If you missed Michael and Kathryn's Birds of a Feather session on Responsive Web Design at DrupalCon here is your second chance to benefit from their knowledge. Tomorrow Wednesday 28th March our Responsive Design experts will be talking in a Acquia webinar, together with Jake Strawn, creator of the awesome Omega base theme, about:
- What Responsive Web Design means and which technologies are behind it
- How Omega helps developers implement a Responsive Web Design website
- How Responsive Web Design affects planning and implementing a site
- How to plan a responsive theme that can be implemented across environments with hundreds of sub-sites or a whole Drupal distribution
- Tips and tricks on how to implement a Responsive Web Design with Drupal
There will be two separate one hour long installments one at 3:00 pm (Zurich Time / GMT+02:00) and the other at 7:00 pm (Zurich Time / GMT+02:00).
Please note that a registration on Acquia's website is required to join these webinars.
Update: If you missed the webinar, here is you change to view the recorded session:
March has been an exciting month for Amazee Labs. In the last couple of weeks we attended two photo-worthy Drupal events: the SXSW spinoff, Austin Drupal Bash, and DrupalCon Denver.
Austin Drupal Bash 2012
On Monday, March 12th we headed to Austin, TX for the first annual "Ask an Expert" Drupal Bash session. Drupalistas from Four Kitchens, Phase 2, Zivtech, and other hard-hitting Drupal agencies were in attendance.
After the meetup, we took to the streets of downtown Austin to experience the lively vibe of SXSW. Major streets were shutdown to accommodate the mass volume of "techy" pedestrian traffic. :)
DrupalCon Denver 2012
The following week we headed north from Texas to the mile-high city of Denver, Colorado for the annual North American DrupalCon.
For five days, we congregated with other Drupal fanatics for presentations and info-sharing meetups focused around our beloved, open-source CMS.
We networked, listened, shared ideas, and coded like crazy:
The recent release of our responsive Drupal 7 website was even featured in a session on our favorite contrib theme, Omega. (Thanks again, Jake!)
And as always, we'd like to extend a big "thank you" to the Drupal Community for infecting us (yet again) with a severe case of the "Drupal Flu."
Some of the photos above were kindly shared via the DrupalCon Denver Flickr group. You can visit the Flickr group here.
Roman Gaus, CEO of Urban Farmers
Ever thought of growing your fishes on your terrace or your salad on the roof? Roman is the man to make your urban farming dream come true. He is the CEO of UrbanFarmers, a company that aims to bring sustainable urban agricultural practices into cities of the 21st century. He gave a brief but picturesque view on his business model. Coming soon (in 2012) is a rooftop farm in Basel that will yield harvest for 100 people.
Molly Crockett, Neuroscientist
Who's right? It's me. Disagreeing on facts and disagreeing on moral issue are not the same. That's what we got to learn from Molly Crockett. Disagreement on moral issues is worse, it's like facts on steroids - an uncomfortable underlying for social peace. But how design social environments that promote cooperation instead of selfishness? Molly Crockett’s research addresses these questions. In her research she found out that shifting serotonin levels shift our moral values. In other words: Moral values are not stable. Piece pills to the Middle East!
Eleanor Dobson, physicist
Does the day-to-day life on ATLAS (CERN) match up to the hype? Eleanor gave us a very illustrative view into the world's most expensive cave below Geneva's grounds that features 40 million matter collisions per day. The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. In a nutshell the reports look like this: 0000111111010101000111010... and that's what she gets to read in the (huge, complex and international) production chain, the collaborative science of the future.
Marco Tempest, Houdini meets cutting-edge technology
(Video showing the same show from TEDxEdinburgh)
Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story (via Video)
Stories matter, stories can break dignity, stories can foster dignity, stories breed stereotypes. But there's never a single story:
Peter Schmid, Anthropologist
If you want to get really euphoric about lower arm bones (I did!), this is your man. Copywriting from the TEDx site: "In 2008 Peter Schmid and his team made a discovery that would have a profound impact on the way we explain the emergence of mankind. The bones and fragments of this new species they had discovered, showed both human and australopith, or pre-human, characteristics. After publishing many articles in “Science” about the discoveries, overthrowing decade-old theories with his new evidence, and creating a stir within the anthropological community, Mr. Schmid wants to tackle the following question for us: Is Australopithecus sediba the missing link?" Peter Schmid gave a wonderful insight into his work around the cradle of humankind, South Africa.
A big thank you to the organizers and the SRF for its absolutely amazing WLAN.
Another year, another TEDxZurich! Below a rough summary from the first quarter of our intellectual leisure day at the Studios of SRF
Christofer Hierold, Professor of Micro- and Nanosystems, ETH Zürich:
What if you could extend your range of senses? What if autonomous ("low energy devices with energy harvesting technique") sensors could check on your concentration and stress level while working in a risky and dangerous environment? Or check on your level of tiredness while driving your car? Or monitor your allergy status while being connected to the Internet checking on current poll levels. Christofer Hierold is co-chairing the FET Flagship Pilot „Guardian Angels for a Smarter Life“ that does research into just that question. After the use cases we came to learn about words like nano wires and carbon nanotubes, tunnel field effect transistors, high frequency, hexagon arrangements... I'll spare you from that one.
