So I realize I’m cheating by putting this on the front page instead of in the [url=http://www.kcpug.org/site/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=6]Jobs and Opportunities Section[/url], but what are ya gonna do? 😀

As many of you know, I’ve been running my own [url=http://www.shazpro.com/]consulting and web development business[/url] for the past couple of years. I’ve been doing it alone so far, but I’ve been wanting to expand as soon as I could. Well, I’m happy to announce that its about time to start expanding. I have too much load to handle myself and I have a couple of projects that could turn into pretty big deals. I’d like to hire someone on a contract basis to begin with — with the possibility to become fulltime later on (I’m really just lazy and don’t want to set up payroll yet). I’m currently located in offices in Overland Park but telecommuting is a possibility.

You’d be working on projects large and small. Our clientele ranges from small KC based businesses to entrepreneurial startups to large government organizations in the Department of Defense.

If you are interested, [url=http://www.kcpug.org/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=196]read more![/url]

Here is what I’m looking for:

A PHP developer with a decent amount of experience. Someone who has built fully functional applications in the past and is motivated and willing to learn more and grow with the company. You’ll need to be able to read other people’s code and improve upon it. Good documenting skills are required!

* A degree in Computer Science is a plus (but not required)
* Basic Sys Admin abilities (any type of unix experience) is a plus
* Knowledge of and experience in other languages than PHP is a plus
* Extensive experience with any open source content management system (such as Drupal) is a plus
* SQL expertise is a huge plus. Basic SQL experience is at least required.

You’ll be developing in both PHP4 and PHP5 and using MySQL/Postgres/Oracle in a variety of different environments. You’ll be asked to do both object-oriented and procedural programming.

Pay depends on your abilities and experience. Please include your own salary requirements (if you have them) in your resume or cover letter. Send your resumes to the e-mail address listed in my profile.

– Doug

As many of you know, I almost didn’t have a presentation ready for last time. Now, I know I don’t [i]have[/i] to have one…but let’s face it, I enjoy giving them. (Just for the record, I enjoy [i]watching[/i] them as well. 😉 )

Many of you may be happy to hear that I have actually gotten to take a tiny break from management, and write my first bit of code in quite a while. Now, unless you would like our next presentation to be about transforming csv files with fgetcsv and vsprintf, I suggest you help me pick a topic.

Any topic will do. Selections will be made based on my ability to produce said presentation in the time alloted (which isn’t much). Naturally, any ties among viable options will be weighted based on community interest, etc.

Just to get you started, here are some ideas from the November meeting. Maybe, I just need a little detail on these to get going.

Thanks Gang! I’ll see you in February!

– Dan

[b]November Topic Ideas[/b]
SimpleXML Topics:
* Google Maps – For repeaters?
* Amazon API
* Google Base?
* Frappr
* Exce
* Shipping Interfaces FedEx

Other Topics may include:
* Cake, etc?
* Other Things, Hobbiest – General answers
* A search for a Customized, Integrated CMS.
* Application Authentication using Certificates
* Relationship Management, PHP/MySql OO PHP5
* Forms Managements

[i]Maggie Tompkins of the KCOUG submitted the following.[/i]

The Kansas City Oracle Users Group (KCOUG) Training Day 2005 is fast approaching. Join 300 Oracle and technology professionals for a great day of networking and technical sessions. Please forward to colleagues who may be interested. Thank you.

Respectfully,
Maggie Tompkins
Kansas City Oracle Users Group (KCOUG)

[i]Read on for more Detail[/i]

———————————————————————-
From: KCOUG Administration [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 2:28 PM
To: TOMPKINS, MARGARET
Subject: KCOUG Training Day 2005 presentation schedule.

Online registration for KCOUG TRAINING DAY 2005 (with secure payment by PayPal) is now available at http://www.kcoug.org (left-hand KCOUG TRAINING DAY 2005 block)

KCOUG Training Day 2005 Schedule
NOTE: Please check http://www.kcoug.org for last-minute schedule changes.

——————————————————————-

Monday, October 24th, 2005
7:00 am – 8:30 am
Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:30 am – 8:45 am
Opening Session

8:45 am – 10:00 am
Keynote (One session – 1 hour and 15 minutes)
Rich Niemiec, TUSC – Exceptional Leadership; Be the Uncommon Leader!

