How to get to Viveli

March 6th, 2010

Someone left a comment last month, and we got another one this month – people are having a hard time finding Viveli. And, I can’t really blame them. It’s not immediately obvious where they are. So, I recorded the final leg of my trip this month:

I normally get off 355 at Higgins and turn right onto National Pkwy, but I was so eager to get this recorded that I accidentally turned at Meacham. No harm done. Either way works, the important part is to turn into the first office park past the Doubletree on Woodfield Rd. and go around to the building in the back.

I noticed this month that the sign on the side of the road doesn’t say “1100″ on it, which might explain why people haven’t been finding the place. Hopefully this video will clear up some of the confusion.

Here’s a map to get there from 355 (Higgins to National Pkwy to Woodfield Rd):


View Larger Map

And here’s a closeup showing to turn in the second driveway (the one past the Doubletree) and kind of showing the driveway that goes around the building:


View Larger Map

Make Web Not War – Microsoft’s Slides

March 5th, 2010

Wow, big thanks to Dave Bost for the Rosati’s Pizza and an excellent presentation on Microsoft’s web products. And thanks to all of you who came out and joined us for over two hours of exciting information, questions, and networking. Everyone who was there got a free t-shirt and a Visual Studio license, an amazing deal. And now I have a box of raffle giveaways for months to come.

Dave posted his Make Web Not War notes & links on his blog at davebost.com. Here are his slides:

Also, don’t forget to check out the website for the Mix conference, running from March 15-17. This is Microsoft’s annual web designer & developer conference, and they’ll have live streams of the presentations during the conference. After a few days, Dave says they’ll have on-demand streams available too.

Since a few people asked, here’s a link to Microsoft Expression, Microsoft’s new development environment for web programming.

If you enjoyed last night’s presentation, be sure to check out Dave’s Thirsty Developer postcast, rate our meetup at meetup.com, and stay tuned for next month’s meetup announcement for our PHP IDE showdown.

Web development podcasts: Doctype and Boagworld

February 25th, 2010

Did you lose interest in Lost? Did singing on American Idol stop being your American dream? Feed your mind with two great podcasts.

Doctype is a weekly video show for web designers and developers. Since this is a video podcast, they’re able to show as well as tell about techniques for building attractive, functional web sites. In the first 13 episodes, Nick and Jim have covered diverse topics ranging from the importance of whitespace to combatting Cross-Site Request Forging.

Each episode runs 10-15 minutes, making it a great way to start the day or a quick watch before bed.

Paul and Marcus just celebrated the 200th episode of the weekly Boagworld.com podcast with a 12 hour live broadcast. They run Headscape, a web design agency in England (my wife loves Paul’s accent) in addition to running the Boagworld.com blog, Audio Boos, and podcast. The weekly episodes provide and hour of amusing banter, horrible jokes, and tips on designing web sites; running an agency; and freelancing. The Audio Boos are Paul’s daily “deep thoughts” lasting under three minutes.

Listen!

You can enjoy either of these programs in your browser, or subscribe to them in iTunes or your favorite podcatching program. Plug your phone or MP3 player into your car stereo, and they’re a great alternative to the morning zoo or talk radio.