LFTDevNet's Having Its First Codeathon! Dec 12 @ the Travis Technology Center

[Geoff Daily]

Greetings Lafayette's Developer Community,

We've all talked about wanting to do a codeathon, and we now have the perfect opportunity to have one: the weekend of Dec 12-13th.

That weekend the Sunlight Foundation is putting on the Great American Hackathon: http://www.sunlightlabs.com/hackathon09/

There are codeathons scheduled across the country, all focused on developing open source apps that open government.

There seems to be great interest in building apps for Lafayette among LFTDevNet members, so why not get moving on that now and benefit from the exposure and community building of joining this national event.

I've already got the Travis Technology Center reserved on Dec 12th and it can likely be available on the 13th. So we have space.

We've got some great ideas for projects. In particular the DataLFT site, which would serve three purposes: as a directory of local public data sets/streams, as a site with information related to the benefits of and best practices for opening up private data, and as a showcase for apps created using this data.

The next question is do we have the interest from all of you to really make this event a success.

A tentative schedule for Sat could be:

9:30 - Breakfast
10:00 - Kickoff
10:30 - Break into teams for planning discussions
12:00 - Regroup for planning presentations over lunch
1:00 - Break into teams for coding/design
5:00 - Regroup for progress presentations
6:00 - Dinner
7:00 - Coding/design until done

It'd be great if we could do this over two days, but some people may only have one day to give, so I'd recommend that we make Sat the 12th the main day, with the 13th being available for continued work by those able and interested.

Notice how I also included "design." We should invite our designer friends to this event as well so that whatever's created can look as good as it works.

To make sure whatever's built is well thought out, everyone is encouraged to attend the Acadiana Open Source meeting this Thurs Dec 3rd at 6:30pm on UL's Campus (I can't remember where, but you should have the info in an earlier email from Matt Turland). Crawford Comeaux and Andre Alfred are going to help lead a discussion about the codeathon and in particular the DataLFT project.

Also, there's an informal Adobe User Group meeting next Tues Dec 8th that starts at 7pm at Crawford Comeaux's house and then walk over to Judice Inn for a burger. Could be a great opportunity to continue the conversation.

And we may want to consider another meeting on Thurs or Fri evening, which could be a combo codeathon preplanning discussion and general LFTDevNet meeting.

Everything in this email is open to change if you all want to do things differently.

For now what we need is an initial indication of interest from the LFTDevNet community to have this codeathon.

So who's interested? Who thinks they might be able to attend? Who's for sure coming? Who wishes they could come but can't?

Reply to this email if you are any of these with your thoughts about what you think about this opportunity and any ideas you have for how we can make it better.

Also, please feel encouraged to forward it on to whatever other developers or designers that you think should be at this event to help build their community's digital ecosystem.

Assuming there is sufficient interest, look forward to future emails with an official registration page, discussions on DataLFT and other potential projects, and further details.

I look forward to everyone's thoughts, and even more to the fact that serendipity will allow me to attend this codeathon in person as I was planning on coming to LFT next week anyway.

Hope to see you all there!

Geoff
202-834-0121

[Raymond Camden]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Geoff Daily <geoff...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> So who's interested? Who thinks they might be able to attend? Who's for sure
> coming? Who wishes they could come but can't?

Extremely interested, but can't make it myself.

[Mike Spears - Firefly]

Geoff,

I sent you an email about a week ago. Hadn't heard back yet. Just thought I'd follow up in case you hadn't received it. 

Mike

Sent from my iPhone

[Ryan Letulle]

I am interested. 

I am, though, concerned about how productive we could be at such an event.  For example, if the language the "fill in the blank" is to be written in is something other than CFML then some of us (or at least myself personally) would feel left out :(. 

Just joking, but I would certainly be much less productive. 

By the same token if it is written in Coldfusion many others would feel helpless for about an hour then they would realize how cool it is ;).

Do we have an idea of the veritable stack we will work with?  How would we do this?

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Mike Bass]

Hey guys, great idea. Not sure if I can attend on the 12th but I'll help out however I can before hand.

-mb

 
On Monday, November 30, 2009, at 09:33PM, "Geoff Daily" <geoff...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Bryan Fuselier]

if i considered myself a developer by any definition i would participate....sadly....i'm a systems admin that produces hacked ugly code to get myself out of a bind.... plus i have my kids that weekend...will be hard for me to get away

[Geoff Daily]

Just to throw this out there, but we don't have to do this codeathon next weekend. We could push it back a week or even until after the holidays. 

While it'd be cool to have one in association with the Hackathon, it's not essential.

So if you want to participate but can't next weekend but could at a later day, speak up!

G

Sent from my iPhone

[Matthew Turland]

I share Ryan's concern: we may end up with a pool of very varied
talents, which may make having everyone participate difficult.

