www.phug.ca

A bit of history
When PHUG initially launched back in 2006 we were a small group of Seneca College students and faculty. The idea was simple, let’s get together once a week after class and geek out. Originally we wanted to start a PHP user group in Toronto, but soon realized we could, and wanted to, do more. So began PHUG, an open source community whose focus was to bring students and professionals together through free workshops on all things open source.

Success soon followed. Our workshops went from 10 people a week to 70 in a few months! Membership on the on the blog went from 50 users to over 4000 in less than a year! PHUG became known in Toronto as one of the hottest open source meetups to attend.

We eventually began organizing large events like WordCamp Toronto 2009, where we doubled numbers from the previous year.

With all this success why did we stop? Unfortunately, like most open source communities and projects, we ran out of money and those involved in organizing events and meetups had less and less time to devote.

That’s the past.

New design, new features, and a new vision
I felt it was time to bring PHUG back from the dead. So I connected with some ex-phug’ers, colleagues, and community organizers to see how we could re-invent PHUG. This time around our focus is to bring you the most current information on all things open source from events, workshops, communities, projects, tutorials, and more on our new site. Based on years of user feedback and ton of great advice from seasoned community leaders we have decided to completely revamp the site into what you seen now.

We have decided to go with a forum instead of a blog, but not just any forum. We are using Vanilla Forums, a powerful and sexy open source technology that meets all our needs.

With a forum every PHUG member has a voice! Feel free to start discussion, share your thoughts, connect with other members. Post an event, a tutorial, useful links, and more.

Together we can build a strong community and a better PHUG!

So, let’s get PHUG’in!

The events rundown:

• #DEVTrain (aka #nerdtrain) from Toronto to Montreal on the VIA Rail with http://devtrain.ca GPS tracker – Sponsored by Microsoft
• MonDev Open Source Demo Camp – An evening of ignite style presentations!
• WebCamp – Is a group of webheads, passionate individuals living and working with/in/on the web.
• StartUpDrinks Montreal – Is a monthly freestyle networking event hosted in pubs and bars by startup community instigators from coast to coast.
• Make Web Not War – Canada’s first cross-platform conference showcasing the latest techniques and technologies available to the ever-evolving web community, jointly sponsored by Microsoft and Open Source communities across Canada and PHP Quebec.
• CodeFest – Run by devLAB Montréal, PHPQuebec & Windows Azure
• FTW! Coding Competition – showdown featuring #findahome, #tholus, #taxicity
• Twitter Wall – A very cool app built by Jet Cooper
• After Party at Jello Martini Bar & Lounge – catered by Schwartz & sushi

For a first run the week went well, since I only had to organize one night I hope to get more communities in Montreal involved for next year and put together a full schedule of events.

Huge shout-outs!

• Arun Kirupa – Web Not Wat
  
• Angie Lim – Web Not War
• Marc Laporte – Tiki
  
• Yann Larivee – PHP Quebec
  
• Robin Ahn – StartUpDrinks Montreal
  
• Renoir Boulanger – DevLab
  
• Jeremy Wright
• Jenna Hoff – Web Not War
  
• The Vanilla Crew
• The Web Not War Crew
  

If you want to get involved for next year let me know!

make sure to follow the Vanilla progress on twitter and facebook, plus I will be uploading screenshots of the new themes on flickr soon…

I’ve been working on some experimental Vanilla themes and can’t wait to release them. I’ll publishing a ton of new tutorials here and on the Vanilla blog soon.

I have also been planning a few events, most importantly MonDev which starts next week! I’ll be organizing and presenting at MonDev Open Source Demo Camp next Tuesday May 25. Mark will also be a doing a presentation on Vanilla 2, so make sure to check that out. I’ll be at StartUpdrinks on Wednesday May 26th, come have a drink with me and the Vanilla crew. Thursday is Make Web Not War, I’ll be doing a presentation on WordPress on Windows, plus I am looking forward to the truce party that night!

