First, Norm Huelsman will be starting the evening with a review of WordPress 3.0.

WordPress 3.0 is scheduled for release on June 14th. Norm will be showing us what is new, and what has been improved. He will also review some of the new features including; multi-site, menus, installation, and child themes.

A co-organizer of Podcamp Pittsburgh, Norm is a long-time blogger at his site normhuelsman.com and a popular Magic: The Gathering blog, Casual Magic. During the day, Norm focuses on visual communication and branding in the PR department at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Next, Sean Geng will be presenting, “The Future of Web Design”.

Web design is a fickle industry. In this constantly changing field, there are always new techniques being invented, and technology that is always being upgraded. In this presentation, he’ll cover topics including HTML 5, CSS3, designing for mobile devices (including the iPad), and some of the latest techniques. He’ll also showcase some upcoming trends and discuss what lies ahead.

Sean Geng is a freelance designer located here in Pittsburgh. He runs the online design community at Designmess. For more information, you can check out his website or follow him on twitter.

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!

Our next Refresh Meetup will be Thursday, May 6th.  We realize that there may be a Penguins playoff game this night, that’s why we’ll be kicking everything off at 6:00 PM in room 740 at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

AIP is located downtown at 420 Boulevard of the Allies. 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. We’ll be in room 740. There may be a security guy at the door – if there is just let him know you are there for the Refresh Pittsburgh meetup.  As always, A HUGE thank-you goes out to our friend Norm Huelsman for offering to host a Refresh meeting at AIP.

We have a an interesting presentation this month.  Jon Dascola will be joining us and presenting:

“A Designer’s Take on Apple’s iPad SDK”

While Apple’s iPhone SDK provides a wealth of information for developers, designers are often at a disadvantage when it comes to getting started building mobile apps. I’ll talk about what documentation a designer should understand, the basics of application architecture and show working examples from an iPad app currently under development.

Jon Dascola is an Interactive Designer at Elliance, Inc in Pittsburgh PA.  You can learn more about him at his website or seek him out on twitter @dascola .

We look forward to seeing you all this Thursday!

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.

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!

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!

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!

This month’s meet-up will be hosted by our friends at AlphaLab. AlphaLab is located at AlphaLab is located at 2325 East Carson Street in the historic Southside neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Click here for a map and directions.

AlphaLab is a catalyst for launching the next generation of software, entertainment technology and Internet-related companies. Created by Innovation Works, one of the nation’s most active seed-stage investors, AlphaLab provides funding, hands-on business assistance, access to a network of entrepreneurs and expert advisors, and free office space as part of an intensive 20-week program in Pittsburgh. AlphaLab helps companies rapidly develop their technology, gain user feedback from early product releases, develop go-to-market strategies, and move toward successful commercial launch.

Presentations

Val Head is a Senior Designer/Developer at New Perspective and is also the brains behind the FlashPitt conference. She’ll be presenting “Observations on Client Relationships and How We Deal with Them”. She’s also provided us with one of the most colorful topic descriptions: The relationship between the designer, or developer, and client can be complicated. They can make you want to dance in the streets, or stab yourself in the eye. Val will talk about some common relationship patterns and how we to make the best of them.

You can read more about Val at her blog thisisportable.com.

Next, we’re really happy to be joined by Samantha Warren. Samantha is a web designer and typophile at Viget Labs, an all inclusive web agency outside of Washington, DC. In addition to being a board member of the Art Directors Club of Washington, DC she also teaches part time at Boston University’s Center for Digital Imaging Arts DC campus. In her spare time she updates her blog BadAssIdeas.com.

Samantha will present “Typography is the Foundation of Good Web Design”. She will illustrate how typographic legibility, hierarchy, and expression contribute to the success of a design through a step by step web-site redesign.

You can find out more about Samantha and the cool work she does at her blog BadAssIdeas.com as well as the Viget Inspire blog.

Please RSVP!!

As usual, please RSVP to info@refreshpittsburgh.org so that we have a good idea of our headcount. It’s especially important for this meet-up as I need to get a headcount to AlphaLab a day in advance.

AIP is located downtown at 420 Boulevard of the Allies. We’ll be in room 440. Take the gold elevator up to the fourth 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 have three presentation on tap for this one:

Michael Fulk is a an interactive developer at Wall to Wall and also does freelance work as Future Designs. He’ll be presenting “Bending the Pipes” – which will give us a crash course on making mashups, feeds and recombining web content with Yahoo Pipes and Dapper.

