It's Really Not That Difficult.</h1> <article> <h1>It's Really Not That Difficult.</h1> <p>2009-06-12T22:59:27-04:00</p> <p>I thought the topic of offensive presentations at professional tech conferences was beat to death before, but apparently there are still some out there who don't get it. Recently, the <a href="http://gadgetopia.com/post/6794">GoGaRuCo incident</a> stirred up controversy, and now <a href="http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/blog/2009/06/11/98/prude_or_professional_by_courtney_remes">this monstrosity has occurred.</a></p><p>In a nutshell, the keynote speaker at <a href="http://flashbelt.com">Flashbelt</a>, <a href="http://flashbelt.com/#/speakers/hoss_gifford/">Hoss Gifford</a>, gave a presentation that included actions and images that would make even Howard Stern do a double-take. The highlights of the talk, according to <a href="http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/blog/2009/06/11/98/prude_or_professional_by_courtney_remes">Courtney Remes</a>, as recounted <a href="http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/blog/2009/06/11/98/prude_or_professional_by_courtney_remes">here</a>, are:</p><blockquote><ul><li>He opens his keynote with one of those "Ignite"-esque presentations — where you have 5-minutes and 20 slides to tell a story — and the first and last are a close-up of a woman's lower half, her legs spread (wearing stilettos, of course) and her shaved vagina visible through some see-thru panties that say "drink me," with Hoss's Photoshopped, upward-looking face placed below it.</li><li>He later demos a drawing tool he has created (admittedly with someone else's code) and invites a woman to come up to try it. After she sits back down, he points out that in her doodles she's drawn a "cock."</li><li>Then he decides he wants to give a try at using the tool to draw a "cock" (he loves this word) — and draws a face, then a giant dick (he redraws it three times) that ultimately cums all over the face.</li><li>A multitude of references to penises and lots of swearing — and also "If you are easily offended, fuck you!"</li><li>And then, to top it off, a self-made flash movie of an animated woman's face, positioned as if she's having sex with you, who gradually orgasms based on the speed of your mouse movement on the page.</li></ul></blockquote>Yeah, seriously. WTF, indeed.<br /><br />Funny, the <a href="http://flashbelt.com/#/speakers/hoss_gifford/">synopsis of his talk</a> doesn't indicate anything beyond cursing that could be offensive: <blockquote>Hoss exploits this shared narrative in his work to great effect, and will use his inaugural Flashbelt presentation to analyze a series of projects that build on each other's successes and failures to deliver increasingly rich experiences. And he'll say ` F**k ' a lot.</blockquote><p>His idea of "increasingly rich experiences" differs from mine, apparently. </p><p>Interestingly enough, it was <a href="http://twitter.com/hoss69/status/2105436927">his response</a> and the response of his supporters that reveals the deeper issues. There are still so many out there who think that they are entitled to act like douchebags because they *can,* and that everybody else should let it go. Get over yourselves, I say. You're nowhere near as cool as you'd like to think you are. And you shrugging it off and alienating a good portion of your audience (men and women alike) is like me building a website that requires IE8 only.</p><p>I applaud the collaborative efforts and professionalism of the <a href="http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/blog/2009/06/12/99/were_in_this_together_by_courtney_remes_dave_schroeder_nancy_lyons_and_meghan_wilker">well thought out response by the conference organizers and the geek girls</a> -- they are truly making progress, I think. In a way, though, it really saddens me. It saddens me that this conversation and effort even has to take place. </p><p>I think that idiots like Mr. Gifford do <em>not</em> represent a good portion of male techies in the world, and certainly he represents <em>none</em> of the men I know in the PHP world. So basically, I know I'm preaching to the choir on this one, but for those gentlemen out there that don't get it, IT'S REALLY NOT THAT DIFFICULT.</p><p>In case you're not sure where the "appropriate" line for your professional presentation is, here are a few pointers to help you decide.</p><p>1- Witty, pertinent content: GOOD. Pictures of naked women, or really anything sexually charged: BAD.<br />2- If you would feel uncomfortable giving the presentation to your little sister or Aunt Linda, CHANGE IT.