The Suburban Chicago PHP & Web Development Meetup

Hey everyone!

The Suburban Chicago PHP & Web Development Meetup is merging with Fox Valley Computing Professionals. This is that big announcement I promised a few weeks back, and I think it’s a great opportunity for us.

FVCP approached me with their plan to begin offering more technical presentations starting this September, and we decided that we could deliver the best mix of technical knowledge by pooling our resources and the talent of our members. Although there’s some overlap between our groups, this merger gives us over 400 potential members (based on Meetup’s membership rosters for the two groups).

It also gives us access to FVCP’s new home, the Omega 59 restaurant in Warrenville, 1/4 mi north of I-88 on Rt. 59. The restaurant is hosting our upcoming meetings free of charge, which means we are going to stop charging admission. All the restaurant asks is that we buy food and drinks, and to help with that they’re making full wait service and a full bar available to us. I was never happy having to charge money for our meetings, so I’m excited about this new opportunity.

If you’ve never been to a Fox Valley Computing Professionals event, check out their Meetup page at http://www.meetup.com/foxvalleycp/ . They also have a website at http://foxvalleycp.com/, including videos of previous presentations.

I hope you’ll join us on September 14th as we open a new chapter together as the Fox Valley Computing Professionals. Look for an announcement on FVCP’s Meetup page in the coming weeks.

Thanks,
Dave Ross

Andrew Nacin from WordPress provided these interesting statistics on what PHP versions are serving up WordPress sites around the world:

4.3 – 1.3%
4.4 – 6.3%
5.0 – 0.1%
5.1 – 3.5%
5.2 – 85.4%
5.3 – 3.4%

The August PHP & Web Development Meetup is cancelled. It’s not that I don’t love each and every one of you in a deeply meaningful (but totally platonic) way. It’s just that Devo is playing the same night we were going to meet and I couldn’t pass it up. Check out their new album “Something For Everybody”. I’m sure you’ll understand.

Also, there’s some big news in the works, and it has nothing to do with Kobe Bryant. Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks.