Downtown Los Angeles Drupal Meetup at Droplabs on May 15, 2012

The next Downtown Los Angeles Drupal meetup is on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 and will be at Droplabs, your FREE Drupal event and coworking space in Downtown Los Angeles. At this meetup, we'll be celebrating the 1 year anniversary of Droplabs, the kickoff of our new Downtown Los Angeles Drupal user group and breakout sessions and an extended Users Helping Users.

Light food and refreshments will be served throughout the evening courtesy of our food and drink sponsor, Chernick Consulting. We are a full IT outsourcing organization that can help you make your computers do anything you want it to (except cook or do laundry). We have a great deal of experience following corporate policies and procedures and will gladly supply IT services for larger organizations with branch offices in Los Angeles.

The projector and raffle prizes for this event are being provided by 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 our Drupal consulting, development and training services.

For any changes to our agenda for the evening, stay tuned to this meetup announcement or click the Sign up button below (or both!) to be notified when the agenda has been updated.

Agenda

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 9:30pm.

   6:30pm
   Users Helping Users
   Projector and tables / chairs setup

   7:30pm
   News and upcoming events
   Breakout Sessions
   Users Helping Users (continued)

   8:30pm
   Presentation: Teachers Test Prep Introduction and Walkthrough
   Raffle prizes!

   9:30pm
   Wrap-up, Clean-up and Close-up
   Drupal After Dark and more networking

Join us on Twitter, Google+ and IRC!

During the meetup, several of us will be in the #drupal-la channel on IRC and the Downtown Drupal hangout on Google+ and all are welcome to join us. The event organizers will also be monitoring Twitter for feedback and questions that mention @DowntownDrupal or use the #DowntownDrupal hashtag.

Users Helping Users

The meetup begins earlier than usual at 6:30pm for an extended Users Helping Users, which is a chance for members of the community to help and be helped by others with whatever questions and problems they're having with Drupal.

Please note that while Users Helping Users is not designed to be a replacement for bona fide consulting from a Drupal professional that there are plenty of Drupal experts and professionals who attend our meetups and sometimes they need help, too!

Presentations

Teachers Test Prep Introduction and Walkthrough

Teachers Test Prep is an e-commerce website for teachers where they can buy a variety of services including live classes, private tutoring, and online programs related to teacher credentialing exam preparation.

Powered by Drupal 6 with Ubercart 2, it uses Views, Panels and a lot of other standard Drupal 6 modules plus a few custom modules. Customers are able to not just to buy classes, but also to buy online packages which includes test, videos, slides, study guides, online live sessions with other tutors, and more.

In this presentation, site owner Bobby Duncan and chief developer Marco Cozzini provide a technical walkthrough. Teachers Test Prep is also in need of a Drupal developer for a long term, part-time relationship to add exciting new features to the site. Please see the accompanying job announcement at http://groups.drupal.org/node/230013

Breakout sessions

We have several spaces available for breakout sessions at 7:30pm. This is an opportunity for a open, multi-track format where we break into groups and discuss a variety of topics. Each breakout session is led by a volunteer who picks the topic, picks the space and can optionally report back to the larger group in the form of an announcement or lightning talk.

Announcing the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal Group

The Downtown Los Angeles Drupal group was approved recently and it now has its own group on groups.drupal.org. In one breakout session, we will discuss what this means, introduce the organizers of the group, and open the floor to Q&A and topics of what our community members want.

We will also discuss the draft of our group's new governance policy at http://groups.drupal.org/downtown-los-angeles/governance and incorporate questions and answers from meetup attendees.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Improving Awareness of Accessibility and the Web

Last week, Droplabs hosted Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) and a workshop by Dallas Legan and Larry Hart. For those who are interested but couldn't attend, this breakout session is an opportunity to learn more about assistive devices, mobility & accessibility issues and how this pertains to the web.

Drupal After Dark

Even if you can't make it to the meetup, you're welcome to join us for a Drupal After Dark. After we wrap up the meeting and clean up, a group of us will go to a nearby restaurant or pub. One time we had beers and a bonfire and were serenaded by Skrillex. We've also gone to a variety of other locations, including Barbara's at The Brewery (at 620 Moulton Ave., just a 5 minute walk away) and Carnitas Michoacan (on 1901 N. Broadway, just a 5 minute drive away).

Location and directions

   Droplabs
   651 Clover St.
   Los Angeles, CA 90031

Droplabs is in the Mission Junction neighborhood of Los Angeles at Big Art Labs, just 1 mile down Main St. from Philippes (the first-ever venue for Los Angeles Drupal meetups!) and Union Station. We're one block west of The Brewery, the largest live-and-work artists' colony in the world.

Free parking in our large parking lot is first-come, first-served. After parking in the lot, follow the yellow signs that point to Droplabs. (If our lot is full, you can park for free on Clover St.)

Droplabs is a brief walk from the Main St. / Lamar St. stop on the the Metro Local 76 bus line. This is also the Lincoln Heights / Chinatown DASH stop.

To carpool or catch the Droplabs shuttle from Union Station, post below in the comments.

What to bring

Just bring your laptop, your business cards or whatever else you need. You're also welcome to bring some light food, sodas or beers to share with others at the meetup.

Please note that our guest wireless network is limited to 1Mb per client, so bring your MiFi router or a phone you can tether with if for some reason you need a lot of bandwidth. Access to our high-speed network is included with a Droplabs membership.

About Droplabs

Droplabs is a collaborative Drupal event and coworking space in Downtown Los Angeles. Created in 2011 by Los Angeles Drupal members for the Los Angeles Drupal community, we are focused on serving the greater Los Angeles Drupal community, enriching the Drupal skills and lives of its members, and bringing joy to our Drupal practice. Our founders represent several local area businesses that have deep roots in the Drupal and open source communities.

To learn more about Droplabs, visit droplabs.net, follow @Droplabs on Twitter, sign up at Meetup.com/Droplabs or like DroplabsLA on Facebook!

About Downtown Los Angeles Drupal

Downtown Los Angeles is one of the most active areas for Drupal in Los Angeles and LA County. We've been meeting regularly on the 3rd Tuesday of every month since early 2010 and now schedule up to 4 regular meetups a month and occasional trainings and social gatherings. Downtown Drupal members also produce special events, code sprints, and the annual Drupal Design Camp LA conference

Attending Drupal events in and around Downtown Los Angeles is one of the best ways to meet and talk with other Drupaleros and we encourage you to attend as many meetings and special events as you'd like. Whether it's to find solutions to problems you've been having, sharing something you've learned or just meeting interesting like-minded people, the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal events are an essential resource for Drupal professionals and hobbyists alike.

If you aren't already a member of Downtown Los Angeles Drupal, it's easy to join our community. Our community calendar is on our "Events" tab on our home page at http://groups.drupal.org/dtla