More to come…

I will also be helping organize WordCamp Montreal this year and a few Vanilla events (can’t say anything yet)

If that’s not enough … I still have the next issue of creer to work on and I am hoping to finally re-launch PHUG! Maybe I’ll build it using Vanilla this time.

The next few weeks are hectic, but I am looking forward to meeting up with old friends and and hanging out…

Here’s how it all started…

Google has a special logo up on the Google home page today. The Google logo is made up of legos, to celebrate Lego’s 50 year birthday.

Google’s culture has always had a special place for Lego. Google’s first servers were “modded” up with Legos. The Google founders have admitted to having a special “fondness” towards Legos, and we all know that computer geeks can’t get enough of their legos. Google has Lego art in their offices. Lego fans have built Google logos in Lego, and so have Googlers themselves.

If you visit Google.com, you will see the logo. You won’t see it after you do a search on Google, so there won’t be a small Google lego logo (or at least not at the time I am writing this). Google UK has the logo, and so do Google France, Google Mexico, Google Israel, and Google Denmark. In fact, it appears all Google country-specific sites may have the special logo up for the day. That doesn’t happen with all special logos, so this is truly an international celebration!

Lets see yours!

I can’t wait to test it out!

Some other features included:

• CSS inspection
• Integration with Adobe Browser Lab
• PHP custom class code hinting
• Subversion support
• Site specific code hinting (for example WordPress)

Read more here

Last year I attended and spoke at Make Web Not War, and I’m happy to say i will be attending and speaking again this year!

What is MWNW?
Coming to Montreal this May, Make Web Not War (MWNW) 2010 is one of Canada’s first cross-platform conference showcasing the latest techniques and technologies available to the ever-evolving web community, jointly sponsored by Microsoft and Open Source communities across Canada and PHP Quebec. Here we will explore the power and flexibility of new web paradigms, technologies and applications – including the Microsoft web platform, Open Source applications, cloud computing and mobile – to help you develop the ultimate web experience for your clients.

The wars of “platform religions” are over. Embrace the reality of today: mixed environments, interoperable applications, Open Source in harmony with commercial software, PHP on Windows and Azure cloud.The new technology era of pragmatism is here, and MWNW is about bridging the gap between different platforms, communities and developers of all trades and backgrounds.

Honestly, I can say I had a great time last year, met some really cool people, and was very impressed to see how far Microsoft has come in terms of outreaching to the Open Source community.

Hope to see you guy’s there!

This is the marketing video for this years event, they used footage from last year and I made the cut, twice, yay!

Last year Microsoft held an open source event in Canada called “Make Web Not War”. I have to admit they did a really good job. I was also fortunate enough to speak at the event in Toronto. As part of the event Microsoft held a coding competition called “FTW“, which was very successful, so successful it’s back!

What is The FTW! Coding Competition?

FTW! is where the best and brightest Canadian web developers go toe-to-toe to develop the next great Canadian Web App. How can you participate? Simply code or port a web application onto Windows/IIS or Windows Azure. That’s it, that’s all. All applications that fall into any of the following categories, and are on Windows/IIS or the Windows Azure Cloud are eligible.

Compete in the following categories:

• PHP Application: (PHP on Windows+IIS or PHP on Windows Azure)
• Windows Azure Application: (Any Language: .Net, PHP, Ruby, Python…)
• Open Data Application: (Use of Open Data Catalogues on Windows or Windows Azure on Any Language)

What could you win?

Along with an awesome grand prize worth fighting for (Dell Office Computer Make Over), the FTW! Coding Competition not only grants the winner bragging rights as one of Canada’s top web developers, but awards two runner-ups with top of the line Dell prizes as well. Once the hard work is done, a panel of industry judges will choose three finalists to battle it out for the grand prize at the “Make Web Not War” conference on May 27th in Montreal!

How can you register?

If you want more information on how to register to the competition please visit: http://www.webnotwar.ca/ftw/

See you at the finals in Montreal!

I would also like to thank all those that tweeted my presentation, and all those who came and spoke with me after and through out Confoo.

Here’s my presentation: