The Suburban Chicago PHP & Web Development Meetup

Did you lose interest in Lost? Did singing on American Idol stop being your American dream? Feed your mind with two great podcasts.

Doctype is a weekly video show for web designers and developers. Since this is a video podcast, they’re able to show as well as tell about techniques for building attractive, functional web sites. In the first 13 episodes, Nick and Jim have covered diverse topics ranging from the importance of whitespace to combatting Cross-Site Request Forging.

Each episode runs 10-15 minutes, making it a great way to start the day or a quick watch before bed.

Paul and Marcus just celebrated the 200th episode of the weekly Boagworld.com podcast with a 12 hour live broadcast. They run Headscape, a web design agency in England (my wife loves Paul’s accent) in addition to running the Boagworld.com blog, Audio Boos, and podcast. The weekly episodes provide and hour of amusing banter, horrible jokes, and tips on designing web sites; running an agency; and freelancing. The Audio Boos are Paul’s daily “deep thoughts” lasting under three minutes.

You can enjoy either of these programs in your browser, or subscribe to them in iTunes or your favorite podcatching program. Plug your phone or MP3 player into your car stereo, and they’re a great alternative to the morning zoo or talk radio.

Just a reminder that user group members can save $50-$100 on admission to this year’s TEK-X (formerly PHPTek) conference.

This is a great opportunity to meet your fellow PHP programmers from around the world. The presentations are fun and highly informative. Plus, since it’s being held in a hotel by O’Hare, you wont have far to travel.

Boxes and Arrows has some notes on the pros & cons of “sketchy” wireframes (like we discussed in November). They also compare wireframe software, including Balsamiq Mockups.

Read Sketchy Wireframes at Boxes & Arrows