A few other concerns:
1) Where will the site end up being hosted? Abacus?
2) Assuming it was built in CFML (as an example), what software would
be required on the production server to run it? Would it cost
anything?

In terms of the date, I think this coming weekend is too short notice.
The two weekends following the 12th are a bit close to Christmas and
New Years, which would likely also limit attendance, so I think the
12th is probably our best shot to get it in before 2010.

My $0.02.

Regards,

Matt

[Ryan Letulle]

FYI
 

2) Assuming it was built in CFML (as an example), what software would
be required on the production server to run it? Would it cost
anything?

I run a 100% open source stack.  Centos/Ubuntu, Apache, Tomcat, Railo (Open Source CFML @ getrailo.org), MySQL 

Obviously PHP/Python is an easy add in and the above stack supports .jsp as well.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Matthew Turland]

Good to know Ryan. Probably should have clarified in my earlier
message: I can attend if the event is held on the 12th. It may be best
to wait until the day of, see what talents we have in the room, and
then decide where to go from there. It's possible we can simply code
different things using different technologies running on the same
stack.

Matt

[Bryan Fuselier]

Btw, our cloud solution came up today. I'll have the dev machine by morning with a post in the datalft.org sub committee's wave. If people wan to dev, but not be in the subcommittee, contact me off list. 

As for the mentioned code-a-thon servers, abacus can host and will free of charge. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Geoff Daily]

So it sounds like so far we have:

Matt Turland
Ryan LeTuile
Crawford Comeaux
Andre Alfred
Myself (for whatever that's worth)

Also, I have received confirmation from SF's CIO that we'll have datasf.org's code to work with. Will try to get that to you all ASAP.

Who else wants to join in on the fun? Don't make me call out your names! :)

Please continue to send the original email around to anyone else who you think should have this.

G

[Geoff Daily]

Not a bad idea, Matt. While I'd love to have as many people involved as possible, I think we're actually starting to reach a critical mass of developers to get something like the initial datalft site done.

Also, to your question Ryan about what language to use, is there any way for any of you to determine what they used to build datasf.org? I haven't gotten the code yet, but we will have it to work off of, so the easiest thing might be to just use what they did as a jumping off point, unless they used something no one else wants to.

G

[Ryan Letulle]

php/jQuery
--
Ryan LeTulle

[Ryan Letulle]

And to note, IMO from the outside looking in their system appears to be pretty much plug and play.  Besides some creative design help & text changes, programming would probably be limited (at least initially), unless someone really dislikes how they deal with an aspect or thinks they left something out.

my .02
--
Ryan LeTulle

[Bryan Fuselier]

Datasf is built in a customized drupal clone. A few mods were made for the rating system.  

Sent from my iPhone

[Ryan Letulle]

Interesting.  I wonder why the need/desire for Drupal?

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Dane]

As someone who is not a developer, I don't have much to offer in regards to all of this.  However I would really like to suggest that all of you who are and plan to develop for this project PLEASE involve design and usability folk early on in this project.

I have seen too many great ideas, web sites and applications never get used because their usability simply stunk.

Also, it seems to me that these early emails may serve as a warning sign for what lies ahead.  Seems it's pretty hard to get anyone to agree on things due to the diversity or everyones experience and not wanting to let go of what they are comfortable with.

Starting to think (NEVER) thought I would say this, but maybe there needs to be an overall project manager (yeah I don't like PMs either) for this project and is empowered to make some group decisions?

Get someone impartial to the technology but who is knowledgeable enough about things to make tie breaking decisions.

Might need to setup some leadership roles like in any group organization.

I vote Geoff as President.

I would like to be chief curmudgeon on the board.  ;-)

Just my .02

[Ryan Letulle]

Unfortunately this is a volunteer crew and they can choose to participate or not.  Someone making decisions for everyone else will be a recipe for a short lived group experience unless of course they can backup their choices with sound logic. 

I do believe we are merely having a discussion as to what's best for this project.  I actually welcome that.  I can tell you right now that most programmers are not going to develop in a language they don't want to, project manager or not.  Has less to do with being comfortable and more to do with how you spend your free time.

In this case if the software is already written as in the DataSF stuff and we are tweaking an existing project it makes all the sense in the world to continue with Drupal/PHP if that's what it is.

I thought Geoff was already president !! 

my addtl .02

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Dane]

I suspect it was used in an effort to involve / include more people with the project.  Easy content management that allows many to participate in the project, while still allowing developers to do things with pulling in all the data and making widgets or gadgets or iPhone apps or blah blah for the public.

Allows for the creative folk / designers an opportunity to help in some way with the look and feel.

