To MVC or Not to MVC

That's the question I am going through right now... The Zend Framework is a MVC framework that allows for rapid development. While that sounds nice, it would take quite some time to learn a new way to develop, which would take more time in the short term run. I have also considered using things like Symfony or something of the like. Nate at the national InterVarsity office suggested that, but I am still not sure. Anyway...if you have any thoughts, please share!

StudentJourney Pre-Alpha Design

If you want to take a look at the latest design thoughts going into the next-gen StudentJourney.org, take a quick look at the dev site.

Please give feedback / comments / requests in the comments section!

SOURCE 2007 Media

Just finished up the brochure and website for SOURCE 2007, a leadership conference for InterVarsity students in South Dakota. It will be held April 20-22 at Camp Judson in the beautiful Black Hills in Keystone, SD.
I will be leading a track on how to create effective Large Group meetings as well as running the Large Group at SOURCE.

source 2007 wallpaper

source 2007 wallpaper
Originally uploaded by zachconrad.

Get your wallpaper here :)

website header

website header
Originally uploaded by zachconrad.

used on the SOURCE 2007 website

StudentJourney Project Tasks

After much thought, my process for restructuring SJ has begun to take shape. I have added a lot of cushion as I don't know how some of the processes will work together. All in all, I am pleased to present to you, the Project Tasks document for StudentJourney.org.
Any comments would be good to have.

StudentJourney Plans

I am undergoing a massive restructuring of SJ and will put a few of my ideas/plans here on the blog on occasion. Feel free to chime in if you so wish.

CLASSES/MODULAR APPLICATIONS
these will be used multiple places throughout SJ sites (one to many relationship)

Messages (news, announcements)
Articles (articles, stories)
Emailer (contact, prayer)
Search (Google API, mnoGoSearch)
Pages (webpages)
FileManager (upload, download)
SignUp (join group)
Calendar (one-time, multi-day, recurring)
Album (photo albums)
Directory (members, groups, reports, updater)
Links (directory based)

TECHNOLOGIES
possible technologies included in overhaul

prototype
scriptalicious
JSON
PDO
iCard/vCard
iCal/vCal
WebDAV
WYSIWYG/Xinha/TinyMCE
blog
metrics/analysis/stats
Zend Framework
memcache
tags
Akismet/captcha/anti-spam

SITES
these are the proposed sites

Main
MyCampus
Library
Missions
Links
Region
Servant Team
Staff
Events
Alumni

StudentJourney.org Restructuring

This week has been busy in preparing the latest and greatest StudentJourney.org. I have been mapping everything out in Microsoft Project and Visio and might just put those up some day :). I hope to implement some of the following:

SERVER
Apache2
PHP5
PostgreSQL 8

TECHNOLOGIES
Prototype
Scriptalicious
JSON
PDO
iCard/vCard
iCal/vCal
Blogs
mnoGoSearch
Zend Framework

I will be using the excellent Zend Framework coding standards for development and Eclipse/phpEclipse for an IDE. I love Subversion for a version control system.

More to come.

Pursuit 2007 Media Finished

I finally finished the media for Pursuit, our summer Chapter Leadership Camp. You can view the video and download various media at the website: http://events.studentjourney.org/pursuit/.