St. Louis User and Tech Group Bowling Holiday Extravaganza 2011

In case you were wondering what I meant when I said "plans are still coming together for December," here you go...

It's that time of year again, when lots of St. Louis tech folks get together to demonstrate their bowling prowess, or the lack thereof!

Festivities start at 6:30pm on Tuesday, December 13th, at the same place as last year:

   Tropicana Lanes
   7960 Clayton Road
   Richmond Heights, Missouri 63117
   http://tropicanalanes.com/

This time around, we've got enough lanes reserved for about 25 people to bowl simultaneously, or more if people switch out. Of course, you're also welcome to eat, drink, and socialize without doing the bowling thing.

Go here to let us know you're planning to attend (or strongly considering it):

   http://stltechbowl2011.eventbrite.com/

It won't actually be free to bowl; we're just not going to collect money during registration. If you're bowling, $10 will get you 3 games and a pair of shoes, which is a pretty awesome deal. (If you're not bowling, then hey, just show up. Hanging out is free.)

Bowling starts at 7pm, but we recommend getting there a little early to get shoes, pick out a ball, etc.

Hope to see you there!

November and December schedule

Hi all!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we're skipping the November meeting, since it's scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving. Just think vimmy thoughts while you're eating turkey and we'll call it even.

Plans are still coming together for December, but one thing's already certain: we won't be meeting on December 28th. Watch for more information soon.

Thanks!
Bill

Markdown (and a little Vim) at SLUUG this Wednesday, November 9th, at 6:30pm

Scott Granneman and I are doing this tomorrow evening:

Introduction to Markdown
by Scott Granneman & Bill Odom

SLUUG St. Louis Unix Users Group
http://www.sluug.org/
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 - 6:30pm

Graybar Electric Co, Inc.
11885 Lackland Road, Maryland Heights, MO 63146

John Gruber, one of the inventors of Markdown, explains that Markdown began as a way to "write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)... The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions."

Markdown has grown far beyond its HTML-centric roots, however, and people now use it to generate documents in a huge variety of formats. Even so, the clean, simple syntax remains -- Markdown documents are still good ol' plain text, and are still as human-readable as ever.

This talk by Scott Granneman & Bill Odom will cover the basics of Markdown's syntax, key variants of Markdown, tools for composing Markdown (including Vim, of course!), and ways you can easily transform a plain text file written in Markdown into HTML, JSON, TXT, LaTeX, man, MediaWiki, Textile, DocBook XML, ODT, EPUB, Slidy and S5 HTML and JavaScript slide shows, RTF, or even Word!

Hope to see you there!