Also it probably was choosen due to some of the same reasons the group isn't able to come to a consensus on what it should be done in.

I would think developers would care more about all they could do with the data side of things and not care so much about what frontend is used.

Then again I am no developer so what do I know.  

[Andre Alfred]

@Dane - yeah, good point.  My original concept was to have 2 forks - one focus on the presentation (site = a few coders + a designer), the rest have at created applications utilizing open govt datasets in the language du jour over the weekend.

[Ryan Letulle]

Right, well it's certainly extremely popular and I hear it's got some nice best practice features.  Don't know if that's all hype or not because I don't have personal experience with it. 

I personally wrote my own cms/framework and use it for all my projects.

--
Ryan LeTulle

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Dane <da...@pktloss.net> wrote:

[Geoff Daily]

Let's keep the organizational structure of the datalft project loose for right now. We can decide next Sat if we want someone to take a formal lead on managing the project.

Re: me as president, I'm honored! I'm more than happy to serve as acting president, but ultimately we should be working to having a structure in place where one of you can step up to take the lead as LFTDevNet should really be lead by a local developer rather than some DC-based non-developer.

Let's try to work towards our next meeting, either next week, later this month, or in Jan putting some of that in place.

G

[Mike Bass]

Yeah! Elections!

-mb

[Bryan Fuselier]

Just some FYI....

I turned up the vm for the datalft.org website today. We had some performance and security assessments to do that held off our cloud solution turnup. But it's up. In our subcommittee wave, I gave people the opportunity to volunteer for dev. Two people volunteered. A php developer and a coldfusion dev. After me taking too long, the php dev withdrew, so coldfusion won.

Today, we started the install of a coldfusion environment with the intent of Ray and I developing the site. I've never been a fan of cms unless I wrote it myself and was under the impression from our subcommitte meeting that a cms wasn't ideal for our situation. 

If we are going a different path, we need to adjust our plan on the subcommitte accordingly.   

Sent from my iPhone

[Andre Alfred]

Volunteers come and go.  NOT TO START A FREAKING PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE or CMS FLAME WAR - but, you should think about a lowest common denominator language and platform that people can pick up the pieces on -- as it will be necessary, because you can probably count on very few people committing their time over any discernable period.  It will be in spurts.

How about you start by voting on software development lifecycle, source control and check-in/check-out rules before talking language.  The popularity of the language or cms in the global marketplace should be the deciding factor of an open community project, not the skills of who is simply available if you are thinking about something sustainable long term.  If you build on the strengths of the few it will end up just like everything else in this town -- dead once the few get bored.  In summary  - focus on how to keep the project alive to begin with rather than just throwing something out there that will fizzle away in a few weeks - and just open it up to whoever has a free minute to do some work on it.  Look at other projects like.. oh.. say... Linux as an example.

Just my .02

[Dane]

Amen.

Andre for President!

[Bryan Fuselier]

That was one of my concerns with choosing a specific language and building from the ground up. Some thought that a custom built system would give us more flexibility later when we chose more specific routes for datalft to take. There is a concern that later on, if we choose to do something specific, a cms can limit what we are capable of doing. 

On that note, perhaps datalft should only be a clone of datasf. If something specific is chosen, we can fork an entirely different project using it's data instead of modifying the existing project. 

I've never liked to reinvent the wheel. If we just want to clone datasf, then we should just use their framework, implement it and call it a day. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 2, 2009, at 8:36 PM, Andre Alfred <aal...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Bryan Fuselier]

Forgot to mention, we have a plan to implement mercurial with a rule set for checking in and out edits and changes. It's up for suggestions and modifications that will make our process more efficient. All of this is in the sub-committee wave. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 2, 2009, at 8:36 PM, Andre Alfred <aal...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Ryan Letulle]

@Bryan
I'll hold off on the installation

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Ryan Letulle]

Starting to sound like we have way more chiefs than indians in this group.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Ryan Letulle]

me being one of the chiefs of course ;)

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Chad TheRiot]

Good Idea Bryan, I vote for this also, Clone DataSF, for now

(One Indian Vote)

[Ryan Letulle]

I agree.
--
Ryan LeTulle

[Bryan Fuselier]

Sounds like it's unanimous. Geoff, when can we get ahold of the framework they are using at datasf? I'd like to spend some time into looking into it's known vulnerabilities and figuring out how to secure ourselves from them.

[Sean Summers]

DataSF.org is using Pligg (http://www.pligg.com/), which as Bryan said
is similar to Drupal, and written for PHP4+/MySQL.

One thing that concerns me is that we are discussing _two_ projects as
if it is one project, which is confusing the issues.

