Crystal Williams

Details:
September 8-9
(Saturday – 10am – 6pm, Sunday – 10am – 2pm)
AOL Beverly Hills – 331 N. Maple Dr., 90210
Registration – http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/221082

Organizer Notes:

a Drupal story

I originally got involved with Drupal about a year and a half ago when I moved up to Vancouver to work for Raincity Studios, a dedicated Drupal development shop. Since then, I’ve pretty much plunged head first into the world of open-source and content management systems, and it’s been a pretty major eye opener in how I think about web development.

When I moved back to LA last fall, I chose a technology agnostic design agency instead of a Drupal shop, but remained active in the Drupal community here in Southern California. When I started getting weekly, and then bi-weekly calls and emails looking for Drupal developers, I knew something was definitely afoot. When I ran out of non-swamped devs to refer people to, I knew it was time to do something.

I really do believe that Open Source projects and solid adherence to web standards are the way to a more secure, better designed, and more accessible web for everyone. And it’s fantastic that companies such as Yahoo! and Warner Bros. Records have recognized this as well and are deploying Drupal on a new scale. However, they are also flooding the market with more projects than we currently have people to handle, and we’ll all be in trouble if the party line becomes “Well, Drupal is great, but you can’t find developers for it…”

Los Angeles is also in a peculiar situation, having lots and lots of demand for Drupal, but being one of the only major US cities without a dedicated Drupal development shop here in town. Besides the obvious fact that LA based companies have to go elsewhere to find developers right now, this is also a problem because it means there has been no LA-based training initiative in LA. Yet.

So, here’s the idea. We’re bringing in some real Drupal rockstars from all over the US (and some from Canada) to teach two days of sessions, and in some instances, giving real world case studies in collaboration with their LA clients. Our goal is to jump start the Drupal community in Los Angeles, get people trained and interested, and see where we can push this from there. Sound good?

Read below for the official boilerplate and info on how you can get involved.

The LA Drupal Group presents DrupalCampLA, a free community learning conference focused on Drupal development, theming, deployment, and management. Experts and professionals in the field of Drupal development will be teaching two days of seminars on three tracks aimed at varying levels of technical knowledge, so whether you’re a seasoned developer, a frustrated newcomer, or just curious what all the hype is about, there will be sessions designed for you.

We’ll also have several sessions devoted to podcasting and media using Drupal, as well as several case studies featuring Drupal and Online Music promotion and distribution from Warner Bros. Records and Rhino Records.

We think Drupal is the best damn open source content management system period, and we’re not the only ones. Come learn how to develop, design, and create content for the the open source project that powers www.theonion.com, www.mtv.co.uk, and www.askaninja.com (and thousands more).

For more information, please visit http://barcamp.org/DrupalCampLA

Official sign-up is at http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/221082. Even though this is a free event, please register so we can plan accordingly.

You can also find us at

• Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11701480390
• Organizer Google Group – http://groups.google.com/group/drupalcampLA

Details:
September 8-9
(Saturday – 10am – 6pm, Sunday – 10am – 2pm)
AOL Beverly Hills – 331 N. Maple Dr., 90210

I was really sorry I couldn’t make it to BarCamp Block this weekend in the Bay area. For those who don’t know, this was the 2 year anniversary of BarCamp, an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Ironically, the reason I couldn’t attend is that I’ve been just too busy planning DrupalCampLA and BarCampLA-4 (more info on those coming shortly).

I was happy to see, however, that at least a little part of me got to be there for the event. My friend Tantek Çelik is shown here sporting my BarCamp Shanghai shirt.

See, back in January, Tantek and I had a little shirt swap:

Almost a year ago, now, I had the amazing opportunity to help bring BarCamp to China for the very first time by Co-Organizing BarCamp Shanghai. It was an amazing trip, a great adventure, and a rocking BarCamp. However, in all the mayhem, even though I designed and sourced ‘em, I didn’t manage to get one of the shirts in a size that didn’t absolutely swallow me. (I’m a bit wee, so I hear). Rather than see it get hidden away in my closet as a memento, I chose to give it to someone who could wear it proud. Since Tantek was a key factor in the very first BarCamp (two years ago now, wow!), I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have sporting it around Palo Alto.

Also, for the curious, BarCamp Shanghai 2 is in the works for September 8-9, 2007. I won’t be making the trek this year, but if you’re in China, check it out!

