Downtown LA Drupal meetup from 7:30-9:30pm on November 15, 2011 at Droplabs

The next Downtown LA Drupal meetup is on November 15, 2011 and will be at Droplabs, a Drupal event and coworking space in Downtown Los Angeles. Created by LA Drupal members for the LA Drupal community, Droplabs is the host of LA Drupal's monthly Downtown LA meetup, the weekly Pro Drupal 7 Development book study group and special events including an LA Drupal job fair the same day on November 15, 2011, from 4-7pm.

LA Drupal meetups follow a basic format and start off with Drupal news and announcements, local job announcements, raffle prizes and full-length presentations. As always, we'll also have community Q&A, during which time anyone in attendance can ask questions, divine answers from the crowd and give brief, 5-10 minute-long presentations known as lightning talks.

Light food and refreshments will be served throughout the evening courtesy of our food and drink sponsor, Exaltation of Larks, and we'll finish off the night with more networking and a Drupal After Dark at 9:30pm.

For any changes to our agenda, stay tuned to this meetup announcement or click the Sign up button below (or both!) to be notified when the agenda has been updated.

Agenda

   4:00pm
   LA Drupal job fair - FREE for job seekers

   7:00pm
   Users Helping Users
   Projector and tables / chairs setup

   7:30pm
   Introductions and job announcements
   Community questions and answers

   8:30pm
   Get your Drupal site up and running (and customized) in minutes with Microsoft WebMatrix
   Lightning talks
   Raffle prizes!

   9:30pm
   Wrap-up, Clean-up and Close-up
   Drupal After Dark and networking session

Users Helping Users

The meetup begins at 7:30pm but the doors open a little earlier at 7pm for Users Helping Users, which is a chance for members of the community to help and be helped by others with whatever questions and problems they're having with Drupal.

Please note that while Users Helping Users is not designed to be a replacement for bona fide consulting from a Drupal professional that there are plenty of Drupal experts and professionals who attend our meetups and sometimes they need help, too!

Presentations

Get your Drupal site up and running (and customized) in minutes with Microsoft WebMatrix

Want to see a cool, free tool that could enrich your Drupal development experience by making everything easier? Why should you try out WebMatrix? How is it useful to you as a Drupal developer?

Join us as Microsoft Developer Evangelist Alice Pang (@alicerp) demonstrates how WebMatrix, a free tool that provides everything Drupal needs (including the web server, MySQL, and PHP), makes it easy to create, customize, and publish your Drupal site, .

WebMatrix automatically downloads, installs, and configures the latest version of Acquia Drupal for you and provides a seamless publishing experience with WebDeploy. Alice will also talk about why WebMatrix can make building your Drupal site easier, how to get started with Drupal and WebMatrix, as well as some of WebMatrix's other cool features.

Lightning talks

Given enough time, we'll also have a few lightning talks. These are brief, 5-10 minute presentations, demos or discussions that anyone can give. It can be about a new website you're working on, a Drupal module you've written or come across recently that you'd like to talk about, or just a burning question you'd like to ask of the crowd.

Field collection in Drupal 7

Ashok Modi (@BTMash) will present on Field collection, a Drupal 7 module that provides a "field collection" field to which other fields can be attached.

Drupal After Dark

Even if you can't make it to the meetup, you're welcome to join us for a Drupal After Dark. After we wrap up the meeting and clean up, a group of us will go to a nearby restaurant or pub. Last time we had beers and a bonfire and were serenaded by DJ Skrillex. We've also gone to a variety of other locations, including Barbara's at The Brewery (at 620 Moulton Ave., just a 5 minute walk away) and Carnitas Michoacan (on 1901 N. Broadway, just a 5 minute drive away).

Location and directions

   Droplabs
   651 Clover St.
   Los Angeles, CA 90031

Droplabs is in the Mission Junction neighborhood of Los Angeles at Big Art Labs, just 1 mile down Main St. from Philippes (the first-ever venue for LA Drupal meetups!) and Union Station. We're one block west of The Brewery, the largest live-and-work artists' colony in the world.

When entering the parking lot, park anywhere in the main area and follow the yellow signs to Droplabs. To carpool or catch the Droplabs shuttle from Union station, post below in the comments. A shuttle will be leaving from Union Station to Droplabs at 7:20pm.

What to bring

Just bring your laptop, your business cards or whatever else you need. You're also welcome to bring some light food, sodas or beers to share with others at the meetup.

We share a large parking lot with Big Art Labs and there's plenty of free parking. After you pull into the parking lot, park to the left of the entrance and follow the signs to Droplabs.

Please note that our guest wireless network is limited to 1Mb per client, so bring your MiFi router or a phone you can tether with if for some reason you need a lot of bandwidth. Access to our high-speed network is included with a Droplabs membership.

About Droplabs

Droplabs is a collaborative Drupal event and coworking space in Downtown Los Angeles. Created in 2011 by LA Drupal members for the LA Drupal community, we are focused on serving the greater LA Drupal community, enriching the Drupal skills and lives of its members, and bringing joy to our Drupal practice.

We've been open to the public since May, 2011, and the use of our equipment and facilities, including conference room, tables and chairs, is free until our official launch. See http://groups.drupal.org/node/145934 for more details about our open beta period and http://droplabs.net/prices for our list of free amenities and member perks, including our high-speed WiFi, an espresso machine, printer and scanner services, and more.

Droplabs is the host of the monthly Downtown LA Drupal meetups, LA Drupal's weekly Pro Drupal 7 Development book study group and special events including the Varnish 3 Release Party and LA Drupal's first-ever Drupal job fair. To learn more about Droplabs, follow @Droplabs on Twitter, sign up at Meetup.com/Droplabs or like DroplabsLA on Facebook!

About LA Drupal

LA Drupal is one of the world's largest regional Drupal user groups and is Southern California's largest hub for all things Drupal. In addition to scheduling 5 regular meetups a month and occasional trainings and social gatherings, LA Drupal members produce special events, code sprints, and the annual DrupalCamp LA and Drupal Design Camp LA conferences.

Attending LA Drupal events is one of the best ways to meet and talk with other Drupaleros and we encourage you to attend meetings and special events regularly. Whether it's to find solutions to problems you've been having, sharing something you've learned or just meeting interesting like-minded people, the LA Drupal events are an essential resource for Drupal professionals and hobbyists alike.

If you aren't already part of LA Drupal, it's easy to become a member and find events in our community calendar at http://groups.drupal.org/la/events