A) The first project, _DataSF_ is the public facing Pligg site,
http://www.datasf.org/. The original purpose was:
'''
DataSF aims to improve access to data, help the community create
innovative apps, understand what datasets the public likes to see, and
receive feedback on the quality of the data.
'''

B) The second project, _opendata_, is now called _CivicDB_, and seems
to be a slowly developing system currently written in Django (http://
www.civicdb.org/ or http://apps.sfgov.org/opendata/index.php/Main_Page),
its purpose being:
'''
...to develop a free, open source platform to help improve public
access to raw government data in machine readable formats
'''

Project (A) requirements involve a community building site, allowing
users to search existing, suggest new, rate the quality of and comment
on data sets or feeds. I would think that this site needs the
consistency of one framework or development effort. It is also
evolving to more of a suggest an application, publish applications
(think iTunes AppStore or Android Marketplace).

Project (B) explicitly tries to include all technologies that could be
useful in the scheduling, transforming, cleaning, and republishing of
data. That project is a long term, evolving project that will
probably collect a lot of one-use crufty technologies, as it needs to
cater to the legacy sources, as well as evolve with the goals of
project #1.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I have opinions (suprise!).

The (A) project needs to be a design driven project, NOT a technology
driven one. The average citizen needs to WANT to use that site with
their iPhone, or television set (notice I didn't say RSS reader or a
specific application). It needs to be twitter easy (what's the
opposite of 'proof'? twit-charming?) for users to suggest new feeds or
uses of data, and Tivo easy (not digg busy) to thumbs-up and down
anything on the site. Twit-charming, and Tivo-easy. Contests for the
best ideas, halls of shame for the slackers (we know who they are).
This project delivers buzz and action items.

The (B) project should be a technological free for all. There are
already standards for publishing data and reading data. Really, with
just a URL, most stream objects can practically figure out how to
parse the data. It's not rocket science. What is needed for this
project is put up code, or get out of the way. Code-a-thons and
contests. Who can process more records/sec, in fewer lines of code?
Think Tim Bray's Wide Finder Benchmark. Pecha Kucha talks on how in
the heck did you do that and with what tech? This project delivers
hAtom metadata and URLs. Ready for a Web Slice, anyone?

Anyway, I'll get back to my Club-Mate now...

---
Sean

[Ryan Letulle]

put up code, or get out of the way

+1
 

--
Ryan LeTulle

[John St. Julien]

All,

Seans' analysis seems right to me...down the line. Clarified a lot for me anyway.

Thanks, John

401 St. Charles St.
Lafayette, La. 70501

Land Line: (337) 269-0150
Cell Phone: (337) 739-6118

jo...@johnstjulien.com

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. (Alan Kay)

[Andre Alfred]

John and Sean, agreed

--
Sent from my mobile device

[Bryan Fuselier]

Agreed as well.... i'll get pligg running in the am.... anyone willing to delve into it with me can contact me.

[Ryan Letulle]

Hey yall.  Sometimes I get a little passionate.  No offense.

@Bryan
Let me know how to help.  I'm a Pligg noob.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Matthew Turland]

I find the PHP 4 attribute of Pligg to be a bit bleh (PHP 5 has been
out over 3 years now), but we can run with it for starters and see if
it's a good fit.

Agreed on Sean's points.

Look forward to seeing you guys a week from Saturday.

Matt

[Ryan Letulle]

@Matt
PHP Noob Alert: Does that mean it won't run on a PHP 5? PHP 5 is not backward compatible with 4?

--
Ryan LeTulle

[William]

What if we had unique subdomains for each language and provided query/calculation results via web services?

For example, you could have coldfusion code hosted at cf.lafdev.net and php code hosted at php.lafdev.net (etc...).
The web services would deliver data in some agreed-upon format (probably XML-based but not necessarily) and would accept input parameters via querystring.

So you want to know how many people in SF pay more than 10k per year in property tax? Just query http://php.lafdev.net/query.php?r=proptax&lrange=0&hrange=10000 and parse the XML result.

We would need to keep a master list of what servers provide which queries but that could easily be stored in a wiki.

This setup would enable multiple developers to code in multiple languages. The main site would use whatever language to call these web services and display the data however the interface people see fit.

Any thoughts ?

William Ness
LEDA

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: "John St. Julien" <jo...@johnstjulien.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 2009 15:19:13
To: <lftd...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: LFTDevNet's Having Its First Codeathon! Dec 12 @ the Travis Technology Center

All,

Seans' analysis seems right to me...down the line. Clarified a lot for me anyway.

Thanks, John



On Dec 3, 2009, at 11:48 AM, Sean Summers wrote:

> DataSF.org is using Pligg (http://www.pligg.com/), which as Bryan said
> is similar to Drupal, and written for PHP4+/MySQL.
>

> One thing that concerns me is that we are discussing_two_ projects as

> if it is one project, which is confusing the issues.
>

> A) The first project,_DataSF_ is the public facing Pligg site,

> http://www.datasf.org/. The original purpose was:
> '''
> DataSF aims to improve access to data, help the community create
> innovative apps, understand what datasets the public likes to see, and
> receive feedback on the quality of the data.
> '''
>

> B) The second project,_opendata_, is now called_CivicDB_, and seems

[Mike Spears - Firefly]

Now the conversation is getting interesting. I like the way you're
thinking. So let me throw something out there...Can we build, or does
the CMS provide for Open Social containers, or an open source standard
container for the XML render.

If Open Social, then no matter the backend language, an Open Social
widget delivers the goods on the FE.

$00.02 from the non-programmer-and-just-know-enough-to-get-into-
trouble section of the group.

Mike

Sent from my iPhone

[Ryan Letulle]

Seperate domains would be one way of segmenting it although I am sure we have an Apache guru in the house that could hook us up with some real slick rewriting/redirection ala mod_ajp or ...

Something like .../fooyou/... gets sent to Tomcat for processing & something with a .php extension gets processed by php. Yata, yata

Just a thought .

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Ryan Letulle]

This is the 2009 roadmap for the civicdb (backend system) that Sean mentioned.  As Andre suggested above, the underlying technology was the second step in the process.

I think we can catch 'em.

www.civicdb.org 

2009 Road map

The list below is by no means complete but serves to highlight some of the work that needs to be completed.

• Design information architecture [July 23]
• Select underlying technologies [July  30]
• Deploy back-end prototype application [Oct 31]
• Design user interface [Sept 1]
• Deploy prototype user interface [Nov 30]
• Develop pilot and production releases [Dec 31]

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Bryan Fuselier]

We'd actually do better with seperate vm's for each technology. Apache and php will only require 512 M of ram where a ror server needs 3 gb. Nginx is a good front end to redirect traffic based on URL. 

I don't see needing this for a final solution. Maybe for a codeathon or something with different techs competing. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Chad Theriot]

If we are going to build on a hetrogeneous language platform for the different components, I would suggest using a web service style content delivery system.  The sub/multiple domain issue will not need  any kind of mod rewrite.

Con: this a much more ambitious project.  

Pro: if successful, this model it self would be worthy of mention (the EU coding platform) 

   
The rendering engine could be changed without any changes to the components.....   

Just a thought

Chad

Sent from my iPhone

[Matthew Turland]

@Ryan For the most part, anything that can run on PHP 4 should run on
PHP 5. There may be some small obscure but mostly fixable caveats. It
does tend to make error logs less useful because code from that era
often generates a lot of E_NOTICE and E_DEPRECATED errors.

I like William's idea, though I do agree with Chad that it's a more
ambitious project. However, it does get us past the hurdle of people
being able to contribute to the central platform regardless of their
skills. Additionally, if the platforms themselves are open source, it
allows others with the same skills to contribute to the project,
develop new services and features, and for those to be incorporated
into the other versions running on different platforms.

Matt

[Geoff Daily]

Everyone,

I love where these conversations are heading. I absolutely believe that we have the talent in this group to pull off amazing projects, and in doing so I think we can actually help drive the industry and inspire our peers across the country.

Case in point, in chatting with SF's CIO he made a somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment about how Lafayette drives him to innovate more so he doesn't get left behind. Well imagine how he's going to feel when we take his datasf.org concept to a whole new level!

Another sidebar thought, I'd like to suggest we try to move this dialog to Google Wave. I haven't been using it at all yet, and don't really claim to understand it fully, but I had the opportunity to meet the product manager for Google Wave in SF this week and she made a comment about how they don't have any good case studies of people actually using Wave yet. What this means is that if we use Wave to facilitate collaboration for this project then it's quite likely that Google's going to want to promote LFTDevNet as a part of their Google Wave marketing, which would be pretty cool.

Finally, as a quick teaser, I had a chance to chat with Bradley Horowitz, who leads development of a number of Google Apps. I mentioned to him that there were a bunch of developers in Lafayette who wanted a Google caching trailer installed, and his response was, "That makes sense. It'd be a win-win for both of us." Can't promise this will lead to action but I'm going to be pursuing this lead hard to see if I can make this happen for you all.

G

[Bryan Fuselier]

http://www.datalft.org/index.php

still working out some kinks

[Geoff Daily]

Just realized I should've said that we don't have to stop using email for this conversation, just that we should definitely be using Wave as I think everyone's interested in figuring out how useful it is, plus it could provide a great opportunity to help LFTDevNet raise it's national profile.

G

[Bryan Fuselier]

i created the wave and added everyone that i could remember has added to this convo so far.... feel free to add others at will

[Bryan Fuselier]

site is fully functional as far as we can tell... please hit it and look for errors or things not acting right.... and we need designers to make it ours!