Photo Credit: Wired.com Click Here for Original

Ok, so, I’m avoiding the seven or so very relevant and probably no longer timely posts I have drafts of in order to jot down these notes, because despite all the wonderful events I’ve been attending and all the ideas I currently have buzzing around in my little head, what I’m really obsessed with right now is calendars.

That’s right. Calendars.

See, somewhere in the past six months or so, I got incurably busy. I’ve known this state before, but it has always been temporary. And I’m just getting the hunch that it isn’t temporary this time.

So besides the sleep deprivation, the coffee dependency, and the general sense of twitchiness (apologies to those who’ve seen me recently), what’s been really driving me crazy and impeding further productivity is fear. That’s right, you know this fear. You find out about an event, a party, or a project you want to do and you really want to say yes and make firm plans, but you stop short because you’re not entirely sure if you can. It’s pretty easy to check the calendar to see if you’re supposed to BE somewhere at that particular point in the space time continuum, but what about mental bandwidth and deadlines? Can I schedule a trip to Texas to see my family if I can’t get a good idea of what projects I’m launching then? I’m constantly trying to not be out of town for a major site launch or milestone, but those move often, so how does one guess?

You can see the loop forming here and it generally results in a semi-catatonic state followed with “I need coffee. Let me get back to you.”

This is not really ok anymore.

So the key problem to be solved here is “How do I get an accurate, at a glance idea of how busy I am for any 2-3 day period?”

I have a job where I’m, at any point, responsible for 5-12 active creative projects. (Currently, it’s about 9). Timelines slip, usually not because of our team, but projects tend to evolve as they progress and sometimes small changes have big effects. Therefore, it’s crucial to have a system that ties into my current professional workflow, but can also integrate with my personal schedule since I’m also co-organizing two conferences in LA, working on contributing a Drupal theme, and attending a large number of fun/learning/networking events here, and in SF and SD. (Not to mention the occasional, purely social outing)

My tools:

• My work laptop (PC)
• my Stickerbooked Mac
• Blackberry 8800
• gmail
• gcal (I have two – one hosted calendar that we use company wide where we are all subscribed to each other, and also my personal calendar, which is also subscribed to things like the barcamp global schedule, the Boston Red Sox season schedule, and my Upcoming.yahoo.com events, as well as my work calendar)
• MS Project
• Basecamp
• upcoming.yahoo.com
• twitter

The Process::

• Work Projects are scoped and then scheduled dynamically in Project. Major milestones and deadlines are then manually entered and assigned to people in Basecamp by Client and Project. (Note: I know this is a main bottleneck) Milestones are title by “Initials of milestone owner” – “Project” – “Description of Milestone”. ICAL feeds are then generated by individual project (and also one master feed). These are then subscribed to through my work calendar and color coded by client. I only subscribe to the full-on, mother-load schedule from my personal calendar.
• As I commit to public events and publicly promoted social events, I add myself to the Upcoming.yahoo.com page so it gets added to my personal calendar.
• On the fly, small social things, such as dinner with a friend, get added to my personal gcal via twitter via gtalk IM on my blackberry if I’m out and about (or just through the browser if I’m at the computer). (How to do this)

The end result of this is a personal calendar I can look at (on screen or blackberry) and gauge, just by how many lines of stuff I see, whether or not that’s a good day for me or whether I’d best lay low. It also creates a master schedule that my office can selectively share with outside contractors and clients and gives everyone in the company a 5 second glance at how many deadlines each person has for a given day or week, which is necessary for committing resources to a project.

Just starting this system, so I’ll let you know how it goes. Any further integration ideas are much welcome.

Checking in here from WordCamp 2007. I’m having a fantastic time in San Francisco with some good friends from all over the place. Currently sitting here enjoying a fantastic view of the Bay Bridge nicely shrouded in some morning fog.

I’ll be following this up with a more complete post, full of pics, links, and some notes on sessions, but just wanted to give a quick check in and a big thanks to the WordPress team for putting on a really great event.

I knew it had been a dry year. A dry couple of years, actually. The last major rain I really remember was the insane downpour of October 2004, but I think I only remember that because it was during the ALCS and World Series that year, and the rain made storming out of the house at exceptionally tense moments in those epic Red Sox vs Yankees games a bit more ridiculous.

