Webtrends

TAO members helping TAO members!

Jackson Lewis attorneys Sarah J. Ryan (current chair of the TAO HR Forum) and Mark Crabtree will present an overview of Portland’s new Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. The presenters will describe upcoming changes that every employer with Portland operations and those with employees who spend occasional time in Portland will need to consider in advance of, and once the new law becomes effective on January 1, 2014.

The overview will include a discussion about best practices for coordinating existing PTO and sick leave policies with the new law, the changing landscape of managing employee attendance and details about the tracking, posting and notice requirements under the new law. Come get your questions answered and ensure your sick leave policy and practices will satisfy the new requirements. Doors will open at 7:30 and the program will begin promptly at 8 a.m. and end by 9 a.m. An additional half hour will be allowed for additional questions and answers. Coffee and snacks will be provided.

Details: When: Thursday, December 5, 2013 Time: 7:30 - 9:30 AM (coffee and snacks will be provided)

Cost: This event is free, courtesy of Jackson Lewis and Webtrends, and a double room has been reserved so you can bring team members. However, pre-registration is required so we can plan for space.

Is it too early to start talking about Glass, Google's new eyepiece display? I don't think so. The small display, "card" and "timeline" metaphors, voice/visual interaction, new gestures (like blink!) and ever-present display will present new challenges and opportunities for designers and programmers alike.

Eric Redmond has spent the last few months working on the Mirror API, and peering into the gnostic Glass SDK. He's also writing a book about Glass (woops! that's a secret). If you want a peek at the future, or discuss why you think this technology will fail (unlikely), or just want to see what all the fuss is about, you don't want to miss this one.

If you happen to have a Glass device, please attend! It'll be great to have a few to show off.

As a followup to Erin Kurtz's talk in May, Edward Irby will focus on the technical details of creating html wireframes and prototypes using modern libraries specifically Sass, jQuery, Handlebars js, and Meteor js. He will demonstrate and explain in technical detail how the four can be used to rapidly design and develop a UI. At the end, Edward will demo a live and current project.

Bring your thinking caps, this is a deep dive.

Thanks Vitamin T for the food, Webtrends for the space, and Edward for the grey matter.

Many of the processes and deliverables widely used in web design today have been inherited from print, or born in the early days of web design. Deliverables like static wireframes or rounds of Photoshop comps provide a muted glimpse of the experiences they are trying to represent, which often result in mismanaged expectations and wasted resources. Erin Kurtz, Substance's Experience Director, will present some of the ways we are redefining our methods and deliverables by capitalizing on the broadening skill sets of our UX, Design and Development teams to work smarter and more efficiently in our User Experience and Visual Design phases.

I'm pretty excited for this talk, as the design web field could use a bit of disruption. Thanks to Erin and Substance for presenting this talk, thanks to Webtrends for the space, and thanks to Vitamin T for catering dinner!

Stephen Fox is a co-founder and partner at Drink Water, a social enterprise / brand created in response to energy drink marketing in action sports. After telling the Drink Water story in venues ranging from a press conference in Oslo with the Norwegian Health Minister to a panel at SXSW Interactive, he'll be joining us in July. He'll talk about the way the Internet has made possible the creation of a small but engaged global community around a simple message.

Location provided by Webtrends (yay), Food provided by Vitamin-T (yum), MC'ing provided by Alison (yep).

Writing your own CSS from scratch puts you firmly in the driver's seat, but for large projects it presents major challenges. On the other hand, large front-end frameworks like Twitter Bootstrap and Zurb Foundation are vastly better in terms of development velocity, but let's face it: they've become so ubiquitous that they're immediately recognizable and thus not necessarily the best design decision in a lot of cases. So-called "object-oriented CSS" is an attempt to have it both ways�to be abstract enough to be useful in large projects while remaining non-opinionated regarding specific design choices. In my talk, I'd like to discuss some of the currently available OOCSS tools—InuitCSS foremost among them—and to initiate a discussion regarding the promise and perils of OOCSS. Presented by Luc Perkins of Janrain.

Food provided by Vitamin T. Location provided by Webtrends.

Sooner or later we all have to work with HTML, despite its verbosity. Those of us who claim to love HTML may just be victims of Stockholm Syndrome, both praising yet secretly loathing it.

Basho designer John Newman is making the trek from the swamps of Florida to show us the way. In the modern world of markup preprocessors, these alternative syntaxes allow you to write simpler, cleaner, more concise code in a shorter amount of time. Certain techniques can even allow your team members who may be less-tech-savvy to contribute content directly without forcing you to wire up a WYSIWYG style CMS.

This talk explores great alternatives to plain HTML and CSS, and covers how Basho put these tools together to facilitate a painless, team-oriented approach to building sites and web apps.

Vitamin T will be feeding us pizza and recruiting for several local positions; Webtrends will give us space; and Basho is providing John.

Useful resource for designers: How To Become A Full Stack designer In 2019?

Shake off the winter blues with Amy Dubin, who will present on the myriad considerations all designers face in their roles as visual information disseminators.

Being a designer means taking into account an enormous array of factors, which includes the business and marketing plans that drive demand for your product. Coming up with a product that fits the whole picture will make you not only competitive, but in demand. The tough part is-how to gain this knowledge when 'business' just isn't your thing? This talk offers practical resources to help you understand how big the 'whole picture' really is, where you fit, where you may lack particular skills and how to get them in the most painless way possible. Knowing who to ask for help, and when, is a key strategy and we'll uncover tactics to help you design your career, as well as your products, successfully.

Apologies for shifting the date on this one... the second Thursday was Valentines day.

Thanks to Vitamin-T for providing food; Thanks to Webtrends for the space; Thanks to Amy for presenting an interesting topic!

-Eric Redmond, Organizer of meetup.com/pdxweb

Competing for Talent in a New World

Event Details: When: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 Time: 7:30 - 9:00 AM Where: Webtrends, 851 SW 6th Ave., Suite 1600, Portland, OR Cost: $25 Members, $45 Nonmembers Register: TAO - 503-228-5452

Sponsor: First Tech Federal Credit Union

We have a lot of work to do. At our current rate of growth, I suspect that every man, woman, and child in Portland will be a group member in 8.6 years. But even if that doesn't occur, we have an excellent opportunity (as Portland's largest tech meetup by about 200%) to continue leading trends this upcoming year. So come one, come all, and partake in the following activities:

• Brainstorming about the next few months topics.
• Volunteers to head up some SIGs (special interest groups) - some people like beer, some like coffee, there's no reason we can't host both kinds of meetups.
• Help craft a style all our own. We have an embarrassment of riches where talented designers and brilliant programmers are concerned... it's kind of weird we don't have a website full of useful resources and showcasing our collective talents.
• Should we reach out to other local groups? What about hosting a small web & design conference in Portland?
• Any other excellent ideas

Sorry for the short notice, but please come if you can make it. We need you there!

The Portland Chef Users Group (P-ChUG) is a monthly meetup of Opscode Chef users interested in sharing their experiences with Chef. We meet at the Webtrends office in downtown Portland on the first Thursday of every month.

There will be food, drinks, and discussion of some of the upcoming goodness from Opscode in Chef 11.

It's been a crazy half year in the web world. Lots of new standards taking hold, lots of new services, tools, and methodologies have popped up. Time to kick back and wrap out collective heads around just what's been going on.

This will be a series of lightning talks - or 5 minute talks about whatever you wish to talk about. It can be anything, such as: a tool you like to use... a design philosophy... a business idea you want to pitch... a story of when you were a boy raised by wolves; whatever you feel like sharing. Just let me know, there are only 12 slots available. Email me if you want to present. Anyone who signs up and presents will get a gift (I'm not sure what yet, but something nice).

This is also a potluck, so please bring something (dessert, chips, drinks... whatever you like to eat). You can still come even if you don't present or bring anything. All are welcome as always!

We've had a couple of these in the past, and many people claim it's their favorite event. It's very low stress and fun gathering... far more open and social than our structured talks.

So, let's grill some hotdogs (and vegi-dogs), crack open some root beer, and trade some stories!

Based on overwhelming positive feedback, folks found Hardcore HTML useful. But while it focused on semantically meaningful web documents, CSS is necessary to turn that document into something with visual impact. CSS is the next piece of the web puzzle that we'll cover here.

