General discussions

At several meetups in December and January, I asked during the opening announcements if there were opinions one way or another about using ads to support the LA Drupal video channel at ladrupal.blip.tv (which we use to post meetup presentations, podcast episodes, etc.).

There weren't any objections and in experiment intended to offset costs and help make LA Drupal self-sustaining, pre-roll and post-roll ads were turned on.

In the last 30 days, LA Drupal has earned less than $5. This is less than the $8 a month that a "Pro" account costs (which is currently paid for by a sponsor *), which I upgraded it to last summer in order to get the necessary machine time to convert some of the longer videos, like the Git with Drupal workshop in June.

This brings us to today and I think it's a good time to check in.

NYTimes.com has a very interesting article about misuse of SEO techniques and Google's response.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html

I am trying to create a group which has similar features to http://www.amazee.com/node/6730/wall. I am doing it with organic groups and 80% of the functionality can be done out of the box this this module. My questions to advanced devs would be:

1. Do you recommend using any other module besides organic groups?
2. In organic groups if you view the discussions page of a certain group, it shows threads the amount of comments in (). How would you do the feature like in the link above to allow multiple comments showing up on the "wall"?

The Southern California Linux Expo is coming up. It's going to be held at the Hilton LAX on February 25-27, 2011. About 1,400-1,500 attendees are anticipated this year. It's one of the largest Open Source conferences in the US and THE largest run completely by volunteers.

The Southwest Drupal Summit is happening at the end of this month in Houston, TX & they've got some great speakers lined up: http://swdrupalsummit.com/. Katherine Druckman, aka "Webmistress", from Linux Journal & I got to chatting after she posted a D7 is released article: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/drupal-7-officially-here. Long story short, she gave us a $50 off coupon for the event.

Drupal is rapidly becoming THE Web development framework for companies today. We cordially invite you to a Drupal workshop, SandCamp 2011, on Saturday, January 8th and Sunday, January 9th. We are expecting more than 300 attendees this year and we anticipate selling out in just a few weeks.

This camp is excellent for developers, business owners, CIOs, developers, and those who maintain a Drupal website for their company. Some of the highlights include:

• Keynote by Kieran Lal: one of the most highly regarded people in the Drupal arena. Kieran is active in Drupal.org, a Drupal Association Board Member, and lead community evangelist for Acquia. Hear what he has to say about the growth and evolution of Drupal as an Enterprise platform.
• For Beginners: Drupal Basics All-Day Training, professionally delivered by Chapter Three and Exaltation of Larks will educate attendees on the core Drupal framework, reveal best practices, and present “how-to” essentials.
• For Advanced Developers, Sunday Code Sprint: to build a museum dashboard for Balboa Park Online Collaborative’s museum initiative.
• 30+ Workshop Sessions by Notable Firms: on a wide range of topics. This year’s event has more than 20 of the major Drupal shops from around the country presenting high-caliber information for all levels.

We've heard every excuse (and reason) why a client wants us to produce A-Z but can only pay for a portion of A-B-C (if that). This video highlights in a "safe for work" way how lame some people sound trying to compare or belittle work while they themselves are unable to deliver the most important part of a delivery - their payment! Granted this video is so true it may not be funny to you, but it will make you laugh.

http://www.dump.com/2010/12/13/the-vendor-client-relationship-in-real-wo...

Does anyone out there have a contract template they are willing to share? Can you point me to posts or information I should read that you have found helpful when contracting for advanced Drupal development?

I have been using my own for years and feel like I want to look at something a little more Drupal specific for the jobs I take that are contracted and not salaried or retained...

Any input is appreciated!

Steve-en-ator

Registration is now OPEN!

We're expecting an incredible lineup of speakers here in Houston, and you do not want to miss this event. Please help spread the word to anyone you know in our area and beyond who is interested in web design and development, as this will be a fantastic opportunity to learn not only about Drupal, but web technology in general.

Join us in welcoming speakers like:

Angela Byron - Drupal 7 maintainer and Lullabot rockstar

Narayan Newton - noted scalability expert and Drupal.org system administrator

Is anyone planning to get together for a Drupal 7 Release Party? There are going to be release parties around the world similar to the Firefox 1.0 release party in 2004 and I think it would be fun to have one or more here in Southern California.

I'm going to be out of town that weekend, so I can't do much in the way of organizing a Los Angeles event. Would someone like to take this on?