<br />3- The audience and the conference organizers are your CLIENTS. They're paying you good money to educate and share your knowledge. Offending and embarrassing them and yourself is a BAD IDEA.<br />4- EDGY does not mean PORN.<br />5- You obviously have intelligence and something interesting to say. DON'T HIDE BEHIND BULLSHIT.<br />6- It's called EMPATHY. <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy">LOOK IT UP</a>.</p><p>If you *still* don't get it, and you're not sure if your presentation is questionable, approach some women in tech with your presentation and get their opinion. <a href="http://phpwomen.org">We are out there</a>, trust me. No, we won't chastise you for being ignorant. We will appreciate the fact that you cared enough to ask.</p> </article> <article> <h1>A Few Observations from php|tek 2009</h1> <p>2009-05-30T17:52:26-04:00</p> <p>We've just successfully wrapped up another edition of <a href="http://tek.mtacon.com">php|tek</a>. Yet again, I was reminded of the significance of bringing together PHP developers, core dev members, and those in industry and related technologies. Our conferences are always a lot of fun-- we work hard and play hard, and we hope everyone comes away with something besides a postcard that says "wish you were here!" or a t-shirt from <a href="http://www.shoelessjoesrosemont.com/">Shoeless Joe's</a>.</p><p>I won't bore you with the tales of "Geeks Gone Wild" or recap the speakers' presentations; for all that, you can check out the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=tek09&s=rec">800+ pics on Flickr</a> and the <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?q=+tek09&submit=post&searchfrom=header&x=0&y=0">slides on Slideshare</a>. You can also read <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=phptek+2009&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a">other people's wrap-ups</a> if you're really interested.</p><p>For those who weren't there (or those who were, but missed out), we at MTA made a few surprise announcements:</p><ul> <li><a href="http://codeworks.mtacon.com">CodeWorks</a> is our exciting fall conference this year. It's a traveling roadshow of PHP experts and we will be hitting 7 cities in 14 days! Check out the <a href="http://codeworks.mtacon.com">site</a> to see if we'll be near a city near you, and be sure to take advantage of our early-bird pricing! Prices start at just $99, so make sure you check it out.</li> <li>Attendees at the conference also got a sneak peek at our new line of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/afilina/3564873789/">PHP</a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtabini/3550900023/">t-shirts</a>. We have 5 different designs and will be selling them on our site shortly, so keep an eye out for these. We will also be adding new designs all the time.</li></ul><p>I also wanted to mention some of the things that happened in the "Hallway Track" as we call it; that time between times when cool things arise out of nowhere: unplanned, unscheduled, and off-the-cuff.<ul> <li>an <a href="http://vimeo.com/4835705">impromptu interview</a> by Microsoft's <a href="http://briangorbett.com/index.php/2009/05/phpwomen-rock/">Brian Gorbett</a>, where he asked a few of the <a href="http://phpwomen.org">PHPWomen</a> about our organization and what we'd like to achieve. The video is kind of long at almost 24 minutes, but if you're interested in PHPWomen, give it a look. Thanks Brian! </li> <li>a meeting with some of the heads of high-profile PHP projects, including Symfony, CakePHP, ZF, PEAR, and others to discuss coding standards across the board. As <a href="http://www.leftontheweb.com/message/PHPtek_2009_Among_the_classics">Stefan Koopmanschap</a> stated, <blockquote>The second conference day started with a meeting with quite a few people from the PHP frameworks world, on introducing certain advised standards for PHP libraries and frameworks. These standards should make it easier for people to include and use libraries. We had a great 2-hour discussion on namespaces and naming, exception naming and handling, and some slightly related off-topic discussions. All in all, a great meeting, which resulted in the start of a new PHP mailinglist. </blockquote> I'm very interested to see what comes of this, and I think it's great they got the ball rolling!</li> <li>a compact little framework was written for fun by <a href="http://www.travisswicegood.com/">Travis Swicegood (of git fame)</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/nateabele">Nate Abele (head CakePHP dev)</a> in between sessions. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're face to face with someone. I'm sure there are other examples of projects that were worked on while at the conference, and if so- let me know!</li></ul></p><p>Other interesting things that were going on during the conference:<ul> <li>the <a href="http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/12403">Hackathon</a>, which resulted in much code being written and much pizza being inhaled. Projects worked on included <a href="http://trac2.assembla.com/phergie">IRC Bot Phergie</a>, <a href="http://framework.zend.com/">ZF</a>, <a href="http://solarphp.com">Solar</a>, and <a href="http://pear.php.net">PEAR</a>.</li> <li>the <a href="http://qa.php.net/testfest.php">Testfest</a>, which resulted in improved test coverage for core PHP, by <a href="http://testfest.php.net/displayresults.php">19 tests</a>. Not too shabby for a few hours late in the afternoon/evening - good job, guys!</li> <li>the PHPWomen <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/spooons/3552917854/">Craft Hour</a>, which was scheduled as a part of the unconference.. and which also turned into a <a href="http://makerfaire.com/">MakerFaire</a> of sorts. For something that was so far off the beaten PHP path, a large group of us (men and women alike) had a great time crafting it up. A cool new <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/spooons/3554423193/in/photostream/">remote controlled multi-car</a> was also fashioned by some talented individuals.</li> <li><a href="http://blueparabola.com/category/general/tek09">Keith Casey</a> did quite a few 4-5 minute interviews of speakers/attendees at the conference, on a variety of topics. You should really take the time to <a href="http://blueparabola.com/category/general/tek09">check them out</a>; he did a fabulous job! </li></ul><p></p></p><p>Add all this in with a few days of excellent sessions and tutorials, along with some very fun social events, and you have the makings of a fantastic conference. My personal thanks go out to all those who pitched in and/or offered their help (you know who you are ;) ), our fantastic <a href="http://tek.mtacon.com/c/schedule">speakers<a/>, and <a href="http://twitter.com/mtabini">Marco</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/arzoum">Arbi</a>. Also want to thank <a href="http://caseysoftware.com">Keith Casey</a> for coordinating a stellar unconference, for being our emcee, and for assisting me with obtaining the proper AV equipment (duuuuuude.) :).</p><p>We're also very interested in getting your feedback from the conference, so if you have comments or suggestions, please send them to me at elizabeth.at.phparch.com. Looking forward to seeing you all next year! </p> </article> <article> <h1>I Am Awesome and So Can You!</h1> <p>2009-04-23T09:57:23-04:00</p> <p>As many of you know, today is <a href="http://blog.preinheimer.com/index.php?/archives/302-Changing-Jobs.html">Paul Reinheimer's last day</a> with Marco Tabini & Assoc, and he'll be greatly missed! On this, his last day, I give you the following slice of poetry.</p><blockquote>I am awesome and so can you!<br />My Ode to Reinheimer<br /><br />You're great to work with, we all think;<br />your <a href="http://phparch.com/c/phpa/training">training</a> can't be beat.<br />You sent us <a href="http://www.brownies.com/">brownies</a> "just because"<br />you're the Paul - <a href="http://blog.preinheimer.com/index.php?/archives/182-Too-Cool.html">elite</a>!<br /><br />You mocked my floating spaceship theme<br />and made my laptop <a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_make_a_computer_screen_brighter">bright</a>.<br />Despite you're from <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=montreal&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=47.215051,114.257812&ie=UTF8&z=11&iwloc=A">Canadia</a>,<br />I still think you're alright ;)<br /><br />You listened to me bitch and moan<br />about my "this and that."<br />And somehow you just make me laugh<br />in 30 seconds flat.<br /><br />You've impressed the conference crowd<br />by beating the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pollita/1377113756/">Quad</a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellogerard/3036828539/">Core</a>.<br />And you're the only person who<br />can call me "Naramore."<br /><br />An expert in the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pollita/3032239396/">pikachu</a>,<br />and awesome in a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/spooons/2865553109/in/photostream/">suit</a>,<br />I heard you wrote a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Web-APIs-PHP-Google/dp/0764589547">book</a> one time,<br />Not sure what that's aboot. (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93848379@N00/2944826269/">Security?!