HybridCloudGroup.org™
preserves HCCUG.org™ logo, url, & alias for continuity of 10+ years;
HCCUG.org™ is another community effort of {Tex} & family/friends with sponsors Hybrid Decisions & Microsoft …
click here to know more
≋ our thoughts & prayers continue for all … globally ≋
We manage 6 community user-groups/sigs/meetups …
Houston Cloud Computing, Houston C & C++, and the 4 OFFICIAL/APPROVED/RECOGNIZED groups by their respective vendor/org/entity
Houston TensorFlow & Applied AI/ML, Houston Google Cloud = GDG Cloud Houston, Houston Kotlin, Houston PostgreSQL
click here to read more2019 ♦ Houston TensorFlow & Applied AI/ML user group (TensorFlow.org approved) … Valentino Moreign (founder & primary organizer)
… with support from Microsoft, AWS, Google, etc., … NOTE: Caliber of Speakers ⟹ 19.10.19 and 19.02.202019 ♦ Houston Kotlin user group (KotlinLang.org/JetBrains approved) … Zane Moreign (founder & primary organizer)
… with support from Kotlin/JetBrains & Java Champions, etc.,2019 ♦ Houston PostgreSQL user group … Zane Moreign (founder & primary organizer)
… with support from PostgreSQL leadership, etc.,2018 ♦ Houston Google Cloud user group (a.k.a. GDG Cloud Houston) … Google requested us to run it … Valentino Moreign (founder & primary organizer)
DISCLAIMER:⟹ you can Speak/Attend any our our events knowing your PROFILE data will NOT be given to Google :-) ⟹ click here for details2017 ♦ HCCUG.org™ revamp … and exploded from a cozy <300 members to ~1K in 1 year … see about us
2010 ♦ Houston C & C++ user group… to focus on what {Tex} calls Crux Computing (covering Rust, D, etc.)
… ORGANIZERS: C++: David Cravey, and C: Zane Moreign & {Tex}… Houston C++ user group was founded by Microsoft MVP of MVP's, our friend, & all-round great guy, DAVID CRAVEY, … expanded focus , with David's blessing, to include more C lang efforts of Zane Moreign2008 ♦ Houston Cloud Computing user group… {HCCUG.org} to focus on Performance Computing (includes Cluster, IoT, and Quantum computing)
… by {Tex} & Samantha… founded in 2008 as Houston Cloud & Cluster user group focused on HPC & the "then new" thing called Cloud… and was renamed to Houston Cloud Computing to highlight us as THE Cloud folks for Houston, after all our founder/Tex was part of the Microsoft's cloud happenings under NDA≋ NOTICE to ALL members of GDG Cloud Houston (a.k.a., Houston Google Cloud User Group)
— message from Valentino, your GDG Cloud Houston OrganizerGDG Cloud Houston is still the only Google recognized GDG Cloud community in Houston —AND— per our pro-privacy standards, our GDG group is exempt from having to report the gender/sex of attendees and speakers of our events.
NOTE: We may be the only GDG group with this exemption in North America, and we thank Google for honoring our PRO-PRIVACY practice!
Issues with MEETUP.com and clarifications reg. Google's GDG Team (not to be confused with the other teams in Google)
Google's GDG Team ENDED sponsorship of the MEETUP.com/GDG Cloud-Houston on Mar-31, 2021 due to budget constraints
Our group’s Meetup.com page disappeared from Meetup.com on Apr-9 until Apr-15 … support@meetup.com was of no help …
Thanks to HCCUG.org™
for stepping up to now also sponsor the MEETUP.com/GDG-Cloud-Houston,
in addtion to already sponsoning every single GDG Cloud Houston event in-full upfront,
now, for giving us our own GDG Cloud Houston space on their site
Long story short, you are now aware of the Meetup.com ISSUES and the resulting immediate steps that HCCUG.org™ is helping me/you with ...
