Wednesday's User Group Meeting (Making Drupal Mobile + Lightning Talks)

Hey everyone,

Just a friendly reminder that this WEDNESDAY (January 12) is the date of our monthly Portland Drupal User Group Meeting.

Here's what we've got on the agenda:

1. "Making Drupal Mobile" presented by Lyza Danger Gardner & Others (Cloud Four)

Ever wanted to make your Drupal site work in conjunction with a native iPhone or Android app? Or do you want to make an existing Drupal site shine on mobile devices? Cloud Four team members (www.cloudfour.com) will be here to discuss what they've learned from their extensive use of Drupal in the mobile world, both for delivering content and full-blown Web-based applications. They will discuss design, implementation, infrastructure, deployment and performance, looking at issues around content adaptation, server-side device detection and design considerations. It's a must-attend presentation for anyone who wants to take advantage of the current explosive growth in smartphone and tablet usage.

2. Lightning Talks: Back by Popular Demand

It's been awhile since we've had lightning talks and they are back by popular demand. This time around, we're doing a series of 7-minute presentations (a couple minutes longer than before) on your favorite module, coding technique, cool Drupal website, or anything else of interest to the group. You can sign up to deliver a lightning talk by suggesting a topic in the comments below. If you're new to the group, this is a great way to test the waters with a short presentation (everyone is very supportive) and also let other group members know a bit about your Drupal interests and background.

To get us started, here are three lightning talks we've already got scheduled:

a) 'Using the Skinr module in Drupal 6 and 7' by Marlene Williams: Learn how to use the Skinr module (http://drupal.org/project/skinr) to define a set of reusable and modular CSS styles that are available via "point and click" in Drupal's UI.

b) 'Indexing file attachments with Apache Solr' by Michael Halstead: Learn how to harness the power of the Apache Solr module (http://drupal.org/project/apachesolr) to allow users to search files on your site.

c) 'To Hack or Not to Hack: That is the Theming Question' by Mike Prasuhn: Is it better to hack an existing them or start a new theme from scratch? Mike will explore best practices for different use cases.

Finally, here are the meeting details:

Date: Wednesday, January 12
Time: 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. (after the meeting, we head to Lucky Lab for drinks and conversation!)
Location: OpenSourcery offices (1636 NW Lovejoy St. Portland, OR 97209)

It promises to be really interesting and useful meeting... you don't want to miss it!

See you there,
Ben