Assist faculty to design, maintain, and evaluate web applications for instructional purposes; facilitate faculty professional development workshops and provide general technical support as part of the Center for Teaching & Learning.

Bachelor’s degree and three to five years professional experience in related field required, or an equivalent combination. Effective organizational, project management and communication skills required. Demonstrated ability to design and build maintainable web applications and proficiency in user interface design and usability testing required. Fluency in XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL and relational databases required. Familiarity with MVC principles, Ruby on Rails, Unix/Linux environments, Apache, Flash/Actionscript, and Photoshop required.

Commitment to diversity and inclusion required.

Experience in educational setting and familiarity with instructional design principles highly desirable.

Applications can be submitted on the UVM Jobs site (go to search postings and look under Ctr for Teaching & Learning search for Job Requisition Number 032308). Once again, I’m on the hiring committee – I look forward to seeing your application!

We’re starting with 2001, and working our way back. We’ll also be filling in the holes in 2002-2007. If you want to check our progress, click on the Search/Index page of our site, scroll to the bottom, and click to the last page of results. Those are the oldest stories, and they’re getting older all the time.

It certainly won’t approach the scale or depth of the material recently released by the New York Times, but I like to think this is representative of the direction papers are moving in. After all, they could have put it behind a pay wall. This is also a significant move on the part of a publication that is such a big part of the community and local culture. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out of the Seven Days “vault”.

Multiple actions per request with the Zend Framework

This is one of those features you don’t think about until you need it and it’s not there. The documentation for dispatch() describes the process pretty well:

Routing takes place exactly once, using the values in the request object when dispatch() is called. Dispatching takes place in a loop; a request may either indicate multiple actions to dispatch, or the controller or a plugin may reset the request object to force additional actions to dispatch. When all is done, the front controller returns a response.

It’s features like this that add elegance to a set of tools.

Zend Framework’s flexible view interface for portability

Some frameworks come with their own template syntax – by default, Zend just uses PHP. However with Zend_View_Interface you can roll your own template system, or easily build a wrapper for a third party engine like Smarty.

Some folks commented that over the years they had been through several back-end systems, and having the front-end in smarty was a huge timesaver. Using Zend_View_Interface you could conceivably even switch template engines if you had to.

Deployment and Subversion

All sorts of other information came up out of various conversations we had as a group. Here are a few off the top of my head.

• It looks like the Symfony framework has some deployment tools available.
• There were a few subversion hosting services suggested, including Assembla, which looks impressive (the image annotation feature sounds especially slick).

If you’re in the area, sign up or keep an eye on the Burlington PHP Users Group mailing list for word of the next meeting.

(Via Paul Martin‘s Twitter.)

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of businesses come and go, just within a block or so of us. There have certainly been some success stories, but the come and go of these small retail shops and eateries seem to outnumber the ones that are sticking around. The other day, I was lamenting this situation to a friend who lives a few blocks away. He mentioned the lack of two-way streets going to and from downtown Burlington, and the effect that has on the area.

I’m not a city planner, or a community development expert, but this idea got me thinking. Here are some of those thoughts.

Simple geography

Looking at a map of the area, you can see that many of the larger streets connecting the Old North End to the downtown area are one-way. The only connecting streets that are two way are North Willard, North Prospect, and North Champlain. Yet these streets are on the edges of the area, and only one (North Champlain) feeds an area that could use it – the other two go through more residential neighborhoods.

Opening up North Winooski, Elmwood, and North Union to bi-directional traffic would make it easier for people to move between downtown Burlington and the Old North End. More traffic means more business coming to the area, and less turnover.

The endangered parking space, and the urban ecosystem

Imagine a city as an ecosystem. Introducing changes to any ecosystem is going to affect other parts of that system. Adding a lane of traffic will decrease parking spaces in a town that already has a shortage. For that matter, there isn’t any more parking in the ONE either – increased traffic is going to mean greater demand for parking. There are bike lanes on at least one of those streets that would also have to be moved or be merged. And this is a town that likes it’s pedal power. Widening the street encroaches on green space.

More importantly, there are social concerns that need to be considered here as well. Some of these are present during any urban renewal project. Consider for example how increased business in the area might influence property values and rents in a town that already has a high cost of living. Or the physical and economic effects on the communities that live on those streets.

Where there’s a will, there’s a two-way street

All this is not to say that we’re living in a ghost town over here. There are some fantastic boutiques, eateries, galleries, and other establishments on this side of town. Yet it still feels like the ONE is a lot farther away from the rest of the city than it actually is.

Despite the risks and hurdles, improving traffic flow would go a long way towards fixing that disconnect. It would also help to boost the city’s renewal efforts in the area. This would not be a minor change, and would need plenty of discussion, research, and careful consideration – not to mention funding. But an urban renewal program that doesn’t consider local traffic flow is incomplete at best, if not shortsighted. I have no doubt the people of burlington and the ONE have the will to complete this process in a responsible, thoughtful, and effective manner.

Aside from the pleasant smell and subsequent grumbling of my tummy, I am struck by how well the odor carries across town. What if it was a paper mill, and the smell was closer to rotten eggs than donuts? For that matter, the wood burning power plant is right around the corner from the donut factory. What else is floating through the air?

To tell the truth, I’m not all that concerned. I am intrigued, however, by the idea of one relatively small neighbor having such a large, yet subtle effect on the community around it. Does everyone notice this and just not mention it? Do they mention it in passing, but then forget about it? Does it go unnoticed by the concious mind, only to resurface in dreams and fragments of déjà vu?

Hmmm. All this talk about donuts is making me hungry.

As I wandered around the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival this weekend, I felt a bit like Homer in the Land of Chocolate. Everything was so good, and if I found something that didn’t particularly suit my fancy, I could stop for a taste and mosy down the block to the next one. Here are a few of the acts we saw that I definitely fancied.

I actually got to see Avi & Celia play twice. My Special Lady Friend and I heard some intoxicating tunes drifting out of the alley behind American Flatbread on Friday evening, and found the duo giving a performance in what turned out to be a wonderfully cozy venue. The next day we found them performing in front of City Hall. At that point I was with my folks who were up for the afternoon to wander around with me, so I got to hang out and watch them perform again, and mom got to pick up their album after the show. Looks like they are going on tour down the east coast, but will be back around later this summer for the Champlain Valley Folk Festival and the Vermont Roots Reggae Festival.

After watching the sunset on the waterfront with the Skatelites in the background, we headed up the hill. Walking by City Hall Park, we joined a crowd in rapt attendance of The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band.

Later on that evening, we got to see a mosh pit on church street, driven by The Mathematicians rocking, thrashing notes. It was quite a show. The music samples on their MySpace page don’t do them justice – I thought they were a different band (well, ok, I’m still not sure) until I read their Last.fm description.

Anyway, keep an eye out for these acts coming to a venue near you. I’m off to go find some chocolate.

“I hold out some hope that we can find someone to manage and run the website as a news organization,” said Totten.

Here’s hoping that someone else can step up and fill some big shoes.

I was most impressed by the gift shop appropriately named ArtShop. The sales associate explained that it was geared towards providing original works of art at affordable prices, and at the same time giving local artists another outlet. Most museum and gallery gift shops I’ve been to have a somewhat canned inventory, consisting of prints and prefabricated knickknacks. This was about as far from that as I’ve ever seen – a much more interesting and eclectic collection, and at, well, gift shop prices. Really, an original store. I think I enjoyed it even more than the gallery itself. You can get some idea of what they have available via their online store, but you should really stop by and see for yourself if you are in the area.