With the introduction of the first drafts of the HTML5/CSS3 specs and with it the introduction of the possibilities to include video, audio and custom fonts into a website is becoming a lot easier. Dave will be walking us through some of the details of the @font-face CSS rule and the eminent web font revolution that will follow.

We don’t have a venue yet but as usual it will be in central London and I will let all of you know when I’ve found a venue.

When: Thursday, September 17th 2009 18:30
Where: TBA
Speakers: Dave Crossland
Topic: Open Fonts
Cost: Buy your own food (most of it for £5)
Nearest tube: TBA
Signup: Signup on EventBrite

We’ll be changing location this time, heading directly for the pub where we can have some drinks and food. The pub is located within walking distance from London Bridge station and has cheap food and nice drinks. We hope to see you all there on Tuesday!

When: Tuesday, July 28th 2009 18:30
Where: The Miller
Speakers: Jane Finette & Pascal Finette
Topic: Mozilla Labs
Cost: Buy your own food (most of it for £5)
Nearest tube: London Bridge
Signup: Signup on EventBrite

David G.W. Birch is a Director of Consult Hyperion, a global IT management consultancy that specialises in electronic transactions,. Before helping to found Consult Hyperion in 1986, he spent several years working as a consultant in Europe, the Far East and North America. Described by The Independent as a ‘grade-A geek’, and by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation as ‘one of the most user-friendly of the UK’s uber-techies’; he is well-known for his “Second Sight” columns in The Guardian’s Online supplement.

Dave will talking about Consult Hyperion’s work on M-Pesa. (Featured on the BBC and all good news outlets.) The M-Pesa payments service is used by 17% of Kenyans [5.5m users], with over 10,000 signing up every day. Despite objections by mainstream Kenyan banks, M-Pesa’s growth not only avoided regulatory issues, but helped trigger legal reforms to open Kenya’s money transfer market.

Dinner will be upstairs at the Holborn Hummus Bros in Holborn at 6:30PM. It’s buy your own dinner (about £15 a head) and book early as it’s not a large venue! To let us know that you’re coming and reserve your ticket, email me at mseckington@gmail.com.

We’re going to be in our usual place again, Hummus Brothers in Holborn (first floor) and we’ll commence at about 6:30PM. be sure to join us and please let us know if you’re coming on our signup page.

Joining us is James Gardner, the Head of Innovation and Research at Lloyds TSB. He will talk a bit about the book he has got coming out soon and tell us some amusing anecdotes about medieval banking datacentres and internal bureaucracy. 

Because we are hosting this together with the OpenFinanceCoffeeClub, the number of places will be split evenly between the two. This means 15 spots available for GeekDinner people, 15 for OpenFinanceCoffeeClub members.

Again the venue will be our regular Hummus Bros in Holborn at 18:30. Food will be on a get your own basis, so no need to pay online. If you’re running late and can’t find us at the Holborn place anymore, we’ve probably moved on to the pub down the street.

When:  Tuesday, November 18th 2008 18:30
Where: Hummus Bros in Holborn
Speaker: James Gardner
Cost: Food and drinks on buy your own basis

Please RSVP on our signup site if you are coming, there is only limited seating.

Joining us will be Kevin Marks who is author of the weblog Epeus Epigone and a software engineer at Google. He became principal engineer for Technorati after doing work for both Apple and the BBC. He is one of the founders of Microformats. In 2003, Marks was an early experimenter with and contributor to the technologies that became popular under the names podcasting and iPodder in 2004.

The venue will be our regular Hummus place in Holborn and the time will be from 7pm till late. Food will be on a get your own basis, so no need to pay online. If you run late and can’t find us at the Holborn place anymore, we’re probably moved on to the pub down the street.

Please RSVP on our signup site if you are coming, there is only limited seating.

The biggest improvement for now is that we have managed to change the menu. Instead of just fried stuff, we now have a nice selection of rice, vegetables, curry, and stir-fry. It’s definitely going to be more healthy than last time, and the great things is that we managed to keep the price the same.

The next big thing is that we are looking into a microphone to make things a bit more audible. There is a sounds system at the venue, but no microphone. So if you have a microphone with a long cable (or wireless) and a 1/4″ plug that we can use, please let us know.

On a last note, we would urge you to sign up if you are planning to come to one of our events, or more importantly sign off when you are not coming. Accurate numbers will make our life and the chef’s life so much easier.

Betsy Weber from TechSmith is in town for a few days, and she was very interested in meeting up and having some food/drink with the London geeks. For those who don’t know who Betsy is, she is the Chief Evangelist at TechSmith, who make some of the best screencasting software like Camstasia for Windows (and soon Mac too).

The event will be a mini-geekdinner, which means it’s a get-your-own-foods-and-drinks meetup. We will be meeting up at Hummus Bros Holborn, Wednesday September 3rd, at about 6:30pm.

Please be sure to RSVP on our signup page that you are coming, as I will probably be reserving a table.

Make a note here that this is not necessary for anyone who attended any previous Geek Dinner and signed up online, as we will send those people invites anyway.

Time to announce the next GeekDinner. You won’t have to wait all untill September like with the GeekDinner I announced a few days ago, because this time we managed to get some of people behind the BBC iPlayer to join us in only 2 weeks time!

Join us therefore on Thursday August 14th for some food, drinks, and anything you want to know about the BBC iPlayer. Joining us will be Anthony Rose (Head of Digital Media Technology) and Matthew Browning (Senior Software Engineer).

We are going to meet up in the same nice Thai restaurant that we went to last time, and have been able to arrange a nice variety of food again, costs will be £8.

Although the event starts at 6:30pm, the food won’t arrive until 7:30pm and the talk won’t start before 8pm, so no need to get hit by a bus hurrying to make it on time to our venue.

So go to http://signup.geekdinner.co.uk/event/iplayer/ to sign up and maybe even pay in advance. Don’t forget to mention any special messages like whether or not you’re vegetarian.