It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 2½ years since our inaugural meetup in June of 2008. Since then we’ve gathered almost every month to share knowledge, promote local talent and make Columbia a better place for web designers and developers. It’s been a real joy to see this group grow and I have high hopes for where it will go from here.

Unfortunately though, the time has come for me to bid farewell. My wife and I will be moving to Atlanta at the end of March, so I must step down from my post as the Refresh Columbia organizer. I was hoping to plan meetings for this month and next, but I’ve decided it’s best for me to focus my effort on preparing for the move. As far as future meetups go, there are no immediate plans but I’ve been talking to several people about taking the reigns and I assure you that this hiatus will not last long.

In the mean time, you can check our calendar for the meetup details of other local tech groups…and there are several big conferences that are just around the corner too. I hope some of you will come down to Atlanta to see me speak at LessConf on 4/29-30. After that, I’m looking forward to attending An Event Apart Atlanta on 6/13-15 and I’m definitely be coming back here to Columbia for ConvergeSE on 6/24-25. Converge is going to be bigger and better this year, so if you haven’t yet, be sure to sign up for updates so you don’t miss the early bird registration.

At the end of the day, Refresh Columbia is not about me. It’s about you and the rest of the local web design and development community. To those of you who’ve attended our meetups in the past, thanks for being a part of that community. To those of you who’ve volunteered to speak or who’ve helped me organize the meetups, you are the catalysts that have made this community what it is. I hope that you will continue to share your knowledge, promote local talent and make Columbia an awesome place to be a web professional.

Sincerely,
Jason Beaird
@jasongraphix

For more details, contact:

Matt Blackwell
877.550.1762, ext. 703
matt [at] company52.com

A full description of the requirements for this position are as follows:

Job Description

• Develop and maintain web applications according to project specifications
  and professional best practices.
• Submit accurate daily time reports on business activities.
• Help direct junior team members while accepting direction from senior team
  members; participate in code reviews and other professional improvement
  practices.
• This is a telecommute position. The candidate will work from home or
  other remote space. Frequent phone calls are to be expected, so the
  remote space should be quiet and free of distractions during such calls.
  Occasional travel to meet with clients or other team members in person
  may be requested.

Experience Requirements

• At least 3-5 years recent continuous experience in professional (paid)
  application development with PHP 5, preferably in team environments.
• At least 1-2 years of experience with a mature MVC framework (such as
  CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Symfony, Zend, or Solar).
• At least 3 years of experience working with MySQL databases. Preference will
  be given to those who have additional experience outside of MySQL.
• At least 2 years experience working with Javascript libraries
  (jQuery preferred) and AJAX applications is preferred but not required.
• Experience with Subversion or another version control system
• In addition to the above areas of experience, experience in any of the
  following are preferred:
  • Enterprise-level applications
  • Scaling large web applications
  • Social media applications
  • Mobile applications
  • Affiliate, internet marketing, or network marketing applications
  • Customizing WordPress, ExpressionEngine or Drupal applications
  • Customizing Magento or other e-commerce applications
  • Interfacing with PayPal, Twitter, or Facebook APIs
  • Oracle, SQLite, PostreSQL, Memcached, or “no-SQL” databases
  • Languages other than PHP, such as Ruby, Python, Perl, Erlang, or C
  • Formal software development methodologies
  • Adobe Flash, Flex and/or AIR application development
  • Able to produce semantic, lightweight, accessible, and maintainable
    web pages from Adobe Photoshop designs
  • Cross-browser compatibility issues
  • Education and Certifications
• A Bachelor’s Degree in a technical field such as Computer Science or
  Information Systems is preferred but not required.
• Zend Certified Engineers are given preference.