Next, Olivia Blonde is a web designer at the University of Pittsburgh and previous worked at the Carnegie Libraries where she was responsible for the redesign of the Carnegie Library website. She’ll present “Design Process in a Nutshell”. Each designer — or design group — develops a method for solving problems, then evolves that method over time. While no one person or group may view a problem from the same perspective, general similarities often appear in their approach. Olivia’s presentation will take us from requirements to concepts to design and to hand off.

Finally, Isaac Gierard, a new media developer at Elliance with be showing off a recent project of his, a “CSS Combiner”. Isaac will give a brief introduction to a recently developed open source CSS preprocessor for combining multiple CSS files into on and it’s benefits for website performance.

Also, we’ll be giving away one free pass to the Flashpitt conference taking place the following Friday!

Please RSVP!!

As usual, please RSVP to info@refreshpittsburgh.org so that we have a good idea of our headcount. I’ll make sure to bring the usual cookies and coffee too.

Did you catch that? Let’s make sure you read that again: This month’s meeting is at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh – no Treehouse this month!

AIP is located downtown at 420 Boulevard of the Allies. We’ll be in room 440. Take the gold elevator up to the fourth 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 meet-up.

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

Presentations

We have a really cool lineup for this month’s meeting. Here is what you can expect:

Nathan Swartz of clicknathan and is one of those freelance web designer-types living and breathing in Pittsburgh, PA. When not indenting <p> tags or cursing IE6, he likes long walks through the city with his son and wife or enjoying summer afternoons at the Harris Grill in Shadyside. On Wednesday night, Nathan will be sharing some of the lesson’s he’s learned from being a full-time freelancer in “How to Work from Your Underwear: Some Freelancing Tips for Web Designers“. You can find out more about Nathan at his blog or a recent feature on freelance switch.

Jonathan Brodsky graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2005 with a degree in design. He now spends his days working on web development, and nights as a musician and artist. Jon will be showing tools for programmers to improvise live music and visuals using text editors and code as their instruments. This practice, generally referred to as “livecoding”, is about exposing the audience to the mechanics of a computer based performance. He’ll also give a demo of a livecoding tool that he is developing in javascript and openGL. Read more about Jon at his website.

Finally, Geoff Barnes is currently the Senior Information Architect at Elliance, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based e-marketing agency. From 2005-2007, Geoff was the UI Engineer for Collaborative Fusion, a Pittsburgh-based consultancy to state and federal emergency management authorities. Geoff has a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the University of Oregon. In 1999, Geoff co-founded San Francisco web firm Trendmedia, Inc., and came to Pittsburgh in 2001 to help create the Media Arts BFA at Robert Morris University, where he served as a full-time faculty member until 2005.

Geoff will present “What Purpose IA?”. What is the purpose of a marketing website? While marketing websites are more application-inclusive than ever, the fundamental marketing task of persuasion is still the purpose nexus of any marketing-driven website. The site’s IA needs to go beyond content organization, and embody the persuasive goals driving the project. The difference between creating systematic order and creating a systematically ordered, compelling argument is often the difference between a me-too site and a persuasion machine. Learn how to protect your client’s marketing objectives with purpose-driven discovery and IA.

Please RSVP!!

We think we have a great lineup for the next meeting and we’re really looking forward to it.

As usual, please RSVP to info@refreshpittsburgh.org so that we have a good idea of our headcount. I’ll make sure to bring the usual cookies and coffee too.

To start the evening, Pat Collins will present “CakePHP: Rapid Application Development with PHP”.

Why learn a new programming language when you can use your existing PHP skills to become a better coder and increase your productivity? Let Pat show you how to build a blog application in no time, and how you can help!

Then, Val Head will be presenting “A, B, C, D-esign!“

Val’s presentation will be a discussion of the basic building blocks of design as they apply to designing fo the web. She’ll show examples of concepts like colour, typography and hierarchy and talk about how these fit in to a web page design.

As usual, if you would like to show off a recent project or pose a few questions to our group, please let us know and we’ll fit you in.

We’ll make sure to provide a good supply of coffee and cookies and other sweets to get you through the night.

RSVP

Please RSVP to info at refreshpittsburgh dot org, to let us know if you will be joining us. We need to make sure we have enough seats and most importantly, coffee and cookies! And by all means, please pass this invite around.

Directions

To get to the Creative Treehouse, please visit our directions page. It’s a very short drive. If anyone needs a ride or has some extra room in their car, please post on our message board to connect with some other folks.