Erik:
We had our first Austin Apps sprint last week and got quite a bit done. We had 12 people from Phase2 Technology, LevelTen, Four Kitchens, Mediacurrent and Pantheon all had people at the sprint. Thanks to Four Kitchens for helping us provide a space for the Sprint.
Karen:
In the Town of Lake Clarke Shores, Florida, citizens no longer have to wait to access valuable information about their town hall meetings, thanks to a new web site powered by OpenPublic and built by the team at Big Couch Media Group. Seeing a need for not only a site makeover but an overhaul of the tools that community members needed most, John Studdard and the Big Couch team put OpenPublic to the test, utilizing the responsive design theme and maximizing the available tools for citizen engagement, while also building new functionality for the platform. I sat down with John this week to hear more about the build.
Danielle:
There's nothing like filling a brand new role in an organization. Sure there are the new challenges of uncharted territory, and the opportunity to build a new area of expertise in the company, but the best part is everyone at the office asking "so what do you DO here, again?"
Shawn:
As Luke Wroblewski puts it, "Mobile is Exploding". As smartphone sales surpass PCs and more and more people are doing their casual surfing from the couch or the line in the grocery store, everyone is talking about how to meet mobile user's needs. Moreover, an increasing number of users are using smartphones or tablets as their only personal computer. We think that for the public sector, especially for any organization that wants to provide equal access to everyone, this means that you need a strategy for reaching these devices.
Karen:
I'm reading a book on financial modeling, where the author says, "if you can model it, you can understand it." Try to move past what a dork I am for reading that book, and I'll explain. Basically, if you can set up the pieces of a business into something measurable and tangible, the valuable pieces become clear. I think a similar concept applies to systems like Drupal: "if you can understand it, you can build on it." Or another way: broad adoption of a concept requires that someone besides developers understand it.
Josh:
OpenCalais has been completely rewritten for Drupal 7. We chose to basically start from scratch because of the new (for d7) entity and fields systems, which radically changed the way that we interact with taxonomy terms, and in the hope to vastly improve the UI and be able to add more functionality.
Karen:
We're co-hosting an Apps code sprint at BADCamp and we want you there.
David:
In September we released a new beta version of Tao for the first time in 11 months. A lot has happened in those 11 months. Tao changed hands along with several other modules and themes, and it’s taken us some time to get up to speed on all the new code that we have committed to maintain.
Karen:
This weekend at DrupalCamp Atlanta, I had the pleasure of presenting with Jay Callicott from Mediacurrent on how to build an App for a Drupal distribution. Ok, so it wasn't really 8 minutes, and it wasn't exactly live - it was more like the cooking show kind of live -- but it did cover all the steps of building an App for a Drupal distribution, start to finish.
Mike:
I’ve been building web applications for the government for more than 10 years, so I’m more than a little familiar with Section 508 and what it means to develop a web site the complies with it. But recently, my team and I have gained a much deeper understanding of accessibility by participating in an experiential learning session led by Catharine McNally. I’ve gained new levels of realization about what really makes content on the web accessible and usable for all individuals.
