GDoDSA Newsletter #1
Introduction
The first Groups.Drupal.org, Drupal South Africa (GDoDSA) newsletter. Wow, took quite a bit more time than I thought to compose. I'd love to have a webform available for more structured submissions, and well, subscriptions and a thousand more ideas that would help support our community, but we're taking the long and good path with the Drupal Association South Africa (DASA). Trying to make sure we have an actual non-profit available to avoid the commercial problem we have with the existing drupal.org.za and drupal.co.za domains.
With regards to that, I also commit to moving anything GDoDSA related, contacts, editorial, naming etc. to the DASA as soon as it requests it or become a reality (constitution etc.); I also hope to continue negotiating for a similar commitment from the current "owner" of the Drupal domains in SA.
The DASA meets again for the fourth month this Wednesday. Much have been done, but with a blocking item being a constitution so that we can become a reality, we'll be taking that as our sole topic for this month's meeting and will then, soon after, present the constitution to you all here on GDo. Once we have a constitution, we can start doing things like registering a domain, not owned by any one person, but owned by all of us, legally (with the provision that the Drupal trade mark belongs to Dries of course and is managed by the Drupal Association, so if we ever miss step, that name can be demanded from us too).
In this edition then, the wonderful people that are so often available to help and took a bit of time from their very busy schedules to submit their details for this newsletter. Thank you all, and I do hope to gather more details from everyone else for our next newsletter.
When asking for help, please consider that an offer to help is one of guidance, not an offer to do work. Expect to save enormous amounts of time researching the best technologies or trying to find the right documentation when someone points such things out. Don't expect to hand over code to fix, or ask for a site to be themed or module to be written. That's said, I've met most of the people who submitted their details and they are super friendly.
A Helping Hand
Drupal is a community as much as it is a framework. We all know something that someone else really needs to learn about. Please write in by e-mail and give us your details if you are prepared to help others.
These people offer you a helping hand...
In order of appearance:
Lancelot Nyachoto (kombuta on GDo)
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: lancelot@quantum.com.na
- Also on: Google Hangouts: lance.nyach@gmail.com
Can help with:
- Oracle development
- SASS
- Drupal Module Development
- Firefox OS
General Location: Bryanston, Johannesburg
Primary OS: Mac OS X
Text Editor: Sublime Text, vim
Primary Browser: Firefo **
Mostly work with Drupal: **No
New Interesting Tech: Firefox OS, HTML5 Mobile Apps, Drupal as a data store for HTML5 apps
Quentin Campbell (Max_Headroom on Do, GDo and IRC)
Available to help through:
- Preferred: E-mail: quentin@digitalsolace.co.za
General Location: Gordon's Bay
Primary OS: Windows 7
Text Editor: OpenOffice, Netbeans, Eclipse
Primary Browser: Firefox, Chrome
Mostly work with Drupal: No
Bryan Gruneberg (hekkwan on IRC, bryangruneberg)
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: bryan@nimbledoo.com
- Also On: IRC: hekkwan
- Also On: Google Talk: bryan@perceptum.za.net
- Also On: Twitter (work): @nimbledoo
- Also On: Twitter (personal): @bryangruneberg
- Not so much On: Skype: perceptum-ctn
Can help with:
- Project Management
- Some Agile
- PHP Development
- Drupal Module Development
- Drupal Commerce
General Location: Cape Town
Primary OS: Ubuntu
Text Editor: vim
Primary Browser: Chrome
Mostly work with Drupal: Yes
C.Lee Taylor (leenx on Do and GDo)
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: leet@leenx.org
- Not so much On: Google Hangouts: leet@leenx.org
Can help with:
- Server Setup
- Security and Maintenance
- Basic Drupal
General Location: Johannesburg
Primary OS: Ubuntu
Text Editor: Midnight Commanders Editors, nano, gedit
Primary Browser: Firefox, Chrome
Mostly work with Drupal: Yes
Interests: Redundant/Fault-tolerant site setups
Adam Dunn
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: dunn.lofts@gmail.com
- Not so much On: SMS: 082 802 5416
Can help with:
- Basic Web Design
General Location: Fourways
Primary OS: Windows 8
Primary Browser: Chrome
Mostly work with Drupal: Yes
Dinesh Copoosamy (dineshcooper on Do and GDo)
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: dinesh@dinesh.co.za
- Preferred: Twitter: @dineshcooper
Can help with:
- PHP
- SQL / MySQL
- HTML & CSS
- Javascript
- Drupal
- AngularJS
- NodeJS
- Apache
General Location: Centurion
Lauro Scott-Parkin (L.Scott-Parkin on Do and GDo)
Available to help through:
- Preferred: Skype: twixtrix
- Not so much On: Google Hangouts: twixtrix@gmail.com
Can help with:
- Design
- Project Management
- Development
- Strategy
- Communications
- Sales
- Team Building / Motivation
- Critiquing
Want to gain skills in:
- JQuery / JavaScript
- PHP and Drupal Module Development
- Drush
- Features Development
General Location: Rivonia / Bryanston
Primary OS: Max OS X
Text Editor: Text Wrangler / CSS / Filezilla
Primary Browser: Chrome, Firefox, Opera
Mostly work with Drupal: Yes
Interesting Links: http://hakim.se/experiments, http://behance.net/zeak, http://nippyprint.co.za, ISS Astronauts Are Spacewalking Now and You Can Watch It Here Live
Ivan Breet (ivanbreet on Do and GDo)
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: ivanbreet@gmail.com
- Preferred: Google Hangouts: ivanbreet@gmail.com
- Google Hangouts for Meet-up Attendees Only
General Location: Pretoria, Johannesburg
Text Editor: Sublime Text 2
Primary Browser: Chrome, Firefox, PhantomJS... basically anything except IE
Cool Links: https://delicious.com/ivanbreet
Rui Ferreira (rcb.ferreira on Do and GDo)
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: ferreira.rcb@gmail.com
- Preferred: Google Hangouts: ferreira.rcb@gmail.com
- Also On: Skype: ferreira-rui
Can help with:
- PHP
- MySQL
- JQuery
- JavaScript / AngularJS
- Research and install modules to meet project requirements
- Configure the basic modules and core settings to get a site running
- Drush command line tool
- Create a custom Theme from scratch which validates with good HTML/CSS.
- Able to customise forms, core, themes without altering core files but by using template.php or custom modules.
- Can make forms from scratch using the API - with validation and posting back to the DB/email
- Can create custom modules from scratch utilising core hooks and module hooks.
General Location: Braynston
Text Editor: JetBrains, PhpStorm
Primary Browser: Chrome, Firefox
Mostly work with Drupal: Yes
Interesting Links: http://www.webappers.com/, http://bjankord.github.io/Style-Guide-Boilerplate/
Riaan Burger (Nightwatch on IRC)
Available to help through:
- At Drupal User Group Meet-ups
- Preferred: E-mail: riaan.burger@burtronix.com
- Preferred: Google Hangouts: riaan.burger@burtronix.com
- Also On: IRC: Nightwatch
- Also On: Skype: riaan.burger.burtronix
Can help with:
- Basic LAMP stack and server setup
- Drupal Development, Implementation and Themeing
- Project Management
- Community Building and Communication
General Location: Fourways, Bryanston
Primary OS: Linux Mint
Text Editor: Sublime Text 3
Primary Browser: Firefox
Interesting Links: Using Drupal 8's new route controllers, PhantomJS