Due to the holidays, the next Downtown LA Drupal meetup in December has been rescheduled to be on Friday, December 16, 2011. We're being hosted again by Droplabs, an event and coworking space in Downtown Los Angeles created by LA Drupal members for LA Drupal community. This time we're combining our meetup with a holiday party and food drive. You're invited!
LA Drupal meetups follow a basic format and start off with Drupal news and announcements, local job announcements, raffle prizes and presentations. We're forgoing full-length presentations this time and will be opening the floor to 5-10 minute-long presentations known as lightning talks. As always, we'll have our community Q&A, during which time anyone in attendance can ask questions and divine answers from the crowd. We'll finish off the night with more networking and a Drupal After Dark at 9:30pm.
Light food and refreshments will be served throughout the evening courtesy of our food and drink sponsor, Exaltation of Larks, a Drupal strategy, consulting, development and training company with a team of Drupal experts in Los Angeles.
Agenda
6:30pm
Food drive for the LA Food Bank and Occupy Los Angeles
Users Helping Users
Projector and tables / chairs setup
7:30-9:30pm
Holiday party at Droplabs
Introductions and job announcements
Lightning talks and community questions and answers
Raffle prizes! Collect them all! Must be present to win!
9:30pm
Wrap-up, Clean-up and Close-up
Drupal After Dark and open networking
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.
Holiday party and food drive
Tonight we're combining our meetup with a holiday party and food drive.
Holiday party
Even if you can't make it to the meetup, you're welcome to join us after all the raffle prizes, job announcements and presentations for our holiday party. We'll be mingling and networking for most of the evening, and the party is potluck-style so bring something to share that you like to eat or drink. Post a comment below to let others know what you're thinking of bringing.
Food drive for the LA Food Bank and Occupy Los Angeles
We're organizing a food drive for both the LA Food Bank and Occupy Los Angeles. While the LA Food Bank distributes food to over 640 charitable agencies (Midnight Mission, Boys & Girls Club, etc.), Occupy Los Angeles isn't one of them.
We'll be delivering to Occupy Los Angeles about half of what people bring to the food drive and giving the remaining half to the LA Food Bank. Here are some good ideas of what to bring:
- Cash (seriously, food banks can do a lot with a dollar)
- Proteins, including peanut butter, canned tuna, canned chicken, etc.
- Soups and stews
- Pasta and rice
- Cereal, including breakfast cereal and oatmeal
- Canned vegetables, including tomatoes and tomato sauce
- Canned or dried beans and peas
- Canned fruits
- Fruit juice, boxed or canned
- Prepared box mixes, including macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper
- Shelf-stable milk
If you're thinking of bringing perishables, baked goods and home-made dishes, bring those to the holiday party instead!
Users Helping Users
The meetup begins at 7:30pm but the doors open a little earlier at 6:30pm 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!
Lightning talks
We're forgoing full-length presentations this time and will be opening the floor to 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.
Raffle prizes! Collect them all! Must be present to win!
The raffle prizes this time include discount codes, magazines, DVDs and books! We are always grateful to our sponsors for their continued support. If you have any items you'd like to donate to the raffle, please contact any of the organizers at the meetup.
- Invitation codes to Pantheon
Pantheon is a Drupal hosting and development platform with the usual stack of Drupal, Apache, MySQL and PHP, but comes with extra high-performance goodness like Pressflow, Memcache, Varnish and Solr. If that weren't enough, Pantheon accounts have a complete environment where code and databases can be moved up and down from dev, test and production.Sound complicated? It actually isn't, because all this functionality is managed with an easy to use point-and-click interface.
- Linux Journal magazine featuring Drupal 7 and Drush
This collector's edition features articles by Angie Byron (webchick) on Drupal 7 and James Walker (walkah) on Drush. We have an extra copy to raffle off! - Drupal 7 Development - Core Concepts DVD from Chris Shattuck at Build a Module.com
The Core Concepts series contains over 12 hours of video that cover how to use jQuery, JavaScript and AJAX, how to work with users and nodes, how to build dynamic forms, theming with a module, an overview of coding standards, development tips and tricks, and more.This DVD is a must-have for every developer's library.
Drupal After Dark
After we wrap up the night and clean up, a group of us will go to a nearby restaurant or pub. In the past we've had beers and a bonfire and were serenaded by 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 a comment below.
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 code sprints, barn raisings, the Varnish 3 Release Party and LA Drupal's job fairs in June and November, 2011. To learn more about Droplabs, follow @Droplabs on Twitter, sign up at Meetup.com/Droplabs or like DroplabsLA on Facebook!
