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

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.

I’m going to try to get a copy of php|architect’s Guide to Date and Time Programming to raffle off, too!

After last month’s successful meeting, we’re returning to the IIT Rice campus in Wheaton. Admission is $5.

I’ve made some changes to the May PHP meetup, and thought I’d drop
everyone a line to let you know what’s up.

First of all, the May 6th meeting is moving to IIT’s Dan and Ada Rice
Campus in Wheaton. Eric Michalsen’s FVCP group has been meeting there,
and it’s a really nice facility – easy to get to, plenty of parking,
and it’s near a ton of restaurants in case you want to grab a bite
before or after the meeting. I’m grateful to Viveli for hosting us
while they could, but they’re expanding their staff and will be
repurposing that awesome game room to make room for more developers.

IIT is charging us a reasonable fee for use of the room, so I’m adding
a $5 charge for this month’s meetup (payable at the door) to cover all
or most of the cost.

I apologize for these changes after so many of you have RSVPed. If you
want to change your RSVP, please visit
http://www.meetup.com/suburbanchicagowebdev/calendar/12811515/

Thanks, and I hope to see you at the Meetup!

- Dave

Members will show off their favorite Integrated Development Environments for PHP coding. Mike Creuzer will give a tour of his workstation and the tools he uses to build websites and web apps.

Come learn what tools we’re using, and share some of your own. This is an audience participation session, so don’t be afraid to ask questions and ask our presenters to demonstrate the features you’re interested in. Just remember, we’re not salesmen, just enthusiasts. We may not have all the answers handy, but we’d love to help you figure them out.

I’ll be demonstrating NetBeans, and Mike Pavlak has offered to arrange for a “sharp-shooter” from Zend to walk us through Zend Studio over the Internet.

Also, we’re raffling off a Microsoft Arc mouse – no purchase necessary.

If you’re interested in presenting your favorite IDE, email me at dave@suburbanchicagophp.org to get on the schedule. I’d like to find people to demonstrate Eclipse, Zend, Netbeans (I can take this one if nobody volunteers), and Aptana. And if you’ve got a favorite that I forgot, let me know and I’ll give you a chance to share it!

I normally get off 355 at Higgins and turn right onto National Pkwy, but I was so eager to get this recorded that I accidentally turned at Meacham. No harm done. Either way works, the important part is to turn into the first office park past the Doubletree on Woodfield Rd. and go around to the building in the back.

I noticed this month that the sign on the side of the road doesn’t say “1100″ on it, which might explain why people haven’t been finding the place. Hopefully this video will clear up some of the confusion.

Here’s a map to get there from 355 (Higgins to National Pkwy to Woodfield Rd):

View Larger Map

And here’s a closeup showing to turn in the second driveway (the one past the Doubletree) and kind of showing the driveway that goes around the building:

View Larger Map

Our group usually focusses on the LAMP stack, but Microsoft has become a formidable player once again. They’re not throwing monopoly muscle around either. They’re bringing impressive tools like Web Platform Installer (hint: one-click Drupal install) to the table.

Bring questions about PHP, IIS, and other web technologies to get a different perspective from our local Microsoft rep. And, of course there will be our usual pizza and caffeine, plus great opportunities to make friends and business connections.

Join us on March 4th, 2010 at 7pm in Schaumburg. RSVP here

We’ll also be raffling off a copy of HTML & CSS: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition

Be sure to RSVP so we know how many people to expect.