Tobias Preis, Physicist & Complex Systems Scientist
Bubble trouble! When a stock market rises unsustainably, it can create a financial bubble that sooner or later will burst. But then luckily enough we have cool brains like Prof. Dr. Didier Sornette or Dr. Tobias Preis explaining how concepts from physics can be used to create a law describing exactly how such crashes occur. Recently, Tobias headed a research team which provided evidence that search engine query data and stock market fluctuations are correlated. Why not beat the herd and call him up before you buy your next block of shares: +41 44 63 20 23 9.
myke (web, startup, doodle)
Matthias Daum, Journalist at Die Zeit and NZZ
Urban sprawl rocks! Journalist Matthias Daum explains why the agglomeration is the future of Switzerland - and why Swiss people deserve the sprawl. For nearly sixty years, Swiss intellectuals, urban planners and architects have been ranting and raving about the way the country’s landscape is developing (=unorganized and organically). Sprawl, however, represents the way we want to live: More and more in single households (more living space per person), by commuting (giving stability to our complicated lives) etc. Thus, instead of arguing against the supposedly immoral form of the suburban lifestyle Matthias suggests to make sprawl sustainable – if we like sprawl or not.
Pesche (doer, globetrotter, openminded), Valérie (designer, traveler, cyclist)
then we got to hear some nice music by:
***All Hands***
Bernhard Seefeld, Product Manager for Google Maps
Bernhard Seefeld is the product manager for Google Maps. So he was just the right person to tell us who will be the future Vasco de Gamas. His presentation was full of funny anecdotes, yet insightful. It kind of boiled down to the fact that we are the map makers of the future. - the guys who look for the places where one can get Gluten free food in Montreal, the paths we can ride our bicycle best etc. The wisdom of the crowds reloaded: You and me communicating through the map.
Coffee break!
Photo by Michael Schmid
It's safe to say that we are in the middle of conference season. DrupalCon London was just followed by the Drupal Commerce Camp, which took place on the Campus of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences - the next stop on our conference tour.
The three-day meet up in the heart of Switzerland was, compared to the limelight of London, a nice pleasant family gathering joined by attendees from all over the world giving it an international twist.
As the camps title "Drupal Commerce Camp" suggests the focus was on Drupal and commerce. Many of the benefits of the new Commerce framework that were highlighted in London were again stressed and expanded upon. Showing that it certainly has the potential to supply efficient support for any aspect of a modern, state of the art e-commerce solution.
Like Drupal, the new Commerce framework is a powerful and flexible tool, which can be used for practically every use case that depends on the procession of money. Reaching from traditional sale of goods, digital distribution of content to the raising of funds.
With up to three session tracks at times there also was enough room for presentations around the Drupal environment.
All of the sessions in the Amazee Labs room (aka Room 1) were recorded and can be viewed on the Drupal Commerce Camp site.
Too round it up it's safe to say that the first Drupal Commerce Camp was a pleasant event which hopefully will see a second installment next year. We are seriously getting excited about new the opportunities that we can see with Drupal Commerce.
It's not over. The next stop on our conference tour will be at the Frontend Conference in Zurich this week. Hope to see you there!
Photo by Mitchypop
DrupalCon London Day 2, the most exciting day of DrupalCon London? Perhaps it was for me, at least up to that day. The conference of course was filled with interesting sessions and the evening with interesting entertainment. And by interesting entertainment I mean watching Batman fling around shooting hilarious PG-13 fireworks at an oversized Joker blimp, but I actually learned and got excited about new technologies that day.
One of these technologies is node.js. The session was mostly about what can be accomplished instead of actual demonstrations of awesome kick-ass code, but it was still very interesting and displayed nice potential for future applications. I honestly can’t wait to see how Drupal and node.js are gonna get together. At this early stage of development I’d suggest getting out and helping! Take part in the community and help build this awesome technology!
I won’t dive into the bits and bytes here (as the speakers do a much better job at explaining how it works and why we all should care), but I encourage everyone with an interest to watch the session over here.
The second part of the day began at 4pm for the DrupalCon attendees who were fortunate enough to have received a “golden ticket” (the ticket wasn't really gold). We were rounded up and put in several big red boxes with wheels that carried us on 2 floors throughout the city.
As we made our way through the beautiful scenery and artistic landscapes of Croydon we gasped upon our delightfully packed lunch bags that were oh-so-kindly handed to us upon boarding the red box. My bag unfortunately carried a rather unlikable tuna sandwich (yuck!), an apple, a bag of crisps and a healthy chocolate bar.
