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

Dave posted his Make Web Not War notes & links on his blog at davebost.com. Here are his slides:

Also, don’t forget to check out the website for the Mix conference, running from March 15-17. This is Microsoft’s annual web designer & developer conference, and they’ll have live streams of the presentations during the conference. After a few days, Dave says they’ll have on-demand streams available too.

Since a few people asked, here’s a link to Microsoft Expression, Microsoft’s new development environment for web programming.

If you enjoyed last night’s presentation, be sure to check out Dave’s Thirsty Developer postcast, rate our meetup at meetup.com, and stay tuned for next month’s meetup announcement for our PHP IDE showdown.

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.

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

Check out the cool features that will be available to your web applications soon:

A few links from last night:

Wikipedia Entry on HTML5

Comparison of layout engines (HTML5)

WHAT WG home page

W3C’s list of differences between HTML4 and HTML5

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.

You can still get one free heatmap (with a big watermark) every day.

A “pro” version with a smaller watermark costs $10-$25 based on how many credits you buy at one time. The “pro unwatermarked” version is $15-40.

For those who missed the presentation, this site simulates eye-tracking algorithmically. Eye tracking is the new “big thing” in usability, as it lets you see how much attention various elements on a page attract. AttentionWizard claims 75% accuracy with their algorithm, at a cost far below traditional eye-tracking equipment, and without the hassle of recruiting people for eye-tracking studies.

No, it’s not a substitute for proper eye-tracking. But it’s a start, and a good way to test a rough design concept before committing to it.

For full details, see the official changelog.

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.