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August 2010 Meetup

RefreshColumbia — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:47:26 +0000

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 31^st. 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

May 2010 Meetup

RefreshColumbia — Mon, 17 May 2010 11:07:47 +0000

The end of May is fast approaching, and this will be the last meetup before ConvergeSE. The 20% early bird discount expires on this Thursday (May 20th), but if you come to the next Refresh meeting we still have a handful of cards with the special 30% coupon code. This will be a huge event for the web design, development, and marketing community here in the Southeast and we hope all you can make it out.

This Month’s Talks:

IP Basics & the Knowledge Economy

Calhoun “Reb” Thomas – Thomas Law Firm & KnowledgeEconomy.com
If you have any questions about intellectual property, you won’t want to miss this talk. Reb will give a brief summary of Patent, Trademark, and Copyright law in the context of software and the Internet. He’ll also invite the audience to consider how they can get more involved in the Knowledge Economy, and answer as many questions as time allows.

Scaling your Site

James Martin – SouthernSavers.com
Over the last 2 1/2 years, James & Jenny Martin’s Southern Savers website has grown from a simple WordPress.com hosted blog about using coupons to a thriving web community with thousands of daily visitors. So what do you do when the traffic starts pouring in? James will be giving a technical talk about how to keep your load low, your data safe and visitors happy as you scale your website.

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 Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in sheet, so be sure to show up and sign-in for a chance to win.

When: May 26th, 2010 at 6pm
Where: USC Swearingen Faculty Lounge – 301 Main Street (map)
Topic: Intellectual Property & Site Scaling
RSVP: On Facebook

April 2010 Meetup

RefreshColumbia — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:00:02 +0000

With allergy season well underway, the title of our first talk for this month’s meetup is more than appropriate. Hopefully the pollen count doesn’t keep you away though because our April meetup is sure to be a good one:

The Talks:

Talking germs, flying phlegm & other juvenile joys of illustration

Charles Akins – AkinsTudio.com
A brief look at the career of illustrator, Charles Akins.

Inside the GreyBox

Aaron Quinn (@aaronquinn) & Bob Galmarini (@bgalmar) – {e} house studio
Aaron and Bob are coming all the way from Charleston, SC to give an introduction to UI Greyboxing. They’ll explain the benefits and how it fits into your workflow from early problem solving to usability testing. This talk will be a followup to their popular blog post “Adding Grey Boxing To Our Web Workflow“.

Featured Book:

Thanks to the user group partnerships advertised in the sidebar, we’ll be giving away a free book each month. This month we’ll be giving away a copy of Before & After:How to Design Cool Stuff by John McWade. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in sheet, so be sure to show up and sign-in for a chance to win.

When: April 28th, 2010 at 6pm
Where: USC Swearingen Faculty Lounge – 301 Main Street (map)
Topic: Illustration & Grayboxing
RSVP: On Facebook

January 2010 Meetup

RefreshColumbia — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:39:55 +0000

Well here we are in 2010. No teleportation devices or flying cars yet, but there’s a lot of new stuff going on in the world of web design. Advances in HTML5, CSS3 and @font-face are quickly making their way into browsers and therefore into our work flow. We look forward to covering some of these developments in the coming months, but none of those changes mean anything without design.

The Beautiful Web

Jason Beaird (@jasongraphix)
The key to designing beautiful, effective websites is learning to think like a designer. In this talk, Jason will explain how principles and theory can only take our designs so far. We’ll look at landmark designs from both on and off the web, digging up inspiration and discovering the secrets to being better designers.

New Location:

We’ll be trying out a new venue for this month’s meeting: The Faculty Lounge at USC’s Swearingen Engineering Center which is located at 301 Main Street in Columbia. Unlike the directions to most rooms in Swearingen, these are quite simple. If you come in through the glass doors on the Main Street side of the building, the Faculty Lounge will be the first door on your right.

Featured Book:

Thanks to the user group partnerships advertised in the sidebar, we’ll be giving away a free book each month. This month we’ll be giving away a copy of Designing Web Interfaces by Bill Scott & Theresa Neil. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in sheet ~~between the first and second talk~~ (Only 1 talk this month, thanks for catching this Levi) Be sure to show up for a chance to win.

When: January 27th, 2009 at 6pm
Where: USC Swearingen Faculty Lounge – 301 Main Street (map)
Topic: The Beautiful Web
RSVP: On Facebook

Holiday Game Night v2.0

RefreshColumbia — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:05:39 +0000

You are cordially invited to join us for our second annual Refresh Holiday Game Night. As with last year, we’re combining our November and December meetups into one festive party in early December. This year, we’ll be getting our Rock Band and Mario Kart on in the back room of Delaney’s in 5 Points and the Columbia Adobe User Group will be joining us as well. The party will go from 6pm – 10pm on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009. Be sure to bring your inner rock star and plenty of red shells because we’ll be shredding and power sliding all night long.

When: December 8th, 2009 at 6pm
Where: Delaney’s Five Points (map)
Topic: Holiday Game Night
RSVP: On Facebook

October 2009 Meetup

RefreshColumbia — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:05:24 +0000

Last year we titled our October meetup, “The Bleeding Edge of The Web”. Like a recurring nightmare, our topics this month again fit this bone-chilling theme. We dare you to drop in and be frightened by the latest technology to haunt the web.

Venue Note: We’re back at ETV again this month as the room in the Library wasn’t available. If anyone has a connection for a location that would be consistently available each month, we’d be love to hear about it.

