Cleveland Web Standards Association

May 6, 2008

It’s Not Magic

Programming for Non-Programmers

Have you ever used a website where you enter some information and it magically remembers what you enter? Or what about listening to programmers talk about “databases” and “code”? Come and hear Joe Fiorini, an experienced web developer, explain what “programming” is and how it can help your web site. You will learn the basics of object-oriented programming for the web, specifically how to get information from a form to a database and from a database back out to a screen. Don’t know what a database is? No problem! He will explain that too!

If you already know all about programming, never fear! Joe will also be showing how to get started using Ruby on Rails, a growing and extremely popular framework for quickly writing web applications.

Joe Fiorini faithfulgeek.org

Joe Fiorini is a web developer with 8 years of experience in programming for web sites. He has been using HTML and CSS since 1997. Currently he works for Telligent Systems (the creators of Community Server) as a Software Development Engineer; he develops & maintains sites for Microsoft’s developer community. Previously he worked for Tenth Floor, an interactive marketing company as a Senior Web Developer. He has delivered technology presentations at various user groups, and to employees at Harley-Davidson and Progressive Insurance.

RSVP for this event on either Upcoming.org or Meetup.com. Al Wasco of Tri-C has also provided a map with detailed information on parking and the location of the room.

April 1, 2008

Making the Case for Web Standards

If you weren't able to attend the March meeting of the CWSA, you missed the dual presenations of Joe Frantz and Alexis Li regarding “making the case for standards”. In usual Joe Frantz' fashion, numerous hand gestures and invented words were used to make his point.

Joe Frantz aoirthoir.com/blog – presented the tech case for standards.

Alexis Li ohsnaponline.com – presented the business case for standards.

February 5, 2008

2008 Direction Meeting of the CWSA

Our 2008 CWSA Direction was a great success. We received a lot of wonderful suggestions for the coming year. Here is a short list of some of the things you can expect to see from the CWSA in 2008:

• More Social Events – One request we have heard over and over again is that we need to have more social events. We plan to schedule at least one social gathering per month in addition to our standard meetup.
• Make the Case for Standards to Local Businesses – Through resources on our website and communicating directly with local business we plan to spread the word of web standards beyond our meetups to the rest of the Northeast Ohio area.
• BarCamp – What could be more enticing than hanging out with fellow web geeks for two days of discussions on design, code, and web standards? We are looking into hosting a Cleveland BarCamp this year so stay tuned for more details.

What else? Much, much more. Go to our message boards on Meetup.com for more details on what we discussed at the meeting.

January 15, 2008

Helvetica

We screened the documentary Helvetica by Gary Hustwit. To those unfamiliar with this movie here is a short description from the film's website:

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

December 29, 2007

Your Standard Holiday Party

We met at Dave and Buster's in Westlake to geek out with food, spirits, games and good times all around.