But I’ve found myself telling people recently “I swear, it used to rain here, but it doesn’t anymore” a bit too often, so I went looking for the actual statistics on the matter and came up with this.

From the National Weather Service – Full PDF at http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/lox/Assets/pns_07_01_07.pdf

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
National weather service los angeles/oxnard ca
635 am pdt sun jul 1 2007

…this was the driest rain season ever in downtown los angeles and many other locations in southwestern california…
The 2006-2007 rain season…which began on july 1 2006 and ended on june 30 2007 is officially the driest ever in downtown Los Angeles since records began 130 years ago in 1877. Only 3.21 inches of rain fell during the season…. nearly one foot or 11.93 inches below the normal for the season…which is 15.14 inches. Rainfall totaled only 21% of normal in downtown Los Angeles.

The previous record for the driest rain season in downtown Los Angeles was 4.42 inches of rain during the 2001-2002 season. The total rain for the 2006-2007 season…3.21 inches…was 1.21 inches lower than the previous driest season…a difference of a whopping 27 percent.

The rainfall total for the season…3.21 inches…was lower than the average yearly rainfall for phoenix (8.29″)…palm springs (5.23″) and las vegas (4.49″)…and was less than one inch more than what is normal for death valley (2.33″).
During this past season…the greatest rain on any calendar day was just 0.50 inches on april 20th. This was the only day during the season on which one half inch of rain or greater was recorded…the fewest number of such days in any season. The previous record was 2 days during the 2001-2002 season.

Measurable rain fell on 21 of the past 365 days in downtown Los Angeles…which was not a record. It was the 4th lowest total… Behind the 16 days with measurable rain during the 1960-1961 Season…the 17 days during the 1958-1959 season…and the 19 days during the 1971-1972. The average number of days with measurable rain in downtown Los Angeles is 35.

Rainfall was below normal in every month of this past season… With not one month receiving rainfall totaling one inch or greater. It is the first season since records began in 1877 not to have a single month during which one inch or more of rain was recorded. The “wettest” month was february…when 0.92 inches of rain was recorded.

Yep. Vegas now gets more rain than Los Angeles. Think I could vacation somewhere with good thunderstorms? I may have to track down a monsoon season somewhere to get my fix.

The still amazing thing to me is that the city doesn’t *look* so much different. Is absolutely everything irrigated in this city? What a strange, unnatural place we’ve created here.

If you’re as freaked out by this as I am, here are some water-saving tips:

• www.bewaterwise.com
• www.monolake.org
• From FEMA!
• www.wateruseitwisely.com

There are certainly more exciting ways to spend 4th of July, but I’m on a roll for skipping holidays this past year, so this one has been no exception. It was somewhat of an ambitious goal – manage to completely settle in to a new house using a day and a half off – but just past midnight on the second day, I’m sitting here by the open window in the living room, listening to the crickets and late night traffic on La Cienega and there’s not a box in sight.

As some of you might know already, my last lovely apartment was rendered unlivable by turn of events usually reserved for Allstate commercials. A visiting dog chewed through a hose in the bathroom and flooded the place. I tried to stick it out for a while, but the resulting reconstruction efforts were just too disruptive.

Thankfully, LA is full of places to live. Through the wonders of Craigslist, U-Haul, friends, LA’s ready supply of day laborers, and my own unpacking/cleaning stamina, I managed to find a place in 2-3 days, move a bit less than a week later, get the heavy lifting part of the move done in 2.5 hours, and completely unpack/firebomb-level clean in 30 hrs, all for a bit under $150 (including cleaning supplies). I think I am getting a little too good at this.

The new pad is a central-city 1930s Storybook cottage. Living room, formal dining, kitchen, extra room off the kitchen that is solid windows (breakfast nook, maybe? Someone stop me before it becomes a greenhouse), utility room, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, huge backyard and a garage already converted to a workshop. Tons of windows, great light, fairy tale accents, vaulted, wood-plank ceiling, and oddly shaped doorways. I am (not so slowly) filling it with plants. It feels really nice to be in a house again after so many years in apartments and condos. My first place out of college was a classic Pasadena bungalow. This has some of the same feeling, only much, much larger (and without the bizarre accents of the former).

All boxes and suitcases are now unpacked and stowed, and the place has had a thorough, solid scrub. Rugs and art for the walls are still pretty desperately needed, but for now, it’s just good to be home again.

