Boston PHP Newsletter

2010-06-29T21:06:00.001-04:00

Boston PHP Newsletter, Summer 2010

Welcome to our first Boston PHP newsletter under the new leadership team. It's been a year so far, and so many good things have happened - I just wanted to tell you all about it. Since many of you are new members, its a good chance to introduce ourselves and those who make Boston PHP possible.

Introduction to Boston PHP

Boston PHP is a non-profit organization focused on bringing together smart people to come and share experiences on a wide range of topics mainly on PHP, Web Development, and Open Source technology. It was established in 2002 and has been meeting regularly on a monthly basis. We have had a total of 75 meetup events, and have a member base of over 870 people.

All of our meetings are free and open to the public. We are a friendly community, and encourage everyone to participate and get involved to help grow our community. Meetings are monthly, and during the weekday at 7-9pm. After each meeting we typically go to a nearby restaurant/bar/pub for more informal discussion.

We use meetup.com to organize and communicate all of our events. On our site you will find a full listing of all past and upcoming events. There is also a discussion forum that you can use to communicate with each other. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Our hash tag is #bostonphp.

We are easy to find, just visit us at bostonphp.org

Who makes Boston PHP Possible?

We are a passionate and committed team devoted to evangelizing open source web technology. We don't get paid to organize Boston PHP. We all lead busy lives with families and a day job. We do this because we love it. We are working hard to make Boston PHP one of the strongest tech communities in the New England area.

	Michael Bourque I am the Organizer of BostonPHP. I've been in the software business for over 20 years and I'm a big fan of open source technology such as PHP. In my day job, I am a VP of a large global software company based in the Boston area. Organizing Boston PHP has allowed me to expand my knowledge and expertise in the area of web application development. It has also inspired me to reach out and teach others how to apply open source technology to their projects. It has also strengthened my presentation and organization skills. I love meeting new people, and seeing what they are doing with web technology.
	Matt Murphy I am a co-organizer for Boston PHP and responsible for many logistical stuff like venue space, sponsorship, as well as organizing events. I am also an avid PHP developer and business owner in Boston.
	Andrew Drane I am a co-organizer for Boston PHP, and have been responsible for evangelizing the Boston PHP meetups, as well as presenting on a wide range of topics. As a senior web developer at a Cambridge startup, I works mostly with PHP (especially CakePHP) and jQuery. I'm interested in open source web technologies and have learned a lot from BostonPHP. I enjoy having the opportunity to give back to the Tech community by sharing my experience.
	Ronald Verge Ron is our Videographer. He attends every meetup and organizes all the video recording and post production of each meetup. This is a huge undertaking and it takes countless hours behind the scenes to make it all possible. You won't meet a nicer guy - and I am proud to have Ron on our team. You can check out all of our videos on or videos page

Year in review

A year ago when I stepped in as Organizer, I wasn't sure how much we could grow the community. The attendance was down, and the website was not getting as much traction. When the previous organizer stepped down, I recieved a flood of emails by members asking that we keep the community going. A number of you even offered to support our cause and this became the basis for rebuilding the community back up.

I have always felt that the strength of this community will only grow if it's members stay involved and engage themselves at the meetings. I knew that if we could get members to share experiences with each other (as opposed finding outsiders to present to us), then we would have a much stronger vibrant community.

We've done just that, and for the most part - all of our presentations from the past year have been from people just like you - our members. Our meeting topics seem to be spot on and people are really appreciating the quality presentations and topics we've been able to deliver. Already, several local social media sites have been creating a buzz in the Boston area about us. Since we don't only talk about PHP, many people from other user communities have come over and joined our community. We welcome everyone!

Here are some highlights from the past year:

Facebook heard about our community and wanted to present to us on how they built the worlds largest social media site using PHP. We were joined by Facebook developer Scott MacVicar and he took us through the development frameworks they use to allow PHP to scale.
We hit our largest ever meetup attendance count with over 132 people
We now have 870 members and adding roughly 50 per month
We have our first ever sponsors funding our cause
We have created a video library of all our our events since 2010
We are attracting some really cool famous presenters such as Facebook, Filament Group, Steve Krug, etc
We have a new logo donated to us by member Jason Bailey.

Huge Growth

We have seen huge growth over the past year from 519 members in 2009 to over 870 in 2010. That's nearly 60 percent growth in just one year! With over 870 members, it's a good thing you all don't show up at once! We now typically attract over 100+ attendees which is a great measure of our success.

We've also been tracking member activity by attendance, meetup RSVPs, and web analytics of our website. One year ago we had approximately 48 active members per month. Now that number has grown to 317 active members per month. That is 600 percent growth - we must be doing something right.

We have grown so much in fact that venue meeting space is somewhat of a problem for us. Not many venue spaces in the Boston area can handle a meeting of this size and capacity. Still, we have been fortunate to have Matt Murphy on the case and he has been able to coordinate venue space with Microsoft NERD, Bocoup Loft, and MIT.

Future meetups

We have a lot of great meeting events coming up. We have something for everyone from Beginners to Advanced topics. We require all attendees to RSVP prior to coming to each event. In some cases we will need to limit the attendee count due to space considerations. RSVP now so you will claim your spot.

For the latest up-to-date event listings, please visit our meetup site at bostonphp.org

PHP Beginner Training Series
If your somewhat new to PHP and want a fast track learning series on how to build an application from concept to launch, then this is for you. Feel free to pass this on to your friends and associates who may also be interested. This is part one of several series covering beginner topics and progress towards more intermediate topics. By the end of the series, you will have the skills needed to develop a fully functional web application.

Learn all about CouchDB

We will take an introductory look at CouchDB with a brief review of the NoSQL movement. We will spend most of the time in actual code and examples from real projects and the Futon web interface, giving a better feeling for what's going on. Plenty of time for Q&A.

How to design an app without writing a single line of code

I will show you how easy it is it design your next app and prototype it so you can ensure the user experience is just right. Furthermore, I will show you how to test your app design with real customers and stakeholders with paper prototypes.

Learn all about HTML5

Come join us as we explore what coming in HTML5 and how might apply it to your next project HTML5 is being developed as the next major revision of HTML. It aims to remove the need for proprietary plugins such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Apple QuickTime and Windows Media Player

Progressive Enhancement

This meetup would demonstrate the principals of Progressive Enhancement. We will show you live practical examples, and show you how to apply it your projects. Some emphasis on jQuery will be discussed and demonstrated in the examples.

Learn how to use API's like Google Maps

We'll go over some of the general principals of APIs, how they work, how to sign up and get data flowing to your web application, then do some live coding examples and build some pages demonstrate how to plug-in to powerful APIs. All the code and slides will available so anyone can adapt it to their needs, or even build their own examples during the presentation. I will be working with examples from 3 popular API's that I've worked with in the past.

Learn CSS

In this presentation Rob Larsen will step through the basics of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS,) the visual language of the Web. Starting with the most fundamental concepts and finishing with concrete examples illustrating common patterns, this presentation will serve as a launching point for those new to CSS and will strengthen the understanding of the core principles for developer or designer more experienced with CSS.

Usability with Steve Krug

Join us as Steve Krug takes us through an in-depth look at web usability and how to measure it. Steve is a leading expert on web usability and is the author of two famous books named "DON'T MAKE ME THINK" and "ROCKET SURGERY MADE EASY". In these books, Steve teaches the fundamentals of Usability, and how to apply them to your projects easily with Usability Testing. We'll take you through why you need to care about Usability, real life examples, as well as how to perform Usability testing on your own site. If your a designer, coder, entrepreneur, then you will want to attend this. We will also arrange to have Steve do a live usability test on an open source* project and volunteer.

What you may have missed

If your somewhat new to Boston PHP, then perhaps you missed some of of best meetups to date. Here is a recap of what the past year of meetups. Many of these are now available as videos from our video section of the website.

An Agile/SCRUM workshop
Building a Drupal Website
Object Oriented Programing - Plain and Simple
HipHop for PHP - How does Facebook do it!
Enhance your apps with jQuery
PHP Security
How to design an app without writing a single line of code

Learn to develop with CakePHP (part II)
Learn to develop with CakePHP (part I)
Learn how to create a Facebook app
Show n' TELL
Debugging
Framework Bakeoff
my.barackobama.com
Get Smarty - Use Smarty!

Tell us what you want to see next?

