Return on Intention

Upgrade NM has now come to close and we successfully completed the two projects we worked toward. We set out to rework 1st-mile.com and our own Upgrade NM site and we made it. Of course as with all web projects the work is never really done, but at the end of the weekend we accomplished what we set out to do. 

The 1st-mile project has been posted on the Upgrade NM server so people can poke at it and see what it looks like. You can also see the origional version of the 1st-mile site at 1st-mile.com. You can also look at the new Upgrade NM site and make a suggestion for the next go around, or sign up to participate next time. 

Overall this was a lot more relaxed that the sprint we did last year, probably because of the extra day we had this time. Somethings remained the same; however, like the bottle-necks that happen waiting for one person to get something done before another person can start their part. I guess that is just the nature of the beast with this type of activity. It was also fun like last time. Something magical happens when a bunch of like minded people get together to get something done. I think we all learned something along the way as well, which is always a good thing. 

I guess this kind of thing is starting to gain some momentum. Here locally we have done two of these events, but this morning as I noticed that WOW was having an Extreme Markover. I guess we all like to help out and give back.

For more information check out my previous post for what happened yesterday and see some of the work in progress. You can also check out “My Weekend with Upgrade NM” on A Blog Not Limited (from Emily Lewis) or “UpgradeNM Sprint #1” on Story to Tell (from Daniel Lyons) to read their account of the weekend. You can also see photos on flickr by searching for ”Upgrade NM”.

THE PARTICIPANTS

Here is a list of people who helped out, and basically what they did:

• Michael Bernstein - Plone & Python developer - back end integration and upgrading of the 1st-mile site
• Markie Casias - Javascript - Wrangled some jquery for the 1st-mile site
• Reid Givens - Design, Mark-up and a dabble of jquery - Designed both sites, did the mark-up for Upgrade NM and did a tiny bit of jquery for the 1st-mile widget
• Emily Lewis - Mark-up and content development - Content creation for 1st-mile, did the mark-up for 1st-mile and tweaked the mark-up for the Upgrade NM site to make it more accessible and to allow for graceful degradation.
• Daniel Lyons - Programmer - Wrote he back end for the Upgrade NM site with Gabe and helped sort out the tough stuff on the 1st-mile homepage widget.
• Jack Moffitt - Quality Assurance and Programming - Tested the sites for bugs and helped sanitize the data input for Upgrade NM.
• Gabe Ortiz - Programmer - Wrote the back end for the Upgrade NM site with Daniel
• Eric Renz-Whitmore - logistics and content - Eric, while not a web developer, was helpful in making sure we had the space, internet access, power, food, Mountain Dew and also helped pull some content for the 1st mile site. 

It’s really early in the morning and here I am writing about Upgrade NM day 1. I guess it’s not that early, but earlier than I want to be awake for today. Oh well, we’re not gonna stop now, we had a good day yesterday and I think we will meet success today for this years Upgrade NM.

Upgrade NM is like the sprint we did last year. It’s an event where many New Mexico web developers get together and try to do a complete web site build in a short period of time. Last year it was a day and this year we are using the weekend. The event last from 8am to 8pm both Saturday and Sunday and all planning and work must be completed in those hours. This year we are redesigning, upgrading, adding functionality and new content to the 1st-mile.com website. We are also going to build the UpgradeNM.org site so in the future we can involve the community in the process of identifying projects and participants for future Upgrade events. 

We do it as a way of giving back to our community and to show the local area that there is talent here that accomplish these types of projects. Often this kind of work gets outsources out of state, and there is not good reason for it. We have a great talent pool right here in town. It’s also fun just to get all of us together and see what we can do, and help out some folks who might not be able to get this level of help normally. 

So here we are about to start day two and we are looking pretty good. We have a new design and and some new content we need to get integrated into an update version of plone that is running the current 1st-mile site. We also have the design and front end markup for the UpgradeNM site and we just need to build out the back end. So far its been a great run and think we have enough done and enough time to finish it. Keep a look out to hear more after today is over to see how far it all got.

Here is the original 1st mile site:

Here is our current version:

Here is the current media-wiki install for UpgradeNM:

Here is the new design for Upgrade NM:

Here is who participated today:

• Reid Givens (of course)
• Jack Moffitt
• Emily Lewis
• Michael Bernstein
• Mark Casias
• Eric Renz-Whitmore

Its official, Obama has won the American Presidency. As I was watching the coverage of the election on MSNBC.com, at least twice it was mentioned that the Obama campaign will go down in history as one of the best run and innovative in many many years. The primary means of his win, according to the MSNBC broadcast, was the internet. Is there any doubt left that the internet is changing the world?

Its amazing to me that I have been in New Mexico for over 5 years and it was only recently that I found that there is intelligent life in the web community. Today was the first ABQ web geeks meetup that I attended, and after this last weekends barcamp, I am happy to report that there is a good, smart web community in New Mexico. 

I was astounded that around 40 people showed up to O’Neils Pub on Central Ave tonight from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. There they were, real web folks. Some were shop owners, some were with start-ups, some were employees, but all were on top of their game. There wasn’t a table based layout in sight. I even heard that a large NM ad agency is working studiously to get their design department up to speed on the web. That may not sound huge, but for NM its a good step in the right direction.

Maybe its just me, still high from the excitement of a thriving community, but I think its time for another sprint. A big one. Keep your eyes peeled at the ABQ web geeks community at Duke City Fix, the Refresh Albuquerque Google group and this blog for more information. 

I would love to see this sprint take on not one, but two or three non-profit websites in a weekend. Get ready…. This is going to be good.

This isn’t my official post BarCamp post, but it will have to do for now. My router was in use throughout barcamp, so when I got home at night I had no internets. I haven’t really had a chance to blog about barcamp, post flickr photos or anything else and now that the event is over, I’m sick. I guess I should be thankful that I got through at least half of BarCamp before getting sick, but it now leaves me feeling completely drained and fuzzy headed. So, I will have to write a meaningful post later, but in short, BarCamp Albuquerque Rocked. I am super happy with how it all turned out. I have hours of audio to go through, and I will publish what came through as I get them done. I have a lot of crazy deadlines right now, so please be patient, but until I return, watch this… again (this isn’t new, but still great).

Apple released the new itunes this week, and the key feature to watch is “genius”. In the new itunes, select a track and press the genius button (the little atom icon) and you will get a playlist from your music collection that go great with the track you picked. When you have a music library as a large as my business partner Daniel Lyons does, this feature works out really well. Of course, there is another side to the story that is good for people looking for new music, and for Apple.

The genius feature can also give you a list of the songs that will go great with your selection that you don’t own yet, but with an apple id, you can buy them in one click. From what we tested today, there are a lot of songs that Dan needs . . . and each one is only 99 cents away. I think I hear a “cha-ching” off in the distance… to the west… from southern california… 

Google launched "Chrome" - their new web browser today. This is pretty exciting for web developers, as the speed of chrome is way faster than any other browser. Here is the speed report according to cnet.

There is a really cool story behind chrome that google has here . Its in comic book form which I think is great because they break down some of the technology into graphics that are easier for non-web junckies to understand. Its even better that the whole initiative is open source. Any other browser can use some of the real innovations that google has come up with. Why? As google put it, "We live on the internet". Their economic engine is tied to people using the web. The better their web experience the more they will use the web. Better browsers = better internet.  It makes great sense for them, more than trying to create another source of revenue from yet another web browser.

There isn’t a mac version yet, so I had to borrow my sons Vista laptop to see it in action. (I know, I can’t beleive he bought a windows machine either.) So far, its really awsome. If you run Vista, go download it here .