[Michael Spears]

I'm not much for HTML work, but I can do some killer graphics for the site if you guys would like my help.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

[Ryan Letulle]

That's exactly what we need :)

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Bryan Fuselier]

Definitely. If you can use the same Image sizes of what's there, we'll just drop them right in. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Raymond Camden]

Unless I'm misreading you - but as a consumer of data, I don't really
care how the XML is made, right? Why would I bother going to
php.lafdev.net/query.php?...... when all I want is data. Shoot, Perl
could generate the XML for all I care.

Now if you are talking about downloading the actual _code_ so I can
add a CF parser for government service X to my app - than it makes
sense. But even then I'd probably first search by function first, then
see if it is available in my tech. CF supports Java and .Net so I
wouldn't feel the need to filter by CF only.

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 5:12 PM, William <wrn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Raymond Camden]

Where do you want errors sent? I assume not to this list. Google Wave
wouldn't be good for logging bug reports.

[Bryan Fuselier]

Good question. Unfortunately, wave is our only option I can think of.
Send off list to me for now I guess

Sent from my iPhone

[Chad TheRiot]

Groups : Second level menu is not there.

Showcase and BLOG are not published.

Otherwise, it looks like a good start.

 

Let get some pretty pictures up there Mike

 

From: Bryan Fuselier [mailto:digerat...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 12:25 PM
To: lftd...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: LFTDevNet's Having Its First Codeathon! Dec 12 @ the Travis Technology Center

 

site is fully functional as far as we can tell... please hit it and look for errors or things not acting right.... and we need designers to make it ours!

[John St. Julien]

On Dec 4, 2009, at 11:15 AM, Geoff Daily wrote in part:

Finally, as a quick teaser, I had a chance to chat with Bradley Horowitz, who leads development of a number of Google Apps. I mentioned to him that there were a bunch of developers in Lafayette who wanted a Google caching trailer installed, and his response was, "That makes sense. It'd be a win-win for both of us." Can't promise this will lead to action but I'm going to be pursuing this lead hard to see if I can make this happen for you all.401 St. Charles St.

That would be utterly and completely wonderful. And something that we've talked about for a long time. Thanks for DOING something about it!

Getting the bulk of the web on-network would be a huge win...everything that is on our LUS network is much faster. I just got finished running the numbers on DNS servers, comparing LUS' to OpenDNS, Level3, and Google's new baby. Shocking advantage to LUS, at least 10x I think...not due, I'm sure, to having the most sophisticated setup but to the raw fact that its local, fiber fast and has an adequate cache. Just think what it'd be like to access most of the web on the 100 meg intranet...the mind boggles. And if we could get apps on-network...well..damn...Lafayette Commons would love it!

John

[Michael Spears]

You should have something by end of day

[Raymond Camden]

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 2:07 PM, John St. Julien <jo...@johnstjulien.com> wrote:
> Getting the bulk of the web on-network would be a huge win...everything that
> is on our LUS network is much faster. I just got finished running the
> numbers on DNS servers, comparing LUS' to OpenDNS, Level3, and Google's new
> baby. Shocking advantage to LUS, at least 10x I think...not due, I'm sure,
> to having the most sophisticated setup but to the raw fact that its local,
> fiber fast and has an adequate cache. Just think what it'd be like to access
> most of the web on the 100 meg intranet...the mind boggles. And if we could
> get apps on-network...well..damn...Lafayette Commons would love it!
> John

Um, yeah, I think we need to make a rule. No bragging about LUS Fiber
until we all have access to it. ;)

[Michael Spears]

Bryan,

Please put either of the graphics up so that I can see how it integrates. I suppose I'll need to make a few mods to it once I see it in the template. Email me when you've loaded it. Thanks.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 4, 2009, at 12:54 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

[Bryan Fuselier]

done

[Ryan Letulle]

I am kinda diggin it already.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Mike Bass]

Yeah, lookin' good so far guys.

-mb

On Dec 4, 2009, at 5:39 PM, Ryan Letulle wrote:

I am kinda diggin it already.

--
Ryan LeTulle

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Bryan Fuselier <digerat...@gmail.com> wrote:

done

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

Bryan,

Please put either of the graphics up so that I can see how it integrates. I suppose I'll need to make a few mods to it once I see it in the template. Email me when you've loaded it. Thanks.

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

<datalftheader_grey.jpg>

[Michael Spears]

Bryan,

Try this one. It should look better.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 4, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

done

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

Bryan,

Please put either of the graphics up so that I can see how it integrates. I suppose I'll need to make a few mods to it once I see it in the template. Email me when you've loaded it. Thanks.