Heads-up: pay attention to the below announcement
Note: meetup.com was just a way to issue announcements, whereas, registrations with other preferences (e.g., food choice) were already required registration on HCCUG.org ... and this will continue. After putting everything on hold while the world was hit with Covid … HCCUG.org is now announcing its own membership program, as part of the upcoming new benefits of HCCUG.org™ …
≋ ANNOUNCING our new HCCUG.org™ Membership Program as part of HCCUG.org™ launch of significant changes with new benefits for ALL our community groups … so, those of you who —
(a) APPRECIATE the various benefits offered by HCCUG.org™ (e.g., PRO-PRIVACY to the point that we declined to provide our attendee & speaker gender/sex info requested by Google's GDG Team — not to be confused with other teams at Google that have helped us :-)
~~~and~~~
(b) WANT to continue to enjoy the benefits of HCCUG.org™
▸ ▸ ▸ are welcome to apply to become a member of HCCUG.org™ via our new Membership-Application, (effective 2021, currently grandfathering no charge for membership, suggest applying at the earliest :-)
≋ PRE-ANNOUNCEMENT: While the world catches up to where we were years ago (e.g., the stampede triggered by Elon Musk's tweet, "use signal") … those of you who follow our linkedin.com/today/author/ZaneMoreign have been enjoying his pro-privacy suggestions for quite a few years. Now, he's back … he is releasing his new Digital Privacy Survival Kit (DPSK) in 2021-Q2 with more for you to stay further ahead of the herd/crowd this time with more content & outreach options (e.g., Simple_Safety™ Series with Videos & reviving twitter @ZaneMoreign)
≋ while we are adapting to life with COVID … thank Zane Moreign for the below list of FREE tools for life during COVID. These FREE/LIBRE tools are — (1) simple to use, (2) easy to install/setup, (3) cross-platform (i.e., Windows and *nix, including. Mac), and (4) have end-to-end encryption to keep you safe.
Text, and Calls (audio & video) that is on your phone AND laptop/computer - https://signal.org/download/
Using only a browser (nothing-to-install) online meetings with the option to secure by adding a password and turining encryption on : https://meet.jit.si/
For those who want to setup your own hosted Jitsi : https://jitsi.org/ (UPDATE-2021 stay tuned for more alternatives)
For those who love Chromium based browsers (Google Chrome / Microsoft’s Edge with Chrome), here’s something that is built on the very same Chromium BUT MORE SECURE: https://iridiumbrowser.de/
For those who love Firefox (do not get carried by their new marketing), use Tor Browser as the TorProject.org folks deliver: https://www.torproject.org/download/
NOTE: This is a part of Zane Moreign's Simple_Safety™ Toolkit FREE for Friends-n-Family ... he gave us this short-list in Mar-2020 … and based on feedback/requests he is releasing simple how-to videos and more in 2021-Q2
Upcoming-Event: Zane Moreign's FREE Simple_Safety™ for Banking Online
date & time to be announced in 2021-Q2
Online-Event:
2021
Feb-26 & 27
click here to sign up for the North America event
HybridCloudNow™ 2020 conference
… followed by the HybridCloudFest™ after-event
covering AI/DataScience, HybridCloud, Security, IoT, and more with speakers from Open Source community, Microsoft, RedHat, and more
"ENGAGE" … and for all the Non-Trekkies out there click here to contact the organizers
≋ below are our 2020 events
Mar-14 @ 9:30am: "Simple_Safety™ for Investors"
*** THIS EVENT was CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19
Zane has been invited to Speak at the Houston Investors Association (HIA), a 30+ year old group.
This is the next installment in Zane's Simple_Safety™ Series on Hybrid Decisions® Safer_Computing™ FREE Friends-n-Family Toolkit that Zane developed over the years.
DISCLOSURE:
This is NOT an HCCUG.org™ event. HIA does NOT charge for FIRST TIME ATTENDEES.
PLEASE SEE Houston Investors Association for all details regarding this event
We appreciate HIA President Bob for inviting Zane to speak!
