Central Connecticut Drupal Meetup - Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Posted by drmarkafriedman on August 24, 2011 at 2:09am

Start:

2011-09-20 19:00 - 21:00 America/New_York

Organizers:

drmarkafriedman

Event type:

User group meeting

The Central Connecticut Drupal Meetup Group will be holding its next educational and interactive, face-to-face meeting on Tuesday, September 20, 2011 from 7pm to 9pm at the University of Connecticut School of Law in Hartford, CT in Janet M. Blumberg Hall inside the Hosmer Hall building, as it continues to build and strengthen the community of Drupal developers, designers, administrators, content creators and other stakeholders in Connecticut. Come meet fellow Drupalists. Come learn what Drupal can do for you and the best practices to apply when using Drupal. Come help steer our group to become an invaluable source of information and networking opportunities. We are a passionate and fun group, enthusiastic to grow and help all those interested in Drupal - beginners, journeymen and experts - by sharing our collective knowledge, expertise, experiences and ideas.

Logistics

When: Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Where: Janet M. Blumberg Hall inside the Hosmer Hall building at the University of Connecticut School of Law, Hartford, CT 06105

Here is a google map centered on the University of Connecticut School of Law and a campus map showing the locations of the building in which we will be meeting. If you enter the campus via the Elizabeth Street entrance, park in the lots on the right (adjacent to Hosmer) or on the left (adjacent to the Library) where you can find space. It's a short walk to Hosmer and Blumberg Hall on the 2nd floor.

Please use the sign up button on this page so that we have a rough idea of how many people will be attending.

Thanks go to Bob Mariotti and the University of Connecticut School of Law for arranging our meeting space.

Agenda

Introductions
- Who are you? What brings you to this Drupal Meetup? What do you do? How do you use Drupal? What are your websites? For what companies do you work?
Welcome to Drupal Newcomers
- A Quick Introduction to Drupal (when those new to Drupal are present)
Presentations and Discussions
- Designing Drupal Websites for Mobile Devices, Shaun Gorneau
- Update and discussion on the WWUH website
Informal Group Discussion
- What have you been doing with Drupal? What help do you need with Drupal? What assistance or resources can you provide with Drupal to other Meetup attendees?
Group Business
- Selection of Presentations and Activities for Future Meetups

Additional Information

Please visit the wiki page entitled Central Connecticut Drupal Meetup Group for additional information about our Meetup Group.

Comments

Change in meeting room

Posted by bobmct on August 30, 2011 at 4:44pm

Due to reconstruction of our previous meeting room and conflict with evening classes, we will be meeting in the Janet M Blumberg Hall inside the Hosmer Hall building. There are no refreshment facilities so bring your own coffee/soft drink if desired.
Also, we had briefly discussed connecting at a local pizza restaurant prior to the meeting. Two that come to mind are:
Lena's First & Last Pizzeria, 2053 Park St Hartford, CT or Joey's Pizza Pie, 353 Park Road, West Hartford, CT (a new one by Joey Garlic)

Lena's has pizza by the slice

Posted by drmarkafriedman on August 30, 2011 at 5:28pm

Lena's has pizza by the slice (as well as salads, sandwiches and other entrees) which might be more convenient. (I don't know about Joey's.) I've been told that Tuesday afternoon/evening is quiet and a good time for a small group. There is both indoor and outdoor seating and it adjoints Sully's pub. There is off street parking in the back.

So, I'll suggest we start at Lena's this month. I plan to arrive at 5:30pm.

Dr. Mark A. Friedman, President
The Richard Roman Institute
email: webmail@drmarkafriedman.com
web: www.drmarkafriedman.com or www.richardroman.com
im & online: drmarkafriedman (major services & sites), 216365864 (icq)

See ya there

Posted by skowyra on September 14, 2011 at 7:46pm

Mark,

I'll see ya there at 5:30.

Jim

I'll be there as well...

Posted by mwetmore on September 16, 2011 at 2:36pm

I'll also be there at 5:30pm.

-matt

Bob, can you confirm where we

Posted by drmarkafriedman on August 30, 2011 at 5:29pm

Bob, can you confirm where we are able to park on the Law School campus. Thanks.

Parking areas at UCONN Law

Posted by bobmct on August 30, 2011 at 6:13pm

Mark,

Just checked with the UConn Police. If attendees enter via the Elizabeth St entrance they can use the lots on the right (adjacent to Hosmer) or the left (adjacent to the Library) where they can find space. Short walk to Hosmer and Blumberg Hall on the 2nd Floor.

