Refresh Pittsburgh

A reminder to all our members that this weekend is the 24 Hour Creative Marathon organized by our good buddy Josh Sager.  Some of you may remember Josh when he gave a great presentation on producing a web comic at our first meeting.

The 24 Hour Creative Marathon is a two-part event, beginning with a 24-hour artistic marathon and culminating in a gallery show and sale the following day. Beginning Friday, September 28th, at 8pm, artists will have 24 hours to create a piece of work pertaining to the theme “Lost and Found.” Registration is FREE for marathon participation.

It’s shaping up to be a really cool event for both makers of art and fans of art.  Visit the website for more information on how you can participate.

On a personal note, one of my door-shifts is late Friday night, so feel free to come out and talk about Refresh and maybe, um, bring some coffee!

Our next meeting will at 7:00 pm on Thursday, September 6th at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue.

We currently have 3 presentation on tap for the evening:

Jason Head will start the evening by giving a review and a demo of  Wufoo. Wufoo describes itself as “an Internet application that helps anybody build amazing online forms”. I recently  found myself using Wufoo on the recommendation of a friend and I was extremely impressed. I’ll show you how easy it is to use not just for it’s  form processing, but also for it’s amazing form-builder. I’ll even remember the power-cord for my laptop this time!

Next, Val Head will be giving a presentation on “Fun with Definition Lists”. She’s going to show you  some valuable and neat CSS tricks to go along with this often-overlooked (x)html element.

Finally, Kevin German from the Pittsburgh-based company CastGrabber, LLC will be on-hand to  show off their extremely cool product “CastGrabber“. CastGrabber is an internet-appliance that allows you to download Podcasts,  anywhere in the world, directly to your iPod/MP3 player without the need for a PC. It’s a neat product that is being developed  right here in Pittsburgh.

It’s shaping up to be an interesting meeting with a little something for everyone. Like last time, we should have a few give-aways, hot coffee and maybe even some soda if I remember to pick it up this time!

To get to the Creative Treehouse, please visit our directions page. It’s a very short  drive. If anyone needs a ride or has some extra room in their car, please post on our message board to connect with some other  folks.

If you will be attending, please RSVP to info@refreshpittsburgh.org by  September 4th, so we have a good idea of how many attendees to expect.

We know your time is precious, so we’ve decided to save some of it by providing you with a shortcut to our web site. Refresh Pittsburgh is proud to present: refpgh.org

Brilliant!

We’re excited to announce the next meeting of Refresh Pittsburgh!

Our next meeting will at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, July 25th at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue.

Jason Head will be starting the evening with a presentation on Mailbuild. He’ll show you how to use their service to create newsletter templates for your clients. Mailbuild allows your client to use it’s easy CMS-like system to create e-mail newsletters based on templates you design. It also allows you to to generate income every time they send a campaign.

Josh Sager will be presenting “Web Comics on the Internet: From Analog to Digital”. Learn more about web comic process from concept and Illustration to scanning and publishing. Leveraging technologies like MySQL, PHP, Blogger, XHTML, and CSS you can create a CMS to support your drawing, sketching, or art habit.

We’ll also have one copy each of NetNewsWire, FeedDemon and TopStyle Pro to give away, thanks to our friends at Newsgator.

To get to the Creative Treehouse, please visit our directions page. It’s a very short drive. If anyone needs a ride or has some extra room in their car, please post on our message board to connect with some other folks.

If you will be attending, please RSVP to info@refreshpittsburgh.org by July 23rd, so we have a good idea of how many attendees to expect. And by all means, please forward this information to anyone you like.

If you are not on our mailing list, you can view our most recent newsletter.  Please check it out for additional group news and information.