Ideas for October Meeting

[Myztik Jenz]

It was absolutely wonderful to see so many people there last week.
True, finding a place big enough for all of us is a problem, but one I
don't really mind having.

If you've not see it, I uploaded the demo project created to the group
site. I also created a basic Resources page so if you're looking for
things/help/someone to scream at, it might point you in the right
direction. Feel free to update that page with any useful resources
you might have found.

Looking forward, does anyone have ideas on how we should spend our
time in the October meeting? iPhone hacking (for those of you lucky
enough to have one), new-to-cocoa peeps show us what you're working
on, not-so-new-to-cocoa peeps talk about some random advanced topic?
This would be so much easier if we could talk about Leopard... ;)

Also, location: Ames people - if we held the meeting at the DMACC
campus way on the southwest side, is that too far to drive? I'm not
exactly sure where it's at (or if I can even reserve it for our use...
Bill?) but I figured I'd ask before I made it so.

Jim

[Dan Buettner]

I was at the first meeting of the Iowa Ruby Brigade (http://www.iowaruby.org/) at DMACC West last night; it's pretty easy to get to, though I'll grant it's a hike (and I live in the city).  Groups can reserve it, it seems; I can get more info from the guy who reserved last night it if people are interested.

See a map here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=dmacc+west&sll=41.623623,-93.600125&sspn=0.022809,0.059395&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&ll=41.545204,-93.785219&spn=0.037001,0.070381&z=14&iwloc=A


(Saw Bill there.)

We were in the auditorium, which was quite nice - large projector, wifi.

Dan

[Colin Wheeler]

I have an idea that I'd like to see some discussion on to see what
everybody's philosophies are towards custom views/quartz drawing/
gradients, etc. I think for new people we could start off with common
ground by showing the basics of view compositing and then eventually
(for the more advanced people) dig into custom views and/or extending
apples NSControl subclasses to have custom appearances, etc.

I also think as nice as our meetings have been we could probably
benefit more from having shifting speakers for different segments to
get different ideas and discussions flowing, probably 3-4 different
speakers on various subjects might be good to keep a good meeting
moving along nicely.

I'd be wiling myself to start out the next meeting with some basics
on how views work in cocoa and how to do some drawing with Quartz.
Perhaps we could also have another person cover basic events in views
and a demo app that shows this in action and a third person to show
off some advanced concepts with views (possibly animation?) and how
many apps have exploited what you can do with the richness of the
API's like Disco, OmniFocus, Coda, etc have exploited this to make
some good custom controls/views,etc and some basic how to approach this.

Anyway it's just an idea I had, but I hope that a format like this
might help everybody of all skill levels get something out of the
meetings. I think that odds are Apple probably won't release Leopard
till mid-to-late october at this rate and so this might be some good
discussion to get us going and when it comes out it will be lot
easier for those relatively new to Cocoa to take advantage of things
like Core Animation and the rich new goodness in Leopard that I'll
have to refrain from mentioning for now because of my NDA :(

- Colin Wheeler
http://code.google.com/p/redflag
http://groups.google.com/group/redflag-project

[Brandon Newendorp]

I think this would be a great topic - it's something lots of people could benefit from.  Definitely something I'd like to learn more about as well.

On a somewhat related topic - I'd like to offer Iowa State as a potential meeting location as well.  The AmesMUG has a room reserved on campus every Thursday night at 7PM for our meetings anyway, so we'd be happy to host CocoaHeads as well (instead of our officers meeting, which gets cancelled for CocoaHeads), if the Des Moines people were willing to drive up to Ames instead.  We have a nice sized room, built-in projector and Wi-Fi available.  Half the people at the last meeting were from AmesMUG anyway. :) 
--
Brandon Newendorp
President - AmesMUG

[Myztik Jenz]

> I also think as nice as our meetings have been we could probably
> benefit more from having shifting speakers for different segments to
> get different ideas and discussions flowing, probably 3-4 different
> speakers on various subjects might be good to keep a good meeting
> moving along nicely.

Agreed. While I have no problem presenting, this ain't "Jim's
CocoaHeads":) I'd love to see more people present and lead the
discussion. Having multiple speakers and topics is a great idea and
would definitely help keep the interest level high for people of any
skill level.

Colin, your idea on views/quartz/custom drawing is perfect and I look
forward to your presentation. Would anyone else like to volunteer to
present? Either one of Colin's ideas or one of your own?

As for location, I was asked if I meant the Ankeny DMACC facility
instead of the West Des Moines location. I know nothing of what's
available at the Ankeny DMACC and with the group's size being what it
is, I think we'd be best served in locations that have a projector
available for use (the 800x600 projector was "not optimal", plus, I
don't have access to it anymore). Does anyone know if DMACC in Ankeny
has a meeting room and projector available?

Brandon, I'm not opposed to traveling to Ames periodically, especially
if there's a built-in projector we can use. Since half the attendees
are in Ames and the other half are in Des Moines, what we could do is
find a location in Des Moines that suits us and rotate between Ames
and Des Moines each month. Share the driving load, as it were.

Does the room you speak of hold 12-15 people? If so, do we want to
just plan on the October 11th meeting to be held there (which gives me
more time to figure out where to hold meetings in Des Moines)?

Jim

On 9/22/07, Colin Wheeler <col...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Colin Wheeler]

I'll get to work on a intro to Quartz presentation then :D

The room at Iowa State can definitely hold us all and then some :)
It's a room built specifically for presentations and the built in
projector has excellent resolution if I recall correctly. Basically
it has a projector and some white boards on the wall where the
projection is displayed and on the left adjoining wall to the
speakers view. In front of this are several rows of comfy office
chars and tables and the ocasional spot for plugging in though in
AmesMUG we also bring some extension cables.

As for Ankeny DMACC I don't know what they have to be honest I've
only been in a few buildings while i've attended there. Some of the
few rooms i've been in have some archaic software to control the
display source for the projector that you'd swear an Airline pilot
has designed :( But again the few rooms i've been in are hardly
enough data to draw a conclusion on. I don't know what's all
available but I'll try and ask the next time I am around there. At
some point I was hoping to hook up my MacBook Pro to one of these
displays and see if it works well but I am not slated to present
anything in any of my classes till the end of October and my class
schedule is tight and I usually just go straight from class to class
at a moderate pace so I don't have a ton of time to play around :(

Im sure between the Library and the Ankeny DMACC Campus we should
probably be able to find something decent in Ankeny. Does anybody
know what the Kirkendal Library has available in the other room
adjacent to the room we were in if they have projectors,etc?

Anyway like I said i'll work on a Intro to Quartz Presentation and
i'll make an inquiry to DMACC about available rooms we can use :D

Colin Wheeler
http://code.google.com/p/redflag
http://groups.google.com/group/redflag-project

[Brandon Newendorp]

Yep, our room is rated for 32 people.  The projector can handle 1280x1024 (if I remember correctly).  Colin, we're in a different room than last year, but it's equipped similarly.  FYI, you can check out the room we have online (complete with a spiffy panorama):
http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/roomscheduling/room.asp?room_id=1134

Again, we're happy to host in Ames if DM people are okay with making the drive to Ames.  If not, no big deal.
--
Brandon Newendorp

--
Brandon Newendorp