Tickets for the first PHPNW08 (PHP North West Conference) 2008 are now on sale. The 1 day event has a fantastic schedule and tickets are just £50 (currently) for what looks to be a great event. Go register now.
There is a new event in town, Matt Booth is launching a monthly meetup for digital creatives in and around Manchester called Northern Digitals. It will be held the first Thursday of every month. There is a meetup group that you can join and stay upto date with events and members.
When: 7PM Thursday, October 2, 2008
Where: Socio Rehab, Edge St, Northern Quarter, Manchester
Cost: FREE, buy your own beer
What: A monthly meetup where digital creatives from in and around Manchester can get away from their screens and talk to other digital creatives.
Last month I was interviewed by Kim May from Let’s Go Global for a video on Manchester’s User Group scene for the MDDA. It was my first ever interview and I was *sort of* nervous :) The interview took place at The Modern Bar and Restaurant in the Urbis. I’m first up in the video then after me is Paul Robinson, Phil Winstanley, James Panton and Chris Maiden.
Last month I mentioned the first PHPNW User Group meeting and this month I’m delighted to tell you about the 1st annual PHPNW conference happening later this year.
phpnw08 is a 1 day event organised by developers for developers to be held on Saturday 22nd November 2008 at Manchester Central and will bring together the North-of-England PHP community for a one-day event of exceptional presentations, challenging workshops, sensational debates and networking events. The conference will have a mix of in-depth and shorter talks and the call for papers is open so go submit a proposal.
There’s been an influx of jobs listed on the GeekUp Job Board recently and I just want to make sure the right people find them. The GeekUp Job board is a grassroots job board for the Design, Development, Technology and Web Industry in the UK. It’s completely FREE and doesn’t cost anything to post a job, and I try my darn hardest to keep it clear of posts from those *evil* recruiters. If your looking for a new job or fancy a change of career take a look at the jobs posted in August:
Code Computerlove are hunting for a Front End Web Developer with a passion for semantic MarkUp, understanding of cross browser/platform issues, Accessibly, AJAX, DOM, JavaScript, jQuery, Web Standards and a keen eye for design. The position is full-time and will be based in Manchester. No Recruitment Agents! Send your CV to: andrew+jobs [at] geekup [dot] org and I’ll hook you up!
After the success of our Superfunk Roller Disco Preston launch party at 53 Degrees in May earlier this year, we’re back in Preston on Saturday 27th September 2008 for another round of bump action disco fun.
For full details head on over to the Superfunk Roller Disco Preston website.
Make sure you get your skates on for this ‘Over the Rainbow’ Pride Special. It’s new home will be ‘Pure’ nightclub in the Printworks on Wednesday 20th August, 9pm until 2am and it’s an opportunity to have an alternative night, try something new, party the night away at the bar and make new friends while raising funds for the Lesbian and Gay Foundation - the North West’s leading community based charity, working to end homophobia and empower people. Get your skates on!
On Friday night the University of Salford is being invaded by Girl Geeks. Manchester Geek Girl Dinners hosts it’s second event and this time Kerry and I will be going along to join in the fun.
When: 7:00 PM Friday, July 25, 2008
Where: University of Salford, University House, University of Salford,
Salford, England M5 4WT
Cost: Around £15 (includes 3 course meal, coffee and drinks)
What: For those who haven’t been before, it’s dinner, wine, talks from inspirational women, networking and discussions afterwards.
Currently two talks planned, if you want to get involved and speak about women in engineering, science and technology, please do get in touch.
Who can attend: Girl Geeks! A lady who has an interest, or is involved in the Science, Engineering and Technology industries. Blokes can come too, but you need an invite from a Geek Girl!
The all important links: Manchester Girl Geek Dinner Event Website, Upcoming.org Event Page and there’s a facebook Event Page
This weekend Manchester’s Castlefield Arena will be host to the Nokia Skate Almighty music tour that’s already been a huge hit in London and Birmingham. The rolling begins this Friday 25th and ends Sunday 27th July. There’s a bunch of us from SilverWheels Skate Rink in Altrincham heading over to the Sunday evening sessions (more specifically 2000-2200). I’ll be taking the camera along to get some photographic evidence so keep your eye out for that.
There is a new PHP User Group in town PHP North West (PHPNW), some of you may remember the the old PHP Meetup in Manchester run by Dan Morris which later merged into GeekUp due to low interest. Since then there has been growth of User Groups that are more focused on a particular technology.
PHPNW is a community of web developers, web designers and anyone else interested in PHP, from the North West.
The first PHPNW meeting is on this Thursday 17th July in Manchester, for full details visit the event page at Upcoming.
This Wednesday 4th June 2008 is going be the last Roller Disco Manchester until mid September - so get your neons on and your legs out and roll on down to Pure this Wednesday for a night to remember!
