Long Beach: we're bigger than Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Cleavland, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Cincinatti, to name a few. So it's no surprise we've got some great talent in the area. Do you live here or nearby? Do you know Drupal or want to learn? Come join us for a totally free & fun evening of Drupal sharing, learning, networking, and open source goodness: Wednesday, Jan 4, 2012 for our first meetup of 2012 (OMGOMGOMG)!_
| MEETUP | INFORMATION |
|---|---|
| Monthly muse: | Come learn a work-flow that allows you to contribute to Drupal core in 30min or less! |
| When: | Wednesday, Jan 4, 2012 :: 7:00pm - 10:00pm Doors open between 5p - 6p, come early to help setup & chat. RSVP by clicking sign-up or follow @LADrupal on twitter for details. |
| Where: | LA NET 4182 N. Viking Way, Suite 214 Long Beach, CA 90808 Note: Enter main entrance on Viking Way, up the stairs and then to the right. |
| Venue: | Free Parking, Free Wi-Fi, power, etc. Thanks to our generous host: LA Net |
| Online: | IRC channel: #drupal-la |
| Agenda: | This is a working meetup. Come teach others to contribute by letting them watch you. Come learn by watching and participating. Post issue suggestions in comments below. At our last meetup, we went through the process and RTBC'd one lingering issue. This meetup we'll split into at least two working groups and hope to RTBC much more. |
| Raffle: | We'll have prizes at meetups with attendance of 15 (or more). Based on attendance last month, a raffle seems likely. We have coupons and DVD's from the awesome Drupal training people at www.BuildAModule.com -- with over 500 Drupal specific videos available for streaming, download, or on DVD. |
| Free Food & Drink: | Provided for anyone that RSVP's. Thanks to our sponsor and local Drupal shop:  media done right Also, special thanks to Stauffer New Media Development for co-sponsoring food & drink at the meetup in December! |
| Additional | Details |
|---|---|
| Presentation: | None. We're focused on a collaborative, organic, and working meetup. Although short 'lightning talk' type presentations are always welcome! (please add a comment) |
| After hours | Up to you. Last month was fun and lots of food & beverages while we worked and shared. There are of course venues on way back to freeways. If you have a suggestion, please leave a comment. |
| Virtual Participation | We'll be setup for video / Audio / screen sharing if you want to join remotely. Details below. |
| Directions |  |
Event Details
Are you interested in giving back to Drupal? Do you want to be more involved with code sprints or Drupal 8 initiatives? How about we prep for a "barn raising" for a local Long Beach non-profit website?
- Want to give back?
- Want to learn how?
- Do you already know how and willing to help teach and collaborate with others?
- Come look over the shoulder of Drupal pro's -- or come work and let people learn from you!
- Or just come and hang with your old-and new friend's in the LBC
The atmosphere is loose and questions are encouraged. We will review work on documentation, patches, issue review, etc. From the time the doors open until everyone is ready to leave we'll be contributing to Drupal together. We can stay as late as we'd like. Chatter and collaboration while we contribute is encouraged and some of us might focus on solving problems we're encountering on personal projects. Come hang and contribute in the LBC with other local Drupal & tech geeks. Collaborate. Network. Play Patch Bingo or Work on Novice Issues. Come get/give help with GIT, Drush, Drupal, LAMP, and environments. Bring your questions and ideas.
Our Host: LA Net
Special thanks to our hosts, LA Net a community-based Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) focused on health disparities reduction in Southern California.
LA Net is providing their office space for our venue, wifi, free parking, and plus its close to lots of good food all walking distance. Come collaborate with us and learn by doing or helping others. This is the first of a series of monthly events to get together and give-back to Drupal. The schedule is loose and I'm open to ideas, but the main idea is to set aside some time and contribute together! It also happens to be one of the the best ways to learn or expand your knowledge of Drupal.
Who Should Come?
