August User Group::  Beach Blanket Summer School II

Traditionally, summer user group meetings are "lightly" attended. Between schools vacations, playing hooky from work, and just enjoying the [brief New England] nice weather who's got this time? Well, er, we do...but we're holding off on the formal presentations.

Bring your "thinking cap", a tough OSS/PHP problem, and an appetite for participation, we're throwing a Beach Blanket Summer School Party (beach blanket optional). We will have all the fixin's to throw code on the table, dissect and discuss the ins-and-outs of PHP.

So bring a topic/problem, bring a friend, bring Anette Funicello (remember, you can't play beach ball without a-net), bring your wallet (we're meeting at the Cambridge Brewing Company).

May User Group:: PHP Frameworks part III

How many of us have searched Source Forge for a project that appears to fit our needs only to find there's no community or documentation behind it; or the code is really poorly written; or the project is about to fork...Sometimes selecting an open source project is like renting B-grade movies at the video store; it's not so much the cost that concerns you, but rather the time wasted if you select a dog.

Please join BostonPHP as we continue our panel discussion on how to select a robust PHP framework culminating in a "PHP framework bake-off".

This month's showcased frameworks:

• Andromeda - Kenneth Downs (founder)
• Drupal - Moshe Weitzman (core-developer)

April User Group:: ODF what's in it for you?

The Open Document Format (ODF) standard has been developed by a variety of organizations and is publicly accessible. This means it can be implemented into any system, be it open source or a closed proprietary product,without royalties. The ODF is intended to provide an open alternative to proprietary document formats so organizations and individuals can enjoy document portability, a common taxonomy and vendor independence.

Public entities (e.g. federal, state and local governments) have a unique obligation to their customers (i.e. the taxpayer) that private sector enterprises do not. From accessibility, to availability, to archiving, public documents must withstand a higher level of scrutiny all the while operating within the confines of strict public budgets. ODF plays a crucial role filling that requirement.

Join BostonPHP along with Tim Vaverchak (Manager of Shared Services from the Commonwealth of MA IT Division) and Greg Rundlett (Technical Services Manager from OASIS) discuss the Commonwealth's business reasons for deploying ODF and the technical/PHP methodology to access, manipulate and create ODF documents.