Utah PHP Users Group » macnewbold

November 15th Meeting: Steve Meyers on Responsive Design

macnewbold — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:31:43 +0000

Have you ever wondered how some sites seem to magically work perfectly on any size browser window, any size screen, any device you use to access it? It’s called Responsive Design, and Steve Meyers is going to show you how to do it yourself.

Thursday, November 15th, 7pm at C7 Bluffdale Data Center. See you there!

Seeking Panelists: The Great VCS Debate, Nov. 2012 Edition

macnewbold — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:14:01 +0000

In an upcoming UPHPU meeting, we’d like to debate the merits of the various Version Control Systems with a panel of fans and/or experts on the various systems.

If you think [insert your VCS here] is the bee’s knees and can tell us a little bit about it and defend your opinion, we’d love to have your help. At a bare minimum, we’ll have SVN and git represented, but I’d like to get some of the others covered too if we have anyone who uses Mercurial (hz), Bazaar (bzr), BitKeeper, TFS, CVS, RCS, or whatever other system you think we should all know about. It probably goes without saying that it will almost certainly be a lively conversation.

If you’re interested in helping out, please contact Mac Newbold. We will likely end up with multiple panelists on the popular VCS choices, so don’t worry about having to do it alone or not being the first to reply. Within reason, the more the merrier I think.

October 18th Meeting: Bryan Petty on Unit Testing and Continuous Integration

macnewbold — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:09:46 +0000

Bryan Petty will be showing us some of the cool things he’s been working on with automatic testing and continuous integration.

Same time, same place: 7:00pm at C7 Bluffdale, then Applebee’s after the meeting

August 16th Meeting: Randy Secrist, An Intro to Riak and PHP

macnewbold — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 23:30:18 +0000

Here are the details on our next meeting:

Title: An Intro to Riak and PHP
Presenter: Randy Secrist

This talk will be an introduction to Riak, an open source, scalable database, and how to interact with it from various client libraries, with a focus on PHP. Attendees will learn the basic architecture of Riak, why companies like Voxer, Comcast, and BestBuy trust it in production, and also get some hands-on experience with running the database on their own machines.

The usual details apply: 3rd Thursday (Aug. 16th) 7:00pm at C7 Bluffdale Datacenter, with afterparty at Draper Applebee’s (12300 South, just east of I-15)

July 19 Meeting: CSS Hat by Cole Joplin

macnewbold — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:28:02 +0000

On Thursday, Cole Joplin (leader of the local Adobe user group) will be showing us CSS Hat. Cole has some great tips and tricks to share with us.

CSS Hat: Replacing raster images with vector CSS

Learn how to create resolution-indepenent image shapes and effects through pure CSS3. CSS Hat is a Photoshop plugin that reveals how to sophisticated images and effects in CSS only. It shows how to support WebKit, Mozilla, Opera, and IE9.

Cole Joplin is a senior developer at Hughes, currently developing native iOS and HTML5.

7pm, Thursday 7/19, at C7 Bluffdale (~14600 South), followed by Applebee’s (12300 South).

June 21 Meeting: Easy & Awesome Data with Graphite & StatsD by Justin “Rockstar” Carmony

macnewbold — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:41:22 +0000

Have you ever wanted to track something and see how it changes over time? Meet Graphite & StatsD, a combo of tools that make real-time tracking an extremely easy breeze. We’ll talk about how to set it up, how to start sending data to it, and how to get the most from your graphs & data. Time permitting, and I’m feeling a little adventurous, we’ll add some real-time tracking live to a production site to show how easy it is.

The details are same as usual – 3rd Thursday of the month (6/21), 7pm, at C7′s Bluffdale Datacenter, with afterparty at Draper Applebee’s (123rd south, just east of I-15). This will be an awesome presentation… see you there!

Meeting on May 17: Agile Responsive Design by Wade Shearer

macnewbold — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:20:01 +0000

Wade Shearer is the user experience director at Vivint. He leads mobile application design and development and is an evangelist for user-first interaction and mobile software design. Coordinating with marketing, sales, support, and development, his team works to ensure effective and enjoyable products. Wade received a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Brigham Young University. He has worked as a creative director at ELLIS, WFR MLS, and Doba; Senior Manager of Interactive Marketing at Omniture; and a Creative Lead for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wade has managed web properties, applications, brands, interactive marketing operations, and creative teams. He lives in Lehi with his wife and three kids and enjoys cycling, backpacking, and gardening.

Great Meeting, Winner of Book Giveaway

macnewbold — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:35:15 +0000

Thanks to John Anderson and Dan Fellars for a great meeting last night, and to everyone who attended. It was great to get to know Lithium better.

Last night we had a special surprise, as well. Justin Carmony was in contact with Chris Hartjes, author of “The Grumpy Programmer’s Guide To Building Testable PHP Applications”, who donated a free copy of the book to a lucky UPHPU member. I’m pleased to announce that shuffle() selected Clint Berry! You can learn more about Chris and the book at http://www.grumpy-testing.com/ or http://www.littlehart.net/atthekeyboard or follow Chris on Twitter at @grmpyprogrammer. Thanks again, Chris!

Meeting Thursday (2/16): Intro to Lithium: The Most Rad PHP Framework

macnewbold — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:14:16 +0000

We’ve got something awesome on the docket for Thursday’s meeting, so tell all your friends:

Title: Intro to Lithium: The Most Rad PHP Framework

Topic: Discuss latest features introduced in PHP 5.3+ and how they are being leveraged within the Lithium Framework

Speakers:
John Anderson, Software Engineer @ Adobe – the Largest PHP Shop in Utah. John was the Documentation Lead for CakePHP before becoming a founding member of the Union of RAD – the team behind the Lithium Framework. He will provide deep insight into the inner workings of Lithium.
Dan (Danny) Fellars – Entrepreneur working Utah’s next great software company, built on the Lithium Framework. He will share real-life examples of working with Lithium.

The meeting is at the usual time and place (7pm, 3rd Thursday, C7′s Bluffdale data center, please bring picture ID), and we’ll have the usual afterparty (~9pm at Draper Applebees, 123rd South). See you there!

Best Accounting Practices for Web Development – Joanna Carmony

macnewbold — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:49:58 +0000

I’m pleased to announce this month’s meeting:

Thursday, January 19th, at 7pm at C7 Bluffdale Datacenter

Joanna Carmony: Best Accounting Practices for the Web Development Industry

Come and learn from an accountant with years of experience what you should be doing better with your books. There should be something for everyone, whether you own a web development business, own a business that does some web development, are self-employed, or just do some freelance on the side.

As time allows, we’ll have a round-table discussion to take advantage of the collective expertise in the group on the subject, and discuss any questions you may have about the business side of web development.

As usual, we’ll be having our after-party at the Draper Applebees, starting around 9pm. Feel free to join us!