Not in Ventura County

This is a joint Drupal meetup with eCommerce Merchants and has been cross-posted from Meetup.com.

   RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/eCommerce-Merchants-Los-Angeles-Chapter/events/142...
   Short URL: http://ex.tl/ZnE

For our October meeting we are going to take a look at the recently launched KaleCart.com website, a custom Drupal based e-commerce website of an organic grocery delivery service start-up in Downtown Los Angeles.

The KaleCart.com website features:

• Mobile-friendly HTML 5 responsive theme and fluid product catalog
• Delivery scheduling widget
• Product catalog filtering for dietary designations
• Instagram image feed block
• Flexible coupon system
• Credit card payment gateway
• Automatic product image processing

When we are done taking a look at KaleCart.com we can brainstorm potential topics of interest for future Meetups and open the floor to questions to see if we can help each other with specific challenges we are having starting or operating our own e-commerce projects.

Following the presentation at Droplabs we will be heading over to a restaurant at nearby Chinatown for lunch and networking.

What is Drupal? For large and complex websites, nothing beats it! Where do you start? What is the best way to organize your project to get the best chance of success?

This workshop will help you turn your ideas into a concrete todo list — whether you're building the site yourself, handing it off to a developer to build, or something in-between.

At this workshop, you'll have access to Drupal experts at Exaltation of Larks — a Drupal strategy, consulting, development and training company in Los Angeles — learn about Drupal and have a fun day!

This is the perfect workshop for you if:

• You're new to using Drupal and need a jumpstart in planning a large project
• You're investigating Drupal's viability for your next project
• You're wondering whether to invest time in learning Drupal
• You don't have the time to learn Drupal but will be involved in a Drupal project

Are you an entrepreneur, freelancer or remote worker? You don't have to work alone. Join us for another Drupal Coworking Friday at Droplabs, a collaborative coworking space, classroom and makerspace!

We're in Downtown Los Angeles and are happy to host members of our local community and anyone who is just passing through for some coworking, networking and collaboration. We'll be offering the following FREE services to help rock your workday:

• Free parking on Clover St. and N. Main St. and in our large parking lot;
• Free, metered WiFi;
• Desks, chairs and Ergotron mobile workstations in our open coworking room (on a first-come, first-served basis);
• Hundreds of square feet of whiteboard space;
• Use of our private conference room (unless previously reserved);
• Access to our shared lounge area (unless previously reserved);
• Heat / air conditioning.

Droplabs is supported by memberships, donations, sponsorship of our events, venue rental and paid upgrades, including high-speed, unmetered WiFi, access to a full kitchen (with stove, oven, fridges, sinks, etc.), equipment rental, locker space for your belongings and unlimited coffee, tea, filtered water, sodas and espresso.

The 1st Tuesday of the month is coming up and it's time for the next Downtown Drupal meetup! We're meeting at Sensis Agency in Downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 1, 2013 from 7-9pm.

This meetup is highly accessible by public transportation. Attendees often carpool to the meetup together, and those who are interested in attending remotely are welcome to join us via WebEx.

There will also be Drupal Happy Hour and a GLADCamp planning meeting earlier in the evening at 6pm. See our agenda for more information.

At this meetup, we're having our usual news and announcements, as well as raffle prizes, community Q&A, lightning talks (which are short, bite-sized presentations) and featured presentations. Is there a presentation topic that you're interested in? Post a comment to either request or offer a presentation, or contact any of the organizers listed above.

We're excited to announce Exaltation of Larks' next web development mentorship training. This free training is from 12-3pm at Opodz, a new and well-designed collaborative work environment serving Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles, California.

What Will Be Covered?

We'll be using extensive video libraries from both OSTraining.com and Build a Module.com. Our main focus this time is on Drupal, a free and open source web framework used by millions of websites on the web today, and we'll also cover other web applications like WordPress and Joomla, as well as general coding topics such as HTML, PHP, CSS and responsive web design.

What To Bring

Bring your WiFi-capable laptop, your lunch, and learn about web development! If you don't have a pair of headphones, you can buy a pair from the organizers of this event.

Registration

This training is free. Donations to Droplabs, a learning community that provides low- to no-cost training, mentorship and entrepreneurship services, will be accepted ($45 suggested donation) at the event and at http://droplabs.net/donations  

Registration is required. Sign up at http://www.larks.la/training  

Be sure to arrive early to give yourself enough time to park, pick a seat, and connect your laptop to the venue's WiFi network. We begin promptly at 12pm. Classroom space is limited, so sign up early.

What is Drupal? For large and complex websites, nothing beats it! Where do you start? What is the best way to organize your project to get the best chance of success?

This workshop will help you turn your ideas into a concrete todo list — whether you're building the site yourself, handing it off to a developer to build, or something in-between.