Work in or near Manchester City Centre, will you be hungry on Thursday lunch? Then come join me for the first GeekUp Lunch this Thursday 1PM at Taurus, 1 Canal Street, Manchester M1 3HE
Full details on the GeekUp Lunch Manchester event page.
Myself and a few other North West Digital Communities (NWDC) members have been invited to the Big Chip Awards in Manchester by Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA). It’s like the oscars but for the Digital Media and IT Industry outside of London and is certainly the place to be seen. It should be a good night, Code Computerlove have 3 projects shortlisted in the same category so there’s a possibility of a win.
This will be my second awards event after last years FRESH:digital Awards 2007 which I really enjoyed and not just because I won Freshest Digital Young Professional, but because it’s good to see some of the fantastic work that’s produced and see the people involved rewarded for their hard work.
A big hug goes out to the MDDA for invite. I’m looking forward to meeting some new faces and putting faces to people I’ve spoken to via mailing lists like GeekUp but have yet to meet. If your attending and we’ve not met do say hello.
The weekly Roller Disco Manchester returns on Wednesday after last weeks unplanned cancellation due to the violence that erupted following the UEFA Cup Final.
Roller Disco Manchester takes place every Wednesday from 10PM at PURE nightclub in The Printworks, Withy Grove, Manchester. Full details can be found on the event website.
Last month saw the launch of GeekUp Preston which takes place on the third Monday of every month. The first event at Gemma’s flat turned out to be extremely popular so this month it will be at a bigger and public venue. Gemma has also promised to bake some Chocolate Guinness Cake so make sure you get there early to be in with a chance of sampling the goodness!
For those not in the know; “GeekUp is a community of web designers, web developers, and other tech-minded folk from the North West. Our socials take place once a month in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Sheffield they are always a lively place to share ideas and spread a little knowledge.”
7:00 PM Monday May 19th, 2008 at Forum 17 Winckley Street Preston PR1 2AA.
Description: Due to popular demand for March’s meeting, GeekUp Preston will now be held upstairs at the beautiful Forum Bar.
This month we’ve got Andrew Disley doing a “Fix My MarkUp” session for anyone who has any questions about CSS/HTML etc. Bring along your problem and he’ll try to solve it!
Following on from recent Mailing List discussions and a previous Manchester GeekUp, we’re going to have a natter about AGILE. Please bring along your questions or anecdotes of what does and doesn’t work for you and your projects.
And of course anything else you fancy, including laughing at Gem attempting Roller Disco!
John Kirkham’s Skate Fever Roller Disco’s are kicking off on the 5th July with the first one being held at Xsite at the Xscape Castleford in Leeds West Yorkshire.
I’m so excited have been for weeks and John’s kindly asked Rachael to DJ so no doubt the music will be fly.
The first Skate Fever roller disco!
I’ve been looking forward to this day for years, I like many people hate the feeling you get after a night out when you stink of smoke and even after a shower it’s still there inside you. The punishment of a sore throat should be a thing of the past.
Today England goes Smokefree. It’s now a criminal office to smoke in enclosed public places and workplaces from 0600 July 1st 2007. Places include bars, cafes, lunch rooms, membership clubs nightclubs, pubs and shopping centres is against the law.
Individuals lighting up illegally will face a fine of £50 (£30 if paid within 15 days or upto £200 if the case goes to court ). Business owners are liable for two separate offences (’failing to prevent smoking in a smokefree place’ and ‘failing to display no-smoking signs’) and could face fines of up to £2,500.
It’s the responsability of Local councils to enforce the law but you can help by alerting the businiess owners. You can also report it to your local council or phone the Smokefree Compliance Line on 0800 587 166 7.
The law has been introduced to protect people from second-hand smoke which causes and estimate 600 deaths a year. Hopefully the ban will also encourage smokers to give it up. I really hope the ban gets through to people as I’m pretty sick of people lighting up on the train station platfoms. Now that the bussiness owners are accountable we should see an active policing.
It’s the last Thursday of the month and that means GeekUp Liverpool is happening so if your around the Mersey you should pop along for a geeky chat. I unfortunately can’t make this event due to workload but hopefully I’ll make the next Liverpool event.
With every site you visit piling on more and more JavaScript and Ajax, what happens when a user comes along using a screen reader or mobile device that would choke on even a simple alert()? How can we take advantage of the power of these technologies without providing any barriers to users, this session will cover techniques to ensure that you can still serve up rich content without excluding users, all from one code base.
Things are extremely busy right now at the office and we are seeking a full-time standards-aware front-end developer who is passionate about writing clean, semantic and accessible HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If that sounds like yours -or someone you knows- cup-of-tea drop me an e-mail and include your resumé and if possible a list of links to examples of your work.
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