Feb-26: "Hangout-n-Learn" event with our friends at HLUG
Shout out to Ed (president of HLUG), Marco & Mark, and others for making this bridging event a success!!!
In particular, Ed for the awesome presentation, surfacing HLUG's quality … Mark & Marco for personifying HLUG hospitality … and our friends who got to witness and experience HLUG's character, first hand!
"Simple_Safety™ 2020-Q1 Edition" ~ by Zane Moreign
This is next installment of Zane's Simple_Safety™ Series ... our first "Hangout-n-Learn" event is with our friends, the 20+ year old Houston Linux User Group (HLUG) Zane demoed the GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and the gotchas in Google's Qwiklabs training.
Apache Spark, MapR, Scala … from the perspective of a veteran!!!
where ⟹ cPanel, Inc. 2550 North Loop West, Houston, TX 77092
NOTE: IF DOOR IS LOCKED PLEASE CALL HLUG's Marco (# will be posted on the door)
DISCLOSURE:
1) This is NOT an HCCUG.org™ managed event or a combined special event — HCCUG.org™ is only presenting at HLUG — continuing our focus of community BRIDGING just like we have done over the decade (e.g., Houston Azure, HSPUG, HASSUG, HDNUG, and more, including those out-of-state :-)
2) This event is made possible because of the warm welcome from Ed (President of HLUG) and other HLUG folks!
3) As y'all know there is no-charge to attend HCCUG.org™ events. Likewise, HLUG too does not charge for their events.
4) Like us, they too have Pizza. Unlike us, they do NOT have PRE-registration, so you do not get to select your food ‒BUT‒ on the PLUS side you can just walk-in ... no registration required :-)
5) We will follow our hosts format, there will be a short talk by Zane Moreign ... this is the next installment in Zane's ongoing Simple_Safety™ Series ... and the rest of the time is to Hangout with our HLUG friends :-)
Jan-29: Hands-On with Swift for TensorFlow
Shout out to Ethan for an awesome presentation!
Happy to confirm ALL who registered on this site.
Hands-On with Swift for TensorFlow – A Next-Generation Deep Learning Framework ~ by Ethan Saadia
where ⟹ HCCUG.org @ Tracy Gee Community Center, 3599 Westcenter Dr, Houston, TX 77042
with FREE parking, data privacy, badger-free attendance, Food & Beverages, etc … ⟿ REGISTER HERE (confirmations sent on rolling basis)
Swift is a modern and expressive programming language developed and open-sourced by Apple. Although the language of choice for Apple platforms, Google has chosen Swift for its next-generation deep learning framework. Swift’s static type system and performance make it a great fit for machine learning, and Google has integrated many powerful tools into the platform. The talk will cover these major features, and then I will do a live image classification demo. Automatic Differentiation Computing the gradients of models and loss functions are essential for training machine learning models. Swift for TensorFlow includes automatic differentiation that enables you to differentiate functions and custom types without extra code. Python Interoperability Python has a myriad of prominent libraries for data science and numerical computing, including NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib. As a younger language, Swift does not yet have libraries to provide all this functionality, but Google has made Python fully interoperable with Swift. You can seamlessly import Python libraries, use Python objects in Swift, and vice versa. Image Classification Demo Swift for TensorFlow is fully usable without any installation on any device with an internet connection. The toolchain is preinstalled on special Google Colab notebooks, Jupyter notebooks hosted in the cloud that work like Google Docs. I will provide a link to a custom notebook so attendees can follow along with the demo on their own devices. The demo involves creating a dataset, designing a convolutional neural network, building a custom training loop, visualizing model performance during training, and running inferences. The notebook showcases Swift for TensorFlow and its key features, Python interoperability and automatic differentiation. Swift is designed to feel familiar, so the code is approachable to developers who may not be familiar with Swift or machine learning.