At this workshop, you'll have access to Drupal experts at Exaltation of Larks — a Drupal strategy, consulting, development and training company in Los Angeles — learn about Drupal and have a fun day!

This is the perfect workshop for you if:

• You're new to using Drupal and need a jumpstart in planning a large project
• You're investigating Drupal's viability for your next project
• You're wondering whether to invest time in learning Drupal
• You don't have the time to learn Drupal but will be involved in a Drupal project

This event has been postponed due to lack of signups from those who qualify. We apologize for the inconvenience to those who have already RSVPd. Stay tuned to Meetup.com or @Droplabs on Twitter for news of when we reschedule this important event.

Do you own or help manage a company or organization that uses Drupal? Does your team depend on professional Drupal service providers in the Greater Los Angeles Area? Have you and your projects been affected by a shortage of Drupal development and theming talent?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then consider coming to our second Drupal Employers Summit from 7-9pm on Friday, August 16, 2013. There is no charge for this event. It is open to any and all companies and organizations who qualify, by following either or both of the following criteria:

1. Hosting any Drupal meetups, trainings or other Drupal community events, including Downtown Drupal, High Performance Drupal, Frontend Drupal, LA Drupal, and so on;
2. Sponsoring or exhibiting at any of the Drupal job fairs at Droplabs in June, 2011, November, 2011, and January, 2013.

Hosting a meetup at your office qualifies you for this event. Buying pizza at a meetup, while appreciated, does not. If you do not meet the above qualifications, contact us at http://droplabs.net/contact with a request to attend.

This is a roll-up-your-sleeves working meeting and we will be meeting one another (some for the first time) and discussing the following topics:

• A quick review of the Drupal Employers Summit we had on January 28, 2013;
• Catching up on recent events, such as Droplabs' module development boot camp;
• Building a healthy marketplace and business community of colleagues and potential partners;
• Getting the most out of our recruiting and marketing dollar;
• What we're doing now to staff up, from local recruiting and in-house training to outsourcing and hiring out-of-town or overseas;
• Identifying the skills, job titles and qualifications of desirable candidates, employees and vendors;
• Workshops, trainings and other programs that most or all of us can get behind in order to solve our business needs.

We'll have an open bar and cocktails will be served.

We're offering a free, application-based program designed to improve the Drupal skills of beginner- to intermediate-level Drupal and PHP developers. Together as a group, we're going to be diving into Drupal's APIs and helper functions, developing custom modules (many of us for the first time), using version control and other Drupal developer best practices, and advancing our Drupal skills to the next level.

At DrupalCon Portland 2013, several members of the Greater Los Angeles Drupal and LA Drupal user groups gathered together for a group photo.

In the photo are Nate, Subbu, Midhun, Atul, Uzi, Ashok, Tommy, Jeremy, Christefano, Jakob, Frank, Kevin, Ron, Kalyan, Rain, Lehel, Ben, Ki and Abhijeet.

Big thanks to Kalyan for taking the photo; and to Rain for coordinating this via the "DrupalCon LA" GroupMe chat.

The next High Performance Drupal meetup is on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, between 6-8pm Pacific Time / 8-10pm Central Time. We're meeting at Droplabs, a collaborative classroom, coworking space and hackerspace near Downtown Los Angeles.

Those interested in attending this meetup remotely are welcome to join us via WebEx. We're starting an hour early this time so that we can team up with members of the Austin Drupal user group and the web chefs at Four Kitchens! Stay tuned for further details.

Our meetups follow a basic format and start off with Drupal news and announcements, local job announcements, raffle prizes and full-length presentations. As always, we'll also have community Q&A, during which time anyone in attendance can ask questions, divine answers from the crowd and give brief, 5-10 minute-long presentations known as lightning talks. We'll finish off the night with more networking and a Drupal After Dark at 8:00pm.

We're soliciting presentations and lightning talks for this meetup. If there's a topic that you'd like give a presentation on, please leave a comment below. Likewise, if there's a topic that you'd like to learn more about, you're welcome to make a request in the comments below. Thank you!

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

This event is being organized with help from Droplabs (@Droplabs), a collaborative classroom and coworking space in Downtown Los Angeles. We're quickly gaining a reputation for being the only coworking space around with a with a low-cost business model: come work here and use our tables, chairs, WiFi and conference room with a low, daily or monthly membership fee and only pay more for the extras, such as 24/7 access, equipment rental and a locker for your belongings.

Our video conferencing and raffle prize sponsor for this event is Exaltation of Larks, a Drupal strategy, consulting, development and training company with a team of Drupal experts in Los Angeles. We create fun websites, mobile apps, virtual worlds and e-commerce sites. Follow us at @LarksLA to learn more about our Drupal services and upcoming trainings.