Des Moines Web Geeks

Bonus lunch Dec 28th: Javascript tools roundtable

matt — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:53:18 +0000

Just can’t get enough web geeks? This month we’re having a bonus lunch! That’s right, two in the month of December! Jeremy Geerdes really wants to lead a round-table discussion about Javascript development tools such as Firebug, Chrome Developer Tools and IE 9’s F12 Developer Tools as well as some of the popular add-ons that make these tools even more powerful. Who are we to say no to such a request?

So come to Smokey Row 1910 Cottage Grove, Des Moines IA (near downtown) on Wednesday, Dec 28th at 12:00 for a round-table discussion. Jeremy has a few interesting tricks he’d like to share and wants to hear some of your favorite tools and techniques. This is a conversational format, not a presentation. If it is anything like our last round-table, it will be power packed and you very likely will want to take a few notes.

If you could please RSVP by either leaving a comment here or on our Facebook event page, that would be awesome. See you there!

MongoDB recap

matt — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:58:38 +0000

We had a great turnout, thanks to everyone who attended, and extra special thanks to Tony Bibbs of Gforge for presenting. We received a surprise gift from 10Gen who shipped us some books and stickers to hand out, thanks a bunch, they were a hit! There is obviously a lot of interest in Mongo DB because, as you can see in the picture below, the room was full.

Tony’s slides are available on slideshare, but if you want the quick take-away message: Just try it! MongoDB’s barrier to entry is very low and works with many different programming languages and tools.

Lunch Dec 13th: Is MongoDB right for your project?

matt — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:49:48 +0000

Tuesday Dec 13th at 12:00 we’ll be joining Tony Bibbs as he presents on MongoDB, sharing insights as to how it can help you with your project and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of this “NoSQL” database engine. There will be a presentation as well as showing off a little of the code involved in a Mongo project.

Meet us at Felix and Oscars in West Des Moines at 12:00. There will be time to eat, listen to the presentation and be out in under an hour. The address is 4801 Westown Parkway West Des Moines.

Please RSVP by leaving a comment here or on the Facebook event page.

November 14th Hack Day

justin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:52:53 +0000

Monday November 14th we will meet up at Foundry’s new space at 418 6th Avenue, Suite 210 (on the skywalk) by 7:00 pm.

Plan your projects over the DSMWebgeeks group mailing list with other coders. Then meet us later that night at Foundry. Write some code, get help from other Web Geeks members on your projects, or just socialize.

See you there.

Lunch meetup: Ajax and accessibility, sitting in a tree…

matt — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:01:20 +0000

Building handicap accessible Ajax & DHTML with Wai-Aria

This Thursday, 6th at 12:00 we’ll be meeting at Felix and Oscars in West Des Moines where we’ll be hearing from Ryan Bergman about how he was able to achieve 508 compliance without having to give up the Ajax goodness we all love.

Ryan is currently a web developer for John Deere but this project was created when he worked for Geo Learning and was designed to satisfy the accessibility requirements of their corporate and government clients. Come for an introduction to the Wai-Aria standard and see how you make your favorite dynamic technique work for everyone.

Felix and Oscar’s is at 4801 Westown Parkway West Des Moines, Iowa.

Returning to the roots: web dojo Oct 3rd

matt — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:57:22 +0000

We have two more web dojos left this year. We’ve decided to break from the pattern and go back to the roots of our original dojos. There will be no relation between these dojos and past ones and like the good old days, there will be no hints.

We’ll give you a hard but realistic challenge, split up into groups and see if, in only 90 minutes, we can complete the tasks. At the end we’ll present our findings and show off our work.

We think it will be a blast, come join us. We’re meeting Monday, Oct 3rd at 7:00 pm at Foundry coworking. Afterwards (about 9:00) we’ll head over to Raccoon River Brewery.

You can RSVP by leaving a comment on this block post or on our Facebook page. Things you should bring:

A laptop or mobile device may be useful
Your web dev skills such as PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Database, Rails and etc
If you’re a designer come inspired and ready to push some pixels or scribble on napkins.

See you there!

Next coding dojo: HTML5 Sept 12th

matt — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:39:17 +0000

Just a quick note to let everyone know about the schedule. It’ll be on Monday Sept 12th at 7:00 pm. Because of Labor day we’re bumping it back a week.

The topic this time will be HTML5, but the rest is a mystery. We’ll be meeting at Foundry Coworking at 7:00. Come on down for a great time!

Leave a comment here or on our Facebook event page to let us know if you’re coming.

Lunch meeting Aug 23 presented by designer Jeremy Harrington

matt — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 03:17:03 +0000

Join us for a lunch meeting at 11:30 am to 12:30 on Aug 23rd, presented by local designer Jeremy Harrington. We’ll be meeting at Panera Bread on Westtown Parkway in West Des Moines. Please join us, he’ll be speaking about:

It’s All in the Details - Designing Scalable Interface Elements & Icons With Photoshop Layer Styles

Today, more than ever, interface elements and icons are used and reused across multiple platforms and at multiples sizes and resolutions. I’ll discuss how you can design highly styled, detailed elements in Photoshop (not Illustrator) that can scale and resize with minimal effort.

Please RSVP by leaving a comment here or on the Facebook event page. There is no cost to attend this event.

Web dojo: Javascript, part 3: offline/local storage

matt — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:58:38 +0000

It’s time for our August dojo. We’ll be putting the wraps on our 3-part Javascript series, this time we’ll be extending our app to support offline and/or local storage. You’ll get the details at the meeting and, since this is an emerging technology that few people have experience with, we’ll make things easier by giving everyone a head start. Here’s a good article about going offline if you want to read up on it before hand.

We’ll be meeting Monday, Aug 1st at 7:00 pm at Foundry Coworking (thanks Alexander for generously hosting us!). After 6:00 parking next to the building is fair game. There’s parking on the street in front of the building and also on Walnut behind the building.

“What is a web dojo?” you ask? It is a collaborative learning event where we break into teams to complete a surprise task. People of all skill levels and talents are welcome and we’ve found the more variety we have better the evening is. Since each team’s composition is different, each solution tends to also be different. After the allotted time each group presents their results. It’s a great way to exercise your problem solving skills and learn new perspectives and techniques.

If this sounds like the kind of fun you’re into, please come. You are welcome to RSVP either by leaving a comment here or on our Facebook event page. We love to know in advance how many to expect but if you don’t respond we’ll still let you participate.

Javascript / Location web dojo July 11th

matt — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 02:59:31 +0000

We’ve got another exciting web dojo planned for you in July. We’ll be working with Javascript again helping our hypothetical realtor agency continue the development of their mobile web app. The topic is Javascript and Location and there will be a lot more fun in this round. We had such a high success rate last time that we’ve decided to add more variety!

You’ll have to attend to learn more. The event is at Foundry Coworking, downtown Des Moines, at 7:00 pm, Monday July 11th.