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Come out to our September Meetup... first day after Labor Day we're hoping you'll be ready to go. Justin Meyer from Jupiter IT Solutions is an expert javascript programmer and he will be presenting a beginner javascript walk-through for developers. This is everything you will want to know about javascript but never asked! Justin has promised to make this as accessible to beginners as possible, but please be advised this is an intermediate to advanced session. If you're just as happy to let Dreamweaver create the javascript going into your websites without "looking under the hood," this session is probably not for you. That said, don't stay away. If you have the patience to look under that hood, you'll be a better designer/programmer!

We will be meeting at Boocoo Cultural Center, 1823 Church Street, Evanston 60201. There is a parking lot across the street that belongs to Evanston Township High School. I am hoping the lot will be open by September 8. If it is, you are free to park there. Otherwise, there should be ample street parking along Dodge Avenue or Church Street. Like any semi-urban area, there have been crime reports in this neighborhood in the past. There is no need to be unduly alarmed... just use good sense as you come and go to your car.

Mark your calendars for some interesting upcoming sessions. David Berg, from Merge Design and Interactive is coming to give us a primer on how to intelligently sell websites to prospective clients. We have a "virtual presentation" from Dan Cedarholm, author of "Bulletproof Web Design," on "10 essential web design guidelines." And we have Chris Coyier coming to talk about his favorite CSS tips and tricks. (We'd love to hear back from you on Dennis' idea for "Who Wants to Be a Web Designer." Don't be shy... let us know if this hooks you.)

Please extend the courtesy of changing your RSVP if you decide not to come. This will make space for someone else.

I'm going to cap the attendance at 40 this month and see what kind of a response we get. I look forward to seeing you in September... back to school time!

Steve Starr
Organizer, Chicago Dreamweaver Meetup
About this Meetup Group

Thank you to Becky Davis for her comprehensive overview of creating graphics for web use. boocoo Cultural Center appears to be a good fit for our group, so we'll meet there again in July. Ted Sirota, the artistic director, would like to try us in their multimedia room, so go there instead of the coffee shop area. Come hungry if you're inclined. They make great sandwiches!

Next month, Patrick Elward of Chicago Web Management will be presenting on "Dreamweaver web forms." Patrick is the Meetup organizer for Chicago Webmasters: Elmhurst & Western Suburbs, Lakefront Area and Southwest Suburbs and has presented for our group in the past. Join us on Tuesday, July 14, as Patrick walks us through the creation of contact forms, log-in forms, secure forms, form validation and how to process form data in a database, an e-mail or as a text file. This session is an intermediate session and knowledge of Dreamweaver is recommended. If you've never done a form before, this may be a good place to learn!

We will be meeting at boocoo Cultural Center, 1823 Church Street, Evanston 60201. There is a parking lot across the street that belongs to Evanston Township High School. You may park there free. (It's free any time school is not in session.) Like any urban area, there have been crime reports in this neighborhood in the past. There is no need to be unduly alarmed... just use good sense.

Please extend the courtesy of changing your RSVP if you decide not to come. This will make space for someone else.

I'm thinking it might start feeling like summer very soon! Enjoy the rest of your June.

Steve Starr
Organizer, Chicago Dreamweaver Meetup
About this Meetup Group

Thanks to Dennis for what I understand was an informative session on information architecture (sorry to miss out!). Next month, we’ll divert from the mentorship series in order to take advantage of the skills of one of our members, John Mahady. On Tuesday, May 12, join us for John’s presentation, “Creating data driven dynamic websites with Dreamweaver integrating PHP and MySql.” Before your eyes glaze over with incomprehension, take a step back and recognize that we all use dynamic websites every day, whether you are banking online or buying a book on Amazon. Have you wondered how dynamic websites work? Do you have curiosity about how you might integrate a Dreamweaver site with something to make it dynamic? John is an expert in just that. He will walk us through a behind the scenes look at how data is manipulated and delivered based on website visitor actions. John is an expert in connecting to a database through PHP extensions, activating SQL code from within PHP blocks, dynamic html and CSS using PHP.

