Burlington, VT PHP Users Group Meeting Last Night

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A big thanks to Bluehouse Group for hosting Last nights Burlington, VT PHP Users Group meeting! Both Matthew Weier O'Phinney and Rob Riggen provided some great presentations. Matthew's presentation was a continuation of his best practices series. This one was on documenation. Rob presented the latest installment of his framework series, this one on Zend Framework. I think we had a decent turnout for a summer users group meeting. Any other web developers out there, put next month's meeting on your calendar! We meet the fourth Thursday of every month.

Burlington, VT PHP Users Group Subversion Presentation

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Here is the Subversion presentation I just gave at the Burlington, VT PHP Users Group:

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Subversion Presentation at PHP Users Group

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I'll be doing a presentation on Subversion, an open-source revision control system, at this month's PHP Users Group meeting. The meeting is scheduled for this Thursday, May 22nd from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm at Brown & Jenkins Coffee Roasters. I'll be talking about reasons to use revision control, the benefits of using Subversion specifically, basic revision control concepts, typical workflow, branching, merging, and tagging. Hope to see you there!

GTalk Profile Hits 10,000 Profiles

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Back in August of 2005 Google launched its instant messaging platform called Google Talk. One feature that Google did not provide was a way for Google Talk users to connect with other Google Talk users who they didn't already know. Within a week of the Google Talk launch Jason and I had rolled out the first version of GTalk Profile, a website with the purpose of helping Google Talk users connect with other Google Talk users from around the world. Users can search by location and interests and their contact information is kept private unless they choose to share it with another user. Today the 10,000 profiles mark was hit!

Unfortunately Jason and I have been too busy to maintain GTalk Profile the way we would like. We plan to streamline the core experience and there are many new features we'd like to add. The 10,000 profiles mark, while not representative of a huge number of users, is a significant milestone because it shows a real interest in what GTalk Profile has to offer. Our goal is to dedicate more resources to the website and treat it like any other project that a client may come to us with.

One of the great things about Google Talk is that it's built on the open Jabber/XMPP standards (GTalk Profile is actually a website for any Jabber/XMPP user, not just Google Talk users). This means that other organizations using these standards can choose to federate with Google Talk (and amongst themselves). Imagine if you could only send email to people using the same email provider as yourself. This is the current state of instant messaging and the Jabber/XMPP standards, with Google's help, are slowly opening the world of instant messaging. Now if only some of the other major instant messaging players like AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger were to start using these standards and federating with others like good citizens of the Internet.

Website Launches

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Recently I talked about the updated Found Line website but we've also been busy with a few other websites!

Microcosm Aquarium Explorer was launched with thousands of pages of content for aquarium enthusiasts. It was built using MediaWiki and the content is written by Microcosm Books and various authors. Information architecture and data entry were greatly enhanced using the Semantic MediaWiki and Semantic Forms extensions. The newsletters are powered by VerticalResponse (we're a VerticalResponse partner) and are integrated with the website using the VerticalResponse API.

NEHP is a Vermont-based company providing "process piping solutions and modularization for the semiconductor, solar and life sciences industries." We've worked with them on several marketing initiatives and recently updated their website. It's fairly basic at the moment, but we're big believers of iterative improvement! One item on the list is integration with the third-party APIs.

CCTV's Center for Media and Democracy had been hard at work getting their new website into the Drupal content management system (CMS). They had some ideas about what they wanted the website to look like but needed someone who was skilled in CSS-based web design to bring this vision to reality. We worked closely with their technology integrator to design the recently updated website.

New Found Line Website Launched

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I am happy to report that the new Found Line website has launched! This new version includes some much needed content and visual updates and is now running in Zend Framework (although there is very little functionality beyond static content). All of the visual effects use jQuery, there is no Flash to be found on the site, and all behavior should degrade gracefully if JavaScript is not enabled. The site is almost entirely valid XHTML and CSS - the only exceptions are a couple of visual effects that required a bit of hacking (but we're hoping to find a valid XHTML alternative). The site has been checked for cross-browser compatibility in 25+ browser/OS combinations. It has also been tested in a text only browser and should be accessible to screen readers. Please take a look and let me know your thoughts - good, bad, or indifferent!

RMS in Vermont

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Richard M. Stallman (RMS), founder of the free software movement and the Free Software Foundation (FSF), gave a speech on Copyright vs. Community at Saint Michael's College on Thursday evening, and then a speech on The Free Software Movement at Champlain College on Friday morning. While I don't agree with all of his ideas, here are a few interesting pieces from his talks.

He equates software freedom with human rights and says that we should have the following four freedoms when it comes to software:

• "The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this."

RMS seemed more comfortable during his Free Software Movement speech and bit out of his depth in the Copyright vs. Community speech. While I believe he has done a lot of research and thinking about the issue, his attempts to apply these four freedoms to works other than software seemed a bit strained. Having said that, I completely agree that the current copyright system is broken and needs to be fixed to give people more freedom. I am just not sure that the fix is as simple as what he proposes (at least for non-software works).

I completely agree that it is an educational institutions moral duty to only use free software (free as in speech, not free as in beer). I would be interested in hearing from people who have had success in convincing education institutions to switch to free software. I would extend this argument to say that it is the moral duty of our government to only use free software. If it's payed for with taxpayer money then we should have the four freedoms on that software.