Refresh Pittsburgh

Better know a CMS: ExpressionEngine
by Patrick Fulton

• Slides on Slideshare
• Slides as PDF
• Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 1.6 at Amazon.com

Drupal: A Content Management Framework
by Joshua Powell

• Slides on Slideshare
• Slides as PDF
• Using Drupal at O’Reilly
• Joshua’s Website

It’s a new year, and time to kick off Refresh Pittsburgh for 2010!

Please join us on Tuesday, January 26th at 7:00 pm for the next Refresh Pittsburgh meet-up.

This month well be back at one of our favorite locations, at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. AIP is located downtown at 420 Boulevard of the Allies. We’ll be in room 740. Take the gold elevator up to the seventh floor. Take your first right and the room will be a few doors down on the left. There may be a security guy at the door – if there is just let him know you are there for the Refresh Pittsburgh meetup.

A HUGE thank-you goes out to our friend Norm Huelsman for offering to host a Refresh meeting at AIP.

Presentations

We’ll be focusing on CMS’s for this meetup – and will be specifically highlighting Drupal, a popular open source CMS and Expression Engine, a non-open source CMS that is really picking up steam lately.

To start the evening, Joshua Powell will be presenting “Drupal: a Content Management Framework”

Josh’s presentation will cover:

• What Drupal Is & What It Isn’t
• Advantages & Disadvantages to Using Drupal
• How to Get Started Using Drupal

Joshua Powell is the designer, developer, and information architect for Developed Simple and is also a senior partner of Billions Now Living.

Next, Patrick Fulton will present “Better Know a CMS: ExpressionEngine”

Pat’s presentation will be a quick intro to ExpressionEngine, a PHP-powered CMS. He’ll discuss some of the positives and the negatives of it as well as why he’s chosen EE over other content management systems for specific projects.

Patrick Fulton is a front-end web developer at Elliance.

Join us this Thursday, September 17th at 7:00 pm for a joint meet-up of Refresh Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Adobe Flash User’s Group.

This month’s meet-up will be at Alphalab – located at 2325 East Carson St. in the Southside. (About a block away from the Doublewide Grill.) Check out some detailed directions.

This month, we’ll be hosting a panel discussion entitled “Flash, What is it Good For? – Where Does Flash fit on the Web?”.

Recently there has been a lot of buzz about the role of Flash online. With some well known Flash shops — like Big Spaceship — opting for a site that’s more blog than Flash and HTML 5 on the horizon there seem to be more and more speculation as to what will be the next Flash killer.  Have the times changed?  Has the Flash microsite been killed by blogs and social media?  What role does Flash play on the web now – especially when dealing with web standards.  Where might it fit in the future?  These are the kinds of questions we’ll be discussing on the panel.

So far, our panelists include:

• Josh Sager, Pittsburgh Technical Institute, joshsagermedia.com
• Jeremy Shank, Artist/Illustrator and Multimedia Designer at Atlas Design Group. jeremyshank.com
• Wayne Lincoln, Interactive Art Director, New Perspective, Adjunct Professor, CMU
• Nathan Peretic, Developer, Full Stop Interactive
• Geoff Barnes, Information Architect at Elliance, Inc.

We may have an additional panelist or two added before the meeting. We’re doing our best to put together a panel with many different opinions in order to have a good discussion.

Val Head, Senior Designer/Developer, New Perspective, Manager, PITTMFUG will be moderating the panel.

Like our last panel discussion, it will help to have some questions in advance. If you would like to submit any questions in advance of the meeting, send them to us at info@refreshpittsburgh.org. It would be a huge help to have a nice pool of questions to pull from in advance.

Feel free to forward this invite to a friend.

As always, please RSVP by sending an email to info@refreshpittsburgh.org or just let us know you are coming on the Facebook event page so we can plan accordingly!

With only a week left for the conference early bird tickets, I figured now was the good time to send out an announcement about Flashpitt 2009.

Flashpitt will be held on Friday, October 16th 2009. This year, we’ll also be having a day of workshops on Thursday, October 15th too!

Flashpitt is a conference for interactive designers and developers. Flashpitt 2008 was Pittsburgh’s first major Flash-centric conference and we’re back for a second year, officially making it an annual event! Flashpitt is a great chance to take a break from the daily grind to network, learn, and recharge. It’s a large scale interactive conference – all without venturing too far from home. The event features four half-day workshops, followed by a day packed full of sessions. Each night also features a networking after party

This year’s speakers include:

• Ian Coyle, Superheroes
• Julian Dolce, of Fuel Industries
• Boris Pique, Lead Developer at Odopod
• Dan Mall, of Big Spaceship
• Seb Lee-Delisle, of Plug-in Media

And more! See the Flashpitt Speakers Page for more information.

Don’t let the name scare you!

