Preamble: Firstly, check out The Alternate Diff blog for more things to do in Cardiff (found via a profile on the Cardiff Blogs blog). Secondly, I’ve created a new page to serve as a public editorial calendar for this blog. It’s going to serve mostly to remind me about upcoming blogging topics, but those may frequently be local events so there’ll be some overlap.

Onto the events…

GamesDev South Wales – Wednesday 30th January

Upstairs in O’Neill’s (Trinity Street) at 7.30.

Everyone interested in the games development industry is welcome: AAA, indie, mobile, social, desktop or whatever. Students and hobbyists, too! We gossip, drink, rant about various games-related topics, and occasionally have people showing off their latest work.

There’s also a lecture session planned for Thursday 28th February. Scroll down for details.

Follow @gamesdevsw.

Upstairs at 33 Windsor Place from 7ish.

thinkARK are a volunteer group / social club for people interested in making communities better through fun, engaging and collaborative projects. In addition to this monthly meetup, they hold a weekly Wednesday Club.

Details of times and places seem to be in flux, so ask @thinkARK on Twitter for details, or send them an email.

Project Cardiff exhibition – 2nd–24th February 2013

At the Milkwood Gallery (Opening Times: Wednesday – Saturday, 11.00am – 5.00pm).

The Project Cardiff exhibition consists of a portfolio of photographs of people who have been identified as making a positive contribution to the creative life and soul of the city.

Follow @ProjectCardiff.

unified.diff – Wednesday 6th February

At O’Neils, Trinity Street.

No speakers announced yet, but you can get an idea of what to expect from the videos of previous talks. Follow @UnifiedDiff for updates.

Design Wars: The Designers Strike Back – Wednesday February 6th

Time and venue to be confirmed.

Tag-Teams of multi-disciplined designers will take on a collaborative design challenge to illustrate, cut, paste and layout a design, culminating in a fight-club style showcase to flex their design skills to the max. There can only be one team winner and the audience will decide.

RSVP on Facebook. Follow @burningred.

doo:zie Love creative networking – Thursday 7th February

Upstairs at 10FeetTall, from 6pm.

doo:zie describe themselves as:

[…] a creative community for creatives, in and around Cardiff and South Wales, aimed at providing an opportunity for creative people to come together : to meet : to connect : to discuss: to process ideas : to share knowledge and skills : to collaborate and realise creative ambitions.

Follow @doozie_cc on Twitter.

Cardiff Digital Coffee Morning – Friday 8th February

From 8am to 9.30am at 33 Windsor Place

You are invited to the Cardiff Digital Coffee Morning. We would like to meet creative digital designers, content writers, programmers, techies, enthusiasts and everyone who works in or has an interest in the digital industry. It is an informal gathering to share, discuss and learn about anything in the industry. It’s free to attend but there will be refreshments to purchase.

Cardiff Dev Workshop is a volunteer-run series of workshops for software developers in the South West. We meet up, someone gives a talk, then we do some practical work and try to answer each other’s questions.

Their next event is at the Indycube in Castle Arcade from 2pm:

High Quality Code – Saturday 9th February

Poor quality code is a big reason that projects fail. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way! We’ll look at things like: Writing clean code

Continuous integration

Unit, functional and integration testing

Code reviews

… and whatever questions you come with!

It’s free, but ‘pay what you want’ to help cover costs. Register on their website.

South Wales Linux User Group – Tuesday 12th February

At The City Arms from 7pm. These gatherings are monthly, with the next one falling on Tuesday 19th of March.

MathsJam Cardiff – Tuesday 12th February

In the Grape and Olive from 7pm, and on the second Tuesday of every month.

WordPress Users Wales – Tuesday 19th February

At Indycube in Castle Arcade, 5.30pm until 7.30pm. Register with EventBrite.

James Cryer will be talking about responsive design. The event is free, but there will be a donation bucket to help cover the costs of the venue.

Follow @wordpresswales.

Ignite Cardiff #10 – Wednesday 20th February

At Porter’s Bar from 6.30pm.

We’ll be showcasing some of Cardiff’s brightest and finest brains with another mad spread of subjects covering anything from “Living in the moment” through to reasons “why everyone should upsticks and move to Barry”

Follow @IgniteCardiff.

Games Dev South Wales Sessions #2 – Thursday 28th February

Screen 15 in Cineworld at 7.30.

There will be two 45 minute talks from Andrew Walsh (a freelance games writer and director) and another unannounced speaker, plus time to mingle in the bar afterwards.

Book on Eventbrite and follow @gamesdevsw on Twitter.

Cardiff International Comic and Animation Expo – 2nd-3rd March

At the Mercure Cardiff Holland House Hotel again. Lower-price tickets are available until the January 30th. I’m not planning to attend this one, but if you haven’t been before it’s absolutely worth going!

Read my writeup of the 2011 event: Cardiff Comic Expo: My first convention

Follow @CardiffExpo.

Canton Social Media Surgery – Wednesday 6th March

In the Cwtch Bar at Chapter Arts, from 5pm until 7pm. Spread the word to any family and friends who need help with social media use for their community organisation or charity.

Cardiff Blogs – Wednesday March 27th

At the Maldron Hotel.

The March meet-up is going to take the form of a panel debate on what you can (and can’t) say online.

Do we have freedom of speech online? We live in a golden age of communication where your words can reach thousands in a matter of minutes, but that isn’t always a good thing. From destroyed careers to criminal records, the impact of something as small as sending a tweet can be devastating if you’re unfortunate enough to fall afoul of the law.

There doesn’t seem to be a time announced just yet. Follow @cdfblogs for updates.

Wales and West Windows Application Group (WAW-WAG) meeting – Wednesday 17th April

At O’Neils Trinity St. from 6.30.

This is the second meeting of the Wales and West Windows applications group. The group now covers Windows Store applications along with Windows Phone applications.

Get a free ticket from Eventbrite.

Diffusion Festival 1st-31st May

This new Cardiff International Festival of Photography is being run by ffotogallery.

A month long festival of exhibitions, discussions, screenings, performances, events and celebrations in both physical and virtual spaces and places.

Follow them on Twitter for updates: @_Diffusion

Port80 – Friday 10th May

At the University of Wales, Newport (so not Cardiff, but I’d be remiss not to mention it). Tickets are not available yet, but the speakers have announced themselves.

There are also regular ‘localhosts’ events held in Newport under the Port80 banner.

HybridConf – 15th-16th August

At The Coal Exchange, Cardiff.

HybridConf is a brand new conference exploring and embracing the interdependence of form and function. Learn new skills from the best of the other side of the fence by seeing intelligent and inspiring design and development talks from a range of quality speakers.

Follow @HybridConf on Twitter.

Have I missed anything? Leave a comment.