We base all our meetings from attendee suggestions. If you have an idea for a topic that you would like to see (or present), please use our ideas section. If you see a listing for an idea and would like to present it, then please contact us.

The list below is just a few things we are cooking up for future. All of these ideas were suggested and voted by you. We are working to secure a suitable presenter for these topics. If you (or someone you know) is willing to contribute a presentation on these than please let me know.

Here are some of the more popular ideas that were posted:

PHP Frameworks
We would like to yet another meetup focused on reviewing and selecting a PHP framework. Perhaps we would have a framework bakeoff (like we had last year) where we looked at four of the major frameworks and compared them between each other.
How to develop and application for the iPhone and iPad with PHP
Why bother learning objective C when you can develop apps for the iPhone/iPad using what you already know - PHP. We will show you a proven and widely used technique that allows you to use a combination of PHP, Javascript, jQuery, and CSS. Great for an application where you need an iPhone companion application. The result is so realistic, users won't distinguish the difference.
Web performance and scalebility
We will give you all the secrets and best practices on improving the performance of your PHP applications and infrastructure. We will explore all aspects to improving performance from optimizing your code to database tuning. I'll show you how to test for performance so you know your actually making a difference. No magic or slight of hand - you can do it too.
Learn Google Analytics
We will teach you how to add and use Google Analytics with your site. We will cover all the basics as well as how to interpret the results and make solid business decisions from the data. We will explore advanced topics like how to setup features like AdWords, Goals, and Segments.
Learn the secrets of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
We will teach you how to get your site to rank higher in search results. Sure you can hire an expensive SEO firm to do this, but we cam teach you the basics so you can do yourself.

Have an idea of your own? Want to vote on one of these?

Be a sponsor of Boston PHP

With a strong and vibrant community with over 870 members, we have the ability to leverage this and offer an attractive sponsorship program. Boston PHP we always remain free. However, with some sponsorship funding, we can offer many new perks such as better venues, famous speakers and presentations, video equipment, etc.

Please help Boston PHP stay strong. Consider sponsoring us and get your company logo in front of our members. Or perhaps you know a company that would be willing to support us. Here is how you can sponsor us...

$200 per event	Food sponsor Purchase pizza and soda for attendees. Presentation slide on the big screen during the meetup - provided by sponsor -approved by BostonPHP 60 seconds of presentation time to tell us about your product or service Permission to distribute sponsor’s printed marketing material to attendees at meetup Permission to display sponsor's message / advertising on the food table Sponsor can supply your own custom - branded plates if they wish
$200 per event	Video sponsor Sponsor gets a branded intro slide in the video created for the meetup. Intro slide displays for 30 seconds at the start of the video Sponsor can provide a 30 second audio clip to accompany the slide Presentation slide on the big screen during the meetup - provided by sponsor -approved by BostonPHP 60 seconds of presentation time to tell group about sponsor’s product or service Permission to distribute sponsor’s printed marketing material to attendees at meetup Videos will be displayed for up to a year
$150 per event	Large banner at PHP event Banner provided by sponsor - size specs determined by BostonPHP Presentation slide on the big screen during the meetup - provided by sponsor -approved by BostonPHP 60 seconds of presentation time to tell group about sponsor’s product or service Permission to distribute sponsor’s printed marketing material to attendees at meetup
$100 per event	Medium banner at PHP event Banner provided by sponsor - size specs determined by BostonPHP Presentation slide on the big screen during the meetup - provided by sponsor -approved by BostonPHP 30 seconds of presentation time to tell group about sponsor’s product or service Permission to distribute sponsor’s printed marketing material to attendees at meetup
$100 per month	Logo on the meetup page for BostonPHP

If you are interested in Sponsoring Boston PHP. then please contact us. All payments are made via our PayPal account.

Boston PHP will always remain a non-profit organization. All of the donations we received through sponsorship will be saved for a future use. We have ideas on ways to spend this money.

Website and Meetup.com costs
Food and drinks at events
Boston PHP t-shirts and swag
Saving up for a day long conference with professional speakers
Boston PHP outing and/or BBQ
Hiring professional public speakers
Charitable donations
Etc...

Note: If you have any ideas on how we can/should spend this money, then please let us know.

Have something to share?

How about making a presentation at Boston PHP?

