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May 2011 meeting
Our May meeting was held on the 10th in room TC 210 on the Illinois Central College East Peoria campus. Attendance was down a bit (most likely because final exams start this week on campus). Anna Moore gave a seminar on how to create a collage of photos using Adobe Photoshop. She covered the use of smart objects along with numerous tools (such as the smudge and lasso tools). A number of questions were asked and Anna did a great job of helping everyone understand the process she uses fo her clients. Mark DuBois aalso gave an overview of the new features of Dreamweaver 5.5 and discussed the increased emphasis on mobile application development. He showed a simple site built in jQuery mobile and PhoneGap. We also discussed the new subscription option for purchasing Adobe software (and why this might make sense for some students). We also recognized a new sponsor for our group - Apress books. We awarded two prizes. Anna won the Pro PHP and jQuery book and Tyler won the jQuery Recipes book. A photo of the happy winners is below. congratulations to both. Our next meeting is planned for June 14. 
May, 2009 meeting
Our May, 2009 meeting was held on Thursday, May 29 in room TC 210 on the East Peoria campus of Illinois Central College. Mark covered new features in Adobe Fireworks and Photoshop CS4 versions. Additional information may also be found at the local WOW chapter website. Mark also reviewed when it is best to use Fireworks and when to use Photoshop. He also briefly discussed the most recent addition to Acrobat.com - presentations. We reviewed a sample presentation at the Adobe Labs test facility and made some simple modificaitions. He also reviewed the implications/ advantages of a shared presentation. A copy of the presentation is attached (for those who were not able to attend). However, Mark greatly expanded on some areas and skipped others in this presentation (in order to address speciic questions from those in attendance).
MOFILM contest
I just became aware of a contest sponsored by Adobe and Motorola dealing with creating short films to promote the Droid market. Details canbe found at: http://www.mofilm.com/competitions/barcelona2011/adobemotorola. Looks like a good opprtunity (with lots of great prizes). If we have any budding film directors in our group - take advantage of this. The deadline for submissions is late January, 2011.
March 2013 meeting
Our March meeting was held on March 12, 2013 in room TC 317 on the ICC East Peoria campus. We had a new member join our group - Jason Rambeck. He noticed our Meetup. Welcome Jason. We had a number of interesting presentations at this meeting. Here are my (Mark's) notes from the meeting. Bob Hohimer reviewed his use of DotNetNuke. He started on this project as part of internship. With DotNetNuke CMS there is a one click install.
Community edition - used for project (professional edition is a bit pricey). All features needed for project were in community edition.
Wassai Group - http://wassigroup.com/dotnetnuke1/Home.aspx - created subdomain and installed software
All of changes made directly on the site. Planning to upgrade to version 7 soon. Video overviews at DotNetNuke site.
Admin panel once logged in. Layout mode reviewed first. All content done with modules. Place modules where need them. View mode (as site appears to visitor). Can add modules that exist on other pages. Can copy module with content and will get separate instance. Otherwise, if change module on one page, it will change on others. Manage and edit each module.
Container represents styling for module. All available (skins).
Working on project portfolio for company now.
Online store - can buy modules or skins - http://store.dotnetnuke.com/. Some are pricey, others are not. Some cost $20 or $30 and will work on community edition. Extension forge has a number. Many have limited descriptions so you need to check out and test locally. Store has better descriptions.
Each year DotNetNuke skin design contest - these are then available as free downloads.
Bob had no experience with Windows based content management systems. Wanted people to be aware. Many thanks to Bob for sharing this information. A number of people have already commented on how useful thsi was.
Larry Ball discussed changes he has made to the local Web Professionals website - http://illinoiswow.org/blog/
Discussed use of child themes on site (based on WordPress). Import parent stylesheet if going to over ride. Responsive design. If parent theme updated, child theme remains intact. Progressive enhancement for Internet Explorer also included.
Function to print out footer link and copyright information. Setting date dynamically so don't have to update it.
Planning to include search bar in header
Considering horizontal drop down (with jQuery) instead of default vertical drop down as is typical.
MyCalendar plugin being used for now - Event Expresso.
Contact form 7 for contact information.
Pull to refresh Hook.js capabilities on mobile view
MatchMedia.js - use media queries in JavaScript
Everyone introduced themselves. We are growing and I really appreciated everyone participating on such a cold and snowy March evening.
Jonathan Worent discussed SquidMan - GUI on top of Squid proxy - runs in command line (Mac, but also Windows version)
Have to make configuration changes when first run - allow manager on localhost (passthrough to allow anyone accessing proxy to access local files on your computer). Also had to point to location of host files.
If running XAMP, Mamp or Wamp, you will need to change to appropriate location.
Use PagodaBox for hosting. ssh tunnel into live database Makes development a lot easier when multiple people working.
SquidMan - client tab is where do most of action
Email - run as static website for email. Need to use file:/// protocol. Links can easily break. Python has own built in simple web server.
python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8800 in terminal to start server in a given folder
Can now see root of domain for testing file locations in email message
Meetup.com - we reviewed our efforts through MeetUp and asked those attending to sign up. Many did.
Mark DuBois discussed Adobe Edge Reflow and how it can be used to create prototype responsive designs. He showed how to view the result in the Chrome browser and covered both the layout and style panels.
Mark also covered the latest release of Adobe Brackets (sprint 21). He covered the fundamentals of using it and how to install extensions. For both of these products, he referenced his weblog posts for more information.
Mark mentioned that he (and others) will be giving a series of webinars on various Adobe products in conjunction with Adobe and Web Professionals. If you would like to sign up for this series (held on Tuesdyas at noon central time), please visit Web Professional Educator Webinar Series. We also discussed our next meeting - April 9 - and agreed to initial topics for that meeting. Lastly, Mark forgot to mention, but he has two open ended web design and development jobs available. Both individuals indicated they are willing to pay (not that much on one case). If you are interested in either job (one for a local church to vastly improve their website currently hosted through Yahoo and the other to deal with RSS feeds from craig's List), please contact Mark directly.
February meeting
We met on the East Peoria campus of Illinois Central College (in room TC 210). We had several new members participate (and are always glad to welcome new members). Mark gave a presentation on how to install and run various open source content management systems on a local computer. He reviewed the fundamentals of installing XAMPP or WAMP (or MAMP on a Mac) as the starting ppoint. He then demonstrated how to install and configure WordPress in such an environment. We brieefly discussed the use of tools (Dreamweaver) to interface with the local installation in order to rapidly make changes (perhaps as one develops a new WordPress theme). Mark also discussed Business Catalyst as a content management system and how it can be utilized to rapidly create and deploy an environment containing email subscriptions, catalogs of products, and eCommerce capabilities with very little efforts. We next participated in a presentation by the folks at Research In Motion via an Adobe Connect session. This presentation covered the creation of AIR applications and the latest version of the Blackberry Playbook tablet simulator. We asked several questions at the end of the presentation and Mark tried to demonstrate the laatest version of the PlayBook simulator. Unfortunately, there were sime minor problems (whhich were reported) and Mark should be able to continue this discussion at our next meeting in March. After the meeting, there was a request sent to me asking for volunteers in the ICC Tech Mentor Program. I have opened a discussion forum post on that topic. For those planning ahead, our next meeting will be March 8 in room TC 210 on the ICC East Peoria campus beginning at 6 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there.
October, 2011 meeting
The October meeting of our group was held on October 11, 2011 in room TC 317 on the ICC East Peoria campus and lasted for roughly 1.5 hous. Mark began the meeting with a review of what he learned at the recent AdobeMAX conference in Los Angeles. He focused on the Adobe Creative Cloud and the implications this has for teaching and learning. For more information about these thoughts, please visit Mark's weblog. Tyler provided an overview of a current marketing campaign he is working on - http://xapsis.com. He provided some background information and covered what they hope to discover from this campaign. Jonathan began his planned series on starting your own business. He referenced the SCORE website and discussed the different types of business one can start. He stressed one doesn't need a lot of money or resources. For example, one can set a business address as Suite 299 instead of Apt. 299. Jonathan's business is a sole proprietorship. He discussed why he chose that route and the advantages and disadvantages. He stressed the importance of having a business plan and how this actually helps when making initial discussions with customers. Jonathan also stressed the importance of having a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for his clients and how this helped build initial trust. Jonathan also discussed various alternatives involved in email marketing campaigns. He mentioned sites that can help significantly. These include: Jonathan indicated that he wants to continue the discussion next month with a review of what to do when approaching the client for the first time.
January, 2010 joint meeting with WOW
The January 2010 meeting was held in room TC 210 on the East Peoria campus of Illinois Central College. Jonathan Worent (President, Inspired Bytes) gave a presentation on the common CSS hacks he uses for Internet Explorer issues. Mark DuBois reviewed the latest changes in Adobe BrowserLabs. We also decided on the next few meetings (times - locations will soon be determined). Minutes are available for those dues paying members of WOW. Simply contact Mark or login to the local chapter website.
April 2013 meeting
Our April, 2013 meeting was held on April 9 in room Tc 317 on the ICC East Peoria campus. The following notes were taken by Mark during the meeting. Forgive the lack of editing. This is a very busy week. Jonathan Worent - Cloud computing - PaaS - Platform as a Service Reviewed shared hosting environments (like HostGator and GoDaddy). eMail, apps and so forth. cPanel overview. Cloud hosting - don't purchase space on a server. They have cloud farm and you can never access a server. No SSH access. Application is load balanced across multiple servers. Most set up through GIT. Set up private/ public key encryption Ruby GEM that adds a lot of commands to command line. Set up remote for cloud host. Distributed - load balancing. Heroku and PaggodaBox are two that Jonathan prefers. Can scale up very quickly. You pay for what you use. Shared hosting is a set fee. These services pay for what you use. Configuration options are different for each of these environments PagodaBox case study - 5M+ page views once a year. Black Friday deals - peak for a few days. Most solutions - tough to handle this sort of scalability. Issues when move to cloud host - no access to writable storage. If have WordPress and admin lets you upload files - what do you do? Only way to put files on server is to commit to GIT and load them up. Can use external service like Amazon S3 - cloud hosting for file storage. Can be really cheap or really expensive. DOwnload plugin for various systems and tell cloud service to put files over there when they are uploaded. User created files are not a part of GIT repository, Also, don't have email. Need to use external service. For example contact form on site - Mandrill by MailChimp is an excellent choice. Don't have inbox, but application can now send out email. Most of these also have a free tier - can test and develop for clients without paying a lot. Spin up a PagodaBox instance, send off code, set up a MailChimp account, include credentials. PagodaBox has automatic link to Amazon S3 storage if need writable storage. Use their Box file. Get subdomain for your application - like inspiredbytes.pagadoboc.com can set up staging as needed. Can have as many different environments as needed. DNS - typical configure A record to point to IP address of server. Cloud hosting, no single IP address. Infrastructure distributed across various parts of country. Use CName record - points to your domain name they give you for their DNS server. They take care of load balancing. Heroku great for Node.js or Ruby on Rails. Polyglot system. Can run a number of applications. Heroku has a tie in with Facebook. PagodaBox is solely for PHP. May have Node.js soon EngineYard is alternative. Less functionality. SendGrid is alternative to Mandrill - it is more expensive. Larry Ball - Status of Illinois WOW website - added function for footer menu created child functions file, added pagination, upgraded jQuery but it complained (many plugins). Also did related posts. Rename themes if steal or copy a theme and modify. Load various scripts - modernizr, html5shim and so forth. Mark covered using Edge Animate to animate parts of an existing web page. He demonstrated how to accomplish this and reviewed the resulting code generated. The meeting concluded with some additional discussion and agreement to meet on May 14 in TC 317 for our next meeting.
October, 2010 meeting
The October, 2010 meeting was held on the East Peoria campus of Illinois Central College, room TC 210. I gave a presentation on those features of HTML5 you should be using today. I also discussed CS Live with a focus on Adobe BrowserLab and NetAverages. Jonathan Worent discussed various Photoshop tips he has recently learned (and used when working with clients). We were pleased with the turnout as there were a number of new faces in the audience. Lots of great questions were asked during the presentations as well as afterwards. We also took some time to discuss various issues and problems individuals were having with various technologies.
March 2011 meeting
Our March meetign was help in room TC 210 on the East Peoria campus of Illinois Central College. We had a number of presentations and discussions. some off the highlights included: An excellent presentation by Larry Ball on the fundamentals of jQuery. Larry began with an overview of tabs, sortable lists, selectable lists and many other jQuery features. He discussed many of the capabilities of this framework in depth and concluded with a list of resources and books he has found most helpful. A copy of his presentation can be found online. We also had a great presentation by Laura Schmidgall concerning the use of Photoshop by web developers. She mentioned a number of tutorial sites (many with example PSD files one can download to "jump start your brain." As an example, she used a site redesign she undertook last year and discussed in depthh how she used Illustrator, Photoshop, and Fireworks to obtain a desired 3D effect for the client. Next, Jonathan Worent discussed virtual hosts in the Apache web server environment. Since many technologies (for example, Drupal) expect they are at the document root, one sometimes runs into problems when working on projects for multiple clients. Jonathan covered how he modified the Apache configuration files as well as the hosts files on his local computer so he can use custom URLs for various clients (for example http://illiinois or http://aug). Jonathan also covered how one can modify the php.ini fils to assist in debugging and covered use of NetBeans and other environments in the development of PHP applications. Lastly, I gave a short overview of augmented reality. I used Flash Builder with PaperVision 3D classes to include some 3D images as part of the streaming video from my laptops webcam. I also briefly discussed Wallaby (Flash to HTML5 conversion tool released yesterday by Adobe labs). We conccluded the meeting by auctioning a class from Webucator. The winner was Larry Ball. He offered to provide some tutorials to help attract more students to our meetings. I also asked Larry to give us a synopsis of the course he decided to take from Webucator. Our next meeting will be April 12. |
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