Technical Requirements

(i.e., demonstrated proficiency with … )

• Object-oriented PHP 5, advanced SQL (esp. MySQL), and Javascript
• Database schema design and normalization
• Software development best practices (including PEAR coding standards,
  code hygiene, design patterns, and unit/integration testing)
• HTML/XHTML/HTML 5, CSS 2/3, web standards, and accessibility
• XML, AJAX, REST, and other API-related technologies
• Web application security threats and secure software development practices
• Familiarity with Apache server operation and configuration
• Familiarity with Unix-like operating systems (Linux, BSD, Mac OS X) at the command
  line, including SSH, text editors, and other tools

Personal Requirements

• Because this is a telecommute position, a very high level of responsibility
  and trustworthiness is required, demonstrated by continuous communication
  with team members on the current state of assigned work. This requires both
  the ability to operate independently *and* the ability to work with others
  as a team.
• Regardless of technical ability, personality must fit the company culture;
  in particular, we prefer “humble but direct.” Honesty, integrity, and
  trustworthiness are paramount.
• Commitment to delivering a high-quality work product within the
  necessary constraints of time and other resources.
• Able to think critically and take action based on business needs;
  analyze data, interpret results, and recommend alternatives.
• Motivated to accept stated and explicit client problems as their own,
  and to uncover unstated or implicit problems that require solutions.
• Strong work ethic, on-time performance, and high attention to detail.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (both with clients and
  team members).
• Proven ability to self-manage and prioritize among multiple projects
  when given proper context and direction.
• Strong problem-solving skills; able to find creative solutions to
  unfamiliar or difficult problems.
• Take initiative for professional development, eagerness to learn.

Position in Columbia, SC will support the design, development, and implementation of intuitive, easy to use, customer-centric approaches for client’s websites, web applications, and other interactive mediums.

Job Specifications

• 1-2 years experience in the support of websites, intranets, web-based products and services, or interactive mediums.
• Knowledge of user-centered interactive design philosophies including information architecture, interaction design, and usability concepts.
• Knowledge of industry standards, usability and trends in web development.
• Solid understanding of web technology and desktop software design.
• Experience in developing websites with HTML 5, and CSS 3 design capabilities.
• Understanding of some of the following: Flash, PhotoShop, Illustrator, DHTML, Front Page, XML, XSL, XSLT,.NET, Active Server Pages (ASP) or comparable scripting languages, browser compatibility and download issues, both Mac and PC platforms as they relate to web display.

Over the past few years, we’ve typically taken November off, had a holiday party in mid-December and gotten back to our normal schedule again in January. I was hoping to change that up by pulling together a meeting in November but everyone is very busy this time of year. Instead, we’re going to go with tradition, plan to have a social gathering in December and start getting pumped for the new year.

Have a great Thanksgiving and we’ll see you in December!

For more details, visit AIGA’s event page.

When: October 28th, 2010 – 5:30pm (social) // 6:30pm (lecture)
Where: USC Campus, Room 214 McMaster, Columbia, SC (map)

This all-day online training event will be presented in the Peeples Auditorium at 2600 Bull St and will feature the following talks from some of the web’s foremost accessibility experts:

• 9:00 a.m. – Christopher Schmitt: “Accessibility & HTML5”
• 10:00 a.m. – Aaron Gustafson: “Progressive Enhancement with ARIA”
• 11:00 a.m. – Jared Smith: “Accessibility & Compatibility”
• 12:00 p.m. – Marla Erwin: “Accessible CSS”
• 1:00 p.m. – Lunch Break
• 1:30 p.m. – Glenda Sims: “Practical Accessibility Testing”
• 2:30 p.m. – Daniel Hubbell: “Future Trends in Accessibility”
• 3:30 p.m. – Derek Featherstone: “Mobile Accessibility”
• 4:30 p.m. – Matt May: “Is Universal Design Still Possible?”

You may attend as many (or all) of the talks you like, but space is limited for this free event. Visit SCATP’s 2010 Training page for details on how to register.

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

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.

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:

1. From the WordPress Plugins Page in Admin, click “Add New”
2. Search for WPBook and click “Install”
3. Click “WPBook” in the Settings Sidebar
4. Click the “Detailed Instructions” link near the top of the page
5. 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!

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