Making a presentation is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have. It is a lot like teaching. I have always felt that that teaching is itself a learning experience. The mere process of breaking down your subject matter into teachable segments will give you much more clarity and a deep understanding of your subject. It's also a way to emerge as a leader in the tech community, and you can gain superstar status amongst your peers. You will come away with a whole new perspective that you just can't get anywhere else.

If your interested in helping us out and sharing your experiences with our community then let us know. Even if you've never had experience in presenting, we will work with you to walk you through the process. We'll give you all the tools and know-how on how to make an engaging presentation that everyone will love.

Visit our how-to guide on How to Make a great presentation at Boston PHP.

See you at the next meetup

I was just telling the leadership team how proud I am to have been able to grow Boston PHP back to new levels. I want to thank all of you for your continued involvement in our community. I especially want to thank the other organizers Matt Murphy, Andrew Drane, and Ronald Verge for their commitment an dedication. We've got a full calendar of great events that will take us well into the winter. I am excited to see what happens next, and I do hope to see you at the next meetup.

Michael Bourque

Boston PHP

Paper Prototyping

2009-05-28T16:32:00.000-04:00

I love the famous quote by T.S Eliot:

"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter"

I think the same applies for UI design. In order to do it right, it takes time, discipline, and many attempts to get it right...

As technical people that are able to implement, we tend go right into implementation and choose to react to ideas and changes as they come without regard to holistic future direction and responsible design. I call this "Christmas Tree Design", where your purpose is to get all the decorations (features) on the tree (product). This is not good design - only experience and discipline will teach you that sometime less it more.

If you start with a high fidelity prototype, you are mentally less apt to change it when new ideas and challenges are realized or discovered. This is why I love paper prototyping and low fidelity design tools like Balsamiq Mockups. You can learn and discover, and iterate on design early and often.

About a year ago, my team embarked on an aggressive new product development project. Our new product would be founded on several key initiatives with the number one goal of being ease of use. But how could we ensure we would create a usable product? Sure we had good ideas, but we needed to ensure that our ideas would work with customers.

We decided our best chance was talking to users, conducting usability tests with and paper prototypes. We had mapped out the entire user experience design and all the screens of our future product on plain paper. Then we took this to a company trade show and sat with customers to test of our new product ideas.

We didn't have any software code written yet, we didn't even have a product name or solid marketing plan yet. But we knew we wanted to reduce the UI refactoring time and to hit the market with a very easy to use product.

We had about 20 customers sit with us one-to-one with our paper prototypes. We asked them to pretend that their pen was a mouse. We gave them several tasks to perform on our paper mockup. We asked them to think aloud, and each time they clicked the mouse, we would place a new paper UI screen on the desk. Once they got the hang of it, they quickly became used to our design. We did this on each customer for about an hour. Then we discussed with them their needs and wants.

We started to notice some usability flaws with our design in some of the users, and realized we need to change some of the UI screens. No problem - because we were using paper, we quickly created alternate screens and scenarios to test more users with. This became an iterative process and by the end we had a very usable and fully tested UI design and workflow. All without writing any code!

A year later we returned back to the trade show, but this time with a fully functioning released product. We tested some of the same designs only this time with the final product. It was a huge hit. We got confirmation that we did indeed deliver on what mattered most to our customers and we continue to hear great things from our customers on how much they like and appreciate the UI and the ease of use of our product.

Agile Planning Poker

2009-05-28T16:11:00.000-04:00

An important part of being Agile is continuous grooming of the backlog and user story sizing and estimation. Many teams struggle with this.

One technique we have adopted is a poker style estimation game.

This is how it works:
Each developer on the team is given a small deck of cards with story point numbers on the back. A user story is presented to the team by the product owner. Then each developer must put one card face down on the table representing their estimate. After all cards are on the table, the cards are turned over. The team discusses any disparity between the high and low card. We play the game again until we converge on the same estimate.

I have found this to be very effective and somewhat fun. We have found that this method makes for much better estimates, and ensures that everyone has a voice on the size of each user story. It engages each of the participant and we have meaningful discussions that remove doubt and assumptions.

Since I run a global team, I have developed a Online version of this game that we use during sprint planning and estimation. I hope to open source this project soon to allow others to take advantage of this powerful estimation technique.