I'm taking the plunge and putting this meetup out there for everyone. I know laken won't be able to make it, and he will be missed, but I hope many of you can be there.
My wife and I would like to invite you to our home on Tuesday, December 15th at 6:30 pm. We'll be providing a few snacks and some soft drinks, but I'd encourage you to bring snacks (if you'd like) and a drink of your choice.
This will be an informal meetup to which you may bring your significant other.
I have wi-fi. No particular agenda, but I will have just returned from Do it with Drupal, so I'm happy to report on that. Otherwise, I'm sure we all have things to chat about.
Where:
Scott's House
910 Briar St
Missoula, MT 59802
Lower Rattlesnake
Google Maps Link
When:
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
6:30pm - ~9:30pm
Why:
Why not?
Comments
I'm there
Sounds great. I'll be there. Looking forward to hearing how it all went to.
Evan Lovely
http://evanlovely.com
Does sounds great but...
Hi Scott,
...not sure I/we can make it. I'll give you heads up if yes. Give me a call/note about my other questions if you have time.
Thanks - Kathy
Questions
I'll give you a call tomorrow with the info I gathered for you.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Updated plans say yes
hey Scott - Perhaps I'll talk to you earlier tomorrow but now I think we can come re 6:30-ish... still on ?
We're on
I haven't had too many RSVPs, but we're happy to have anyone that can make it. Yes, we're still on.
On an unrelated note, I'm so sorry I didn't call yesterday...clients got the best of me! I'll give you a call today.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
I will be there
Scott - Thanks for hosting this. I have been wanting to learn more about Drupal.
Rick
You bet!
You bet! I'm relatively new to Drupal myself, but am trying to learn quickly.
See you tonight.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Meetup Notes
Thanks to everyone for attending the meetup this evening. It was great getting a chance to talk to everyone.
It was an informal, yet successful gathering. I wanted to run down a few of the items we discussed and provide some links for references.
Learning Tools
The consensus for a great book for learning Drupal was Using Drupal published by O'Reilly. Amazon.com link
We also discussed online CSS references such as Sitepoint and W3Schools.
Theming
Sameer, in particular, had an interest in theming. Evan and Kathy also expressed interest in theming. Perhaps this could be a topic of discussion down the road.
Do it With Drupal
Scott attended the Lullabot Do it with Drupal conference in New Orleans last week. It was a successful conference with lots of information and friendly people.
Two memorable topics from the conference were Cloud Installations of Drupal and the Features module.
For more on easy installations of Drupal in the Cloud, read about Pantheon and their Amazon EC2 AMI Drupal Packages here.
The Features module is another interesting Drupal development. From the modules page, "The features module enables the capture and management of features in Drupal. A feature is a collection of Drupal entities which taken together satisfy a certain use-case." Using the Features module, you can package together certain modules and affiliated content into a freestanding module-like entity. For a real-world look at the Features module in action, check out Open Atrium.
Meetings
I brought up trying to get a standard meeting date (monthly) set for our meetups. It was pointed out that many groups tend to be meeting near the end of the month (3rd or 4th week) so we should, perhaps, consider meeting the first or second week. Harold is unavailable during early January, but may be available later in the month. We also wanted to include Andy in the decision of when to meet.
Off Topic
One hot off-topic discussion was regarding Evernote, a note-taking/organizational multi-platform application. More information about Evernote can be found at http://www.evernote.com/. It's free for most uses.
Wishing everyone the happiest of holidays,
Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Thanks
Scott,
Very informative Meetup and it was great to see and meet everyone.
Thanks for hosting the Drupal Meetup and also for posting notes about the meeting. That is very helpful.
I agree that a regular meeting would be nice and I thing Theming is a great subject for the next meeting.
Take Care,
Rick
@mtgood4business
FB: rick.larson
www.aSureFit.com
I'd really love to attend
I'd really love to attend these meets. I've met Andy, Kathy, and a few others, and hope to meet the rest of the Montana Drupalers. I'm a full-time consultant doing 95% Drupal for 3 years, but it's a 2-1/2 hour drive from Great Falls. If you planned a weekend meet or later time (maybe 8:00), I would more than likely attend. I design, build, code and customize, and would be willing to present.
