This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

It was cool to shake hands with astronaut Ron Garan at the NASA Space Apps Hackathon this weekend! Congrats to NYC SpaceCal and Tiny Sea Bots, who'll be going on to the global competition, as well as all the other honorees:  Droid Hopper, Chillin' On Mars, Versioning Goat, Asteroid Mapper, Star Map Sculpture, WhyWeExplore, Spacerac.es and Le Big Blue.

This Thursday is NY Tech Day (a.k.a. the world's largest startup event). Free mocktails from BuzzTheBar when you walk in! Don't forget the after-parties, like the Big Data bash with Knewton and Get Acquainted with Acquaintable.

This Friday is the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day. Good luck to all!

Next week is the Digital Content NewFronts where the likes of Google, Yahoo, Hulu, AOL and others will be showcasing original video content. Also coming up on May 7 is Innovating for the Connected Home, Living Room & TV, hosted by Mashable, Verizon and the MIT Enterprise Forum. It'll focus on ideas for new products and services for today’s high-speed-connected home.

Deadlines: April 30 is the last day to apply for the Co.Labs and Target Retail Accelerator. The winner gets a cool $75,000 and the chance to work with a leading innovator in the retail space, plus seven finalists will get $10,000 each. Applications for Matchpoint East are due April 29. It's an exclusive opportunity for health-tech entrepreneurs to meet large stakeholders like Kaiser, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Aetna. Yup, that can open doors! Innovate Health is also inviting locals to develop commercially viable technologies for urgent healthcare problems. Deadline is May 2.

Plus, the deadline for the National STEM Video Game Challenge has been extended to May 1. Last but not least, don't forget that the 30 percent early-bird discount (code: 'garysguide') for the Funding The Best In Global Innovation Conference expires May 1.

If you go to lots of conferences and events (like I do), I'd recommend you check out an app called Bizzabo. Its goal is to maximize your networking and help you discover new business opportunities. With TechCrunch Disrupt and Internet Week coming up, this might be just the ticket!  :)

You know what I'm excited about? The CitiBike Share Program, that's what. I think I can see myself riding a CitiBike around town--though maybe wearing my suit and red tie and riding a bike sounds a bit crazy. But hey, this is New York City. Registration for the program is now open. They launch in May so get a jump on it, people!

And finally, today is April 22, so Happy Earth Day, y'all! Hopefully Elon Musk will soon figure out a way to get us to Mars. But until then, remember we only have one planet to live on. So let's take good care of it!

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

The Phat Startup Presents: Music Tech, Funding & Branding in Hip Hop
Q&A with MICK (previously known as DJ Mick Boogie), who has worked with some of the most talented artists in the world including Jay-Z, Eminiem, Alchemist, Talib Kweili and Mobb Deep.
Monday (Apr. 22), 6 p.m. @ SkillShare HQ, 407 Broome Street

Mobile Health: from smart phone apps and sensor streams to behavioral biomarkers
A discussion on mobile health followed by a reception. With Professor Deborah Estrin (Professor of Computer Science, Cornell Tech Campus and Professor of Public Health, Weill Cornell Medical College)
Tuesday (Apr. 23), 5 p.m. @ NYU Africa House, 14A Washington Mews

NYC Data Business Meetup #15
With Alex Hawkinson (CEO, SmartThings), Peter Semmelhack (CEO, Bug Labs), Jon Bruner (O'Reilly), Steve Schlafman (Lerer Ventures) and Phin Barnes (First Round Capital).
Tuesday (Apr. 23), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Ave, 7th Floor

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
With Aswini Anburajan (Director of Partnership Development, BuzzFeed) and Ky Harlin (Data Scientist, BuzzFeed). Demos by Montaj and Feely.
Wednesday (Apr. 24), 7 p.m. @ Brooklyn Law School Feil Hall, 205 State Street, 22nd Fl., Brooklyn

#techdrinkup - Open Bar Party - NY tech + SF tech for Immigration Reform
Helping raise awareness for March for Innovation, a seriously awesome cause helping steer immigration reform to help the tech community big time.
Wednesday (Apr. 24), 8 p.m. @ The Hudson Bond, 215 W. 40th Street

NY Tech Day
A massive science fair for entrepreneurs to exhibit their startups to thousands of consumers, investors, first adopters, job-seekers, major companies, press and media.
Thursday (Apr. 25), 10 a.m. @ Pier 92, 711 12th Avenue

NY Tech Day After-Party: Big Data Bash
With Knewton and BuzzTheBar. Complementary cocktails for the first 50 guests and 50 drink codes will be given away at the Knewton booth.
Thursday (Apr. 25), 5:30 p.m. @ Hudson Common at Hudson Hotel, 356 W. 58th Street

NYC BigApps Rackspace Pitch & Projects
Learn about telling stories, purpose driven development & nailing your pitches & projects. With Cameron Koczon (BrooklynBeta and TeuxDeux)
Thursday (Apr. 25), 6:30 p.m. @ Harvest, 16 W. 22nd Street, 8th Fl.