But everyone knows CSS, right? Sort of. Rather than rehashing how to color a paragraph red, we'll check out some forgotten/underutilized features (like partial attribute selection). Paired with HTML5, there are things you'll need to know, like:

• What CSS specificity is, how it works, and how it has lately become more complex.
• CSS3 is much richer than rounded corners and background gradients.
• Animations and transformations are not as complex as you might think, and you no longer need javascript to do them.
• New HTML5 inputs are styled differently from text, and can require more CSS to manage.
• The new HTML5 attributes can be selected upon, and can help solve class-soup.
• Simple tricks can create complex negative selectors (not matchers), even without the new :not() selector...

Whether you are a hardcore coder, a designer, or just a part-time web enthusiast, I (yet again) guarantee you'll learn something new.

Food provided by Vitamin-T

CSS3/HTML5 Books given away courtesy of Accelebrate

Space provided by Webtrends.

Everyone knows HTML, right? Sort of. Rather than rehashing divs, spans, and img tags, we're going to dive deep into the semantics of html (much of this is HTML5, some is oft-ignored HTML4). We're going to investigate the bleeding edge (some of these aren't even implemented in browsers yet... but most are).

Whether you are a hardcore coder, a designer, or just a part-time web enthusiast, I guarantee you'll learn something new.

Did you know:

Modern browsers support a "required" attribute, stoping an empty field from being submitted without javascript?

There is are special "email", "phone number", and graphical range input types?

There are built-in and tags which render as graphics?

When you should use , and when to use ?

There's a new "scoped" style spec allowing you to embed CSS that only effect a segment of your DOM?

When older browsers don't support the newest HTML types, there are some really easy scripts to make them backward compatible?

Food provided by Vitamin-T...

Stephen Grieco, Senior Account Manager of Struck (Digital Branding and Advertising agency) will present about the concept of frictionless purchasing online, and what it means to everyone working in the web world today. With iPhone's built-in app-store, to Amazon's One-Click purchasing, it's important to remove any barrier between a customer's decision to make a purchase, and actually making it.

If you build any sort of website that wants users to make a purchase at some point, you should attend this talk!

Food will be generously provided by Vitamin T.

This meetup will feature snacks by Vitamin T, a book giveaway, and everyone who wants one will get a $50 MongoHQ credit.

The dream of web services lies in deploying rich web applications without having to render anything on a server first. You don't need Wordpress, Ruby on Rails, or any complex deployments to deliver powerful and sexy interactive experiences. You just need a bit of Javascript, and a lot of CSS.
This is walkthrough of a real production app composed entirely of static resources (html pages, css, javascript) with NO SERVER CODE, other than the APIs it talks to.

This is a true separation-of-concerns architecture, and we learned a lot by developing this.

• How to use Compass/SASS to quickly generate CSS* How we used Middleman to write our HTML using SLIM
• Using some HTML5 tricks to make layout simple
• How we render everything on the fly using HTML templates (Handlebars)
• What is backwards compatible, and what gracefully degrades
• Really, REALLY sexy page transitions (ala github file browsing) using CSS3 (and a bit of Javascript)
• How we made everything work on mobile devices with almost no work at all
• Why we designed everything this way in the first place, and why you should too

HTML5 is here. Canvas is here. If you want to use Flash on mobile devices, you're out of luck. But what you can use is Canvas. You may as well know how to use them - because they ain't going away!

Come join is while Aaron presents Animations with HTML5 tech: Canvas and Paper.js

Canvas and other technologies

• How does each fit in the page? (Flash, canvas, CSS3, SVG)
• Which can be independent of JS? (CSS and SVG)
• Which are better for accessability? (SVG and CSS)
• Which is more efficient? (It depends)

Brief review of Canvas libraries

• Pros and Cons of some
• Two basic categories (most fit into either based on Actionscript or not)

Building something with Paper.js

• Building a quick mouse heatmap for your web-page.

Mobile mobile mobile mobile... we're finally covering mobile! Mobile tips, mobile tricks, mobile design, mobile workflows, mobile concepts, mobile fonts, mobile images, mobile download issues, mobile phones worth worrying about... and text messaging. This is not a lecture! I'll come with a bit prepared, but bring your best ideas.

Facebook is popular. So popular in fact, our first Facebook event left people wanting more! As a result, Justin Kistner of Webtrends is back to present the sequel to his discussion about Facebook in the digital marketplace. There will be more tips and tactics for organizations looking to make Facebook work as a "loyalty program" to engage customers in meaningful conversations. He will cover using the three core Facebook marketing tools: ads, apps, and analytics. Join us to learn more about how Facebook can become a key piece of your strategic marketing planning.

Presenter Justin Kistner: Justin is the Director of Social Products at Webtrends. During his time at Webtrends, Justin led the development of Webtrends' Facebook Analytics as well as their end to end Facebook campaign solutions. Kistner joined Webtrends from Voce Communications, where he helped architect social strategy for clients such as Intel and Oracle. He previously spent time as a Social Engagement Coordinator at Jive Software, and was the owner of Metafluence, Inc. - an independent web presence consultancy. In addition to his role at Webtrends, Kistner founded Beer and Blog - a blogging meet up hosted in 18 cities from Portland to Tokyo. Kistner also holds a bachelor degree in advertising from the University of Oregon.

Digital Dialogues Collaborative Case Studies

This new series, developed by AIGA Portland, in partnership with IxDA, provides a sneak peek into how some of Portland's best interactive studios deliver their magic. Diverse teams comprised of creative, user experience, and technology specialists will peel back the covers on a specific project, providing an in-depth look at what happened behind the scenes.

Our first in this series will be the Chinook Book iPhone app presented by Small Society.

Drinks and light refreshments will be provided. Sponsored by FILTER and WebTrends.

Admission is free, but please register as seats are limited: https://aigaportland.org/events/digital-dialogues

Accessibility on the web is an important, but often overlooked topic in web design and development. Making your website accessible and usable by people who are sight, hearing, or in other ways physically impaired can be a huge help to a large class of internet users. You may have done a little accessibility feature for ADA compliance, but beyond that, it's just the right thing to do, and isn't as difficult as you might think if you focus on accessibility from the start. We'll cover all sorts of accessibility, including designing for screen readers.

You won't want to miss this huge and interesting topic, and we're lucky to have two expert speakers on the topic: Winslow Parker and Lorelle VanFossen.

Winslow Parker is the Lead Adaptive Technology Specialist at the Oregon Commission for the Blind. Worked as adaptive technology trainer for 17 years. He's also worked in medical social work, pastoring and mental health fields. Winslow has been legally blind since age 20, and totally blind since age 50 (now 65). Married son and daughter; 2.1 grandchildren. He's been a Portland resident for 35 years, Oregon 37 years; also lived in Michigan, NYC and SanDiego. Bachelor’s degree in Theology; AA degree Mt Hood Community college in Computer Applications. He claims to spend way too much time using a computer and web (whatever!), and very much appreciates interest in making web pages accessible.

Lorelle VanFossen [bio coming soon]

TOPIC: Mobile: The Market, The Web, and Windows Phone’s Future There are few things more frustrating than reading the tech press in the United States try to cover the mobile market. First Microsoft’s mobile efforts are going nowhere. Six months later, it will be bigger than the iPhone by 2015. Say what?

Let’s back up for a moment from the day-to-day horse race coverage of Android versus iPhone and look at what the big picture trends are in the mobile market. What makes mobile unique? What makes a mobile product successful? And finally does Microsoft have a chance to get back into the mobile game?

Jason Grigsby was one of the project leads on the Obama iPhone Application and helped design the user inferface for the Wall Street Journal's Blackberry application. He founded and organizes Mobile Portland, a local mobile group.

Jason is a co-founder of Cloud Four, a small start-up focused on mobile and web development. He blogs at http://CloudFour.com/blog and provides frequent updates about mobile as @grigs on Twitter.

Digital Journalism Camp Portland is back! On May 14, 2011, journalists, bloggers, and members of the media and tech communities from across the Pacific Northwest will gather in downtown Portland to explore the future of online journalism.

Digital Journalism Camp is about learning from the people who are actively changing journalism right now. We're going to have hands-on instruction in video, audio and online journalism tools. We're going to learn from people who have created local online news startups, and from the people who have found solutions to the challenges you face, whether you're a beat reporter or a publisher.

Visit Journopdx.com for more information and to help shape the conference.

Folks have been talking a lot lately about fluid design... allowing a website to gracefully degrade to very small pixels. Where "min-width" used to be the default, you're now seeing a lot of design starting with "max-width" (friendly for mobile and netbooks). Many tips and tricks around this one, for example: The 100% image trick (for scalable images) Utilizing media queries The 62.5% trick (sets ems to 10px, and use only % and ems) Proper text sizing for both small and large devices using % column widths rather than pixels and much more.

Kory has graciously agreed to present this long overdue talk. Anyone who has bits of experience is certainly encouraged to contribute. You don't want to miss this - it's the future of web design!

WebTrends wants to have you over for lunch to chew the fat and show you their new product, Analytics 10.

Are you vegan or vegetarian? Please leave a comment so we can plan food accordingly. Thanks.

Wondering what Lunch 2.0 is?

Lunch 2.0 is a phenomenon that began in Silicon Valley. You can read about their current events and the history behind Lunch 2.0 at lunch20.com.

We imported the concept to Portland in 2007, and you can follow all things Portland Lunch 2.0 at the Silicon Florist.

How to do Consulting Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a consultant? What does it take? What are the hard parts? Erik has been down that road, and tonight he's going share what he's learned. What should you wear to a client site? How do you get health insurance? How much money do Sharepoint consultants make?

Erik Mork Erik Mork is a consultant and founder of Silver Bay Labs LLC. He cut his teeth doing professional consulting for Silverlight, and now he's working on Windows Phone and iPad. He's loving the life of an independent.

PDX Web & Design

Whether we are straight client-side graphic designers, or web developers with little design experience, the one thing we all have in common (besides an interest in making the web a better place) is that we work on the web a lot. Because of this, it's important to have at least a basic understanding of what goes on in the server. How does a message get from a URL you type in your browser, to a machine on another continent, and then back? How does PHP actually generate a website? What do "DNS" or "TCP/IP" actually mean? This is the first (in possibly other) deeper dive into what makes the internet work. If you are a pure-designer, and never plan to code, these basics are good to know. If you think you already know all this, come and share your knowledge! Presented by Keith Swallow

UPDATE: Due to issues beyond our control, the meetup has to meet the Tuesday after originally scheduled. Same Bat location, just not the same Bat time.

Portland, OR 97204 - USA

Tuesday, March 15 at 6:30 PM

Photo: http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/3/5/8/event_16545912.jpeg

Details: http://www.meetup.com/pdxweb/events/16543178/

It’s time for another Portland Data Visualization Meetup! We’ll have three to four main presentations and networking time.

Webtrends will again graciously host us on their top floor. The venue is on the 16th floor of the building right next to Men’s Wearhouse. Here’s a Google Maps streetview of the entrance of 851 SW 6th Ave # 1600, Portland, OR: http://goo.gl/maps/IDUY. For best results, please arrive before 6:30 Pm.

There should be a guard to let you in the door, but if you don’t see anyone to let you in, call 765-314-1599 and someone will come downstairs to get you.

We usually have some conversation and networking, so feel free to bring business cards and/or let people know if you’re hiring. We won’t have a food or drink sponsor for this meeting, so feel free to bring your own snacks and things to eat! (if you’d like to sponsor, see the section at the end of this post).

---Special Guest--- We’ll have a special guest and science journalist from Germany visiting. Please make her feel welcome as she’s come a long way visit! She’s very excited to meet all of you and see what’s going on with data visualization here.

Speakers for Data Viz #5:

1. Nate Geier will demo a E-learning system he worked on.

2. Kevin Ward of NASA’s Earth Observatory will present a general overview of what he is working on there.

3. Kevin Lynagh will give a 10 minute talk on web-based visualizations and data-driven JavaScript applications.

4. Chris Johnson will demo a census mapping project he is currently working on for Gannett newspapers.

5. Aaron Parecki will present data from an independent location tracking project.

---Who Should Go?---

The event is open to everyone interested in or working in the field of data visualization. This means designers, programmers, information architects, data miners, anthropologists, ect. We’re expecting a similar amount of people to last time (probably around 20-30 people).

---Location and Time---

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 from 6:30–8:30pm

Webtrends 851 SW 6th Ave. Portland OR 97204

---Interested in Sponsoring?---

We’re looking for food and drink sponsors for the next meeting, and if you know someone who might be a good sponsor feel free to contact me at [email protected]!

---Google Group:---

Address: http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-visualization.

Ed Borasky started a Google group called pdx-visualization. As the name implies, it is a group for Portland-area people interested in languages and techniques for visualization of data.

---Innovation in Data Visualization Group on Flickr:---

Address: http://www.flickr.com/groups/innovation-dataviz/

I’ve been collecting interesting data viz photos for a while now and posting them to Flickr Most pictures contain descriptions and links to the viz sources. If you have any Flickr photos of data viz work you’ve done, or work your find innovative, be sure to add them to the group!

A completely chaotic, non-directed, organic discussion of our favorite web and design tools, ideas, methodologies, or anything relevant to the group. We had one of these in December (feel free to bring snacks, food, etc) and it went over very well. So well, in fact, many people have requested another sooner rather than later. So here's the deal:

We can set up a laptop on the projector and anyone who is interested can spend 5 minutes discussion and showing off their favorite tools, frameworks, projects - or just stand up and talk. Anyone interested should prepare a bit in advance, keep it short (we're serious about the 5 minute cutoff!), and let's cram as much (web and design related) knowledge as we can in 90 minute!

The focus of this talk isn't on Facebook, or Twitter, or Buzz - but rather how current research understands social interactions work in the real work. Specific technologies will only be mentioned as to how they all get it wrong - and more importantly - how you don't have to.

You won't want to miss this. It isn't another "Social network buzzword Twitter buzz buzzzzzz lol" talk - but real interesting research in human behavior with real implications on future UX design.

I'll be going over mostly the research presentation by Paul Adams, who works as the UX research lead for Google's social initiatives. EDIT: Apparently today he accepted a job at Facebook.

Join us to discuss all things WordPress. Meet other users and developers and share tips.

This month's topic will be e-commerce, featuring guest speaker Nedra Rezinas of Blue Deer Designs.

Join us on November 16th, where Digital Strategist Bryan Rhoads from Intel will provide a special training on Intel's Social Media Policy. You'll learn about Intel's guidelines and policies for using social media, as well as how Intel developed a global social media training program for all employees, contractors, and ...agency partners.

As part of the presentation, Bryan will provide a mock training of what actual teams and employees must do to become Intel Social Media Practitioners (SMPs). The result will be a better understanding of how social media policies are developed and implemented into a business so that the business can effectively use social media in the workplace and with interacting with clients.

HTML 5 is one of the topics that seemed to pique the most interest during our initial meetups.

Laura has graciously volunteered to lead the discussion.

Also, if you're looking to learn about HTML 5 before this meetup, here are a few good resources to get started.

http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/featured-articles/learn-html5-10-must-read-lessons/ http://www.w3schools.com/html5/default.asp http://html5demos.com/ http://hardboiledwebdesign.com/

GROUP: Socialize with other Python programming enthusiasts, check out presentations on Pythonic topics, maybe participate in a code sprint or two, possibly work on projects and provide mutual technical support. More resources are available at the web site: http://wiki.python.org/moin/PortlandPythonUserGroup

This month: * Michel's Monthly Module (ctypes): Joel Bernstein * Optimizing C Extensions: Case Van Horsen * Extending Python using OCaml: John Melesky * And more!

It's been nearly a decade since the last big changes to HTML, which frankly weren't all that interesting. But this time it's different. With all the excitement around the latest features and browsers, it's time to take a closer look, especially if you've been heads-down on Silverlight, like I have been. If you haven't had time to look into the HTML5 family of technologies, it's time to start.

Scott Stanfield is the CEO of Vertigo Software, Inc.

Join CivicApps and our host, Webtrends at their headquarters located in downtown Portland to network, socialize, and publicly honor the best app entries for the second round of apps development. The evening will culminate in the "Best of Show" award, recognizing the top app among the "blue ribbon" award winning apps for Most Useful, Most Appealing, Most Original, Best Use of Data apps.

Come meet with your fellow developers, entrepreneurs, potential investors/employers, and others. Register today to reserve your spot!

Hors d'oeuvres, beverages, and a selection from Widmer Brothers will be available.

There was a lot of interest in having a jQuery/Javascript overview talk. Talk about the toolkit itself, have some examples, tool and web/print resources for beginners and intermediates alike.

Mike has agreed to sheriff the conversation on this topic. The Webtrends guys loved having us at the last meetup, and look forward to hosting us again! Yay us!

GROUP: Socialize with other Python programming enthusiasts, check out presentations on Pythonic topics, maybe participate in a code sprint or two, possibly work on projects and provide mutual technical support.

There are more resources available at the web site: http://wiki.python.org/moin/PortlandPythonUserGroup

After skipping a year, CyborgCamp is back! We're looking forward to a conference full of fascinating people, ideas and projects.

CyborgCamp http://portland.cyborgcamp.com/ is a hybrid unconference on the future of humans and technology. Half of the conference will be organized BarCamp style, and the other half will have structured experts on various topics.

What is a cyborg? A cyborg (shorthand for “cybernetic organism”) is a symbiotic fusion of human and machine. Join in our pre-conference discussion and help organize the event at https://cyborgcamp.pbwiki.com/ and faster updates on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cyborgcamp.

CyborgCamp's aim is to have many communication channels such as Twitter, Flickr, UstreamTV, Video and Audio recordings and live chats displayed on the screen. Classrooms, individuals and businesses are encouraged to attend the event remotely. It will be livestreamed through multiple channels and will be archived and tagged for future viewing. Details on remote conference access will be available a week before the conference begins.

CyborgCamp is open to sponsors. We're interested in cutting edge companies or non-profits who are interested in education/technological development. Please E-mail [email protected] if you or your organization/business is interested in this. Your logo will be added to any paper brochures, the website, and will be included in live Twitter streams during the event.

WordCamp Portland is a conference for WordPress users and developers, held in Portland, Oregon. The next WordCamp Portland is on September 18-19, 2010 at WebTrends.

This is a CSS deep-dive directed discussion. CSS can be more complex than many realize. From crafting selectors, pseudo-selectors, selector specificity, performance, and cross browser fixes - there is plenty to discuss.

David McFarland, author of "CSS: The Missing Manual" and other web books has been good enough to provide some of his CSS and Dreamweaver books to give away at the talk.

If you are a meetup.com member, please RSVP on that site (not required, just a nicety).

TOPIC: OData, Where Art Thou? Nick Muhonen describes OData, its service support in WCF Data Services, and its consumption through Silverlight. And of course, demos for the faithful!

Warmup - XNA Goodness on WP7 At the beginning of the meeting (6pm) Jason Mauer will present his latest XNA game project for the Windows Phone 7.

It’s time for another Portland Data Visualization Meetup! The last one occurred on Thurs, April 29. We’ll have three to four main presentations and networking time. Webtrends will again graciously host us on their top floor.

Current speakers for Data Viz #4: 1. Periscopic will present two politically-themed data visualizations they’ve done, both of which use public data. Each presentation will take 30-40 minutes.

1. Aaron Parecki and Amber Case will present new data from a project they’ve been working on dealing with GPS and SMS data called Geoloqi.com. They may also present a visualization of wiki commits to cyborganthropology.com over time.

2. A number of Portland Data Viz group members recently attended a Tufte lecture, which most everyone found to be very useful! Joe, a Portland Data Viz member, enjoyed the blot maps presented by Tufte. He will give a very short presentation on them. It will include a guide on how to build your own from US Geographic boundary files, as well as a discussion on Tufte’s criticism of this data visualization method.

Who Should Go? The event is open to everyone interested in or working in the field of data visualization. This means designers, programmers, information architects, data miners, anthropologists, ect. We’re expecting a similar amount of people to last time (probably around 20-30 people).

Michel's Monthly Module: baker (pypi) - Chris McDonald

TOPIC: Windows Phone 7

WHAT: Portland Silverlight User Group - July Meeting

WHEN: Tuesday 07/13/2010 6:00 p.m. Pizza (by Vertigo) 6:30 p.m. Presentation ~9:00 p.m. Afterwards at TBD

WHERE: Webtrends (map) 851 SW 6th Ave. Portland, OR 97204-1337

Sponsors: While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

• Vertigo - http://www.vertigo.com • Webtrends - http://www.webtrends.com

Webtrends and Network Redux will be co-hosting Lunch 2.0 at Webtrends' HQ in downtown Portland on Wednesday, June 16, 2010.

Are you vegan or vegetarian? Please leave a comment so we can plan food accordingly. Thanks.

Wondering what Lunch 2.0 is?

Lunch 2.0 is a phenomenon that began in Silicon Valley. You can read about their current events and the history behind Lunch 2.0 at lunch20.com.

We imported the concept to Portland in 2007, and you can follow all things Portland Lunch 2.0 at the Silicon Florist.

This month:

• Michel's Monthly Module: multiprocessing (pypi) - John Melesky
• Twisted - Karl Anderson
• Diesel - Michael Schurter

Join us! :)

Are you interested in what Silverlight is and what it can do? How does it compare to HTML 5? These questions and more will be answered by Microsoft Silverlight MVP Erik Mork. It's going to be a fun night of info for Silverlight beginners. Also not to be missed: a Silverlight Ninja will be designed before your eyes.

WHERE: Webtrends(16th Floor) 851 SW 6th Ave. Portland, OR 97204-1337

WHEN: Tuesday 06/08/2010 6:00 p.m. Pizza (by Vertigo) 6:30 p.m. Presentation ~9:00 p.m. Afterwards at TBD

As the economy begins to recover, new opportunities are encouraging both those who are currently employed and those who aren't to take a fresh look around. However, in the last 2 years, many changes have affected how companies search for top employees and how applicants should pursue desired positions. It's not enough to simply put your resume on monster.com or careerbuilder.com, job hunters must know how to use all the existing social media tools to optimize their job search reach and develop their professional network.

Attend a useful, no-nonsense SAO workshop on finding and winning jobs in the new economy job market.

You will learn: * Top 10 tips for developing and using your network on LinkedIn and beyond * Mixing old and new strategies in the new employment economy * Is traditional full time employment or freelancing the best option for you? * Target Audience: Job seekers, professionals looking to make a move in their careers, hiring managers

Panelists Sara Davey-Schmidt, Senior Account Manager, 52 Limited Jeff Miller, CEO, EdgeLink Tore Steen, VP Marketing and Business Development, JanRain

Moderated by Alex Kroman, Director of Operations, OpenSourcery

Free for members & people in transition / $10 non members Includes networking, program, light appetizers

Pythonistas,

Please join us tonight at 6:30pm for May's Portland Python User Group meeting, with pizza provided by VanderHouwen & Associates!

Tonight's meeting is in three acts:

• Act I: "What the heck is going on?!"

Featuring John Melesky presenting profile/cProfile as Michel's Monthly Module, AND several lightning talks on code execution, runtime instrumentation and source code analysis tools. (Kevin's presentation on Meliae, the memory debugging tool, has been delayed.)

• Act II: Full Text Search with Python and Xapian

Wherein Michel Pelletier will discuss working with Xapian, its Python API, the xodb Python toolkit, indexing and querying, and neat search tricks like term suggestion & faceting.

• Act III: Beer

A predictable conclusion to be sure, but delicious all the same.

The fun starts at 6:30. (Please don't arrive earlier than 6:15.)

WHO: Jeff Paries Jeff Paries is the lead Silverlight developer with Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, a leading integrated communications company. Jeff has a strong background in 3D graphics and animation and is also an accomplished author and instructor in that area — he has authored several books and numerous magazine articles related to 3D. An early adopter of Silverlight, Jeff’s interests lie in developing animation concepts and methodologies within Silverlight. As a developer with design experience, Jeff’s mission is to help bridge the gap between design and development. His latest book, “Foundation Silverlight 3 Animation” works to further this goal through a scenario-based approach.

TOPIC: Procedural Animation in Microsoft Silverlight Come and see how trigonometry and trigonometric functions can help us create movement in Microsoft Silverlight. Trigonometry is the study of how the angles and lengths of sides of triangles relate to one another, and is quite useful in programming Silverlight applications. We'll talk about how to apply trigonometry within Silverlight to create free-form rotations, calculate the distance between objects, use Sine curves to create oscillating movement, and more. The math will be demonstrated in a scenario-based approach in order to make it easier to understand, even if you slept through math class.

Warmup - Smooth Streaming w/ VideoRx At the beginning of the meeting (6pm) Robert Reinhardt, co-author of the Microsoft Expression Blend 2 Visual Quickstart Guide and the Flash Bible series, will present his latest online encoding service, videoRx.com. This service makes it easy to compress your video content at the highest quality and lowest file size. videoRx.com analyzes your uploaded source video and delivers the best compression for your content. videoRx.com can also create adaptive streaming content for Silverlight Smooth Streaming for playback on devices and the web.

Sponsors: While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:

Vertigo - http://www.vertigo.com Webtrends - http://www.webtrends.com

It's time for another Portland Data Visualization Meetup. The last one occurred on November 3rd, 2009. A number of things have happened since then, like Marshall Kikpatrick's coverage of #pdxboom, the release of Lee Byron's Stacked Graph Source Code, Ben Stabler's development of a Flex/Flash data visualization platform and R visualizations, and Aaron Parecki's continued GPS visualization experiments.

We'll have four main presentations from members of the Portland tech community a bunch of networking time. Webtrends will again graciously host us on their top floor.

The event is open to everyone interested in or working in the field of data visualization. This means designers, programmers, information architects, data miners, anthropologists, ect. We're expecting a similar amount of people to last time (probably around 20-30 people).

Bring a passion for data visualization, and a mind open to exploring new ideas and concepts.

Please join us this Thursday at Webtrends where Michael Fields will be speaking on the topic of Custom Taxonomies for your WordPress powered website. The purpose of the presentation is two-fold: to inform WordPress users that this functionality exists and inspire them to use custom taxonomies on their own sites by providing a series of use cases.

Please bear in mind that there will be absolutely no code to learn. All examples can be reproduced by a beginner with the aid of freely available, open-source plugins.

Pythonistas,

It's that time again- time for the Portland Python User Group meeting! We have another great set of topics lined up this month:

• Cook! up some CLI goodness with 'baker', the Module of the Month with Chris McDonald.

• See! the magical wonders of 'execnet' with Kyle Jones.

• Hope! to hear about new features in Python 2.7 with .

• Hear! about the Discogs music database and how Discogs uses Python with Jason Falone.

• Eat! Drink! and be merry with pizza and beer generously provided by Discogs!

All this Tuesday, 6:30pm! (Please don't arrive earlier than 6:15.)

Connect: * Mailing list: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/portland * IRC: #pdxpython on Freenode * Twitter: http://twitter.com/pdxpython

WHO: Corrina Black Corrina Black grew up sketching pictures and cartoons, but didn’t turn to design until she discovered the Web and taught herself to design and code simple websites. She focused instinctively on user flow, interaction, and attractive solutions. Corrina is currently a UX Designer on the Microsoft Developer Division team. To broaden her impact, Corrina pursued a software engineering degree to combine with her passion for user experience design. For Corrina, user experience is what matters. A product that doesn’t solve a problem, is difficult to use, and doesn’t draw the user in, regardless of how amazing the technology, will fail.

TOPIC: Creating Great UX with Expression Blend Corrina will do an intro to Blend and walkthrough the process of creating a great user experience; this will involve SketchFlow because detailing and iterating on user flow, layout, and animations and transitions prior to full-scale implementation is key to great UX design and this is done in tools like SketchFlow. She will also likely walkthrough the process of building a simple application in Blend to show the core functionality of Blend (maybe create a phone application).

Warmup - The Reactive Framework (Rx) in Silverlight At the beginning of the meeting (6pm) our own Eric Sterling of Vertigo will be giving a short introduction to Rx. Have you had trouble writing asynchronous code (including unit testing code)? If so, Rx offers a compelling and syntactically attractive way of handling events.

Portland ALT.NET is a user group of developers helping each other advance the state of software development, one mind at a time.

Meeting Agenda 6pm - food 6:30 - Kickoff discussion [Jason Mauer] 7:00 - Design Patterns [open panel] 8:00 - Flavors of Agile [open panel] 9-ish - wrap-up

Aaron Jorbin will talk about the new multi-site features coming in WP 3.0

RED CHAIR 'Studio' is designed to teach mid-level managers and Account-level Social Media professionals how to properly manage, measure and grow Social Media programs under their care. This fast-paced half day session will provide the framework, insight and step-by-step methodology needed to most effectively manage a Social Media program and deliver results for customers and the organizations, so come prepared to take copious notes.

Because RED CHAIR 'Studio' is a half-day session, participants will have time to return to the office after lunch and immediately begin to apply what they have learned. Developing a program that specifically caters to "roll up your sleeves and get it done" managers wasn't enough; we also wanted to make it financially accessible to departments with limited budgets.

What follows is a brief breakdown of what the program will cover:

Strategic Planning: How to properly develop, plan and set measurable goals for your social media program or campaign, both in the short term and long term - in a way that accomplishes your department's objectives and satisfies upper management.

Management: How to manage the Social Media program from inception to every phase of its evolution. We will go over process integration, monitoring, engagement, community management, customer support, online reputation management internal communications, project management and legal considerations.

Measurement and Growth: The final portion of the session will focus on how to properly measure success. This discussion will focus on lining up measurement with your program's specific objectives, choosing the correct tools and metrics for the job, properly reporting successes and failures, and how to use data to ensure the growth of your program.

Who should attend: Department managers wishing to learn how to effectively build, grow and manage Social Media programs for their business units. Social Media managers and directors wishing to learn how to more effectively manage and grow sustainable Social Media programs for their clients and/or their own firms.

Account-level agency and digital program managers looking to significantly improve their working knowledge of effective Social Media program management.

Community managers, IT managers, HR managers, small business owners (less than 10 employees), marketing project managers, product managers, customer service managers, and anyone not at the Executive level wishing to further their practical understanding of Social Media program management.

Portland Python User Group

This month: Cool Python Tools

• Michel's Module of the Month (dateutil): This month, by Michel P himself! Yay!

• Chris Pitzer will share two toolsets: I Hate Passwords: ssh-copy-id, ssh config, and managing multiple keys Play Nice: virtualenv, pip, ipython, with a special guest appearance from ipdb

• Chris McDonald will introduce us to bpython as a replacement for ipython, including its integration with Django and virtualenv.

• You can bring a lightning talk about your favorite tool!

Join us on our python.org mailing list and on #pdxpython on Freenode. All are welcome!

PDX Python on Twitter

Portland Python Web Site

Portland, OR 97204 - USA

Tuesday, March 9 at 6:30 PM

Photo: http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/3/4/3/event_7161315.jpeg

Details: http://www.meetup.com/pdxpython/calendar/12567683/

Silverlight Conversation and QA with Shawn Wildermuth Feb 19th at Webtrends 6pm This is a Friday (not our usual day)

Do you have questions about Silverlight? Shawn's the person to ask. He's full of Silverlight knowledge, and he's coming to Portland to have a conversation with us. Shawn is extremely well known and respected in the Silverlight community, and it's going to be a real treat to have him. If you want to have a complex and nuanced discussion about Silverlight, join us for this meeting.

Shawn Wildermuth Shawn Wildermuth is a Microsoft MVP (C#), member of the INETA Speaker's Bureau and an author of six books on .NET. Shawn is involved with Microsoft as a Silverlight Insider, Data Insider and Connected Technology Advisors (WCF/Oslo/WF). He has been seen speaking at a variety of international conferences including SDC Netherlands, VSLive, WinDev and DevReach. Shawn has written dozens of articles for a variety of magazines and websites including MSDN, DevSource, InformIT, CoDe Magazine, ServerSide.NET and MSDN Online. He has over twenty years in software development regularly blogs about a range of topics including Silverlight, Oslo, Databases, XML and web services on his blog (http://wildermuth.com).

Warmup: Operating System in Your Browser Window At the beginning of the meeting (6pm), Marc Schulper will show us how to write Silverlight applications for a web based operating system.

WHEN: Friday 02/19/2010 This is a Friday (not our usual day)

6:00 p.m. Pizza (by Vertigo) 6:30 p.m. Presentation ~9:00 p.m. Afterwards at TBD

WHERE: Webtrends (map: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=webtrends+in+portland&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=52.77044,117.949219&ie=UTF8&hq=webtrends&hnear=Portland,+OR&z=15&iwloc=A ) 851 SW 6th Ave. Portland, OR 97204-1337

Sponsors: While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible: * Vertigo - http://www.vertigo.com * Webtrends - http://www.webtrends.com

Getting There: Trimet. I recommend taking Trimet to this event. Check out the map to see the tons of Max/etc. stops nearby. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=webtrends+in+portland&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=52.77044,117.949219&ie=UTF8&hq=webtrends&hnear=Portland,+OR&ll=45.518113,-122.678565&spn=0.00557,0.014398&z=17&iwloc=A Parking. I recommend Smart Parks: http://maps.google.com/maps?near=851+Southwest+6th+Avenue,+Portland,+OR+97204-1307+(Webtrends+Inc)&geocode=CZtaax3F1n_AFfqMtgIdhxCw-CFZtU_2hrTHig&q=%22Smart+Park%22&f=l&dq=webtrends+loc:+portland&sll=45.518074,-122.679161&sspn=0.011831,0.006499&ie=UTF8&ll=45.519218,-122.67643&spn=0.022281,0.057592&z=15

Join us to talk about WordPress and statistics!

Portland Python User Group

This month: Cool Python Tools

• Chris Pitzer will share two toolsets: I Hate Passwords: ssh-copy-id, ssh config, and managing multiple keys Play Nice: virtualenv, pip, ipython, with a special guest appearance from ipdb

• Chris McDonald will introduce us to bpython as a replacement for ipython, including its integration with Django and virtualenv.

• Selena Deckelmann will share a demo of screen, entitled: "OMG! SCREEN! basics, configuration, follow-the-leader -- you will wonder how you lived without it."

• You can bring a lightning talk about your favorite tool!

• We still don't have a taker for the Monthly Module. Email us at [email protected] to volunteer. It's a fun and easy way to start giving talks.

Join us on our python.org mailing list and on #pdxpython on Freenode. All are welcome!

PDX Python on Twitter

Portland Python Web Site

Portland, OR 97204 - USA

Tuesday, February 9 at 6:30 PM

Photo: http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/3/4/3/event_7161315.jpeg

Details: http://www.meetup.com/pdxpython/calendar/12305421/

The name of Aaron’s talk is “After Launching a Couple Dozen Blogs, I Figured Out how to Do it Right.” Aaron presented this talk at WordCamp Seattle, and has done several blog posts around this theme as well.

Aaron Hockley is experienced at starting new WordPress blogs, including his highly successful SocialPhotoTalk site. Even if you’re an experienced blogger, if you’re thinking about starting another blog (and who isn’t?), Aaron Hockley has great information for you.

We’ll also have time for networking and socializing. If you’ve got questions about WordPress 2.9 (actually, we’re already up to 2.9.1), someone might be able to help you!

As usual, we’ll be at Webtrends, 851 SW 6th Avenue on the 16th floor. We usually get into Webtrends right around 6:00, but if you come later than that, just let the security guard know that you’re coming to the WordPress meeting and he’ll punch in the elevator code for you.

Hope to see you there! Please let us know on Upcoming if you’ll be attending.

Our first meeting of 2010 is nearly upon us and it's going to be a big one! The theme for January is: Geographic Information. In addition to 3 (count 'em: 3!) great feature presentations, there will be a giveaway of GIS and Python books. And, after, we'll adjourn to the pub for beer. (Map to be provided.)

First up we'll have Michel's Module of the Month, a lightning talk on a randomly chosen stdlib module by an unprepared volunteer.

Then, Michel Pelletier will introduce Geohash, a clever text encoding of latitude and longitude information that is very useful for non-traditional databases, among other things. Geohashing was cooked up by Gustavo Niemeyer of Mocker and Dateutil fame.

Webb Sprague will talk about how to incorporate geographic data into relational databases using PostGIS and PostgreSQL. He will cover making a connection with psycopg2, modeling using geographic data types, and associating geographic data with non-geographic attributes.

Building on Webb's talk, Tim Welch will introduce the geographic capabilities of the Django Framework (aka GeoDjango) which utilizes PostGIS and psycopg2. He'll briefly cover geometric data types, spatial operators, the Django geographic admin and creating geo-enabled web services. In addition to examples, at least one application will also be demoed.

A Flash Evangelist Goes to the Dark Side January 12, 2010 6pm Webtrends* ( http://maps.google.com/maps?q=webtrends&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS221US221&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl )

*- Super easy access via the Max and lots of close Smart Parks ( http://maps.google.com/maps?near=851+Southwest+6th+Avenue,+Portland,+OR+97204-1307+(Webtrends+Inc)&geocode=CZtaax3F1n_AFfqMtgIdhxCw-CFZtU_2hrTHig&q=smart+park&f=l&hl=en&dq=webtrends+loc:+Portland,+OR&sll=45.518074,-122.679161&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&z=15 )

Mike Downey was deep in the Flash world (Principal Evangelist/Senior Product Manager on the AIR/Flash teams) before switching to Silverlight. Now, he works for the devil (er... Microsoft). On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, we hear his story. How does Silverlight stack up against Flash? How does Silverlight Out Of Browser measure up to Flex? How does media work in Silverlight?

Warmup - MVVM in Practice At the beginning of the meeting our own Alexis Jasso will be giving a short MVVM demonstration. It will be an example of how to convert non-MVVM code into the MVVM pattern.

Mike Downey http://madowney.com/blog/about/ Mike Downey is Director of Platform Evangelism at Microsoft where he focuses on platform adoption of Microsoft Silverlight and related technologies. Mike was formerly the Principal Evangelist for the Platform Business Development team at Adobe Systems focusing on promoting Adobe's platform technologies including Flash, Flex, and AIR. Mike joined the AIR team as Senior Product Manager in December of 2006 before moving to his role in business development. Prior to joining the AIR product team Mike spent four years as Senior Product Manager for Flash.

Sponsors Vertigo - Platinum Sponsors Webtrends - Location Sponsors

More info tbd, but Shawn is coming to town, and he's agreed to answer our Silverlight questions!

Chris Pitzer has claimed November's Michel's Monthly Module (most likely: subprocess), Brett Carter is putting together a presentation all about Mercurial Queues, then Jason Kirtland will highlight a few of the differences between MQ and Mercurial Patch Branches. Jason also plans to share a quick bonus lightning talk about Emacs, PyFlakes and PEP 8.

The last Portland Data Visualization Meetup occurred way back in March 2009. That’s way too long to go without a good data viz meetup, so there’s going to be another one. We’ll have five 10 minute presentations and a bunch of networking time. Webtrends will again graciously host us on their top floor. The event is open to everyone interested in or working in the field of data visualization. This means designers, programmers, information architects, data miners, anthropologists, ect. We’re expecting a similar amount of people to last time, but the presentations will be limited to 10 minutes each or less.

Bring business cards and an excitement to connect with others in this field.

There will be five presentations of 10 minutes each. There are three openings left, so if you would like to demonstrate something you’re working on, please E-mail Amber Case at caseorganic [at] gmail [dot] com.

Presentation Camp is an all day collaborative event that is focused on improving presentation content, delivery and storytelling. Giving an effective presentation is tough - but Presentation Camp offers insights from the experts, peer-to-peer collaboration and tips for improving presentation skills.

The second Tuesday has rolled around again! Tomorrow at 6:30pm John Hampton will be giving us an introduction to Bitten (http://bitten.edgewall.org/), a Python framework for collecting metrics that builds on the Trac we all know (and many of us love :)). Adam Lowry has also claimed Michel's Monthly Module for this month, which will be a hashlib&hmac combo presentation. Following the meeting, we'll head out to grab a pint together and discuss all things Pythonic.

That's right, time to End Bloglessness, AGAIN! Whoo-Hoo! Gather up your friends, family, or any one else you can think of who has been looking to start a blog and come join us! Sunday, October 4th from 12:00-5:00pm

Format

Each session will be 1 hour: 15 minute presentation and 45 minutes of assisted help. During assisted help, attendees can raise their hands to get help from one of our assistants. Assistants are folks from the Portland tech scene that have done this process before who can help you with your questions.

Agenda

* Session 1 - Sign up for your blog 12:00-1:00pm;
* Session 2 - Dial in the settings for your blog 1:00-2:00pm;
* Session 3 - Intro to posting on your blog 2:00-3:00pm;
* Session 4 - How to promote your blog 3:00-4:00pm;
* 4:00-5:00pm will be an open help time to ask help with anything you'd like.

What to expect

We are focusing on WordPress blogs for this workshop. We chose WordPress so that if your blog is going well enough and you need to graduate to a hosted blog, you're data and experience will be compatible. By the time you leave the workshop, you'll have a blog that is ready to go and some direction on how to connect with other local bloggers. We are expecting people from all skill levels, including the technically challenged. Everyone will be treated with respect and will be encouraged. We'll be hosting the event at Webtrends. There are some computers available to use, but we highly recommend bringing your laptop if you have one as there likely won't be enough computers for everyone. Help us get the word out!

Most of the people we're hoping to reach are either to far outside of our social circles or are offline completely. We could use your help in letting people know about this free workshop to get a blog up and running. We don't care if your motivation to blog is personal, professional, or political; we'll help you get one up and running.

* Tweet the link to this page http://bit.ly/ufsYL
* Email this page to a friend
* RSVP on Upcoming and Calagator
* Tell someone in real life using your voice. Crazy, huh?

Why is this free?

We're hoping to make new friends and be good citizens. We don't want to be an insular group, so we want to enable others to join. And, because we're Portlanders inspired by other Portlanders to DIY and that Yes We Can. :)

Help out

If you have experience with installing WordPress, we'd love to have you help answer people's questions. Please leave us a comment below if you're interested in helping!

WordCamp is a gathering of people interested in WordPress and blogging. Topics will focus on a wide range of audiences from the new blogger as well as those with more of a technical background.

Follow the WordCamp Portland website for details including speakers, sponsorship, and ticket information.

Registration for WordCamp Portland 2009 will begin in late July. The ticket price will be $20 for the two-day event.

Socialize with other Python programming enthusiasts, check out presentations on Pythonic topics, maybe participate in a code sprint or two, possibly work on projects and provide mutual technical support.

Join us for a discussion of WordPress themes with Kelly Guimont and Robin Catesby. WordPress users of all levels are welcome.

Presented by British American Business Council, UK Trade + Investment, Business Oregon, and the Software Association of Oregon.

  Thinking of taking your company, product or services abroad?  Is it time to expand into the UK? 

  The British-American Business Council of the Pacific Northwest is pleased to partner in its first event in the Portland area with UKTI (United Kingdom Trade & Investment), Business Oregon (Oregon Business Development Department) and the Software Association of Oregon (SAO) to provide a vision for business growth overseas.  

  This case study will feature representatives of Pacific Northwest companies that have made the leap already as well as concrete trade advice & support from UKTI to aid your success. 

  Time for important networking with a broad spectrum of companies at various stages of international business development and other international resources will conclude the event.

  SPEAKERS
  Julian Evans, British Consul General, San Francisco 
  Bob Lewis, Former President/CEO, SNAPin Software, Inc. 
  Richard Stott, Matchbox Mobile
  Helen Moore, Vice Consul, Software, UKTI
  Andy James, Osborne Clarke

Python Testing! New Time! New Location!

Join us for our inaugural meeting at Webtrends in downtown Portland. On the agenda for August:

• Testing in a Python World by Adam Originally proposed for OSBridge 2009: http://opensourcebridge.org/proposals/243

• Module of the Month by Michelle

• Pizza & Beer sponsored by Emma!

Join us on our python.org mailing list and on #pdxpython on Freenode. All are welcome!

Sam Churchill will talk about how to make money with your blog.

Social Media Club, the Internet Strategy Forum, and 
Jeremiah Owyang on the rooftop at WebTrends in Portland

Jeremiah Owyang with pizza and beer on the deck! Does it get any better than that?

Join Social Media Club Portland and the Internet Strategy Forum (ISF) on Wednesday, July 22, for a summer social! ISF keynote speaker, Jeremiah Owyang, will join us for a Q&A at this casual event, which will include plenty of time to hang out on WebTrends’ rooftop deck, enjoying hometown favorite Widmer beer and pizza.

Our summer social kicks off ISF, which takes place July 23-24. Of course, we have a discount for you! Use code “SMC” when registering for ISF to save 15% off the price of the full day conference on July 23. That’s just $195 to hear people at the top of their game talk about what’s working right now.

As an analyst at Forrester Research, Jeremiah is on the cutting edge of all things social media. He authored the recent report "The Future of the Social Web" and is #2 on the "Twitter Power 150 List.” We’re compiling a list of questions in advance to ask Jeremiah – post your questions to our Web site or tweet them to @SocialMediaPDX.

Buy your ticket EARLY! This event may sell out. 
Tickets are $15 in advance until midnight July 21, $20 (check or cash only) the day of the event at the door.

What: Social Media Club Portland

When: 6:00pm – Networking 6:30pm – Q&A with Jeremiah Owyang 7:15pm – Pizza and Schmoozing

Where: WebTrends Rooftop Patio 851 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 600 Portland, OR 97204

Cost: $15 in advance (credit card or paypal online) $20 day of event (cash or check only)

Tell your friends and show our sponsors some love on Twitter!


Internet Strategy Forum: @Summit Jeremiah Owyang: @jowyang Widmer Brewing: @Widmer_Brothers WebTrends: @WebTrends

Join us!

Please join us for the next Web Analytics Wednesday (on a Monday) here in Portland, OR. The event this month will be held on the 16th floor at Webtrends, which is located at 851 SW 6th. As always, everyone is welcome, from existing Web Analytics practitioners to those with even a passing interest in the field.

  Web Analytics Wednesday was founded in 2005 by Eric T. Peterson and June Dershewitz and is now the largest social networking event for Web Analytics Professionals, connecting thousands of people across the globe. For more details on Web Analytics Wednesdays, as well as a list of upcoming events, please feel free to visit Eric's site:


  http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/wednesday/index.asp


  The latest Web Analytics Wednesday here in Portland, OR will start at roughly 5:30PM on Monday, July 20th and drinks/snacks will be graciously provided by our sponsor Webtrends.

  This month we are also lucky enough to have a presentation from Amber Case, who will be speaking about new ways to track the performance of social media campaigns, real-time buzz tracking, trend tracking through data visualization, KPIs, and what the world of analytics needs in order to obtain useful, integrated data. The talk will focus mostly on the world of new media and her bio can be found at the bottom of this posting.


  The expected schedule is as follows:


  5:30 - 6:45: Networking/Drinks/Snacks

  6:45 - 7:15: Presentation by Amber Case

  7:15 - ?:??: More Networking/Drinks/Snacks


  Should you have any questions or need help locating the event, please feel free to contact us at:


  Dash Lavine: 503-962-9048
  [email protected]

  Jeff Porter: 503-333-0254
  [email protected]

  Justin Kistner: 
  [email protected]


  If you intend to join us, notification via this site, Eric's site, and/or e-mail would be much appreciated. Such communication will allow us to make arrangements for the correct number of attendees.

  Hope to see you there. Cheers.

  P.S. We are currently looking for event sponsors for future WAW events here in Portland. Should you have any interest, please give us a ring or shoot us an e-mail. Thanks much.

   Amber's Bio: 

  Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and New Media Consultant from Portland, Oregon. Amber's interests include real-time analytics , data visualization , and how marketing works in online ecosystems .  She's spoken at various conferences including MIT's Futures of Entertainment , Inverge: The Interactive Convergence Conference , Ignite Portland , and Ignite Boulder . 

  Case blogs primarily at http://oakhazelnut.com . She founded CyborgCamp , an unconference on the future of humans and technology. She can be found online at http://www.twitter.com/caseorganic .

  Amber received her degree in Sociology/Anthropology from Lewis & Clark College in 2008 with a thesis on “The Cell Phone and Its Technosocial sites of Engagement” . She is available for speaking engagements, corporate training and consulting, data aggregation, analytics, blog consulting, and online efficiency training.

It’s that time again! Time to End Bloglessness!! Yay!!!!!! If you or someone you know has been looking to start a blog, now is the time to get your hand held as we walk through the process.

  We’re going to try it a little differently this time. Last time it was a 4 hour workshop helping people install a blog. This time we’re going to help people start a hosted blog and use the time to train them on how to use it.

  Format

  Each session will be 1 hour: 15 minute presentation and 45 minutes of assisted help. During assisted help, attendees can raise their hands to get help from one of our assistants. Assistants are folks from the Portland tech scene that have done this process before who can help you with your questions.
  Agenda

      * Session 1 - Sign up for your blog 12:00-1:00pm;
      * Session 2 - Dial in the settings for your blog 1:00-2:00pm;
      * Session 3 - Intro to posting on your blog 2:00-3:00pm;
      * Session 4 - How to promote your blog 3:00-4:00pm;
      * 4:00-5:00pm will be an open help time to ask help with anything you’d like.

  What to expect

  We are focusing on WordPress blogs for this workshop. We chose WordPress so that if your blog is going well enough and you need to graduate to a hosted blog, you’re data and experience will be compatible.

  By the time you leave the workshop, you’ll have a blog that is ready to go and some direction on how to connect with other local bloggers. We are expecting people from all skill levels, including the technically challenged. Everyone will be treated with respect and will be encouraged.

  We’ll be hosting the event at Webtrends. There are some computers available to use, but we highly recommend bringing your laptop if you have one as there likely won’t be enough computers for everyone.
  Help us get the word out!

  Most of the people we’re hoping to reach are either to far outside of our social circles or are offline completely. We could use your help in letting people know about this free workshop to get a blog up and running. We don’t care if your motivation to blog is personal, professional, or political; we’ll help you get one up and running.

      * Tweet the link to this page http://bit.ly/14OwQU
      * Email this page to a friend
      * RSVP on Upcoming and Calagator
      * Tell someone in real life using your voice. Crazy, huh?

  Why is this free?

  We’re hoping to make new friends and be good citizens. We don’t want to be an insular group, so we want to enable others to join. And, because we’re Portlanders inspired by other Portlanders to DIY and that Yes We Can. :)
  Help out

  If you have experience with installing WordPress, we’d love to have you help answer people’s questions. Please leave us a comment below if you’re interested in helping!

CloudCamp PDX is coming! This unconference is set up for people who work with cloud computing, are interested in learning more, or who just want to understand what they hype is all about. It will be taking place on June 30, 2009 at Webtrends with doors opening at 5:30. Come join us if you can! There is a limited amount of space available, so please sign up now!

More info here: http://www.cloudcamp.org/pdx

And to sign up: http://cloudcamp-pdx-09.eventbrite.com

Hope to see you all there!

Come join us for the Beer and Blog After Party in honor of the closing of Open Source Bridge. Special guests Strange Love Live will be broadcasting live from the event.

Reductive Labs the company behind the Puppet configuration management language is moving to Portland.

In order to celebrate our move to Portland and to help kick off Open Source Bridge, we are hosting a Puppet get together at the Webtrends facility.

James Turnbull author of "Pulling Strings with Puppet" and Luke Kanies the primary developer of Puppet will attending.

This an informal get together. We will be providing beer and snacks. We plan to talk about Reductive Lab's move to Portland, the future of Puppet, and general configuration management issues.

If you are interested in attending please send an email to [email protected]

The Lunch 2.0s are fast and furious now that Summer is here. Not intentionally, but happily, at least if you like to hang out around town in the sunshine.

  If you attend PDX Lunch 2.0, you've probably heard about Open Source Bridge already.

  You know, the volunteer-run conference, dedicated to open source citizenship and (ahem) world domination that's happening June 17-19 at the OCC .

  Rather than co-opting another Lunch 2.0 to promote the conference, they're teaming up with Webtrends , one of the conference's sponsors and a great Portland company, to fill your ears with open source goodness and your belly with yummy food.

  Come by and mix and mingle with your Twitter pals, meet some new folks, and hear all about Webtrends and open source.

  Lunch 2.0 is a Valley phenomenon that you can read about at lunch20.com , and we're putting a PDX stamp on it.

  You can follow all things Portland Lunch 2.0 an the Silicon Florist .

  Are you vegan or vegetarian? Please leave a comment so we can plan food accordingly. Thanks.

Open Source Bridge is a new conference for developers working with open source technologies and for people interested in learning the open source way.

Interested in helping out during the Open Source Bridge conference? Next week we're having a Volunteer Orientation where you'll be able to learn about the available volunteer positions and sign-up for shifts. If you're still interesting in helping, please attend.

Date & Time: Wednesday, June 3rd, 7pm Location: Webtrends, 851 SW 6th Ave # 600, Portland, OR 97204

WebTrends is located on SW 6th Ave, between SW Taylor and SW Yamhill. The building doesn't yet have signage, but it's right next to the Men’s Warehouse.

Once you’re in the building you’ll need to let the security guard know you are going to Webtrends so he can get you to the 16th floor (the elevators remain on the 1st floor after 6pm unless you have a code for them).

Don't already have a ticket to Open Source Bridge? Volunteer at least 8 hours on-site and receive a free conference pass.

Public meeting to give feedback on the talk ideas that were submitted for Ignite Portland 6. This is your chance to come and be involved in what talks YOU want to see on stage at IP6. Location WebTrends Portland office at 851 SW Sixth Avenue.

Meeting agenda to follow, but do join us for our monthly meeting at Webtrends this month.

Remember, Webtrends will be our venue for WordCamp Portland, taking place on September 19th and 20th, 2009

Please note that this is not a free event, and you must register at the link below to attend.

  This Yahoo Pipes training course is designed for people who are new to Yahoo Pipes. In 2 hours, we will cover the basics of building Yahoo Pipes from building your first Yahoo Pipe to some more advanced uses.

  When: Thursday, May 7, 2009 from 3:00pm - 5:00pm
  City: Portland, OR
  Location: WebTrends 851 SW 6th Ave., Suite 1600 (no remote attendance)

  Pricing:

      * Students, freelancers, or unemployed: $100
      * Early Bird (prior to April 23rd): $150
      * Late registration (after April 23rd): $250

  Prerequisites

      * You must have a Yahoo Pipes account.
      * No prior knowledge of Yahoo Pipes is required

Featuring: Kelly Feller Social Media Strategist Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence

Supported by Widmer Brothers and WebTrends.

With all the self-proclaimed social media pundits, experts and gurus out there, it’s easy to wonder if the only jobs in social media are for consultants or agencies trying to help big corporations get it. Well Kelly is living proof that some big companies do get it and are willing to put their money where their online mouths are by hiring specialists with expertise at being social online.

Join Kelly Feller for the second official Social Media Club Portland meeting where she’ll summarize various corporate social media jobs (hers included) and what they actually entail, explore ways to stand out in this increasingly crowded space, and give some hints to agencies and consultants who are helping companies make sense of the growing social media marketing trend.

Bio: After having been in traditional marketing roles for the last 15 years, Kelly Ripley Feller is now a social media addict and outspoken (read loud) proponent of change and marketing evolution. She has marketed everything from organic foods and senior housing to infrared thermometers and computer software and hardware. She’s worked with a variety of big technology companies including Intel, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Intuit, SAS Software, Symantec, and IBM and even some smaller companies and non-profits.

Today she is a Social Media Strategist in Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence where she works on company-wide guidelines & programs that involve social media marketing.

Cost: Free! Seating is limited.

Researchers have long said that the material published on the Web amounts to a form of “collective intelligence” that can be used to spot trends and make predictions.

Using his 20% time, a Google employee discovered that during flu season, many ailing Americans enter phrases like “flu symptoms” into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors. When he mapped this data, he was able to discover where flu outbreaks would strike up to two weeks before traditional news sources were able to report them. http://www.google.org/flutrends/

This is an example of a time when merging a specific type of data to its geographical coordinates resulted in a unique insight. However, there is much more to do with data and visualization. What was found at Google is only the tip of a very large iceberg. Now that we have access to so much data on the web, we're going to see an increasing need to understand and present that data.

Agenda: This meetup will serve as an introduction to what's going on in the world of data viz. It will be freeform, so if you would like to demonstrate something you're working on, please be prepared to do so. Micah Elliott will be showing uGraph and Ed Borasky will do a GGobi demo. I'll be covering what already exists in the ecosystem and what might become useful in the future. We're dealing with a rapid communication method here. Something that, if done well, compresses the time and space it takes for us to understand something.

If you're interested in Data Visualization, please come to this event. It will be the first Portland Tech Event at WebTrends besides Web Analytics Wednesday. It's our chance to try out the space and see if it is a good fit for this group or potentially for other groups in the future.

Google Group: Ed Borasky recently started a Google group called pdx-visualization. As the name implies, it is a group for Portland-area people interested in languages and techniques for visualization of data. http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-visualization

Amber Case, @caseorganic is a Cyborg Anthropologist studying the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way we think, act, and understand the world around us.

Please join us for the next Web Analytics Wednesday here in Portland, OR. The event this month will be held at WebTrends’ office at 851 SW 6th Ave. in the 16th floor conference room on Thursday, September 25. Take the elevator to the 16th floor. We will provide a greeter in the building lobby & in the 16th floor foyer. Everyone is welcome, from existing Web Analytics practitioners to those with even a passing interest in the field.This month Eric Peterson & Thomas Bosilevac will present an overview of the recent Semphonic X Change Conference.Beer will be graciously provided by our sponsor WebTrends and the event will begin at 6PM.Should you have any questions or need help locating the event, please feel free to give Jeff or Dash a ring at:Dash Lavine: 503-962-9048Jeff Porter: 503-333-0254If you intend to join us, notification via this site as well as e-mail would be appreciated so we can plan appropriately. Hope to see you there! Host: Jeff Porter (Email) Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 6:00 PM Venue: Webtrends Offices Address: 851 SW 6th Ave, Portland OR (Venue | Map | Group) Sponsor: Event sponsored by WebTrends Share: Invite friends to join you at this event Link to this event Attendees: 3 people plan to attend, including Jeff Porter, debra.paynter, derek.fine