Last August, I was designing a website for a client and wanted to pull my hair out when a problem would arise and I couldn’t find a quick solution for it. “Why does this work in Firefox, but not IE?” or “How do I style a menu using CSS to look the way I want it to look?” Bumbling around the Internet to find answers was becoming tiresome. I only had a few people to turn to for help and felt like I was depleting my resources. It was time for me to reach out and extend my network.

I googled San Diego groups with a focus on web design and development and found the San Diego Web Technologies Group Meetup. Everyone was welcoming and the group’s organizer, Justin Grant, of Lambesis Inc., made a point to introduce himself to me, as he does with all newcomers. There was a presentation on how to install Joomla!, a demonstration of FusionCharts and ample time to network. I’ve become one of the assistant organizers of the group and attend the meetings on a consistent basis. I always leave the meeting with a new tool in my toolbox and am pleased to have a network to contact, if I get stumped on a project.

Last Thursday, I attended the most recent SDWTG Meetup at the Hampton Inn in San Marcos. The first presentation by Ryan Belong, of Studio 3-G, was titled “Design Resources for the Non-Designer”. There was a discussion about the differences between a designer and a developer and web design resources were shared among the group. The second presentation explored Object-Oriented PHP, which encourages the recycling of code in different projects and the customization of classes through inheritance.

The San Diego Web Technologies Group meets on the third Thursday of every month. The next meeting is on May 15th at 7 p.m at the Hampton Inn in San Marcos. For more information, you can visit the group’s website or check out their Meetup profile.

Popularity: 12% [?]