Business Development and E-Retail
With Amy Jain (BaubleBar), Dana Mauriello (Etsy), Amanda Peyton (Grand St), Adam Schwartz (Bustedtees), Justin Semine (Harrys) and Alex Taub (Dwolla). Moderated by Eric Batscha (AppNexus).
Thursday (Apr. 25), 7 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street, 4th Fl.

Music Startup Meetup: Entrepreneur Stories - Rap Genius
With Mahbod Moghadam (Cofounder, RapGenius)
Thursday (Apr. 25), 7 p.m. @ Union Square Ventures, 915 Broadway, 19th Fl.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day
By invitation only. Startups include Acquaintable, Cognical, Consignd, EasyPairings, Monaeo, Startist, Suitey, TheSquareFoot, Trendalytics and Vocalize.
Friday (Apr. 26), 8:30 a.m. @ IAC, 555 W. 18th Street

Start-Up City Conference
With Scott M. Stringer (Manhattan Borough President), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) and NYC Mayoral Candidates.
Friday (Apr. 26), 8:30 a.m. @ New York Law School, 185 W. Broadway

#ArtsTech Unconference
With Daniel Doubrovkine (Artsy), Kathryn Jones (Virtual Arts), Ariele Krantzow (Wix), Cesar Kuriyama (1 Second Everyday), Allison Goldberg & Jen Jamula (Blogologues) and others.
Saturday (Apr. 27), 9 a.m. @ AOL HQ, 770 Broadway

TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon
The hack is back and better than ever!
Saturday (Apr. 27), 12:30 p.m. @ Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th Street

Tribeca Hacks Festival
Discover the projects created over 48 hours at the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival hackathon. Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres will be served.
Sunday (Apr. 28), 6 p.m. @ Center for Social Innovation, 601 W. 26th Street, #325

More events on the horizon...
Entering the European Market: Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur & Investor Jos White on May 1 @ Venue
Office Ninjas Tech Mixer & Showcase on May 2 @ Alley NYC
Innovating for the Connected TV, Living Room and Home on May 7 @ Hotel Yotel
May 2013 NY Tech Meetup on May 7 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Funding the Best in Global Innovation III on May 16 @ SNR Denton
NYC Tech Picnic - 2013 Kick Off on May 19 @ Chelsea Piers, Pier 63
AngelHack NYC - Spring 2013 on Jun 1 @ Huge Inc

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

The Armory, in a time before startups. (http://dmna.ny.gov)

The all-day startup showcase that is NY Tech Day is this Thursday, and the organizers have just released the list of participants, sponsors, and keynote speakers. More than 160 companies will be there exhibiting, including Birchbox, Boxee, Chartbeat (new logo today!), Meetup, SecondMarket, Tumblr, Uber, ZocDoc, General Assembly, and unknowns like Napkkin, which we've never heard of, but which sounds funny, and MatchPuppy, a Match.com for doggie playdates. More than 3,500 attendees have registered.

The keynote speakers will be David Tisch, managing director of TechStars NY, and Charlie O'Donnell, founder of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. "I think its exciting to see a fantastic group of NYC based startups under one roof," Mr. Tisch said in a statement.

Not all the companies are New York-based—Uber and Twilio are based in San Francisco, for example, but both have New York employees. Many startups will be making their public debut at the fair. The fair has also posted a list of which companies are hiring and who is raising money (until recently, that would have been illegal solicitation—thanks JOBS Act).

The event, an expo followed by an awards ceremony, will take place on Thursday, April 19, at the Lexington Armory.

The event is organized by John Petersen and Alec Hartman, cofounders of MailManhattan. The event is being sponsored by Bing, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, SorinRoyerCooper, Box, Digital Ocean, Icreon Tech, Trinet, and Landover.

Quincy cofounders Christina Wallace and Alex Nelson via Quincy

WAITING ROOM. ZocDoc just became active in Austin, the company's 16th market. Available to over one-third of the U.S. population, ZocDoc is continuing its mission to make scheduling doctor's appointments really fucking easy with well over one million unique visitors each month.

DINERO. Integrate, a New York-based company that helps businesses "plan, execute, track, analyze and optimize their multi-channel marketing strategy" just raised $11 million in Series B funding. Comcast Ventures and Liberty Global joined Foundry Group, a repeat investor.

VERTICAL BUZZ. Last week BuzzFeed launched two new verticals—Sports with Jack Moore and Kevin Lincoln and Shift, aimed at female readers, with Amy Odell of New York Magazine.

MEASURE UP. Harvard Business School bffs Christina Wallace and Alex Nelson are tall girls who were looking for tall girl pants. Enter their new fashion startup, Quincy, which rethinks women's apparel sizing by assigning sizes based on bust and height. The site launched yesterday with a collection of five blazers, and will roll out more highly-tailored items over the coming months.

FLEXIBLE. The new DUMBO Startup Lab at 68 Jay St. is giving membership to those who qualify. Members can choose to  lay down a "stationary" workspace starting at $400 per month. "Portable" work space is $200 per month and everyone has 24-hour access to conference space, mentorship and advice from DUMBO Startup Lab pros.

