First off…I’m so very sorry the “1st day of the month is a Saturday” bug bit us again in our date block.

Things that got talked about:

[b]Drupal 6/7 Templates – Use Zen[/b]
http://drupal.org/project/zen

[b]Drupal and CRM – Anyone know about….[/b]
http://drupal.org/project/crm

[b]Do people still write for IE6?[/b]
Fortunately, we say no. But, IE 7 is still a reality. If you have to “support” IE 6 – do what you can with an IE 6 style sheet.

[b]IBM i5 and PHP Using Zend:[/b]
Starting with jQuery and CSS frameworks:

• jQuery DataTables – filtering, sorting, etc – http://www.datatables.net/
• Some CSS / HTML Templates – http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/01/100-free-high-quality-xhtmlcss-templates/

On Tuesday, December 7th, adknowledge will be hosting an evening PHP User Group meeting at their offices on the plaza.

Whether you are a long time member of the PUG, or just dropped by once–I encourage you to attend. Welcome and Snacks start at 6pm, with QA, speakers and food intermingled throughout.

AND, you won’t go home smelling like coffee!

I hope to see you there!

More details, including RSVP information may be found by clicking on the poster to the right.

[img align=right]http://devzone.zend.com/images/logos/zendcon-sessions-logo.gif[/img]Anyone who knows me knows that I am a fanboy of two great companies: Google and Zend.

No, wait…come back. This isn’t really about either of them!!

Actually, it’s about you. Are you looking to beef up your skills and catch some new ideas, but don’t have a lot of free time? How does Free PHP Conference from your car sound?

Great! Well grab that smartphone or MP3 player and an FM transmitter (if your radio is old like mine) and take some free sessions from ZendCon on the road! There are three great ways to subscribe:

• Subscribe Google Listen on that Android phone of yours to [url=http://feeds.feedburner.com/zendcon_sessions?format=xml ]subscribe[/url] to the ZendCon Sessions Podcast . (Or use any other RSS reader)
• Point itunes at [url=http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=310085132 ]iTunes podcast link[/url]
• Or, just visit http://devzone.zend.com/podcasts/zendconsessions right from your browser.

Either way, 30 conference sessions from ZendCon 2008 and 2009 are out there and growing. All ready for easy download.

Don’t know where to start? I currently enjoying [url=http://devzone.zend.com/article/9930-The-ZendCon-Sessions-Episode-26-Best-Practices-of-PHP-Development l]Episode 26: Best Practices of PHP Development[/url] from ZendCon 2008. It’s 3 hours of content, so don’t do it all in one sitting. But, all great stuff for everyone: Revision control (git and svn), coding standards, testing, documentation generation. A great talk for every developer.

There are also talks on PHP 5.3, CouchDB, Security, PECL, PDO, Query Tuning….and it’s amazing—you really don’t need the slides! But, many of the talks do have their slides hosted on slideshare…just check the browser link above.

So, stop checking up on e-mail on your car ride home, and do something useful! It may just save your life!

Have a great trip!

Some of the things that came up today:

Doing a simple data query from Drupal
http://drupal.org/node/83874

Two CMS apps that look very mature but many of us hadn’t heard of yet.
Typolight – http://www.typolight.org/
ModX – http://modxcms.com/
Surreal CMS – http://surrealcms.com/

This made me go look up some good sources of CMS recomendations
http://www.packtpub.com/article/2008-open-source-cms-php-finalists
http://www.ajaxline.com/10-more-php-frameworks-and-cms
http://php.opensourcecms.com/

IDE’s coupled with Hosting
http://www.aptana.com/

Using Google Picasa to host/manage images for a website
Using Yahoo Pipes or Google Reader to aggregate rss feeds

Google Wave
http://wave.google.com/

Recently, Oracle announced that it will acquire Sun and of course it gets MySQL in the deal ([url=http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/20/128246&art_pos=6]Slashdot[/url]).

This obviously casts some doubt on MySQL’s future, so I’d like to point out some MySQL fork projects. Several ex-MySQL developers have been busy and there’s already some promising alternatives to the original.