</a>)<br /><br />It's been a blast to work with you-<br />I'm sure that you'll go far.<br />Just keep on reaching for your dreams,<br />(and go from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebastian_bergmann/2527769590/">Kiss</a> to <a href="http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=31515">Gwar</a>!)</blockquote><p>Good luck, Paul, and don't be a stranger :).</p> </article> <article> <h1>Growing Online Communities Naturally</h1> <p>2009-04-16T23:30:11-04:00</p> <p>Something I've always found interesting is the way in which online communities take on a life of their own. There are many resources out there that explore <a href="http://www.boagworld.com/site_content/7_harsh_truths_about_running_o/">how to run</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=managing+an+online+community&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a">manage</a> online communities, but there is something that I rarely see discussed, and that is the way in which the community as a whole operates.</p><p>From my experience, one key to a successful online community is the sort of magic that happens between community members that keeps it vibrant and growing. You can't force that kind of magic, and you can't clone it. It just happens. So when you take a community that has some magic going, and you mess with the formula, chances are you'll get a result similar to the "new" Coke (or the new Facebook layout - sorry guys, xox). In other words, your results may be less than ideal. Although there are other variables that can affect the magic, in this post, I'll talk about the community's chosen mode of communication.</p><p>We're all familiar with the various ways an online community can communicate and collaborate with each other:</p><ul> <li>Forums</li> <li>Mailing lists</li> <li>Wikis</li> <li>IRC</li> <li>Blogs</li> <li>Facebook/Twitter/Identica/ad nauseum</li></ul>What I find interesting is the way a community will latch on to a certain mode of communication, and not let go. People get used to interacting with other members of the group in a certain way, and will not change even if another mode is introduced into the group. They won't even change if they <em>agree with</em> and <em>prefer</em> the change. I've seen this happen time and time again, and each time it makes me more curious about the "why."<br /><br />A few examples:<ul> <li><strong>PHPBuilder Forums</strong>. I became a member of the <a href="http://phpbuilder.org/board">PHPBuilder forums</a> in 2002 and quickly found myself a part of a tightly knit and comical group of fellow PHPers. Before too long, I was a moderator (and still am) and visited the forums once or twice per day. As the years have passed, the core group of folks I interacted with has changed somewhat, but the primary mode of communication is still the forums. We made several attempts at getting a group together on IRC, but failed each time we tried. The chat channel was inactive and unimpressive and eventually withered away into nothingness. Despite the lure of real time communication, it just didn't work with this community.</li><li><strong>PHP Community</strong>. This is a community that exists mainly through IRC (#phpc on freenode). Various PHPC leaders have tried extending the community through online sites (such as wikis, articles, <a href="http://ning.com">Ning</a>, etc.) but it consistently comes back to being an IRC-only entity. The real time and informal interaction between PHPers who just want to take a break or enlist their peers for advice or troubleshooting is what keeps the community alive. The community does not respond to forums. Or wikis. Or other social media websites (with the exception of maybe some complementary Twitter interaction). IRC will always be the glue that holds this community together.</li><li><strong>OINK-PUG</strong>. The <a href="http://oink-pug.org">Ohio, Indiana, Northern Kentucky PHP Users Group</a> has primarily done all its interaction via a mailing list. We have tried several other ways of communication (again, through <a ref="http://ning.com">Ning</a>, phpBB forums, IRC and recently via a Drupal instance on a donated host.) With the exception of providing monthly meeting information to new members, all communication still defaults back to the mailing list. The other modes fall short and become stagnant because nobody uses them.</li><li><strong>PHPWomen</strong>. The preferred mode of communication for this group has emerged as the <a href="http://phpwomen.org">collection of forums</a>. An IRC channel does exist, but is not nearly as active as the forums, and hasn't been nearly as successful as we expected. We've also tried implementing a mailing list to no real avail. Once again, it all comes back to the forums, because that's what the members choose to use.