10:15 am – 12:15 pm
Four Two-Hour In-Depth Technical Sessions
#1 – Rich Niemiec, TUSC – Tuning 9i & 10g – Tuning Oracle has Radically Changed
#2 – Paul Dorsey, Dulcian – Avoiding Landmines as you “Struts Your Stuff” through J2EE Development Using JDeveloper
#3 – Dan Vlamis, Vlamis Software Solutions, Inc. – OracleBI and Oracle OLAP–What’s All This About?
#4 – Shannon Mayfield, Noetix Corporation – Accelerated Reporting for Oracle Applications

12:15 pm – 1:30 pm
Box Lunch – Attendee Networking (1 hour and 15 minutes)

1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Six One-Hour Regular Sessions
#1 – Rich Niemiec, TUSC – Oracle Internals at the Block Level; Beginners, Go Away!
#2 – Paul Dorsey, Dulcian – Repository-Based Application Development
#3 – Bill Inmon, Inmon Data Systems – Managing Unstructured Data and the Bridge to the Structured World
#4 – Dan Hotka, Independent Consultant – Tuning SQL When You Can’t Change the Code
#5 – Matt Larson, Confio Software – Blame the DBA: How Improper Wait Event Analysis Leads to the DBA Blame Game
#6 – David Fuston, IRUS Group – OSA, OFA, DBI, EPB, or Discoverer — Which Reporting Tool is Right For Me?

2:45 pm – 3:45 pm
Six One-Hour Regular Sessions
#1 – TBD, BraveSoft Technologies – Technical Presentation (BraveSoft Technologies)
#2 – TBD, Embarcadero Technologies – Technical Presentation (Embarcadero Technologies)
#3 – David Welch, House of Brick – Approachable RAC
#4 – Rizwan Jaka, Oracle Corporation – Update on new versions of Portal called Instant Portal and New Features of HTMLDB 1.6/2.0
#5 – Virgil Flack, RingMaster Software – Maintaining Your Oracle Applications in Less Time With the Simplified ACME Approach
#6 – Srinivas D. Talagadadeevi, Black & Veatch – Upgrades, Patches, Critical Issues and Changed Priorities: Providing Useful User Support!!

3:45 pm – 4:15 pm
Break – Cookies and Soft Drinks (30 minutes)

4:15 pm – 5:15 pm
Six One-Hour Regular Sessions
#1 – Nick Roppolo, Core Ops, Inc. – Implementing Oracle Discoverer 10g
#2 – Shaun O’Brien, TUSC – Web Application Development with Jdeveloper 10g, ADF and Struts
#3 – Greg Matus, Maverick Solutions – The Leap From PL/SQL to Java: More than Just Syntax
#4 – Prabhakar Gongloor, Oracle Corporation – Performance Diagnostics Demystified: Best Practices for Oracle Database 10g
#5 – Paul Murray, BraveSoft Technologies – Installing Oracle 10g on a Linux Fedora Platform – How to Acquire Valuable DBA Skills at Home
#6 – Swapan Golla, Gallup Organization – Scalable OLAP Web Applications

5:15 pm – 5:30 pm
Wrap-up and Door Prizes

———————————————————————-

[url=http://zak.greant.com/]Zak Greant[/url] reminds us that [url=http://zak.greant.com/archives/2005/06/a_decade_of_php.html]PHP is 10 years old[/url] today.

[url=http://groups.google.ch/groups?selm=3r7pgp%24aa1%40ionews.io.org&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain]Happy Birthday PHP![/url] My how you have grown.

[code]assignNewPriority($selia);
$dholmes->setFreeTime(“.01%”);

echo $dholmes->getStatusMessage();
echo $rholmes->getStatusMessage();
echo $selia->getStatusMessage();
?>[/code]
[b]Result[/b]…

[quote]Dan Holmes is currently very busy helping his wife Becky with their new baby daughter, Selia Avery Holmes. As such, his free time has been reduced to a tenth of one percent of his total time, and may be unable to respond efficiently to additional requests.

Becky Holmes is doing quite well–thanks for asking.

Selia Avery Holmes is doing quite well. She has returned to her birthweight of 8 lbs and 6 oz and makes a lot of funny noises throughout the day and night. Additional information will be accessible following the activation of the NaturalLanguage composite extension.[/quote]

Our new friend at Apress has sent us a little care package for this month’s Meeting. Stop on by for you chance to win one of four Shiny new books, as well as every coder’s favorite: [b][color=3366FF]FREE T-SHIRTS[/color][/b]!

