Des Moines Web Geeks

Coffeescript lunch meeting, Thur June 20th

Matt (A.K.A newz2000) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:14:54 +0000

Are you Coffeescript curious? What is it, what can you do with it, and why might you choose it for your projects? Join us for our next lunch event and hear local web geek Brandon Williams share, “How do you become a superhero with JavaScript? CoffeeScript.”

We’ll be meeting for lunch Thursday June 20th in West Des Moines at Felix and Oscar’s. Meet us at Noon at 4801 Westown Parkway . The meeting is free and you can purchase your favorite sandwich, pasta or pizza dish from their great lunch menu (there are many choices for $7-8).

Please let us know your coming in the comments or on Facebook: hhttps://www.facebook.com/events/501975769874444/

Dojo Monday June 10th – Build a mobile app in 90 min? Yes we can!

Matt (A.K.A newz2000) — Fri, 31 May 2013 17:24:30 +0000

Join us on Monday, June 10th at 6:30 for our next Web Dojo. A “web dojo” is a code-oriented event where we begin the night with a task, work hard to complete it in the time allotted then, at the end of the time, share our results to see how we did. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, but we always learn from each other and usually leave the night with a few new skills in our belt.

Here’s a hint for the dojo: Yes, we think it’s possible to build a mobile app in 90 min!

Let’s meet again at Goodsmith’s in Valley Junction, 218 1/2 5th St West Des Moines, IA 50265 (remember, plenty of parking in the rear). Refreshments will be provided.

Please RSVP by commenting here or on our Facebook event (no need to do both though) For best results, bring a laptop with GIT installed. If you have troubles with this, we’ll allocate some time at the beginning to getting you going.

We’ll see you next Monday evening.

A new kind of Dojo – Monday May 13th – APIs, front and back

Matt (A.K.A newz2000) — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:59:15 +0000

Join us on Monday, May 13th at 6:30 for our next Web Dojo. This time we’re doing a new type of Dojo where teams will be working on related aspects of the same project. We’ll succeed when, at the end of the night, the pieces of the puzzle fit together and work. This month’s topic will be related to APIs and that’s all the hints you get.

Let’s meet again at Goodsmith’s in Valley Junction, 218 1/2 5th St West Des Moines, IA 50265 (remember, plenty of parking in the rear). Refreshments will be provided.

We’ll see you next Monday evening.

Javascript Game Development – Lunch meeting Wed. April 17th

Justin — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:16:30 +0000

During our social event in March Joel Taddei (@taddeimania) gave an awesome fast presentation on what he’s doing with JavaScript games. We liked it so much that we are having him return for an extended presentation.

We’ll be meeting for lunch Wednesday April 17th in West Des Moines at Felix and Oscar’s. Meet us at Noon at 4801 Westown Parkway . The meeting is free and you can purchase your favorite sandwich, pasta or pizza dish from their great lunch menu (there are many choices for $7-8).

Summary:

Making games with Javascript can be really fun! Come join us as Joel introduces the ImpactJS game engine, and covers the following:

Fundamentals of game programming and the “game loop”
“Freebies” and abstractions ImpactJS affords the developer
Deploy targets [iOS, Android, OSX, Linux, Windows]

There will be a drawing at the end of the meeting for one ImpactJS license ($100 value) so you can take your new found knowledge and make some games!

Backbone.js web dojo – Apr 8th – let’s build a single page web app

Matt (A.K.A newz2000) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:18:42 +0000

Join us on Monday, April 8th at 6:30 for our next Web Dojo. We’ll be building a single-page app using Backbone.js. After this event you’ll know how to start a new Backbone.js app, migrate a website from plain HTML to Mustache templates and you’ll have a good start using the History API along with Backbone routing.

Let’s meet again at Goodsmith’s in Valley Junction, 218 1/2 5th St West Des Moines, IA 50265 (remember, plenty of parking in the rear). Refreshments and a snack will be provided.

We’ll see you next Monday evening.

Why I think the best programming book is Agile Development with Rails by @newz2000

Syndicated Content — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:28:53 +0000

I often get asked what book I recommend to learn programming. This is an easy answer for me, the best programming book I have ever read is Agile Development with Rails by Sam Ruby. I am not a Ruby programmer and I’ve only done a few projects with Rails. I think it is a fine development tool but not the first one I turn to when I have a problem to solve.

But as far a programming books go, it is heads above the rest because it not only teaches programming but it teaches solid, professional programming practices at the same time. The fourth edition (the latest edition as I write this) covers rails 3.2 which is the latest version. It is updated frequently and if you buy the print version you can add the e-book version for only a few dollars, then you get free updates as they come out (there have been several updates, the latest introduces Rails 4.0).

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Use a CSS Preprocessor by @robbyg

Syndicated Content — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:26:11 +0000

CSS Preprocessors have been around for a while now, but I didn’t start seriously looking into them until about a year ago. I didn’t think yet another language like LESS, Stylus or Sass would have anything to offer me. I was wrong, and CSS Preprocessors are awesome. Here are three good reasons why.

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Don’t panic! Build your own Google Reader in 12 minutes with WordPress by @newz2000

Syndicated Content — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:24:29 +0000

Like many I am saddened that my favorite newsreader will go away. I use the app Reeder and the web service IFTTT to keep up to date on my feeds so now I’ll need to find something new. Reeder has said it will continue to work after the change and Feedly looks like it may also be something to consider.

Maybe we should untether our selves from a service we don’t control. I did some experimenting and it looks like with a tiny bit of effort we can make our own Google Reader app right in WordPress. And it will take you less time to do than it takes me to write this blog post! You’ll get the ability to star posts and you’ll have categories and a single central feed of all the sites you keep up on that you can read in any reader app.

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A pure CSS bouncing ball by @robbyg

Syndicated Content — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:20:33 +0000

Today we’re going to create a ball that bounces infinitely around its container.

I’ll admit it: the idea for this tutorial was based on two things: first, those corny bouncing ball/logo/whatever screensaver animations that are so popular on modern televisions, DVD players, or just about anything else that has — or outputs to — a screen. Second, a brief but passionate love affair I had with Jezzball in 2001.

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Puppet Dashboard – Inventory Service by @usrlocal

Syndicated Content — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:00:12 +0000

As a user of the free version of the Puppet Dashboard, I’m always looking for little tips and tricks that can make it more useful in my day to day job. Some of the features that you find in the Puppet Enterprise (PE) version are available in the free version, it just takes a bit of time and effort to get working for you.

One of those features was recently brought to my attention by a co-worker. In the Puppet Dashboard, its possible to have the facts of your node presented within the web UI. PE does this by default, but in the open source version you have to do a little wrench turning to get it working. My co-worker had already gotten it working on our production environment, but I wanted to see what it took to get running in my lab.

Here’s the great part about all of this…its really freaking easy to setup!

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