August 2010 Meetup
So the last Wednesday of the month (our usual meetup date) came and went with no warning. Sorry about that. You didn’t really think we’d leave you hanging, did you? We’ve two great talks lined up and to fit them in by the end of the month, we’re having our meetup on Tuesday, August 31st. As usual we’ll be meeting at 6pm at the faculty lounge of USC’s Swearingen Engineering Building.
Last month we went to Thirsty Fellow after the meetup, only to learn that Wednesdays are Trivia nights. That made it tough to get a table. We’re going to give the Fellow another try after this month’s meetup as there are no sponsored events on Tuesdays. Now that Fall is here, the lows are starting to dip into the 60s, which might make the outdoor deck a possibility.
This Month’s Talks:
NoSQL for the Masses
Fred Alger (@_phred) – FoxyCart
What can I, a designer who doesn’t code, do with a NoSQL database? What IS this NoSQL thing? You probably know your way around front-end code and how to setup a basic CMS, but what if you need to store some stuff in a database and get it back out? Enter, CouchDB and MongoDB, your new best friends.
HTML Email and Double Rainbows
Julia Anderson (@Blueys) – Period Three
It’s a task that has been labeled the antithesis to joy and happiness. A job so brow furrowing that Mike Rowe has yet to attempt it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? We are of course talking about HTML Email. Julia will explain the in’s and out’s of designing for the inbox and provide tips that will keep you sane as you develop your own full-on HTML Emails.
Featured Book:
Thanks to the user group partnerships advertised in the sidebar, we give away a free book at each of our meetups. This month we’ll be giving away a copy of Introducing HTML5 by Bruce Lawson & Remy Sharp. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in list, so be sure to show up and sign-in for a chance to win.
When: August 31st, 2010 at 6pm
Where: USC Swearingen Faculty Lounge – 301 Main Street (map)
Topic: NoSQL and HTML Email
RSVP: On Facebook
Dev Position at The State
The State Media Company is currently seeking a Web Developer for their Interactive Media dept.
JOB SUMMARY: The developer will lead the integration of the company’s legacy technology with new and emerging technologies, to provide more efficient processes for day-to-day publishing of the company’s digital media content. These efforts must result in driving incremental revenue and traffic.
JOB DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Primary responsibilities involve the integration of the company’s legacy technology with new and emerging technologies and developing and implementing new digital media products and maintaining and improving upon existing products and sites. This includes but is not limited to setting up databases, manipulating open source code, writing database queries, and using PHP, CSS, HTML, XML, Flash, PhotoShop, Javascript, Django, Ruby, Python and other applications to enhance The State Media Company’s web sites, digital products and processes.
More details… (.doc file)
To apply, contact:
Matthew Ipsan
VP, Interactive Media
(803)771-8624
mipsan [at] thestate [dot] com
Comment Trifecta
WordPress, Twitter and Facebook comments all in one place. I think we’re there. Like, really there. I posted yesterday about installing WPBook. Well, I just upgraded to the latest version (2.0.3) which I thought was just going to allow me to change the attribution line on Facebook Wall posts. As it turns out, this verion now pulls in wall comments as well! That’s right, you don’t have to click the post and leave a comment inside the Refresh Columbia “app”, you can make it right there on the wall and it will get pulled in as a comment.
To record Tweets about posts made here, I’m using Twitoaster. This nifty WordPress plugin monitors Twitter for @Replies, RTs and links to this post and adds them as actual WordPress comments.
Woot!
That’s all for now.
Sync WordPress and Facebook Comments
Let’s face it, nobody comments on blog posts any more. There’s just too many ways to consume information. With Refresh Columbia in particular, meetup announcements start as blog posts, get automatically syndicated as a MailChimp email campaign, posted as a note on the Facebook fan page wall, read in a bunch of other RSS readers and announced on Twitter. Many of those steps (Specifically Facebook and Twitter) provide people external channels to communicate about the content here. I was trying to figure out a way to tie some of those conversations together and decided to give the WPBook WordPress plugin a try.
According to WPBook, any post made here (assuming *cough* you’re reading this on the blog) will still appear in Facebook, but (and this is really cool) comments made on Facebook will be syndicated to the blog and vice versa. It doesn’t completely glue together the fractured world of social media, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
Setup was very straightforward:
- From the WordPress Plugins Page in Admin, click “Add New”
- Search for WPBook and click “Install”
- Click “WPBook” in the Settings Sidebar
- Click the “Detailed Instructions” link near the top of the page
- Follow this page word-for-word…
Yea, I know, that was pretty sad for a tutorial. There are a quite a few steps involved with setting up the Facebook application, adding the app to your fan page and configuring WPBook, but the directions are pretty straightforward. You can check out the Refresh Blog’s evil Facebook twin at http://apps.facebook.com/refreshcolumbia.
I’m not sure why this post didn’t get pulled in as a wall post on the Refresh Columbia fan page but as you can see below, comments from the blog and from the post on Facebook show up in both places.
Great, but what about Twitter?
I also just added the Twitoaster plugin which promises to pull any tweet that links to this post as a comment as well. Time to tweet it from the Refresh Columbia account to see if it shows up!
July 2010 Meetup
Greetings Columbia web peeps! We’re nearing the end of July which means it’s almost time for another informative Refresh Columbia meetup. Accessibility is one of those topics our clients often ask about and a key benefit we point to when promoting web standards; but how much do we really know about it? We’re sure to know a lot more after Will McCain’s talk this month. Also, we’ve covered content management systems in the past, but we’ve never been given the CMS lowdown by an honorary superhero. Kris Black is sure to save the day with his stories of suspense, site design and Squarespace.
I’m excited to announce that we now have over 150 people subscribed to our email list and 128 fans of our Facebook page, but we typically only have 20-30 people show up at our monthly meetups. While we work hard to line up interesting and relevant talks each month, the main purpose of Refresh is to build a community of local web designers, developers, freelancers, project managers, business owners, animators, videographers, photographers and anyone else whose personal and professional endeavors focus on the web. If you’ve never made it out to one of our meetups before or if it’s been a while, we hope you can make it out this month. Since our meetups start at 6, we like to pick a place to hang out afterwards for dinner and drinks. This month we’ll be headed to Thirsty Fellow for some great local pizza and nerdy conversation. Even if you can’t make it to the meetup, feel free to join us at Thirsty Fellow around 7:30pm.
This Month’s Talks:
Access Denied
Will McCain (@aisyrn) – SC Assistive Technology Program
We all want the world to appreciate the work we do, but not everybody is able to get around the Internet with the same ease. That’s where Assistive Technology comes in. Will is going to give a brief overview of the primary standards for Internet accessibility. Next, he’ll give a demonstration of common problems that users with disabilities have to overcome along with examples of some of the technology that they use to deal with them. He’ll wrap up with suggestions on how to avoid common accessibility and usability problems.
Squarespace Superhero
Kris Black (@krisblack) – krisblack.com
When it comes to content management systems, there is no shortage of options to choose from. Kris has been using Squarespace to build websites for his clients since 2004, long before he was hired by the company as a customer support architect. He’ll be talking about what Squarespace is, how it differs from all the other CMS options out there & why you should give it a try for your next website project.
Featured Book:
Thanks to the user group partnerships advertised in the sidebar, we give away a free book at each of our meetups. This month we’ll be giving away a copy of Rework by Jason Freid & David Heinemeier Hansson. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in list, so be sure to show up and sign-in for a chance to win.
When: July 28th, 2010 at 6pm
Where: USC Swearingen Faculty Lounge – 301 Main Street (map)
Topic: Accessibility & Squarespace
RSVP: On Facebook