Come on by, have a drink, win a book, chat about PHP. What better could you do on a Saturday!!

Thanks Apress!

The PUG is Reborn!!

Welcome home, Kansas City! Your new KC PUG website was released today to the masses. All of the users, stories, comments, topics and links were brought over from the GeekLog and PHPbb systems that we used to run, so your logins should still work. Let me know if you are having problems.

Much more thought went into this release of our site, and we hope you like it. Read the article for a look at what’s new!

A little KC Pug History

[size=x-small][color=333333]This is as I remember it. It seems pretty fuzzy though, so if I don’t have something right, please email me.[/color][/size] 🙂

When we first started the user group, I used a re-themed and very initial version of the CMS I develop for my day job. At the time, it handled just articles and comments. Very simple, and not too conducive to conversation.

To try and spark the creativity, we added an installation of phpbb….one of the best forum software collections around. It helped, and people were asking and answering questions.

KC Pug v2

If eventually came time to use something more portal oriented for the new site. I selected GeekLog, mainly because it was VERY simple to set up. It had the basics and seemed to be pretty easy to customize.

* News (with Comments)
* Polls
* Links to other sites

We kept phpbb for our forum software, as there really wasn’t anything comparable built into geeklog. It worked, but it wasn’t perfect.

But, we wanted more. And we would need to make some big changes to get there.

KC Pug v3

So, now we have the new site. In our move to Xoops, we addressed several “issues” right off the bat.

• Automated notifications for meeting reminders, new content, etc
• Solid integration between the forums and the website
• User’s now just need one account!!!
• A fresh, new, customized look (not just the default theme this time)
• Change of hosting providers (No longer hosted at jccc.net)
• Content is much easier to add, so I should be able to add more!

But what we have, is just the groundwork!! Just take a peek at what’s on the way!!

More activity and content

Generally, we want to add more features, conversation and content.
So, keep on the lookout for:

• code examples
• Book Reviews
• brain teasers (coding contests)
• An area for uploads (source, images, presentations, etc)
• A nice FAQ system
• More LAMP related topics
  Linux / Windows / OSX
  Apache
  MySql and other SQL databases
  PHP

  We’re still your friendly PUG!!

  We take great pride in the way we are. Our members are very helpful, honest and friendly, and we have a lot of fun getting together and chatting it up. Won’t you join us this month?

  If you want to comment on what you see…please feel free. We are a community…not just a website. And communities only grow stronger from the comments and opinions of its members.

Currently we meet on the Third Saturday of each month at the Daily Dose Bar and Coffee House at 135th and Quivera at 2:30pm.

Anyone with an interest in PHP or Web Development is welcome. Bring your questions, suggestions or announcements.

Daily Dose Bar & Coffee House
(Northwest corner of 135th and Quivera, facing Quivera)
12056 W 135th St
Overland Park, KS 66221

[img]http://www.kcpug.org/site/uploads/img419965daa38c0.jpg[/img]

You can also check the [url=http://local.google.com/maps?q=Daily+Dose&near=Overland+Park,+KS&radius=0&cid=38982222,-94670555,17205253413678642912&li=lmd&t=h&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=38.884364,-94.724389&spn=0.006372,0.008208&z=17]information on local.google[/url] for maps, directions, etc. Careful though, google puts the pin on 135th, it’s really up against Quivera!

---

Event Photos

November 2004

[img]http://www.kcpug.org/site/uploads/img41a009c88fb79.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.kcpug.org/site/uploads/img41a009da3080f.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.kcpug.org/site/uploads/img41a009ecc08cb.jpg[/img]
[size=x-small][color=666666]All Photos by Helen[/color][/size]

If you haven’t been using the forums because the log in stuff wasn’t really working right, please give it another try. I still don’t like that you have to have separate logins, but at least you can actually log in now (without using the private message hackery). 😉 Enjoy!!

So, I’m going to try and put together a talk on PHP 5 for this weekend. Please add a comment on anything you would like to see covered and we will either get it in this month or in future talks.

To get you started, I’m looking to give a general overview and hopefully a small demo of installing PHP 5…including alongside of PHP 4!

See you at the PUG!!