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

<datalftheader_grey.jpg>

[Bryan Fuselier]

looks like the gray edging you put on it doesn't quite match

[Ryan Letulle]

Looks like it matches the "active" nav tho.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Bryan Fuselier]

w00t..... everyone can register now if they like.

[Ryan Letulle]

what was it?
--
Ryan LeTulle

[Geoff Daily]

Couple quick thoughts to throw out there:

- How can we improve on the functionality of the original site? I'm doing some thinking about this and will try to get thoughts out to folk this weekend.

- Is there any way we can build upon this framework with the idea of creating a site that could house not just local data but state and federal as well? It might get too complex to try and have it all exist on the same site, but it could be cool if as soon as we finished datalft.org we could enable a datalouisiana.org site. Even cooler is if the work we do could help inform the creation of a national public data store. Just wanted to throw this idea out there in case it sparked any thoughts in others.

G

[Bryan Fuselier]

missing php-net-smtp package...along with configuring php with the sendmail path.

[Ryan Letulle]

Geoff,

I am confident that our team will find many ways to improve this project.  SF has really just scratched the surface.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Michael Spears]

yeah. something to do with the compression. I'll work on that.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 4, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

looks like the gray edging you put on it doesn't quite match

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

Bryan,

Try this one. It should look better.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

[Matthew Turland]

On Dec 4, 12:54 pm, Raymond Camden <rcam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Unless I'm misreading you - but as a consumer of data, I don't really
> care how the XML is made, right? Why would I bother going to
> php.lafdev.net/query.php?...... when all I want is data. Shoot, Perl
> could generate the XML for all I care.

Availability / appropriateness of data formats is another reason. It
would make more sense to offer a serialized PHP version from
php.lafdev.net and an AMF version for cf.lafdev.net, for example. Just
a thought.

Matt

[Michael Spears]

Try something else. Add this pattern to the body tag. Let's see how that looks.

<body BACKGROUND="background.jpg" bgproperties=fixed ....

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 4, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

looks like the gray edging you put on it doesn't quite match

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

Bryan,

Try this one. It should look better.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

[Raymond Camden]

AMF isn't CF specific. It's as neutral as WSDL. I'm telling ya - folks
will care about the format (XML, WSDL, JSON, JSON/P), but not what
delivers it.

--
===========================================================================
Raymond Camden, ColdFusion Jedi Master

Email : r...@camdenfamily.com
Blog : www.coldfusionjedi.com
AOL IM : cfjedimaster

Keep up to date with the community: http://www.coldfusionbloggers.org

[Matthew Turland]

On Dec 4, 6:54 pm, Raymond Camden <rcam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> AMF isn't CF specific. It's as neutral as WSDL. I'm telling ya - folks
> will care about the format (XML, WSDL, JSON, JSON/P), but not what
> delivers it.

So you'd have no problem with it being done in PHP then. Great! ;)

[Michael Spears]

Bryan,

Try this one. Instead of changing the color, I tweaked the rule weight.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 4, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

looks like the gray edging you put on it doesn't quite match

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

Bryan,

Try this one. It should look better.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

[Ryan Letulle]

datalouisiana.org

Heh, datala.org is available.

--
Ryan LeTulle

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Geoff Daily <geoff...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Michael Spears]

Stay tuned. I want to create several other versions of this image, moving the people in the image. I'll provide some javascript to randomly load the different headers for a little subtle fun. I need to add a girl or two, otherwise we'll get third degree from abigail et al ;-)

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 4, 2009, at 7:02 PM, Michael Spears wrote:

Bryan,

Try this one. Instead of changing the color, I tweaked the rule weight.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

[Ryan Letulle]

Lookin good Mike.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Ryan Letulle]

This one is up now.
--
Ryan LeTulle

[Abigail Ransonet]

Well guys I have been following this thread all week and I am so impressed.  Collaboration, cooperation, all preferences set aside and dataLAF rises to the desktop.

 

And yes, in most of these threads I had to question if I had joined some club of real ‘aliens’ with a language too foreign for me to translate.

 

Another part of me sees one of the goals of Zydetech in its most organic/dynamic form, to encourage a competitive environment that promotes the greatest access to and value from technology.

 

Keep warm, AMR

---

[Ryan Letulle]

@mike

Background is up.

--
Ryan LeTulle

[Michael Spears]

@bryan

OK. I've hacked together something that should work. Attached is the HTML and the images for the random load.

I'm not satisfied with the background. Attached is an alternate version.

Thanks for all the legwork. Great job!

Just let me know what else you need regarding graphics, etc.

[Ryan Letulle]

Mike, there's a little white edge on ur background.

--
Ryan LeTulle

On Dec 4, 2009, at 8:26 PM, Ryan Letulle wrote:

@mike

Background is up.