I'll see you at Lena's by 5:30PM - Bob

Thanks

Posted by drmarkafriedman on August 30, 2011 at 11:15pm

Thanks

If there's time

Posted by skowyra on September 12, 2011 at 3:39pm

I'd like to do a quick overview of Quickstart for Drupal. It's a Linux development environment prepackaged for VirualBox (a virtual machine you can run on Windows). The coolest feature is it's copy of the NetBeans IDE that allows you to debug PHP line by line. If you want to check out Quickstart: http://drupal.org/project/quickstart. Actually, the best feature is how easy it is to set up. Plus, there are excellent videos and documentation that go along with it.

Note: While Quickstart comes out-of-the-box with PHP5.3, there is a way to downgrade to 5.2 in order to run Drupal 6 sites.

Sooo

Posted by mwetmore on September 13, 2011 at 1:56am

Mark, are you cool with also fitting in Jims presentation? Might be good overlap w/ this weeks Yale meetup where some quickstart discussions might take place.

-matt

For sure, Jim's presentation

Posted by drmarkafriedman on September 13, 2011 at 5:46pm

For sure, Jim's presentation sounds like a great idea.

A Reminder on Tuesday's Central Connecticut Drupal Meetup

Posted by drmarkafriedman on September 16, 2011 at 3:36pm

So, we have a full agenda for the Central Connecticut Drupal Meetup on Tuesday, September 20, 2011 from 7pm to 9pm at the University of Connecticut School of Law in Hartford, CT in Janet M. Blumberg Hall inside the Hosmer Hall building:

Jim will give a quick overview of Quickstart for Drupal.

Shaun will be discussing his approach to mobile web sites (in terms of design, capabilities, and content).

We will meet beforehand at 5:30 at Lena's First & Last Pizzeria, 2053 Park St Hartford, CT for a bit of socializing and food.

Hope to see you there.

Sept 20th CT Drupal Meeting Comments

Posted by bobmct on September 21, 2011 at 1:00pm

I want to say that I really enjoyed Shawn's presentation on controlling region placement almost automatically using relatively simple css w/media query. Thank you. Also, Jim's (short) presentation on Quickstart has enticed me sufficiently to download/install/try it this morning (thanks, Jim). I promise to have network access working for all by next month.

Also, until further notice, our meetings will be held in the UConn Law Library 2nd Floor Computer Lab (LIB236). Main entrance lobby elevator down one floor, look left to view the computer lab. See you all at Lena's next month.

Bob

I agree. Last night was

Posted by drmarkafriedman on September 21, 2011 at 2:24pm

I agree. Last night was enjoyable all around... Lena's, Shawn's presentation, Jim's presentation, Bob's tour, ... I appreciate that we've come around to having a core group that meets regularly each month. I've been doing so much organizing in my life over the past couple of years. Shawn's presentation got me thinking I need to start presenting material more regularly. Jim's presentation got me thinking how just a brief presentation on something one has discovered can be valuable. And in all, it nice to be getting to know each other.

Great Meetup!

Posted by sgorneau on September 21, 2011 at 4:14pm

Hey everyone, thanks again for another great meetup! Lena's was definitely great and I look forward to the "pre-game" there next month :) For anyone that couldn't make it (and anyone that was there that wants to review), here are my presentation files.

Keynote Presentation

HTML Version
PDF Version

Demonstration

HTML, CSS, and Media Queries Walkthrough

Just to summarize the presentation, I talked about my method and process for designing web sites to accommodate all screen sizes and simple tweaks to optimize for mobile (touch screen) devices.

With the Keynote presentation, I started by introducing layout techniques (Fluid, Adaptive, and Responsive) for anyone that may not be familiar with them. I briefly talked about table layouts...what they are, why they existed, and why they should never be used. Many designers may think that is an irrelevant topic this day in age....but I still see a ton of it going on. And, someone may have to maintain a site that was developed years ago with a table layout. I just had to point out the reasons to move away from table layouts if anyone is managing/designing one. Then I introduced media queries and their detection capabilities. Everything up to this point was presented so that everyone would understand the foundation for Responsive design. I then explained I integrate Responsive Design into my design process to accommodate virtually any screen size.

Next came the viewport meta tag and how that optimizes a web site's "scaling" for small screen devices (which, by default, tend to fit the entire site's width in the viewport).