If this sounds like it’s outside your league (it’s outside mine!), consider that you might attend this session and begin to pick up some basic concepts on how dynamic websites work. You won’t run home and build a dynamic website, but it will give you more information than you had before and it might pique your curiosity enough to know whether you want to go deeper with this. As a primer, I suggest you might want to look at the sight http://www.php.net/ and play with the introductory tutorial or read a few things.

In June, we’ll resume our mentorship series with Becky Davis talking about image manipulation and optimization for website design.

See you in May at our regular location, Pick A Cup, 1813 Dempster Street, Evanston. I will cap the attendance at 30 again this time. If you get "cut off" please attend anyway. Please extend the courtesy of changing your RSVP if you decide not to come. This will make space for someone else.

Happy April foks!

Steve Starr
Organizer, Chicago Dreamweaver Meetup
About this Meetup Group

Thanks for your attendance at the second installment of our mentorship series. Dennis Deacon provided a comprehensive overview of web design workflow, from start to finish. Though many have been writing contracts and securing jobs for many years, the nuances of working in the web world are new and the possibilities exciting. Thank you Dennis, for your time and attention to this material.

Your feedback is especially helpful to us in planning our series. Thank for you for taking the time to provide feedback on the meetup site. You can also leave comments about the content of February's meeting on our blog as well as review the material that was presented:

http://dwmeetup.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/web-design-workflow-2/

On March 10, we will continue our “mentorship series” with "Page Layout: a look at CSS tableless layouts; fixed, fluid, elastic and hybrids." Yes, folks, we are finally going to crack open Dreamweaver so you can see how the program handles these tasks. Linda Ryder of Ryder Web Design will be presenting the session. Linda is a topnotch CSS designer/programmer who has been part of the Dreamweaver Meetup from day 1.

If you are not already subscribed to the Meetup.com discussion forum, please get yourself subscribed. The more people we have participating, the more likely it is that your questions will be answered.

See you in March at our regular location, Pick A Cup, 1813 Dempster Street, Evanston. I am capping the attendance at 30 this time. If you get "cut off" please attend anyway. We may need to begin discussion about our location soon if we continue to attract 20 plus people on a continuous basis. Please extend us the courtesy of changing your RSVP if you decide not to come. This will make space for someone else.

Spring is in the air...

Steve Starr
Organizer, Chicago Dreamweaver Meetup
About this Meetup Group

Ten fearless and intrepid folks fought wind, snow and ice to come out for the holiday pizza party at Gullivers. Congratulations to Alex Jain who won our door prize… a month of online training at Lynda.com. (Let us know how it goes, Alex.)

On January 13, we will inaugurate our “mentorship series.” This is intended to assist those of you who are new to Dreamweaver and web development. We have put up our very own blog on Wordpress. Please read our first topic BEFORE you attend the meetup. When you come in January, be prepared to discuss your questions. Yes, that’s right, folks. This is good old-fashioned homework. Our first session is called “Foundations of Web Design,” and you can find the post here:
http://dwmeetup.wordpress.com/

I strongly encourage you to leave your comments and questions right in the blog. This will be a good resource for getting quick answers to questions that come up right away. In addition, if you are not already subscribed to the Meetup.com discussion forum, please get yourself subscribed. The more people we have participating, the more likely it is that people will have their questions answered.

Our first session in January will focus on the first topic in the mentorship series. In addition, we’d like to hear more about how you’d like to see this series fleshed out. Our plan is that our meetings in February, March, April and May will be split between the mentorship topics and a presentation of special interest. Let’s give this the old college try and see if this helps the many in our membership who come to this Meetup seeking ways to learn from the ground up. What could be easier than reading this good information right online??

Our mentorship series is not meant as a substitute for professional training. If you want a comprehensive class in Dreamweaver, please look at the many fine training organizations we have right here in the Chicago area. Ask for a recommendation!

If you are an old hand in Dreamweaver/web development, don’t skip out on these sessions. We need your input, your expertise and your dissenting opinions. Who knows… you may learn something!

My thanks to Dennis Deacon for developing the curriculum for this first session. We welcome your thoughts and questions on what has been prepared. Happy holidays, folks. See you in January back at our regular location, Pick A Cup, 1813 Dempster Street, Evanston.

Steve Starr
Organizer, Chicago Dreamweaver Meetup
About this Meetup Group