SHOPTIME STORIES. In January, we told you about an as-yet-unnamed store in Chelsea that was selling online goods from startups like Birchbox, Artspace and Quirky offline for limited time. Well, founder and merchandising whiz Rachel Shechtman who likes to call her company, "a retail space that has the point of view of a magazine, changes like a gallery and sells things like a store," has given her shop a name, Story. Starting yesterday, Story opened its doors for its second "issue," and startups are once again on display. This time the theme revolves around color with items from BaubleBar, CHROMATICgallerie, StyleMint (the Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen brand), and more and will be open daily until Tuesday, May 22nd.

DJ DROID. Last week Songza, the company behind the mobile app that helps users find and make playlists based on mood, time of day and other variables, released an iOS app update, adding to their new Music Concierge feature. The update is designed to help users find the tunes they're in the mood for easily and faster. With no fees, limits or commercials, it looks like healthy competition for Pandora and Spotify.

BREAKAWAY. Startup Hockey is tonight at 95 5th Ave. on the fifth floor. Leave your skates at home though, all you need is your thumbs. The organizers also made "a half-hearted promise to schedule these further in advance."

HACKING? Hacker office hours are tomorrow night at 6 p.m. Go to 71 Pineapple Street in Brooklyn for all your programming questions.

GET TOGETHER. The inaugural NY Tech Day is on April 19th. Free registration is now open but hurry up because nothing's infinite, right?

ONLINE DATING—IN REAL LIFE. Uncubed, formerly the Silicon Alley Talent Fair, is now open for registration. If you're looking for a job, go here. Hiring companies, register here and use code "EB11" to get  15 percent off. You'll be among 80+ NYC companies and 500+ people hungry to work. Drinks, music and ping-pong will round out the event on April 26th.

CANDLE WIX. Wix is a site building tool "for the code inept." Earlier this week, Wix unveiled its HTML5 product, adding new functionality to the formerly flash-only platform. In addition to their web products, the Israel-based company also has the Wix Lounge in Union Square, a workspace for creatives. There's one in San Francisco, too.

WHISTLE WHILE YOU... Lot18 has openings for an account management intern, acquisition manager, marketing coordinator, user experience designer, director of engineering, front end developer and softwae engineer. Check out job descriptions here. 2tor is looking for a staff accountant with more than two years of experience and a strong basis in MS Office. They also need a tech intern and have many other NYC based jobs on their website. ChallengePost needs a UX/product lead who will say "I don't know" before giving a bullshit answer. Don't lie here.

Mr. Petersen.

We New Yorkers like our tech expos like we like our pizza: big and cheesy. So, what is NY Tech Day? It's a "science fair for startups," and an event to "celebrate New York's awesome startup ecosystem," but more concretely, it's going to be a gigantic one-day expo at the block-sized Lexington Ave. Armory, with 200 startup booths, more sponsor and vendor booths, and a few thousand attendees rotating through, and followed by an awards show.

The event was announced about three weeks ago and more than 750 attendees have registered (for free), said co-founder John Petersen, a former banker with an engineering degree.

Mr. Petersen is planning to announce the soft launch of his own startup, a targeted direct mail campaign manager, MailManhattan, within a matter of weeks. Aha! So your own launch is the secret motivation behind all this pomp and circumstance? Betabeat asked.

"It is, a little bit," Mr. Petersen laughed. "It definitely inspired a lot of thinking in the way we planned out the day, because there's so many startups that are just heads-down and busting their butts that don't get a lot of exposure."

Mr. Petersen's co-founder, Alec Hartman, used to put together large trade shows for small business. "We started talking about it there's no business expo focused especially on startups," Mr. Petersen said.

The expo will be followed by an awards ceremony, during which the audience will vote on categories such as "King of New York" and "Prettiest Girl at the Ball." The for-profit event is pay-to-play; startups can get a booth for $385, a price Mr. Peterson said he worked hard to keep low. The event will have some "creative ways to allow companies to win a booth through sponsorship," he said. Startups must be based in New York (Long Island and New Jersey are OK, he said), and they must be tech-related. "So if you're an accounting firm with a website, that doesn't count," he said. "We want you to be using technology to do cool stuff in some way."

The epic-ness of the event reminds us of the monthly NY Tech Meetup, SA500, a recruiting event at the New York Stock Exchange, which also hosted the Silicon Alley 100, and of course Raise Cache, the nerd fashion show at the Armory that raised $100,000 for hackNY.

Mr. Petersen and his co-organizers are still working on the cast of sponsors, panelists, a "very big" keynote speaker and "featured startups" (read: name brand New York companies—you know the ones). They are also seeking a title sponsor (so it might turn out to be the "NASDAQ NY Tech Day").

"There's been great momentum and lots of great success coming out of the New York City tech scene recently," Mr. Petersen said, and the presentations will focus on how to keep that momentum up.