the podium explain the radio frequencies available for IoT devices which center on the 868 Mhz frequency. Martin spoke about the LoRaWAN network that can be used at no charge to registered users. He passed around several IoT devices used for prototyping including the FiPy. Following…
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