The Arduino looks like an awesome piece of kit and I wish I had one all those years ago. A affordable programmable chip using open-source software with a programming language based on a simplified version of c/c++. Expandable with an array of ‘shields’, you can add on things like motor controllers or Ethernet. Makes me want to buy one and get the old components box out of the loft.

The next step for hobbyists and for education are the Raspberry Pi and the Beaglebone which are fully functioning computers. Both of these run various flavours of Linux on the board and you can even run Android on the Beaglebone. The beaglebone is more advanced due to its maturity and like the Arduino, many expansion boards including LCD touch screens are a must. Thanks to Tony Dixon for bringing his Raspberry Pi along and making everyone green with envy!

A short talk on 3D printing by Cay Green provided an interesting insight into the history, hardware and software behind the technology.

To explore more about Hardware Hacking and the like, you can join like minded people at MarkerSpace in Newcastle.

Some links to resources of interest:

• http://arduino.cc/
• http://www.raspberrypi.org/
• http://beagleboard.org/bone/
• http://www.makerspace.org.uk/

This month was by far the biggest I have been to with over 100 attendees. Many thanks to all those who organised and presented at this months event (sorry I cannot credit everyone as I forgot to take names!).

I put forward the suggestion that we use the ever popular WordPress blogging tool to create a new site for SuperMondays to manage the job postings. I set about creating the theme, which included a new name for the site ‘SuperJobs’. Using a standard post, along with custom fields and categories, the site now features a landing page with a list of the currently posted vacancies that links to a full information page. A category list helps a user to filter the vacancy list.

Visit the website at jobs.supermondays.org.

While waiting for the tea to brew and the soup to arrive, I took a moment to look around. Considering a noisy busy bus route was outside, the room was surprisingly quiet with a little ambient music playing in the background. It was similar to a Japanese tea room adorned with bamboo and wicker furniture and a traditional Japanese seating area. The red/brown tea was light and pleasant with a hint of a malty flavour which was a nice change from the usual strong teas I drink. I enjoyed the soup with its accompanying wholemeal roll.

Along with the extensive range of tea, Tea Sutra also offers complementary therapies from acupuncture to massage. But no coffee – the owner is a purist!

Tea Sutra is the perfect place for tea connoisseurs to chill out and enjoy a brew.

You can visit Tea Sutra’s website at http://teasutra.co.uk/

•  developed a new marketing website for my employer, Newcastle Building Society and the related micro-sites.
• I designed and developed a new WordPress theme for the SuperMondays website – this is a IT user group I regularly attend that features talks about a range of topics.
• I started a personal project called the Digital Event Board to share events, conferences and training with IT professionals.
• Refreshed my portfolio and blog design
• Attended the DIBI Conference
• Started learning asp.net with c#.

Add to functions.php

• $categoryslug = the category slug of posts to display
• $incexcerpt = set to true or false if the post excerpt is to be included on the list.
• $numberposts = total posts to display – I used 9999 for an approximate infinity.

// Get Posts in a certain category
 function getPostsByCategory($categoryslug, $incexcerpt, $numberposts) {        
 global $post;
 $args = array(         
 'numberposts'     => $numberposts,
 'category_name' => $categoryslug,  
 'post_status'   => 'publish',
 'orderby'       => 'post_date',
 'order'         => 'DESC');
 $myposts = get_posts( $args );
 foreach( $myposts as $post ) :    setup_postdata($post);
 $excerptcontent = "";
 if ($incexcerpt == 'true') {
 $excerptcontent = '<br />' . get_the_excerpt();
 }
 echo '<li><a href="' . get_permalink() . '"><strong>' . get_the_title() . '</strong>' . $excerptcontent . '</a></li>';
 endforeach;
 if (count($myposts) == 0) {
 echo '<li>No posts found</li>';
 }
 }

Add to template or page.

This should be outside the loop.

<h2>Posts by category</h2> <ul> <?php getPostsByCategory('category-name', 'true', 9999); ?> </ul>

More information can be found in the WordPress Codex.

Call me Delia: A tale of good design – Leanne Johnson

After missreading the overview of this talk and thinking it was a talk on kitchen design from a leading kitchen company; don’t know how I thought that (Mobious/Moben perhaps?)

Anyway; Leanne @minxlj from Mobious Marketing Agency talked about what makes a good design.  A very useful high level design talk which shows us what we need to do to create a good design by looking at is functional workflow – how the users will use the website – before we make it look fancy.  She also talked about the critical ingredients that make a good design – from personality to simplicity to colour.

You can view the slides via Slideshare and the presentation notes also via Slideshare.

HTML5 apps for iOS (and probably beyond) – Andy Far

Andy took us through the development of iOS apps using html5 and css3 which will allow developers to develop cross platform apps for mobile devices which will also work on screen.  Built using html5 and css3, the app showed us to look at ways to build responsive websites and gave a realworld example in the form of Unflappable which also had some nice design techniques on display.

Find the slides at Slideshare and the app at http://unflappable.semibad.com/

CMS design integration/theming – Richard Carter

Richards talk on integrating and theming websites with various popular contnent managament systems showed us the problems encountered with working with a CMS and discussed the ways different CMS work and how to start with a blank theme.

Richards slides can be found on his website: http://www.earlgreyandbattenburg.co.uk/2011/08/cms-design-integration-supermondays-talk-richard-carter/

Moving on to the speakers. Here are a couple of reviews on the talks that were useful to me…

I found Ian Oxley’s presentation on HTML5 Form Validation very informative with clear, concise and easy to digest slides.  It helped me gain an understanding of the technology, its limitations and fixes for the rusty old browsers such as IE (I was disappointed to see that IE9 doesn’t support this function). His slides can be found on Slideshare and are ideal for an introduction and reference point on the subject.

Alex Kavanagh’s passionate talk on A whirlwind history of copyright and what it means for the 21st century, covering copyrights history from its origins to the present day.  It contained many surprises for me and helped clarify a few points on copyright.  I did not know that copyright in some countries lasts up to 90 years! And for some that this is not enough with corporations such as Disney pushing for regulations such as the The Mickey Mouse Protection Act to protect their own commercial interests.

Richard Powel gave a concise introduction on HTML5 canvas that was very interesting, showing that with very little code, you can have some cool animation, graphs and effects on your website.  No more learning bloomin Flash and ActionScript to achieve the same effect – if the browser supports it…