Then I broke away from the Keynote presentation and demonstrated some very, very simple HTML5 markup with a step-by-step build up of CSS rules to show how one HTML document can take on many, many front-end presentations. Both the HTML and CSS are very simple by design; I wanted to show that simple works (and, personally, I think simple is best). You can follow the example site's navigation from left to right to see the build-up/modifications of CSS rules that allow the site to morph into the final responsive/mobile-optimized site. The only thing that changes from page to page is the inclusion of CSS files (the HTML markup never changes).

I wrapped up with "what does this have to do with Drupal?". It may be obvious that, for themers, this is very relevant. But, module developers could take note of the simple (semantic) HTML and work that into their process for module markup output.

Much more was explained in the "talk" of the presentation...but you should get the gist from the slides.

Thanks again for the great meetup! And to anyone that missed this one (or the past few), we would really encourage you to join in on the meet ups. We have touched on some great topics and even the general conversation is always enlightening. It would be great to see more familiar faces and certainly some new ones!

Sorry everyone

Posted by sgorneau on September 21, 2011 at 4:21pm

I had to make edits to the post (multiple times) to modify links and some markup...I had no idea g.d.o. would blast everyone with emails for every edit. I will never edit again!

Many thumbs up

Posted by skowyra on September 21, 2011 at 7:46pm

That was an excellent presentation. Thanks for the work you put into it.

Hey Shaun just a heads up but

Posted by tommyent on September 21, 2011 at 4:28pm

Hey Shaun just a heads up but all the links are broken.

Ooops seems like you were

Posted by tommyent on September 21, 2011 at 4:30pm

Ooops seems like you were doing it as I was typing O_0

Thanks :)

Posted by sgorneau on September 21, 2011 at 5:26pm

Hey, no problem man. I had to move everything to the root of the Drupal install...the files directory .htaccess was really messing with the directory of HTML files. Should be all good now :) Thanks again man.

Anyway to Switch Around the Nights for These Meetings?

Posted by pottsy108 on September 22, 2011 at 3:22am

I so want to attend and meet with this group, but the night of meetings I am not available. I have to figure I am not the only one with this challenge - others please chime in that have the same issue!

Is there anyway that the group could meet on a weekend for these so-needed information sessions?

Thanks.

+1 for a Weekend

Posted by criana on September 26, 2011 at 3:39am

I was also interested in attending the meeting, but making it up to Hartford on a week night is a bit difficult. I'm commuting over from Danbury, so a weekend would be great. But I certainly realize if there's a steady group of locals and Tuesdays are easiest, then that should stick.

Design & Developer
http://about.me/criana

I'm in the same boat. I

Posted by airspoon on September 22, 2011 at 3:42am

I'm in the same boat. I wanted to attend this latest one, though unfortunately I had other obligations. Having them on Weekends sounds like a cool idea, then again I've never been to one.

It's taken quite a bit of

Posted by drmarkafriedman on September 26, 2011 at 3:54am

It's taken quite a bit of time to get some stability in our small group with attendance. If the three of you were to start another meeting that met on a weekend, you'd be halfway there to what we've built with the Tuesday night group - and you might find one or two of us attending those weekend meetings as well. I'd be happy to suggest places to look for space.

+1 for a Weekend

Posted by stephaniefuda on September 26, 2011 at 11:16am

I also live in Danbury and work in Fairfield. I'd love it if there were a weekend meeting, but do respect the standing of the Tuesday night group.

+1

Posted by tommyent on September 26, 2011 at 12:49pm

I wouldn't mind a weekend meeting as they would be easier to find someone to watch the kids for me.

+1

Posted by mwetmore on September 26, 2011 at 12:55pm

Since it seems like there is a good amount of interest in a weekend meetup of some kind, I'd be willing to help out and organize.

My thoughts are that a weekend meetup could be a little more informal and more of a potential playday, like the ones NYC has.

-matt

Drupal Meetup

Posted by sethduke on September 26, 2011 at 9:00pm

I'd be interested in attending. Weekends would be easier for me with my meeting schedules.

To attend a meetup is it just a matter of showing up or do we have to pre-register?

Twice a month

Posted by skowyra on September 27, 2011 at 11:27am

I agree with Mark that we're starting to get stability on Tuesdays, and we should keep that one. But adding a second meeting a month on a weekend would be quite a benefit to many. Let's start ASAP on finding a place.

Can we....

Posted by mwetmore on October 3, 2011 at 11:10pm

Can we get Oct/Nov's meetup dates posted as events? We should get the topic discussion going...

-matt

Central Connecticut Drupal Meetup - Tuesday, September 20, 2011

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