Use this link to find the Panera!!!

October: Comparison of Web CMS Systems (Joomla, Drupal, etc.) Clair Ragin of Red Beret Designs will present. Comparison of drupal, joomla and wordpress... pros and cons of each... geared towards designers and end users... how much a non-programming, non-sysadmin designer can reasonably hope to accomplish in any of these systems, and when it's time to call for backup.

November: User-Centric Web Design Crafting web sites that can be effectively used by people with hand-held devices, older computers, low bandwidth or a disability. Saroj Primlani, retired, Coordinator of University IT Accessibility, NC State University, will provide an overview of web design concepts that help create web sites that are accessible and usable by all users, including those with a disability. The discussion will provide an overview of:

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Web space

How people use the web

User centric design principles

Legal requirements

Accessibility guidelines and best practices

Resources, techniques and tools

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We Thank Our Sponsors Blackberry Professional Software PepperGraphics Agile Markup Corporation

We have new Webinar events posted as well. Check out the Blueberry Newsletter

Next few meetups.... November: Accessibility, Saroj Primlani December: Organizational Social. Please come and help set the direction for the group!

Please consider leading a discussion or presenting in one of the topic areas!

Mitch

2009 Tentative Agenda

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Internet Explorer: Annoyances, Hacks, and Fixes; or "IE Doesn't Play So Friendly".

How & Why to Design for Accessibility

User Interface Tips and Tricks; Accessible Drop-down Menus and Other CSS Designs

The Business of Web Freelancing; business models, pricing, payments

The Business of Web Freelancing: Project Management

The Business of Using Freelancers: qualifying suppliers

Hackers, Crackers, and Stalkers: Securing Your Site

Graphic Design 101

Design vs. Code: Bridging the gaps; or "Switching to the Dark Side"

Web Site Redesign and Renovation: Pitfalls and Best Practice

The whole Shebang: Development and Deployment Strategies; or "Not Taking Stupid Risks" (Change control, Versioning, Syncronization, Redundancy, DB Design Archiving, Backups)

Measuring Web Metrics: Tools and Techniques (Google Analytics, Web Trends, Metrics after site is deployed)

If you have an idea for a topic or wish to speak let me know. I'd be happy to update the agenda.

About the Location

Panera has WiFi access, deep pots of coffee, and plenty of room. Please be polite to the staff and mindful of other customers. We do need to vacate by 9pm so the staff can close up!

* GOOGLE/YAHOO/MAPQUEST MAPS ARE WRONG *

The location info has a link to work around problems with Google and Yahoo Maps. The address on the embedded map was tweaked to get the Yahoo link to point to the geographical vicinity.

Mitch made a better map on MapBuilder: Map Builder Map of Panera Bread

- Mitch

2009 Past Meetings: January: Open floor discussion, seo topics February: Keval reviewed his First-Aid site www.gotoaid.com and got feedback from the group on his design. We ended up discussing a little on "How you (should) use CSS" . Thanks Keval! March: Progressive Enhancement: Best Practice for Best Browsing Pepper Oldziey will lead and share on graphical design basics. Come pick up some pointers from an expert ( See http://peppergraphics.com/ ) April: Video on the Web. Dave Curtis of Your Video Team (www.yourvideoteam.com) moderated the discussion. May: AJAX: How to Get Started. Jeanne Hiesel presented on AJAX to the group. Thanks Jeanne! June: Javascript (and jQuery if time permits) July: Grokking Joomla August: Hackathon -- JQuery/FireBug/Atramentum September: Search engine optimization & SEO tools Tevan Alexander and Steve Hong led this discussion. It was very comprehensive, thoughtful, and well organized.

2008 Past Meetings: December: What do you want out of the Meetup? January Topic: Favorite Web Editing and Design Tools February: Design Templates as "Silver Bullets": Pros and Cons of Web Design Templates March: Designing with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) April: Search Engine Marketing May: How it Fits: Scripting Languages June: Flash Tools (bad showing!) July: Web architecture overview (bad showing!) August: Videos and Movies on the Web September tickler topic: Search Engine Optimization; also mod_rewrite October: Template Languages: Designing for Content Management Systems and Blogs November: "Web 3.0" ; Social networking and other trends.