--
Ryan LeTulle

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Abigail Ransonet <abi...@amrllc.net> wrote:

Well guys I have been following this thread all week and I am so impressed.  Collaboration, cooperation, all preferences set aside and dataLAF rises to the desktop.

 

And yes, in most of these threads I had to question if I had joined some club of real ‘aliens’ with a language too foreign for me to translate.

 

Another part of me sees one of the goals of Zydetech in its most organic/dynamic form, to encourage a competitive environment that promotes the greatest access to and value from technology.

 

Keep warm, AMR

---

From: Michael Spears [mailto:msp...@fireflydigital.com]
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 7:09 PM

To: lftd...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: LFTDevNet's Having Its First Codeathon! Dec 12 @ the Travis Technology Center

 

Stay tuned. I want to create several other versions of this image, moving the people in the image. I'll provide some javascript to randomly load the different headers for a little subtle fun. I need to add a girl or two, otherwise we'll get third degree from abigail et al ;-)

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

 

 

On Dec 4, 2009, at 7:02 PM, Michael Spears wrote:

Bryan,

 

Try this one. Instead of changing the color, I tweaked the rule weight.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

 

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

 

 

On Dec 4, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

looks like the gray edging you put on it doesn't quite match

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

Bryan,

 

Try this one. It should look better.

 

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

 

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

 

 

On Dec 4, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

 

done

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

Bryan,

 

Please put either of the graphics up so that I can see how it integrates. I suppose I'll need to make a few mods to it once I see it in the template. Email me when you've loaded it. Thanks.

 

<datalftheader_blue.jpg>

 

<datalftheader_grey.jpg>

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

 

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

 

 

On Dec 4, 2009, at 12:54 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

 

Definitely. If you can use the same Image sizes of what's there, we'll just drop them right in. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 4, 2009, at 12:41 PM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

I'm not much for HTML work, but I can do some killer graphics for the site if you guys would like my help.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

 

 

 

On Dec 4, 2009, at 12:24 PM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

[Dane DeValcourt]

Well heck.. then I guess you guys won't need the logo I have been working on.

Still honing my photoshop skills.

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Ryan Letulle <bayo...@gmail.com> wrote:

That's exactly what we need :)

[Michael Spears]

@bryan

Here's an updated version of the background, without the white edge. Is there anyway you can make the background static, meaning when the page scrolls, it stays in place? Thanks.

@ryan 

Thanks!

[Michael Spears]

@bryan

doh! the image is attached here.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 4, 2009, at 10:36 PM, Ryan Letulle wrote:

[Bryan Fuselier]

gonna get on this in a little bit Mike... we might want to keep this convo off list from here on out.... I've never seen a 100 email thread before...haha

[Ryan Letulle]

@b
I'm putting in the new bg right now
--
Ryan LeTulle

[Dane DeValcourt]

Couldn't we move this to the wave from here on out?  I think it would be a great use case as Geoff had mentioned earlier.  No reason that everything that has been done here in the email thread couldn't be done in the wave.

If anyone needs a wave invite just let me know.  Plenty of invites and Google is pushing them out quick now.

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 9:27 AM, Bryan Fuselier <digerat...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Michael Spears]

Bryan,

Here's the banner, the first banner in the left column.

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 5, 2009, at 9:27 AM, Bryan Fuselier wrote:

gonna get on this in a little bit Mike... we might want to keep this convo off list from here on out.... I've never seen a 100 email thread before...haha

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

@bryan

doh! the image is attached here.

<background.jpg>

[Michael Spears]

I don't use the email, but my wave address is lucky...@gmail.com

Best Regards,

Mike Spears

President & CEO

------------------------------------------------

337-269-0299

spe...@fireflydigital.com

------------------------------------------------

Firefly Digital

WORLD CLASS WEB SOLUTIONS

On Dec 5, 2009, at 9:52 AM, Dane DeValcourt wrote:

Couldn't we move this to the wave from here on out?  I think it would be a great use case as Geoff had mentioned earlier.  No reason that everything that has been done here in the email thread couldn't be done in the wave.

If anyone needs a wave invite just let me know.  Plenty of invites and Google is pushing them out quick now.

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 9:27 AM, Bryan Fuselier <digerat...@gmail.com> wrote:

gonna get on this in a little bit Mike... we might want to keep this convo off list from here on out.... I've never seen a 100 email thread before...haha

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Michael Spears <msp...@fireflydigital.com> wrote:

@bryan

doh! the image is attached here.

<background.jpg>

[Bryan Fuselier]

To All:

This conversation has been moved to the google wave environment. Please join it here: https://wave.google.com/wave/?pli=1#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252B5tu9qVsrC.1

Thank you,

Bryan F.