Here is the notebook link: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1VbOH3sWYCe14CNnvvjAVkN0mQepv05Ng
Launches & Improvements prior to COVID …
click here to read more
~ Our core principles remain, such as, MEMBER PRIVACY (attendee list, food choices, etc.)
In 10+ years, we have NEVER given out our member/attendee list, and thank our sponsors for respecting this!!
new Sponsor-invitee Feedback: Sponsors need to know who they invited and who showed up. Sponsors get a list of, "ONLY those attendees who flag they were invited by that particular Sponsor" during attendee registration (e.g., those who flagged "via Google employee" for event-190220) — Launched!
~ New streamlined focus between meetups & events,
new entity HybridCloudGroup.org to take over HCCUG.org's efforts & more — Launched!
streamlined Houston Cloud Computing user group back to our roots of performance/cluster/distributed computing & more — Launched!
new Houston TensorFlow & Applied AI/ML user group — Launched!
new Houston Kotlin user group organized by Zane Moreign, with approval from JetBrains — Launching July-2019 !
new C language focus added by Zane Moreign (inherited from Tex), with David Cravey's blessing, to David's C++ user group — Launched!
new VARYING Monthly Cadence, multiple Venue option, multiple focus User Groups, and more — Launched!
Venue #1: HCCUG.org @ Tracy Gee Community Center, 3599 Westcenter Dr, Houston, TX 77042
Venue #2: HCCUG.org @ Microsoft Technology Center, 750 Town and Country Blvd 1000, Houston, TX 77024
More venues to be announced for other events as needed.
~ New "NETWORKING" focused programs & events:
new HybridCloudLabs™ BRING YOU LAPTOP program for hands-on topics, such as, Machine Learning, Azure, Linux, Zane's Simple_Safety™ series, etc.
new Network-n-Talks program to focus on more time for Peer-to-Peer networking/connections/chats, while still having some focused Talk(s).
new first HybridCloudNow™ conference with HybridCloudFest™ (after-event), HybridCloudConnect™, and New HybridCloudInsiders™ are in collaboration with HybridDecisions.com
new LIMITED Sponsor program ~ we want our members to feel comfortable attending without being badgered with access to select vendors, e.g., Microsoft, Google, RedHat, Amazon/AWS, etc.
~ New membership program:
ALL our Meetup.com user groups will continue to be @no-charge membership for 2019 :-)
We strive to ensure NO WASTAGE of — (a) Food, (b) Effort, and (c) Resources, e.g., denying a seat to someone who really wanted to attend/learn/network — while still trying to provide more services/benefits (e.g., dietary constraints) and taking care of those who take care of such things, and recognize Speakers & Volunteers, etc.
Therefore, ONLY confirmed reservations will have access to events. Ensure you are a registered HybridCloudGroup.org member. Only those registered on HCCUG.org site are eligible to be confirmed and can provide us their preferences, such as, food choices/dietary constraints!
To be able to afford these things, we will be launching new LIMITED sponsorship program, new option for members who wish to pay/support our efforts (of course with new benefits) … and welcome any ideas/suggestions!
Those who know us know we support those who support us …
Those who braved traffic/weather/etc., over the years to attend our events, i.e., Active Members*** before 2019 will be grandfathered into one of the new paid membership levels ~ let's continue to grow together!!!
Those who Serve(d), e.g., our Veterans, etc. we aim to provide extremely feasible options
** NO monthly meetings in Nov & Dec as that's family time but stay tuned as there could be some surprises :-)
***Active Members are those who have attended at a minimum of "1" in-person event, yes you read that correctly, "one" event/meetup in a 12 month rolling period and are registered here/HybridCloudGroup.org!
In addition to our 6 groups (listed above) …
we believe the below groups/events provide great value for our members/community ~ above all, they are awesome folks!!!
NOTE: We are NOT paid by any of the following entities to list/advertise their events here.
▹ SQL Saturday Hou & BR
— we thank Houston Area SQL Server User Group for having us speak at every SQL Saturday in Houston
— and brssug for having us in 2018 & 2019