[url=http://askmonty.org/wiki/index.php/MariaDB]MariaDB[/url]: This community driven project is named after a new database engine. The original MyISAM developers are working on an engine that is suitable both for transactional and non-transactional uses. This is no doubt intended to help them steer clear of Oracle’s claims on InnoDB technology.

[url=https://launchpad.net/drizzle]Drizzle[/url]: Reversing a long trend of MySQL working to be a more credible enterprise solution, this project is focused on making a lighter database. Their first milestone has focused on cleaning up the code and cutting the fat.

[url=http://ourdelta.org/]OurDelta[/url]: Also driven by ex-MySQL gurus, this fork appears to be the most mainstream and looks like it will pick up where MySQL left off.

[url=http://netahead.info/blog/index.php?entry=CHhnjFDN]also on my blog[/url]

After the February meeting, a few KCPUG folks went down to check out the new space that CCCKC has rented. The 1,400 Square-foot facility is just about a mile off of I-35.

Grand Opening week is March 2nd through 7th. Monday, March 2nd is going to be Affiliate Night, where local organizations can meet the other groups that will be using the space and learn about the space from participating members. The kick-off will start at 6:30PM.

We haven’t decided if the meeting will move away from Daily Dose yet, but this is a good opportunity to check out the space and learn what this technology cooperative is all about.

Directions: Take I-35 to the Rainbow/7th St exit and go East to Southwest Boulevard. Turn Left (North-East) and take Southwest Boulevard to 31st street. Turn right after you pass QuikTrip. Follow 31st St to Mercier, where you’ll find an elevator tower to access the cave space. If the door is locked. call 816-931-1148 and someone will come up and unlock the door. Most likely, someone will be topside to greet you.
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3575/3310174225_4898c8f180.jpg[/img]

[url=http://cowtowncomputercongress.org/index.php/Main_Page]CCCKC[/url] is a grassroots organization of tinkerers, hackers, explorers, artists, inventors and technology enthusiasts in the Kansas City area. A relative newcomer to Kansas City’s tech scene, they are trying to unite various technology cliques in KC, while providing a dedicated space for user groups, facilities for working on technology projects and the like.

Right now, it looks like the space they’ll have might be right near state line and Southwest Blvd. CCCKC is looking for affiliate organizations that want to have their user group meetings at the new space. The meeting room space would be reserved for us during our normal meeting time, and although there might be non-KCPUG people at the work benches if they have a project they’re working on, it would probably be a less distracting environment that’s more centrally located and just a mile off the Rainbow exit from I-35.

I’ll probably be at the December meeting, and I’d be more than happy to get opinions from people. Otherwise, I’ll see you in January. Optionally, weigh in with your two cents in the comments after logging in.

A Press is looking for new voices to review two of their new PHP books. They are looking for reviewers for:

“Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP”
http://apress.com/book/view/1590599063

“PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice, Second Edition”
http://apress.com/book/view/1590599098

Use the site’s Contact Us link if you are interested, and we can figure out a way to get you the details.

Just wanted to let you all know that kcpug’s own Noah Dunker is helping get yet another user group off the ground–this time it’s for BSD!

Their first meeting is on January 9th, at the Plaza Library. It is intended to drum up interest, determine a permanent meeting time and location, and allow participants to experience a little *BSD.

If you are interested in any of the *BSD operating systems (desktop*, Open*, Free*, Net*) make sure you check them out.

http://www.kcbug.org/

I hope many of you got to see the Webinar from Zend on their new [url=http://framework.zend.com/]Framework[/url].

If you missed it, do not dispair–you can find the [url=http://cts.vresp.com/c/?ZendTechnologies/30b665b54a/8c50b6436f/7af5e442dc]download of the presentation[/url] on their site.

Not only do they cover their much anticipated implementation of the MVC pattern, but they also introduce a ton of the other modules as well. Very exciting stuff indeed!

Be sure to check it out!