The Lineup:

Bing Mashup

Chris Eargle (@kodefuguru)
In this talk, Chris will show how we can build an ASP.NET MVC website using various resources from around the web. He’ll be pulling in businesses from Bing Phonebook, displaying them with Bing Map and using Flickr to show photos of each business.

Google Wave 101

Rick Stilwell (@RickCaffeinated)
We’ve all heard about it, but very few people have received an invite to try out Google’s latest beta project, Google Wave. Rick was one of the earliest beta testers and will be telling us all about what it is, how to use it and how it will change the Web.

Featured Book:

Thanks to the user group partnerships advertised in the sidebar, we’ll be giving away a free book each month. This month we’ll be giving away a copy of Handcrafted CSS – More Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in sheet between the first and second talk. Be sure to show up for a chance to win.

When: October 28th, 2009 at 6pm

Where: SC ETV (map) – Bank of America Auditorium

Topic: Bing Mashup & Google Wave 101

RSVP: On Facebook

September 2009 Meetup

RefreshColumbia — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:43:50 +0000

We’ve got two very exciting topics this month and hope you’ll all be able to make it out for our September Meetup! Venue Note: We’re back at the Richland County Library again this month!

The Lineup:

Automated Website Testing

Matt Hooper – VC3
I’ll be presenting techniques for automated website testing using WatiN, an open source tool for browser-based testing. I’ll discuss ways to approach test writing, and the pros and cons this style of integration testing vs more focused unit tests. I’ll also cover how we have used it over the past year to test some of our web-based apps at VC3.

Leveraging the Facebook Platform

Jimmy Sawczuk (@jimmysawczuk) – Startlike
I’ll start with an overview of the Facebook platform and why it’s a cool thing to use. Next I’ll show a working example, explaining how it works and how it can be modified for use by anyone who runs a Facebook Fan Page.

Win a Book!

Thanks to the user group partnerships advertised in the sidebar, we’ll be giving away a free book each month. This month we’ll be giving away a copy of Oreilly’s Designing Web Navigation by James Kalbach. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in sheet between the first and second talk. Be sure to show up for a chance to win.

When: September 30th, 2009 at 6pm
Where: RC Library – Bostick Auditorium (map)
Topic: Automated Testing & Facebook Platform
RSVP: On Facebook

Barcamp Charleston

RefreshColumbia — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:51:15 +0000

We’ve been excited about the upcoming Barcamp event in Charleston ever since the organizers gave us a heads up about it a month ago. The date is officially set for October 24th, 2009 and a website with the detail is up at http://www.barcampchs.org. Space is limited to 200 attendees, so register soon!

If you’ve never heard of Barcamp, the homepage puts it in as few words as possible:

“It’s an ad-hoc, user generated unconference, where participation not observation is key. It’s a day where people gather and share in an open environment.”

When: Saturday, October 24th, 2009 from 8am – 6pm
Where: Lowcountry Innovation Center, 1535 Hobby St, North Charleston, SC 29405
Cost: Zip, Zero, Zilch…Free!

August 2009 Meetup

RefreshColumbia — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:03:34 +0000

With topics like version control and iPhone development, we’re aware that we might scare off some our non-coding members this month. August means “back to school” though and for those of us working in the industry, it’s time to sharpen our minds and broaden our skill sets. Let’s all dive into these geektacular topics and get our learn on.

Venue Note: We’ll be meeting at ETV this month as the Bostick Auditorium in the library is under construction. We’ll be back at the library again for our September 30th meetup.

The Lineup:

Why you need Version Control

Jim Rubenstein (@jim_rubenstein) – Startlike.com

Those of you who attended ConvergeSC may have met Jim Rubenstein at the Startlike-sponsored after party. He’ll will be introducing us to Git and Subversion, and explaining how the Startlike team uses these tools to avoid catastrophic code collisions.

iPhone Dev with MapKit

Dayton Pruet (@daytontp) – Pruet Software LLC

Dayton is one a founding member of the local iPhone developer group and recently launched an app called Geek Search. He’ll be giving us an introduction to iPhone development using Apple’s MapKit framework.

Win a Book!

Thanks to the user group partnerships advertised in the sidebar, we’ll be giving away a free book each month. This month we’ll be giving away a copy of Oreilly’s Universal Design for Web Applications by Wendy Chisolm and Matt May. We’ll choose a random attendee from the sign-in sheet between the first and second talk. Be sure to show up for a chance to win.

When: August 26th, 2009 at 6pm
Where: SC ETV (map) Bank of America Auditorium
Topic: Source Control & iPhone Dev
RSVP:On Facebook (& become a fan of our page while you’re there!)

AIGA: CSS for Print Designers

RefreshColumbia — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:59:52 +0000

The Clarion Hotel Downtown
Camelia Room
1615 Gervais Street
Columbia, SC

Choose from two sessions:
Morning Session: 8:30 am 12:00 pm
Afternoon Session: 1:30 pm 5:00 pm

AIGA members: $40
Non-members: $55

In today’s competitive marketplace, design talent is not always going to win you the job. More and more often, clients and employers are looking for people who can do it all for them. Clients want to be able to get more value for less money and employers want designers with a full skill set, including web design skills.

If you are a print designer who has been looking for resources to advance your career and take your web skills to the next level, then this workshop is for you!

To learn more, and to register online go to: http://www.cssforprintdesigners.com

This is a hands-on workshop; you are required to bring a laptop.

Don’t wait to register—only 30 seats are available for each session.

Refreshments will be served at both sessions.

Coming from out-of-town and interested in staying in Columbia overnight? We have arranged a special rate with The Clarion Hotel. If you are interested in booking a room, call: 803-771-8711, ask for the “AIGA South Carolina” group rate.

Space is limited.