Web Technology and Design SIG

June 2009 Meeting - Tuesday, June 23

There are a couple of options to adding an event calendar to your website. For websites that use WordPress, there are a couple of add-ons available.

Easy PHP Calendar is another PHP based calendar that is easily integrated into your website and is simple to customize. It supports a flat-file database format as well as mySQL so you can use this application even if your webhost package does not include mySQL.

Mark your calendar. I look forward to seeing you there!

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

May 2009 Meeting - Tuesday, May 26

While Forums may be considered to some people as older technology, they do offer a great way for people to share opinions as a community effort. This month we will talk about some of the most popular forums coded in PHP. We will demo PHPbbb and Vanilla. If time permits, we will touch base on a ASP driven forum.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

April 2009 Meeting - Tuesday, April 28

PHP is a popular server scripting language for building dynamic web pages. From simple form action scripts to robust applications such as a WordPress blog, Drupal and Joomla content management systems or a PHPbb forum, there is a lot to choose from.  Understanding the basics is immensely useful when expanding the capabilities of your website.

Katrina Niolet, our guest speaker for April, will guide us through the basics of PHP. She will discuss how to install an Apache server, MySQL database and PHP so you can test your code before you go live. Then she will provide an overview of server side scripting vs markup vs client side scripting as well as an introduction of variables and functions.

Katrina leads classes often and is a software engineer at KDAB.  She is quite knowledgeable and her presentation is sure to be worthwhile. I look forward to seeing you all there.

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

March 2009 Meeting - Tuesday, March 24

In North America, a staggering 250 million, or 74% of the populace, is online. Nearly 1.5 billion people access the internet on a daily basis and new sites are launched every day. Improving your visibility with the search engines, therefore, is critical for increasing your traffic to your website and ultimately your sales!

Michelle Wicmandy returns as our guest speaker in March. She will address methods on increasing the visibility of your web site. In order for your web site to be noticed, it needs to rank on the first two pages of a key word search. Ideally the first page.

Join us as we discuss how to find the phrases that will increase your search engine rankings. Learn about keyword research tools, keyword selection and keyword analysis that will help you in marketing your web site.

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

February 2009 Meeting - Tuesday, February 24

Imagine if you could radically change the look and feel of your entire web site in a few moments by just changing a few items on one page. This is not wishful thinking. It is reality if you use cascading style sheets (CSS). Proper use of CSS makes web pages lighter, and easier to build, change, and maintain.

Not that long ago, CSS was considered geek technology reserved only for the most extreme players. Poor browser support trapped CSS in the “isn’t that nice” territory of Web development. Not any more. Separating structure from design is no longer a fringe endeavor. It is the standard by which all website development projects are now based. Many high-profile companies like Wired, Fast Company, Sprint, and ESPN have redesigned their sites using standards based CSS, isn’t it time you did too? Learn about CSS and how it can be the best tool in your web design arsenal.

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

January 2009 Meeting - Tuesday, January 27

Sponsored by the Houston.net Users group, The Houston TechFest 2008 canceled due to Ike, will now take place on Jan 24, 2009. Registration begins on November 12. To chose your sessions visit www.houstontechfest.com/.

I attended last year and it was a blast! There were at least 500 people in attendance. This year it is sure to be even better. I hope to see you there.

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

Due to Ike, plus that I am starting on new job on Monday, I am canceling the September meeting. In October, we will discuss setting up a testing server on your PC.

Over the next few days, I will continue work on getting our website populated with useful content. I hope all of you fared Ike with minimal problems and I look forward to seeing you in October.

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

September Meeting - Tuesday, September 23 (postponed until October 28th due to Ike)

As your web development skills advance, the benefit of using server side scripting becomes more attractive. However, do you want to run the risk of causing havoc on your live site while you experiment?

This is where setting up a testing server is important. It is not as hard as you think to install Apache, MySQL and PHP. Having the ability for contained testing makes it worth the effort. Join us as we go through a case study on setting up a testing server, installing WordPress and then launching the site live.

Rita Trelewicz
Web Design SIG Leader

Conference Canceled Due to IKE (Schipul will reschedule event for 2009)

For those of you who want a little inside scoop on a content management system or want to learn a little bit more of how to optimize your website, this conference is worth checking out.

It’s time again for the Annual Tendenci User Conference, where the Schipul team will help you utilize your website to its fullest extent and help you tell your organization’s story. There will be a wealth of knowledge sharing on Tendenci, Social Media, Search Marketing and Web Marketing.

The conference will be held October 2nd and October 3rd, 2008, and is full of good, good stuff.

Did we mention that it’s FREE?

View the conference agenda and register online today at http://www.tendenci.com/en/cev/?384