Everyone. All Drupal/web skill levels welcome. Designers. Developers. Themers. Architects. Users. This event is free and open to everyone, no RSVP is required, however those who do sign up, will have last-minute details (if there are any) sent to them before the meeting and free food/drink. It's also good to know how many to expect so that we can arrange the office adequately, and for others that may be planning to bring snacks to share. So please sign up by RSVPing at the bottom of this announcement.
What to Bring?
Bring your laptop or a tablet / notepad (to take notes) to join the fun! Power strips can be handy. We will have at two projector's and a large screen hi-def TV. Workgroup collaboration both in the room and virtually via google+ hangout will be easy and encouraged. Two rooms will each have someone sharing their screen using a projector during collaboration or when answering questions. If you have a Mac, be sure to bring your Apple proprietary VGA dongle.
As always, feel free to bring your own food or stop by one of the many restaurants within walking distance. The venue size is comparable to Droplabs but divided into three rooms. It'll be setup to seat 15-20 comfortably at desks and tables. More people can join by standing or sitting on the carpeted floor. Feel free to bring a small chair if you don't get there early.
How to Join us Online
Easy! Join us in your IRC client or click here to join in your browser: #Drupal-LA and #Drupal-OC on freenode IRC. Also, a link to a Google+ hangout will be shared in the #drupal-la IRC channel. The G+ hangout will allow sharing of video/audio/screenshare and works on Linux as well as Win and Mac. IRC will also be used while working on the issue queue.
How to Prepare?
Well, you really don't have to. We'll teach and learn together. We tend to be pretty laid back, interactive, and helpful. But maybe you're a bit rusty or still a bit of a novice and just want to feel more comfortable when you show up? Well here's a way to kick start: Every Tuesday eve at 9pm PST or Wednesday mornings at 9am PST in IRC #drupal-contribute the Drupal core development team holds Core Office Hours for people with questions that want to get more involved. Go for it!
Share a Lightning Talk!
Lightning talks are five-minute timed talks where you get a chance to share something new or cool related to Drupal or the web. They are often short how-to's, demo's of modules, theme's, websites, or how you built something in Drupal.
Questions, Ideas, or Comments?
If you have a question about the meetup or venue we'd love to help you, just ask! Something you'd like to see? We're always open to new ideas, suggestions and comments!
Comments
Meeting Recap
I enjoyed this event, perhaps as I attended it remotely, and it felt like I was there, though the pizza had no taste to it. :) There were two webcams in the room, screen sharing abound, even between remote attendees, with multiple screens at one time. Just an amazingly rich, remote experience.
All the better that the issue I and two others (Thanks Mario and Tom) worked on http://drupal.org/node/485414 turned into another, "Say what? And scratch your head in puzzlement." The discussion with my fellow developers, as we each did installs, and attempted patching, D6, or D7, or both? Inspecting the HTML, the theme styles.css files, the patches, making corrections, deductions, getting feedback, correcting course, the word play, interaction, was exciting. The conclusions reached, and final posting at the end of the evening, I know was correct, due to more minds making a better decision.
I had a blast. Did I say that already?
Next month, I'll be on site, in person, and will assist leading a spinoff group to handle one of the issues to be picked, understood, read the community inputs, make choices as to what to hammer at, hammer, and post the reply.
The best part of this all, is that Ashok is assisting, virtually, to begin the meeting, and while he's picking his favor issues, to see progress made on them, I'm feeling great to give back to both the larger Drupal community, and to one of our members, who has volunteered so much.
I can easily see in my future, picking one issue a week, and figuring out the next step. Ashok has been key on this, as some issues... ouch, the next step can involve splitting the issue into 2 other issues, where senior Drupal have to define what the "right" next step is. I've seen some whooper issues now. I did not know issues could get "complex."
I'm waiting anxiously now for February's issue selection, and hoping it might be an easy one. lol
Do join Mike Stewart, either in person, or remote (webcam and mic not required, but it really changes the feel of the remote event, truly does). This was my fifth Issue Sprint, and it's making sense now, to me. Did I say I had a blast? I did! Thanks Mike!
Peter
LA's Open Source User Group Advocate - Volunteer at DrupalCamp LA and SCALE