Ben Cornwell

A return to ‘normal’ after July’s Microsoft theme
When/Where

Date: Thursday 9th August 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Address

Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne

Website Usability Testing - Sandrine Balbo - 7:15-8:00 pm

In this presentation on Web Site Usability Testing, Sandrine will cover:

* Why test? Setting testing objectives
* Setting testing objectives
* Choosing appropriate testing methods (expert reviews, surveys,
observations, etc)
* Determining when to test
* Determining the number of users to test (if any)
* Attaining both internal and external feedback
* Considering the cost vs benefit of testing

Unit Testing with PHPUnit - Ben Cornwell - 8:15-9:00 pm

Unit testing is a programming technique that aids in the development of robust, reliable code and gives developers piece of mind in knowing that their code functions as expected. Based on JUnit, PHPUnit is the defacto standard unit testing framework for PHP: it is easy to install, straight-forward to work with, and actively maintained.

This presentation will cover:

* Introducing PHPUnit

* Installing PHPUnit

* Writing PHPUnit test cases

* Running your tests

* Using test suites to ‘group’ your tests, and

* Using mock objects

Socialising & Networking - 9:00pm onward

After the meeting we’ll be moving downstairs to the Cartel Bar, for an informal chat over a few cold ones.

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided
with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.

In case you’re keen hack around with code used in my PHPMelb presentation last week, you can get the source here.

Perhaps you didn’t come to the meeting, but just want to see how lame my graphic design skills are…
I’m planning to get it running somewhere public on my server eventually, but need to dist-upgrade first to get some updated PHP packages.

In other news, I’ve got three talk proposals under consideration for OSDC 2007 being held in Brisbane this November. More on that soon, assuming at least one of them is accepted.

I found this in Warren Ellis’ Flickr stream (and yes, it is work-safe).

This thusrday (12th July 2007), I’ll be presenting some of the discoveries I’ve made in the last few weeks playing around with Silverlight & PHP at the Melbourne PHP User Group. Dave Glover, the local Microsoft Developer Evangelist, will be coming along to talk about Expression Studio and Visual Studio Orcas.
From phpmelb.org:
When/Where

Date: Thursday 12th July 2007
Time: 7.00pm

Address

Hitwise Melbourne
Level 6, 580 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne
Expression Studio Round Up - Dave Glover - 7:15 - 8:00pm

Coinciding with the official release of Silverlight, Microsoft have recently launched a bunch of brand new tools for web development work called Expression Studio, with the express purpose of enabling collaboration between developers and designers in creating standards based websites. Featured in this suite of applications is Expression Web, a web authoring tool with comprehensive support for CSS and… PHP!

Dave Glover will be coming along to give us the low-down.

Doing Silverlight with PHP - Ben Cornwell - 8:15 - 9:00pm

Silverlight is Microsoft’s offering in the world of rich-client platforms like Flex and Open Laszlo. Based on XAML, Silverlight provides a framework for creating user interfaces for the web that are standards compliant, great looking and encompass complex animation, audio and video.

Ben’s presentation will provide an introduction to Silverlight and a live demonstration of how to create Silverlight interfaces with PHP and AJAX.

Socialising & Networking - 9:00pm onward

After the meeting we’ll be moving downstairs to the Cartel Bar, for an informal chat over a few cold ones.

Pizza, softdrink, tea, coffee and comfy swivel chairs will be provided
with compliments of our major sponsor, Hitwise.