On our arrival at the O2 Arena we were greeted inside an oversized tent with an entire miniature city hidden inside of it. I’ve never been to the O2 Arena so this was a major “gasp” for me. Unfortunately, the team didn't have seats together, so we had to split into two groups, but luckily we all managed to sit together anyway, which can only be explained by paranormal activity. The show itself was pretty sweet - not many people seemed to like it, but I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, we saw smoke, explosions and the Batmobile! What more could I ask from an evening? It was often a bit slow-paced, but mind you this wasn't a movie (although the screen used as backdrop was very delicious).
All in all it was a pretty neat day, a good day at DrupalCon London 2011!
ps: I think Batman could lose some weight.
Day 3 of DrupalCon marks the end of the event’s session-based format and includes a closing plenary in which the next DrupalCon location for the following year is announced. (The next European DrupalCon will be in Munich, Germany - woohoo!)
At DrupalCon London, day 3 was my favorite - not because the event’s end was drawing near, but because I most enjoyed the day’s sessions.
Three of the conference’s stand-out presentations all occurred on this day:
- “Designing the Sustainable Web”
- “Adaptive, Responsive, Mobile First and Drupal Theming for the Future with HMTL5, CSS3 and Omega”
- “How to Theme Like a Rockstar.”
. . . Heaven for a frontend developer.
If you’re a themer, frontend developer, or someone interested in getting started with Drupal or responsive design, I’d highly suggest watching the aforementioned recorded sessions (links at the end of this post).
Things I’ll do differently/start doing as a themer after DrupalCon London:
- Continue using Omega, with a new focus on mobile-first theming and true responsive design (not adaptive).
- Take advantage of the WebFont Loader (target the .wf-loading class, etc...) to combat FOUT (prepackaged in the @font-your-face module).
- Try the Responsive Images module.
- Use SASS or LESS CSS to write stylesheets more efficiently.
- Standardize a bit more on how I theme: directly in the database level or in template files.
- Advocate using B.A.T.(base, admin, & theme stylesheets) in module development within my team.
- Attend DrupalCamp Austin & DrupalCon Denver.
Suggested session videos for themers:
- Designing the Sustainalbe Web: http://london2011.drupal.org/scheduleitem/keynote-designing-sustainable-web
- Adaptive, Responsive, Mobile First and Drupal Theming for the Future with HTML5, CSS3 and Omega: http://london2011.drupal.org/conference/sessions/adaptive-responsive-mobile-first-and-drupal-theming-future-html5-css3-and-omega
- How to Theme Like a Rockstar: http://london2011.drupal.org/conference/sessions/how-theme-rockstar
Suggested reading on Responsive Design:
- Responsive Web Design, A List Apart: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/
- Responsive Web Design, Ethan Marcotte, A Book Apart: http://www.abookapart.com/products/responsive-web-design
This blog post is totally overdue but frankly DrupalCon London has just flown by.
The first day of the conference started with Dries Buytaert’s keynote where he addressed the State of Drupal. You can watch the entire keynote or read Ubelly's fabulous summary on their blog.
During the day the team split up to attend a variety of different session reaching from "This Code Stinks!" over "Doing Drupal Security Right" to "Why Royal Mail and UK Government Are Shifting towards Open Source and Drupal" to get updated on the latest trends in the community.
In the evening we participated in the Curry Night which was a blast and took place in downtown London. This meant we could do some sightseeing on our way to the restaurant. Lucky us, we passed the Tower Gate Bridge and the Tower of London while doing so.
More from our activities at DrupalCon should follow soon.
As most of our dear readers already know, Amazee Labs develops based on the unbeatable framework Drupal.
Today was the official start of DrupalCon London, well Croydon actually, where 1,750 Drupalistas are currently gathering for the conference taking place twice a year. Amazee Labs is proud to be a sponsor and on Sunday evening we could sneak a peek of the location and were delighted to discover our brand in pole position:
Six Amazees are currently over to contribute to the event and learn about the next big things to come. And if you happen to be one of our clients, don't worry, we're not just learning. We're using all the spare time (mornings, breaks and nights) for some intense mini-sprints:
Another result of our first early morning session is our new Amazee Lab & Drupal page extension, hope you like it!
You'll hear more from our conference week in London. All work done now. We're off to the official curry night and pub crawl...
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Speaking on Responsive Web Design at ONE Schweiz
1Switzerland's new trade fair for Internet, e-commerce, social media and online marketing ONE, will take place next week (9 - 10 May) in Zurich. If you're planning to attend the simultaneous conference, don't miss Michael Schmid, our Head Technology. He will be a speaker in the mobile development track on Thursday afternoon.
His talk on "Responsive Web Design: Implementierung Dos & Don'ts" will cover all important aspects including the advantages and disadvantages compared to native apps. Interested? Register via the "ONE Konferenz's" website.
But there are more goodies for you. We have two free tickets for Michael's session. Drop an intellectually stimulating comment below this post until Monday 7 May lunch time (CET) for a chance to win a free admission.