I have mellowed a lot since 2000, when election night saw me burning Bush/Cheney yard signs in the courtyard of my college dorm. I have stopped arguing with family and friends who are Republican. I have tried to see other points of view, though my own views haven’t changed at all. I have stopped yelling things like “Blood on your hands!” to people I know and love with the confusion and outrage that is perhaps only possible in the too-young and too-educated demographic. I have tried and come a long way towards forgiving and understanding the people I respect and love who inexplicably put this administration in power with the best of intentions.

But Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby this afternoon just brings much of that outrage and confusion back to the forefront. I can attempt to joke, but I know if I say anything outloud right now, it’ll be with a sharp Texas twang that only surfaces when I’m furious. And I am furious. We all should be. We’re losing the war at home, people.

Bush Commutes Libby’s Prison Sentence – The CNN Article.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush has commuted the prison term of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, facing 30 months in prison after a federal court convicted him of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators.

Earlier Monday, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that Libby could not delay his sentence.

The charges relate to the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Libby was only weeks away from surrendering to a prison.

Bush was under great pressure by Libby allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

In a written statement issued hours after that ruling, Bush called the sentence “excessive.” But he also rejected calls for a pardon for Libby.

“The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting,” Bush said.

But he said Libby was given “a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.”

Libby was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

The conviction remains on Libby’s record and he still has to pay a $250,000 fine.

Commutations are rarely granted, says CNN’s chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin. A commutation is a total right of the president and it cannot be challenged by any attorney or court, he said.

Once again, I’m wishing we had Molly Ivins’ wit to see us through this one.

Like many of you, I’ve been hearing rumors and getting emails about all these new traffic laws going into effect this weekend, supposedly. I was going to blog about those and give some other people fair warning, but in my search for a reputable link to back those up, I instead found this: from www.truthorfiction.com.

(though that hands-free thing, still probably a good idea, esp if you’re also holding your coffee)

A List of New California Laws effective July 1, 2007-Truth! Fiction!

Summary of the eRumor:
This email is an alert to California drivers of several new laws to be aware of that the email says go into effect on July 1, 2007.

The Truth:
Whoever put this email together was either intentionally ignoring the facts or summarizing some of the gossip around him or her about new California traffic laws.

Most of it is not true. (yay!)

We’ll go through each of the items one at a time, but first there are not statewide mandated penalties for traffic fines in California.

There are guidelines from what is called the Uniform Bail and Penalty Schedule but local jurisdictions make their own decisions on fines for traffic citations. You may have discovered that on your own if you’ve gotten a traffic ticket for the same violation in different California cities or counties. You did not necessarily get the same fine.

If you want to know what the typical fines are in your area, call your local traffic court.

1. Carpool lane – 1st time $1068.50 starting 7/1/07 (The $271 posted on the highway is old). Don’t do it again because 2nd time is going to be double. 3rd time triple, and 4th time license suspended-Fiction!
   In 2007, the recommended fine for a first time car pool violation was $380. Repeat offenders can expect to pay more, but nothing near the amounts represented in this email.
2. Incorrect lane change – $380. Don’t cross the lane on solid lines or intersections-Fiction!
   The Uniform Bail and Penalty Schedule said $134 for a typical infraction.
3. Block intersection – $485-Fiction!
   The Uniform Bail and Penalty Schedule said $175.
4. Driving on the shoulder – $450-Fiction!
   The Uniform Bail and Penalty Schedule said $134.
5. Cell phone use in the construction zone. – Double fine as of 07/01/07. Cell phone use must be “hands free” while driving-Fiction!
   There was no law in California during 2007 restricting the use of cell phones in the car. There is such a law going into effect in July, 2008. There was no “double fine” as of 7/1/07 because there was no law in effect regarding cell phones. The new California law does not mention construction zones although penalties for traffic violations are higher if they occurred in a highway construction or maintenance area.
6. Passengers over 18 not in their seatbelts – both passengers and drivers get tickets-Truth!
   The California Mandatory Seat Belt Law requires all passengers to use some kind of restraint. Children under 6 and weighing less than 60 pounds are required to be in “specified child passenger restraint system,” typically a car seat. Everybody older than 6 must wear seat belts. At this writing the fines range from less than $100 for a first offence to more than $300 when it’s kids who are not buckled in. According to the California Highway Patrol any adults in a vehicle who are not wearing seatbelts are subject to citation, not just the driver. The driver will be held accountable for any children not restrained.
7. Speeders can only drive 3 miles above the limit-Fiction!
   The speed limit is the speed limit. There is no legal definition allowing a driver to go 3 miles per hour above that.(Ok, this was my tip-off that the original warning email might be bogus, that one just made no sense)
8. DUI = JAIL (Stays on your driving record for 10 years!)-Truth!
   At the time of this writing a first offense for driving under the influence in California results in anywhere between 96 hours and 4 months in jail. a fine, and a six-month suspension of the license. Those are the court penalties. There are separate penalties to the Department of Motor Vehicles. As of January 1, 2007 a driving under the influence conviction will be on a person’s record for 10 years.
9. As of 07/01/07 cell phone use must be “hands free” while driving. Ticket is $285. They will be looking for this like crazy – easy money for police department-Fiction!
   By law all drivers in California must be using hands-free cell phones as of July 1, 2008. The fine was $20 for the first offense and $50 for each subsequent offense. The exceptions are for emergency use, drivers of emergency vehicles, and drivers of commercial vehicles can use the push-to-talk type wireless phones until July 1, 2011.