About Downtown Los Angeles Drupal
The Downtown Los Angeles Drupal group regularly meets in and around Downtown Los Angeles, California. We organize a large number of weekly and monthly events on various Drupal topics, including the general Downtown Los Angeles Drupal meetup that has been meeting regularly on the 3rd Tuesday of the month since early 2010.
The Downtown area is the most active area for Drupal in the Greater Los Angeles Area and has seen hundreds of Drupal events, including job fairs, meetups and workshops, study group meetings, conferences about design and theming, paid trainings, FREE tutoring sessions from Drupal professionals and barn raisings to benefit non-profits and members of our community here in and around Downtown Los Angeles.
Attending Drupal events in and around Downtown Los Angeles is one of the best ways to meet and talk with other Drupaleros and we encourage you to attend as many meetings and special events as you'd like. 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 Downtown Los Angeles Drupal events are an essential resource for Drupal professionals and hobbyists alike.
If you aren't already a member of Downtown Los Angeles Drupal, it's easy to join our community. Our community calendar is on our "Events" tab on our home page at http://groups.drupal.org/dtla
The Downtown Los Angeles Drupal group proudly participates in the California Drupal Travelers Program and can host businesses and community members who are visiting the area. Inquire within by contacting any of the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal organizers.
Comments
To the person who downvoted
To the person who downvoted this event announcement: we love you and you're still invited!
Love the sentiment of the food drive
But there's some interesting statistics about how to have the most impact. Basically, money is really the best thing to donate...
See here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-arnold-canned-food-...
Los Angeles, CA
Bring cash
Great article! OccupyLA was in full force when this event was thought up and most of the food was going to be delivered to their welcome tent. Cash is the first thing listed above in the things to bring, though, and 100% of cash donations will go to the LA Food Bank.
Founder
http://www.larks.la
Robot Coordinator
http://droplabs.net
Organizer, Dragonslayer
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Can't make it out :(
I kept thinking the meetup was on the upcoming Tuesday/Wednesday (I should have paid more attention to the date and what day it corresponds with). Unfortunately, I can't make it out that evening aside from maybe skyping / google hanging out if that's possible :(
This isn't planned as a
This isn't planned as a traditional meetup with clasroom-style presentations, but in case someone wants to give a feaure-length presentation we will most likely broadcast it.
I've been learning from Iribarne here in South Florida how the Broward Drupal group does tele-meetups and I'm excited to give it a try at the Los Angeles meetups.
How was your experience with Google Hangouts? I like how it highlights who's speaking, but does it also have a screensharing feature?
Google+ hangouts
Yes. G+ recently added screen sharing in there hangouts. You have to start the hangout with the "Try Hangouts with extras to preview new features" link selected. Google seems to be incorporating features that they had in Waves into G+.
I think the Google+ hangout
I think the Google+ hangout (with extras) worked pretty well for the Long Beach meetup in terms of easy setup and ability to share video / audio / and screen. An external webcam aimed at the room is probably also helpful for anyone participating remotely. I also think it was helpful to have the hangout broadcast in the room for participants that weren't logged in. It probably saved bandwidth, too.
The glitches:
* Times when we had to mess with audio/video.
* I'm not sure how well the screen sharing worked remotely?
The pluses:
* Audio and video were definitely helpful and there was a fair amount of back and forth.
* I do like that google plus allows you to share individual applications or entire desktop.
* Another nice advantage of Google+ is its truly cross platform and supports Linux well (even for screen sharing). Two out of three of the local participants that logged into the hangout were running Linux -- the other was Windows.
Of Note:
Much of our communication was in IRC (#drupal-la). I believe its important to utilize meetups as a way to help new people become comfortable using IRC; as that is truly the pulse of Drupal (and open source in general). If you need help, IRC is key. And (eventually) in this process of interacting in IRC one begins to learn the value of providing help too.
--
mike stewart { twitter: @MediaDoneRight | IRC nick: mike stewart }
External Web Cam
I've got an external USB webcam I can bring if anyone thinks it will be helpful. Of course, most of our Mac laptops could be used with their internal cams.
We raised $495 in 2011
I just realized we never announced how much we raised in 2011 for the LA Food Bank. It was $495 according to this comment:
https://groups.drupal.org/node/267768#comment-861953
We're planning another holiday party and food drive this year, and the date is December 16, 2013. Our fundraising goal this time is $1090, which is $1 more than our combined proceeds from 2011 and 2012.
Stay tuned for an upcoming event announcement with all the details!