Industry-Specific Forums
 

I'm trying to transfer some of my message board addiction over to more useful, job-related forums. I've started posting on several PACS-related sites like Aunt Minnie, Club PACS, Insight (formerly McKesson user's group SUMMIT), and will soon join PARCA, where I can study for a PARCA certification.

I know there are plenty of IT hot-shots around here. What sites do y'all post on that are specialized for your field(s) of expertise?

Or, I suppose, more general IT-related sites.

I usually end up on the hardware or software forums for what I am using specifically. A couple of times I went to my industry related sites and matched ignorance with another user, creating more confusion than necessary....I rely mostly on the standard user site for the specific item. Once someone helped me out on a forum that was related, but the discussion was even past their ability which was no help. That causes more confusion than necessary. I am not a member of any of those, and just read for updates in related software but don't take it seriously unless I am on the manufacturers web.

Of course all that I just wrote is not IT related, as I am just a hardware and software user, sometimes highly advanced and sometimes not, not a programmer.

we're not technically supposed to participate in any message board activities but there is one that i visit that is a completely closed community. and actually quite hostile. some good information if you catch it on a good mood though.

Sign-up for Google Reader or Bloglines, find the best blogs (or whatever) that are related to your particular IT interests. Another decent source are the sub-reddits (I follow the python one some). Hacker News is good for mostly for programmers, infrastructure folks, and people interested in starting tech startups.

I just looked up PACS, and I'm not sure what tools you'd be using. Wikipedia says that you might be using LAN/WLAN, Java, ActiveX (please tell me this isn't so) and .NET. Is that right? Can you be more specific?

What aspects are you interested in? Do you want theory and practice, or mostly one or the other?

The links I gave above aren't going to be the best filter, but if you start with a couple of specialist blogs you can build a core of people that will act as filters to find the stuff that you really care about.

Also, I don't really contribute much to any site. My interests are broad enough that I can't even keep up with assimilating even 10% of what I want to.

i visit jeepcommander.com when i get that itch to upgrade jinx's jeep. mostly for pointers and examples.....

when i worked for jeep, i posted on a jeep forum. it was lame though.

ive never posted on a nissan forum...or even visited one.

themed forums are shitty.

I like wetcanvas.com. Although, I don't hang out there too much anymore. I feel the need to separate my arty-self from my chit-chat-online-conversation-self. I wonder what that means? Probably just that I am a procrastinator.

For audio engineers, it's all about gearslutz.com

The only specific board I frequent is for VMWare.

PACS is a jack-of-all-trades thing. I've got hundreds of different devices by dozens of different vendors all communicating via DICOM to a central "Picture Archiving and Communication System" on which radiologists view images on high-res monitors, and referring physicians access the system via web applications or DICOM discs. To keep the thing running, I've got to know a little bit about everything--which I usually learn on-the-fly as situations arise.

I'm trying to fill in any gaps in my knowledge my studying for a certification in my field; but I'm always interested in persepctives from more specialized IT guys.

Oh, and the reason I started this thread was that I was curious if you guys from other industries all get together and share notes on your own message boards. I can see that a few of you do just that.

I'm likening photo.net, and a new one I recently found is apug.org. (analog photography user group. HA! we're not dead yet, we're feeling better, we feel HAPPY...)

Sometimes, though, the posters are little "tightly wrapped."

@ Flint, not to start a thread drift, but.....
When I had a problem with my shoulder, my GP referred me to a specialist, who sent me to the hospital for a MRI. Several days later, at the specialist's office, I sat in the waiting room for hours, then they put me in an examining room, where I waited forever. Finally the specialist admitted the computer system at the hospital was fucked, and he couldn't access the MRI.
Just an example of relying of computers, that bit me in the ass. Fortunately it wasn't a critical situation for me, but being a medical problem, it could have been. :(