Happy motoring, kids.

At the wrap-up dinner after BarCampLA-3, on a hunch, I polled the table with “Has anyone here NEVER accidentally electrocuted themselves while doing some crazy project?” No hands, great stories.

So when several members of that same crew took on organizing BarCamp San Diego, I knew it was going to be a good time, even by BarCamp standards. Not only was it exceedingly good, geeky fun, it was a really, really smoothly run camp. It was obvious a lot of planning went into this, so big ups to:

• Patrick Crowley – Project Management, Budget
• Dan Tentler – Sponsor Wrangler
• Lindsey LaShell – Public Relations
• Alex Kawas – Budget
• Billy Marsh – Awesomest screenprinting rig ever
• Phelan Riessen – Shirts
• Harry Slaughter – Venue Procurement
• Ryan Felton – Misc.
• Lisa Brewster – Blog

I met a lot of really fun, wickedly smart people this weekend and attended some great talks on search engine optimization, data visualization, dating, SecondLife, zombies, and network security. I gave a talk on pimping out your WordPress blog and an ongoing informal demonstration of why most people should be paying a bit more attention to their physical security (aka – lockpicking). I’ll be posting up my notes for that talk on here soon. I’ll also be linking to the Belkin site where they’ve graciously agreed (again) to host all of the recorded audio files from BarCamp San Diego sessions.

Just wanted to give some highlights here:
This was so unbelievably cool, a bit more MAKE Magazine or SRL than your typical BarCamp fare, but I think everyone was all for it. Metal Fabricator Billy Marsh MADE a custom screenpress for BarcampSD and they used it to print all the shirts, which came out looking great. (Photos by Lisa Brewster, click to go to her flickr stream)

I just couldn’t resist doing this. This is my 15′x17′ tent. In a classroom.

This still cracks me up. Man, twitter is great for unconferences.

And lastly, I’m not quite sure how this got started, but we dubbed it ninjacamp. Yes, that’s me. And yes, I have been doing a lot of yoga lately.

Thanks again to everyone who made this camp so much fun, I look forward to staying in touch with you all and hope to be back down for the next one in November. Congrats again to the organizers, you all did a fantastic job.

Lastly, thanks to the these companies for supporting the very first San Diego BarCamp. Sponsors make free, public BarCamps possible, so if you can, show your support for these companies:

• DivX
• Microsoft
• Opera
• wiseGEEK
• Achieve Internet
• Integral Impressions
• Belkin
• Technical Training Resources
• Eventful
• LAMP Host
• GroundWork Open Source

tap… tap..

Ok, I’m breaking radio silence here because this is going to be a fun weekend and I just wanted to let anyone in the area know about it. I’m headed down to BarCamp San Diego this weekend and really looking forward to it.

Details:
Technical Training Resources
6920 Miramar Rd., Suite 105, San Diego, CA 92121
directions | map

Things get rolling around 1pm on Saturday and wrap up Sunday evening. We met the folks organizing this at BarcampLA-3 and had a blast with them. I’ll be driving down Saturday morning, so if you want to go, but don’t feel like driving or don’t know anyone, hit me up.

As with any other barcamp, bring yourself, your tech, your sleeping bag, and your best ideas and get ready to meet a lot of really fantastic people.