</li></ul><p>One other example I want to mention is in regard to a group of folks that were interested in New Media, primarily where it concerns journalism. As a writer and geek, this group was very interesting to me, as was the fact that a good friend of mine started it up. It began primarily as a mailing list for discussions on how Web 2.0 would affect newspapers and traditional means of reporting the news. The mailing list was very active, and people began to suggest we take it somewhere more permanent and better organized. We all voted to switch the site over to Ning because of all the cool other features it offered. So the admin did as we suggested and moved it over. And then all activity on the site promptly fell away. The group responded much quicker and was much more inclined to participate when we were using a mailing list, despite <em>what we thought we wanted.</em></p><p>What makes a community tick? Why do some communities who are comprised of virtually the same people choose different modes of communication? Why are some communities so compelling that we give up our individually preferred mode of communication in favor of the one chosen by the group? </p><p>I'm no psychologist, but I can offer up a few words of advice for those struggling to grow their community or find that magic. Lay all your cards out on the table and see which ones gather momentum. Offer up multiple outlets and ways of communication within the group. Set up forums *and* a mailing list *and* an IRC channel *and* anything else you think would be of interest to the members. Yes, it will be overkill at the beginning, but until you know in which direction the community is going to gravitate, you have to keep your options open and not force your community into a box. If a mailing list is working, then keep it. If forums are better for your group, then keep them. Let the group grow naturally and remember the complexity of the group dynamics is what dictates how the group will gel, not the leader.</p> </article> <article> <h1>For Ada Lovelace Day, My Ode to uberChick</h1> <p>2009-03-24T00:29:40-04:00</p> <p>Today is Ada Lovelace Day, and to help bring awareness to women in tech, I signed this <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay">petition</a> saying I'd blog about "a woman in technology whom I admire." If you don't know who <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_lovelace">Ada Lovelace</a> is, or why it even matters, the purpose of this day is to bring women to the forefront to act as positive role models for other women and young girls. Still not convinced this matters? Check out this <a href="http://findingada.com/blog/2009/01/05/ada-lovelace-day/">great blog post by Suw Charman-Anderson</a>. She explains it much more eloquently than I can.</p><p>So anyway, I pledged that I would write about a woman that I admire. The woman I've chosen to write about goes by the nick "uberChick". She maintains a <a href="http://uberchicgeekchick.com/">blog at http://uberchicgeekchick.com/</a> and in her own words, "I'm a female open source artist, programmer, & designer living with Generalized Dystonia. I'm emotional, over share, & truly caring." uberChick's name is Kaity and she's quite simply, one of the most amazing and inspirational people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. </p><p>uberChick regularly posts informative and thought-provoking podcasts on programming and the art of and expressiveness in the industry (available on <a href="http://uberchicgeekchick.com/">her site</a> and through <a href="http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=95">Hacker Public Radio</a>). She's a huge advocate of FOSS, has created her own GTK/GNOME Twitter client called <a href="http://uberchicgeekchick.com/?projects=Greet-Tweet-Know">Greet-Tweet-Know</a>, and is also programming her own first person game simulator, among other things. Like many of us, uberChick has many interests and is juggling many projects at once. In fact, she <a href="http://twitter.com/uberChick/statuses/1132061678">tweeted</a> a while ago: "My projects: 4 web apps, 2 GTK apps, 1 3-D Terminal, 1 graphic novel, 2 novellas, 3 drawings, & #1: my game!" From her website, this is what she says about herself:</p><blockquote>I'm really an uberChick & have my nerd woman brain wrinkles into a lot of everything. Coding/Hacking/Programming/Software Engineering/Etc. My favorite languages include C, PHP, Perl, XML, XLS Family of Languages, CSS, JavaScript, XHTML, RSS, Mono, LUA, &many others. My broad range of interests &talents include graphic, 3D, game, &web design; animation, video, & audio production; writing blogs, essays, & white papers; databases like MySQL, SQLite3, XML/XQuery, & many many many other forms of art.</blockquote><p>She is very active on Twitter and often times I find myself Googling just to keep up with what the heck she's talking about :).</p><p>uberChick is also an active member of <a href="http://phpwomen.org">PHPWomen</a>, <a href="http://devchix.com">DevChix</a>, <a href="linuxchix.org">LinuxChix</a>, and always, ALWAYS, has a positive message to share with those around her. Usually those messages are sent via Twitter, but she also uses IRC to spread her messages of hope, encouragement and inspiration.</p><p>She is a very intelligent, creative, beautiful person that never ceases to amaze me.</p><p>Now, if that weren't enough, as I mentioned earlier, uberChick lives with a very debilitating and excruciatingly painful disease called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystonia">Generalized Dystonia</a>. If you're not familiar with this devastating disease, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystonia">Wikipedia</a> states that "the dystonias are movement disorders in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures." She has the unfortunate case of "Generalized" Dystonia which means that her entire body is affected by these severe muscle contractions, not just an arm or a leg. Dystonia is a chronic disease for which there is no cure.</p><p>So basically, Kaity spends every waking moment fighting and struggling to manage her pain. She lives on her own, is in a wheelchair and although she has a little help via a home caregiver from time to time, she is completely independent. Her muscles often betray her, twisting her and turning her body into extremely painful contortions, while her mind remains unscathed. She told me a story once about how even her eyelids spasm and force her eyelids shut for long periods of time. Imagine living day-to-day, not knowing each minute if your body will turn you into a ball of agony, and not being able to do much about it if (read: when) it does. Imagine having wonderful ideas for projects and code and blog posts and podcasts... and not being able to focus or implement them because you're in so much pain. And even when the pain subsides, Imagine trying to control unruly and uncooperative fingers to type out what is in your brain. Kaity lives many days in a prison of suffering and agony.</p><p>Kaity has also had to deal with prejudice and even harmful threats from those around her. She has struggled with the nightmare that is the American healthcare system, unreliable caregivers, legal proceedings, and faulty medical equipment, just to name a few of the external obstacles that face her.</p><p>It would be easy for her to simply give up. Or, she could be bitter, angry, and frustrated. She could try and elicit pity from people. All of these would be perfectly reasonable responses to her lot in life. But Kaity has chosen to do none of the above. She fights. Every day. She inspires, and motivates, and encourages. Every day.</p><p>Kaity has taken control of her own care by hiring her own caregivers as employees. She has also developed an amazing talent as a result of all the ideas floating around in her head, and nowhere for them to go. Kaity can write complete applications in her head. She can visualize the code and store it in her brain, ready for the moment when her body decides to cooperate. And when it does, she writes out as much as she possibly can. 9 times out of 10 her code works out of the box. I should be so lucky! :)</p><p>The <a href="http://www.dystonia-foundation.org/pages/what_is_dystonia_/26.php">Dystonia Medical Research Foundation</a> says that "dystonia affects men, women, and children of all ages and backgrounds. Estimates suggest that no less than 300,000 people in North America are affected. Dystonia causes varying degrees of disability and pain, from mild to severe. There is presently no cure, but multiple treatment options exist and scientists around the world are actively pursuing research toward new therapies." If you would like to support the Dystonia cause, you can go to <a href="http://www.dystonia-foundation.org/pages/how_you_can_help/13.php">the Dystonia Medical Research website</a> to learn how you can help.</p><p>Kaity, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your strength and inspiration. I salute *you* today and all those who follow in your footsteps.</p> </article> </main></body></html>