Flashpitt is not just for flash developers. Creative professionals, developers, students, educators, artists and business owners working with and in the interactive industry should join us. Designers, developers and students looking to find inspiration, pick up new techniques, or network and meet industry leaders should attend. You get the idea. If you’re involved in the interactive and creative industry, Flashpitt is the event for you.

Take a look our sessions schedule. This years topics include “Hacking the Newsroom” by Jer Thorpe, “Flash and Web Standards: Getting Along on the Playground” by Dan Mall and “Plays Well with Others”, tips for design/developer workflow by Stacey Mulcahy.

Workshops

For those who are interested in getting more in-depth to some topics, we’re also having a day of workshops on October 15th. Topics include:

• Beginning ActionScript 3.0
• Flash Video and Flash Media Server
• iPhone Development for Flash Developers
• Intermediate ActionScript 3.0

View our sessions schedule for more details.

Registration

Early bird tickets are available only until September 13th! Register soon to ensure the early bird price.

Visit our registration page for pricing information on the conference as well as the individual workshops.

Thanks!

Thanks for your support of Refresh Pittsburgh. We hope to continue to help to put on great events like this in the future. We have a great community here – and we couldn’t do things like this if it wasn’t for you.

Our next meetup will be Thursday, August 27th at 6:30pm. We’ll be meeting in Room 439 at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. AIP is located downtown at 420 Boulevard of the Allies. We’ll be in room 439. To get there, just take the gold elevator up to the 4th floor. Take your first right and the room will be a few doors down. When you enter the building, there will be a man at the security desk – just let him know you are there for the Refresh Pittsburgh meet-up. A huge thank you goes out to Norm Huelsman at AIP for hosting us!

We have a great evening planned!

Priya Narasimhan, president of Yinzcam will be giving showing off their awesome technology and giving us an in-depth look at what went into producing the Yinzcam!

This talk will discuss YinzCam, an experiential in-stadium technology that was deployed for 40 Pittsburgh Penguins home games for the 2008-9 regular season, the 2009 NHL playoffs and the Stanley Cup Finals. The YinzCam Mobile solution allows fans, right from their seats during the game, to create/view their own instant replays (by rewinding live video — think Tivo on your phone), catch the action from different camera angles (think Crosby-Cam, Malkin-Cam and Bench-Cam for the Penguins), get automated instant replays seconds after a play has happened (from all the different camera angles), and get stats, game rules, roster, etc., all on their own wifi-enabled cellphones, and all without violating broadcast rights. They also provide personalized digital keepsakes for fans on their cellphones, that they can purchase high-resolution prints of (e.g., think of a digital picture keepsake or cellphone wallpaper that shows a fan seeming to appear on the jumbotron). More information is available at yinzcam.com

Priya Narasimhan is the President of YinzCam, Inc. She joined Carnegie Mellon University in 2001, and is currently an Associate Professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and Director of Carnegie Mellon’s Mobility Research Center. She has extensive experience in distributed systems, reliability and mobile systems. She was previously the CTO and Vice-President of Engineering at Eternal Systems, Inc., where she was responsible for the company’s overall product strategy and product releases. She has received an Alfred Sloan fellowship, a Carnegie Science Award for Emerging Female Scientist, an NSF CAREER Award, two IBM Faculty Partnership Awards, a Raytheon Company Best Paper Award, an Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teaching Award, amongst other honors. She received her Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. More information can be found at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~priya.

Next, Jay Fanelli (The Designer) and Nathan Peretic (The Developer), of Full Stop Interactive will present “Quit Your Job: How Two Pittsburgh Web Workers Used Unwavering Principles, Boundless Frustration, and NERF Basketball To Form Their Own Business.”

Jay is the creative muscle behind Full Stop, as well as the primary client and project manager. He’s had success with every flavor of client during his 8 years in the Pittsburgh web industry, from local businesses and private schools to Fortune 500s and major conference universities. Superpowers include: elegant web designs, serious knife skills, and a near encyclopedic knowledge of modern architecture.

Nate is a budding polymath whose day job encompasses advocating for phenomenal user experiences and obsessing over perfectly crafted code. He cites influences ranging from Elliot to McCluhan to Rutledge and intends to use that foundation to make you a better website. Vices include but are not limited to: obscure book references, an unhealthy love of The Office, and Mt. Dew addiction.

Last, but not least, one lucky Refresher will be leaving with 1 ticket of the user’s choosing to this years Flashpitt conference! If you already have a ticket, that’s ok – you can choose a free workshop instead!

As always, please RSVP by sending an email to info@refreshpittsburgh.org or just let us know you are coming on the Facebook event page so we can plan accordingly!

Refresh Pittsburgh would like to officially introduce Geoff Barnes – he’s coming on board as a co-organizer!

Geoff has been extremely active with Refresh for a while now – he gave a fantastic presentation, helped moderate our recent panel discussion and was also a big help with encouragement while organizing Web Design Day.  Some of you may know him from twitter or his blog.

Refresh Pittsburgh has grown remarkably fast in the last year and it’s becoming harder to keep things organizing and running smoothly.  With Geoff’s help we’ll be getting better at having regular monthly meet-ups and other events.

We should have an announcemnt shortly for the upcoming June meet-up, as well as better information on future meet-ups and other Refresh Pittsburgh doings.

So, join me in offering a big welcome to Geoff!

We moved servers today – so give us about 24 hours to make sure everything is back in check.  If you notice anything strange going on, please let us know!

Message boards will be upgraded this week – you may need to re-register.

Hoping to get a redesign going soon too.

Yay!

Pittsburgh Web Design Day will be held on Saturday, April 4th 2009 at Left Field Meeting Space.

Pittsburgh Web Design Day is a one-day, low-cost conference for web professionals in the Western PA region.  No high priced registration fees, no expensive travel  For a registration fee of $40 you get a full day of learning from Pittsburgh web gurus …and lunch!

Registrations will be open this week, but hurry: we’ll be limiting our attenance to 85 people!

Speakers include:

Geoff Barnes, Elliance 
Information Architecture as Storytelling

Christopher Cashdollar, Creative Director, Happy Cog 
Creative Springboard: What Web Design Can Learn from Magazine Design

Val Head, New Perspective 
“Getting Past the Blame Game” – Designer-Client Relations

Whitney Hess, User Experience Consultant 
Misconceptions in User Experience

Jason Robb, My Happy Planet 
“What the Wireframe?” – A Pragmatic Approach to Wireframes

Josh Sager, joshsagermedia.com 
The Story of a Web Project

Samantha Warren, Viget Labs 
Pimp Your Website!

Refresh Pittsburgh is really happy to be organizing such a great event.  We hope that our members enjoy it as much as we are going to!

Please help us out and submit a question for our upcoming panel discussion on on Feb. 26th, “Surviving a Recession as a Web Professional”

The more questions we get, the easier it will be to get the panel off to a good start and encourage discussion between our panelists, moderator and attendees.

Check out the meeting announcement for more information on the next Refresh Meetup, Feb. 26th at AIP.

The next Refresh Pittsburgh Meet-up will be on Thursday, February 26th at 7:00 pm. We’ll be at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

AIP is located downtown at 420 Boulevard of the Allies. We’ll be in room 740. Note that this is a different room than our usual one! There may be a security guy at the door – if there is just let him know you are there for the Refresh Pittsburgh meetup.

We’ll be trying a different format for this meeting – we’ll be having our first panel discussion. The topic will be “Surviving a Recession as a Web Professional” it will be moderated by our good pal Geoff Barnes from Elliance.

We are asking that you help us out by submiting questions in advance by emailing me at gjhead@refreshpittsburgh.org. We expect the discussion to take a life of it’s own, but anything questions in advance will help us plan!

We have a good mix of people on the panel:

Lauren DeMichiei is a Project Manager & Designer for her own Orionvega, LLC. Her company is a video, web and print design production house focusing on creative ideas and innovative media to attract and target the desired market. There are 4 partners in the company and 2 part-time employees.

Joshua Powell is the lead senior web developer at PixelTalent. He has been designing and developing websites since 2005. Over the past several years he has worked for and collaborated with architectural & construction companies, automotive organizations, schools, universities, health organizations, pharmaceutical companies, artists, design firms, advertising agencies and photographers. He is proficient in designing and developing solutions in a range of software packages and platforms. Joshua works primarily with open source packages like Drupal and WordPress. He has also create many specialized solutions based on PHP, MySQL, jQuery, XML, Flash, ActionScript and AJAX often combining several of these technologies to fit specific needs.

Joshua worked for Actual Size Creative in Pittsburgh, PA, before striking out on his own forming DevelopedSimple and joining PixelTalent.

Nicholas Zographos is the President of Nezen Creation, LLC. Nezen Creation specializes in custom web application development, including ecommerce, content management systems and online applications using PHP and MySQL. They are also a full service web consultancy, providing web design, marketing, and consulting services to businesses of all sizes.

John R. Carman is a Communication Designer/CEO & Founder of AJAX Street, Inc. John serves as a communication designer and social media consultant for my consulting firm, Avenue Design Studios, as well as co-founder of AJAX Street, a software startup at AlphaLab.

S. Scott Connelly, Freelance Software Engineer/CTO & Founder of AJAX Street, Inc is a freelance software engineer and co-founder of AJAX Street, a software startup at AlphaLab.

As always, please RSVP to gjhead@refreshpittsburgh.orgso we can get a good idea of our headcount! We look forward to seeing you on Thursday!