Weekend Meetings
Chris,
I'd love for you to be able to attend. For the record, I'm completely fine with weekend meetings if they work for others.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Greetings from Bozeman!
Hello fellow Drupalers,
I am pretty new to the Drupal world -- have been learning it for the last few months. I am working on a site that will have information and links about my films (I teach at MSU in the film school), a place for students to upload projects for group critique, and a forum for tech info, etc. It is still a work in progress, but if you are curious: www.theolipfert.com
I found a great training resource for those interested on Lynda.com. This is a subscription based training site that I use in classes and for myself. I can't recommend it more highly! There are currently three Drupal courses: a basic intro, a data presentation course (CCK and Views) and a Themeing (sp?) course. I have done the first two, and will tackle the third shortly.
Anyway -- glad to know there are other Big Sky Drupalers out there!
-Theo
Drupal + film/video = excitement
Hi Theo, thanks for finding us! I'm really interested in your project, and would love to offer any help/advice I can. I was a film major myself, at Wesleyan, so this is a project after my own heart.
I've recently done a lot of work with the Media Mover module, which undergirds powerful video sites like http://hub.witness.org/ and would be happy to share what I learned. I also have a good amount of general Drupal development experience.
Any chance you could make it over to Missoula for one of our (soon to be scheduled) meetups? We would do our bet to make it worth your while!
Count me in!
I would love to try to drive up for a meetup. If the timing works, I can bring the family for a night at the C'mon inn....
I really just stumbled on Drupal but have been amazed by depths of what it can do. So far I am just piggybacking the videos via Vimeo and Youtube, but in the future, who knows. I spent a few days last summer at Witness.org in Brooklyn -- getting footage for a doc project I am finishing about (in a way) open source software and human rights...
I really need to be editing my film, but I can't stop messing with Drupal. It is like crack...
Great that you studied film at Wesleyan -- wonderful school. Many many years ago I went to Hampshire, just up 95 from CT.
Keep me posted about the meetup!
Theo
MT Programmers
Theo,
Not sure if you're a part of the Meetup group or not, but I wanted to give you the heads up that the Montana Programmers Meetup group is testing the waters to see if there's interest in Bozeman for a meetup.
Here's the link to the event.
-Scott
PS - We'd still love to have you as a part of our group meetings as well, of course. I just wanted to let you know about this in case you're interested.
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Thanks, Theo
Theo,
Thanks for the tip. I really enjoyed the videos from Lynda.com back when I was teaching myself Photoshop. I didn't think to look there for Drupal videos.
Took a look at your site. Looks like you have an interesting project ahead of you. I wasn't able to see much as I get an "Access Denied" error on all pages except the Screening Room. Let us know when things get up and running. I love seeing what others do with Drupal.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Onward to 2010
Greetings Montana Drupalistas!
Glad you had a good meetup on the 15th, and props to Scott for hosting. I was away and worked almost my entire vacation launching the new version of http://realitysandwich.com/ with support from the amazing Bevan Rudge, New Zealand's Drupal rockstar. (I'm really proud of this re-launch: we added paid premium content subscriptions, free and premium video using Amazon S3, Flash slideshows, Audio and PDF downloads for registered users, a new design/theme, and more. I'd love to do a show-and-tell at an upcoming meeting.)
I really want to help this group flourish in 2010, and next week I'd like to initiate a discussion about:
I'll kick this off in a separate post, but just wanted to give a heads-up. Here's a quick outline of suggested local group practices we could use to get started: http://drupal.org/node/247952
For those who are interested in helping organize these meetings, you might want to join http://groups.drupal.org/local-user-group-organizers and look over the links highlighted in the yellow box on the top of the page, just to inform the discussion.
Happy New Year to everyone, and look forward to seeing you all soon!
– Andy
Welcome Back
Welcome back, Andy. I'm excited for 2010 and looking forward to your thoughts for the next meeting(s).
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse