East Coast US Joomla Users [NYC/Manhattan Joomla!Day]

[cozimek]

@BigHaus,

We're locked in for Oct 13, so schedule accordingly!  More information forthcoming this weekend, sorry for the short delay...I've been a little crazy trying to get things squared away.

Best,
Ryan

[ircmaxell]

Any word on the Laptops (If I don't hear back by 4pm, I'm just going to bring it)???  Btw, I am a definate for tonight...

[garyamort]

Any word on the Laptops (If I don't hear back by 4pm, I'm just going to bring it)???  Btw, I am a definate for tonight...

Well, they do specify that there is free wireless access, so I would assume your welcome to bring it.

I'm not bringing any but that is mainly due to having 2 projects at the moment that I don't want to think about during the meeting. :-)

[spacemonkey]

I just got back from playing a concert, so if I make it it'll be the one-beer-and-go type of visit for me - I'm dead tired. Still looking forward to it though!

[ircmaxell]

Well, it was a pretty decent first get-together. 
We are thinking about the 3rd week in September (Maybe the 20th) for the next meeting (I believe we have access to the PHP Groups's IBM room?  If so, could we use that?).

[garyamort]

Just to confirm, our next meeting will be the third Thursday in September(9/20) and will be held at the PHP offices, not the IBM Conference room.  Basically, we will start out with the largest easily obtainable space, and upgrade as we grow.

As soon as I find out where that is, I'll let everyone know here and on the joomla mailling list(as well as posting it on my website - if someone can tell me how to submit an event so it will show up on the event notice here I can do that as well.)

I'd like to run 2 presentations at the next event, one geared for users and one for developers.  I figure we can do the user one first just to go through what Joomla is, why we talk about PHP when we talk about Joomla, what sorts of things it does easily, and what sorts of things it needs to be tweaked for - and why it is still a compelling platform even if you need a lot of tweaking - since we do seem to have interest from both ends of the spectrum, I think a general overview would be a good thing and if it is run first it gives developers time to wrap up whatever their doing at work and make it in time for the development presentation.

Oh, and I'm officially soliciting if anyone is interested in running a presentation for developers at the next event.  You can check out the results of my polls to see what people are interested in.  If no one else steps up, I'll review the polls and do a presentation on whatever I figure I can talk to halfway intelligently.  Hopefully by then I'll have actually completed a mambot, a couple modules, and a component rewrite. :-)

[spacemonkey]

PHP offices? Where are they?

Really sad I didn't make it, would have loved to have made the first meetup.

[ircmaxell]

If no one else wants to do the presentation, I could always whip together a little demo on building a component (or a module, or a mambot, depending on the "comfort" level of the croud)...

[spacemonkey]

That's the hardest part about making Joomla presentations, some folks in the crowd are PHP developers wanting to get their (very technical) questions answered, some are designers wanting to see how easy Joomla is to use, and still others are end users that just need to know when their website is ready for launch

I've learned that preparing several sections in your presentation to target each audience is a good idea, as you then have the option of jumping to the topic area that the crowd is most interested in.

Depending on the venue, it might make sense to have two presenters, the first one being non-technical, and the second one being technical. That way you can tell people when to show up, and when to fall asleep

[garyamort]

NYC Joomla Special Interest Group
First Monthly Meeting,  August 23rd 2007

Summary:
Between half a dozen and a dozen Joomla users and coders met at the summer event hosted by the NYPHP group and we got to exchange tips and talk about Joomla.

For lack of any objection, we settled on the third Thursday of the month.  So out next meeting will be Sepetember 20th, 2007 at the NYPHP office in Manhattan(55 Broad Street).

I would like to begin at 6PM so we have time to cover 2 presentations for different types of members.  So our developer presentation would begin between 6:30 and 7:00.


I will post an update as I get some more details back on what we will be presenting for the developers, amount of time involved, and whether the timing works.

[ircmaxell]

Well, I could do one of two things.  Either making a quick and simple mambot/module/component/plugin... Or a talk on Performance issues with Joomla (since that is kinda my specialty)

[Rogue4ngel]

I've got it on the calendar.  I'm sure I could spend a little time talking about Joombies and the Coding 101 initiative.  Those involved have been spending a great deal of time getting the tools in place to start some collaborative development and learning, and I'm sure we should make some very good headway in the next month.

[wp1]

@BigHaus,

We're locked in for Oct 13, so schedule accordingly!  SNIP...

NYC Joomla Special Interest Group
SNIP...
For lack of any objection, we settled on the third Thursday of the month.  So out next meeting will be Sepetember 20th, 2007 at the NYPHP office in Manhattan(55 Broad Street).
SNIP....

OK folks, just for clarity sake.
NYC Joomla Special Interest Group [SIG]: Sepetember 20th, 2007 at the NYPHP office in Manhattan (55 Broad Street)?
Joomla Day : Oct 13, 2007 at no specific location right now? 

QUESTIONs

• Could someone please give a more complete description of the address for the NYC Joomla Special Interest Group [SIG] location? 
• Possibly a link to a Google Map?
• Is there a telephone number for the location?

[garyamort]

QUESTIONs

• Could someone please give a more complete description of the address for the NYC Joomla Special Interest Group [SIG] location? 
• Possibly a link to a Google Map?
• Is there a telephone number for the location?

1) In a week or two when I actually go to the office I'll have more information.  All I know now is that the address if 55 Broad Street in Manhattan.

As for a phone number, I've never been there so I don't know, but I doubt anyone would be answering the phone anyway.

I'll post my cell number if anyone needs to reach me as the meeting approaches(And hopefully as I move my phone number to NYC from it's current Baltimore number)

[garyamort]

Reminder:

The next Joomla meeting will be Thursday, Sepember 20th at the NYPHP offices located in Manhattan at 55 Broad Street.
We will start at 6:00PM and run until 9PM.

Presentation:
Mitch Pertle will be running a presentation on Joomla 1.5 and development, I beleive.  Plus we get a chance to meet and trade tips.
whether the timing works

[cozimek]

Hi everyone,

I just had a chance to read this thread again, and realized that people still have questions about the Joomla Day USA East (New York) conference, and wanted to make sure you all knew registration is open!

http://www.joomladayusa.org

Register today, and tell your friends!

Best,
Ryan

[ircmaxell]

I'm registerd... I'll also be there this Thursday...

[mindiam]

Hey guys, I frequently attend the Sydney Joomla Users Group meetings, I will be over in NYC for December, do you think you would be hosting one in that month? Is there someone who runs the NYC joomal group could pm me, Would be great to meet the joomla users of NYC!

[ircmaxell]

I'm sure we're going to have one in December... Just watch this thread for more info...

Alright, I just registered www.joomlanyc.org...  It'll be a little while (or if anyone wants to help) before I can get it up, but it's comming...

[garyamort]

Well, I suppose it depends.

Right now we're meeting on the third thursday of the month, which means I would not suggest having a meeting on the 21st of December.

However, I have already had one person request moving it to any day but that one - and since no one seems to care too much one way or the other, I'll bring it up at this months meeting and if there is no objections and problems we can change it to the 2nd thursday of the month.

[ircmaxell]

That will actually fit in nicely with JoomlaDay (seeing how that is in like 3 weeks)...

[ircmaxell]

Reminder:

The next Joomla meeting will be Thursday, Sepember 20th at the NYPHP offices located in Manhattan at 55 Broad Street.
We will start at 6:00PM and run until 9PM.

Presentation:
Mitch Pertle will be running a presentation on Joomla 1.5 and development, I beleive.  Plus we get a chance to meet and trade tips.
whether the timing works

Do we have a better address?  Floor number?  Office number? etc?  Any way of getting in contact?  I should be getting into NY (WTC) around 5:15 or 5:30, so I'll be there a little early...

[garyamort]

'm sorry, I've been very busy the last few weeks and never made it over to the office to check it out.  The only addiitonal info I have is that it is on the "lower level"

[rothmail]

'm sorry, I've been very busy the last few weeks and never made it over to the office to check it out.  The only addiitonal info I have is that it is on the "lower level"

The meeting was great, thanks, Gary!

[garyamort]

At the last meeting, we raised the issue of the meeting time as there were some unable to make the third thursday of the month.

As such, we decided on moving the meeting permanently to the second thursday of the month.

This means out next meeting will be on October 11th.

Meeting space wise, our first meeting overflowed the conference room by 3 people, so we are looking into securing a permanent long term location with room to accomodate many more people(especially as the 11th meeting coincides with Joomla Day in NYC so we are expecting a greater number of people).

Sometime in the next few weeks we will be setting up a NYC Joomla SIG/JUG website.

A question was raised on whether or not there would be interest in doing some regionally team based projects.  We could get together for a day, or organize online, and work on components, extensions, non profit sites,  etc as a team - letting new Joomla developers learn the ropes from some experienced developers, giving Joomla users a chance to influence the direction of projects they use, and hopefully getting some people to provide documentation. :-)

There are plenty of minor projects I can come up with off the top of my head(and I'm not an old Joomla hand!) that we could do as a group just for experience and credit(taking stalled Joomla 1.0 components that are in use and updating them to 1.5, documenting them, and providing minor enhancements.  As a simple example, there is a popular banner module for Joomla made by JoomProd which is badly in need of a few minor tweaks.  Combining this with a rewrite into the Joomla 1.5 way of doing things could be a fun way to kill an afternoon as well as learning from others.)

It would be nice to do some major projects for bragging rights for the City, but I figure we could start on some minor ones to get a handle on who likes doing what, and go from there(and we could even insist on doing things write and build out unit tests for all our components so going forward they become easier to maintain).

So to sum up:
Next meeting October 11th
Where: TBD
Presentations: TBD
Discussion: Regional Projects

[garyamort]

What is the "Joomla hack room" ?

[cozimek]

For the Joomla Day USA, the hack room is a place where developers, users, designers, can come together and share thoughts, help, and frustrations with Joomla...and fix them in real-time.  It's a kind of "fix-it" and "learn-it" room.

Best,
Ryan

[garyamort]

From October onwards, out meeting date is now the second thursday of the month.

Date:
October 11th
6PM to 8PM

Location:
Robert Half Technology
245 Park Avenue, 25th Fl.
46th - 47th St.
(near grand central)

We have room for 50 people.  People will need to RSVP in advance so we have a list for security, and you will need some form of photo id onhand for security.

We will be setting up a website and an RSVP form over the weekend, for now you can simply email me your RSVP and I'll manually add you to the list.

Schedule:
Our last meeting was a long presentation about Joomla in general.  So this time around, I'd like to aim to have a number of quick presentations and we can alternate meetings going forward(big presentations followed by short presentations, etc). We will aim for 4 small presentations, with the first 2 being geared for a more user level, and the last 2 for developers.  Anyone who willing to do a short 15-20 minute presentation, please contact me.

Therefore, our schedule will be:
Session 1: 6:00-6:20 - Community Builder, what it is and what it is not
Session 2: 6:20-6:40

JUG/SIG Planning: 6:45-7:15.
To discuss: Community Website plans and needs
Community Projects

Session 3: 7:20-7:40
Session 4: 7:40-8:00


Presentations:
At the last meeting, I noticed some discussions on building a "community" website, and the component that get's mentioned frequently is Community Builder.  Community Builder, by itself, doesn't provide much in the way of "community" features, but it is a strong basis for such websites.  So I'd like to do a brief review of the features of CB to begin with, along with thoughts on what it allows you to do as far as community websites are concerned.



Note: if anyone knows how to rewrite this announcement into the Joomla community approved format, please post it to the news section

[garyamort]

I'm still looking for 1 developer level presentation and 1 user level presentation for the next meeting.  You can contact me through the forums here if your interested.

Presentations should be short, 15-20 minutes, to give people some ideas/thoughts/insights.

If you can't make this meeting but will be coming to future meetings and are willing to present, feel free to let me know so I can work out the scheduling.  Also let me know if you prefer to do a short presentation or a long(an hour or so) presentation as we will alternate formats.

[garyamort]

Please remember we need an RSVP for the meeting for security purposes.  I will need your first and lastname, and you will need some form of photo id to get into the building.

Website is still in progress.

Date:
October 11th
6PM to 8PM

Location:
Robert Half Technology
245 Park Avenue, 25th Fl.
46th - 47th St.
(near grand central)

After meeting hangout:
local TGIF's unless unless someone comes up with a good idea that accepts scruffy programmers. 

Agenda:
6:00 - 6:20 - Gary Mort will provide a review of Community Builder, what features it allows you, where you need to expand it to create a true Community Site, etc.

6:20 - 6:40 - Laura Gordon will give an overview of 2 usefull Joomla Components.  CBJuice, which allows for the import and export of user information from Community Builder, and JACL which allows you to grant more fine controlled user level access to Joomla components and Content.

6:45 to 7:15 - Mitch Pertle will discuss the future of JoomlaCities and it's first site, the NYC Joomla Cities site(coming soon).  JoomlaCities goal is to allow for a centralized site to give regional Joomla User Groups a place to meet, discuss, and improve their knowledge.  As well as a way to give back to the Joomla Community in general.

7:20 - 7:40 - Anthony Ferrara, author of PageCache for Joomla, will give a presentation on developing applications for Joomla.

7:40 - 8:00 - time permitting, Gary Mort will give a review of Template modification of a Commercial Template for a live Joomla site - including how you can develop your new template for an existing site on the live site.  This is primarily an overview of the processes involved as well as the features of Joomla that make it easy to have 2 different looks for the same site at the same time(even with different module customizations)


At the moment, you can RSVP to me directly at bz-gmort [at] beezifies.com, subject line "Joomla Meeting" or send me a PMS message through this forum.