After a four-month hiatus, my support forums are officially back online. I’m also working on getting through the backlog of “things I need to investigate and give a definitive answer to”. That will be a continued work in progress for some time.

The forums are free for anyone to use, whether or not you’ve purchased a book (although supporting the books is the primary role of them). Understand that I do answer every forum posting, but do so as I have time. Assuming I’m not traveling or otherwise swamped, this means I answer questions 3 days per week, so it could (and likely will be) 2-3 days before you get a reply from me. (It’ll be longer if you email me directly, for the record.) Other people do help out as well, for which I am eternally grateful.

Finally, please remember that you’re asking for free help from strangers in these forums. Be patient and appreciative when people that don’t know you are giving up their time to try to help.

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On Monday, November 2, 2015, I posted the second update of the second edition of " The Yii Book". (I was hoping to blog about it here on Tuesday but…) This update brings the book to 307 pages, with four more revised chapters, bringing the total to 12. Specific release notes are:

I just posted the first update for the second edition of " The Yii Book", covering version 2 of the Yii framework. The release notes are lengthy, but a couple of quick “I’m aware” thoughts up front…

• I’m not pleased with the image quality of some images, but that’s a harder problem to solve than you might imagine. I will continue to work on that.
• This update only includes through Chapter 8 (although you can still download the entire first edition of the book). Consequently, internal links to later chapters won’t work. I opted to be lazy here, rather than removing those links for now and having to re-enter them as I add chapters.
• I need to add the Yii 2 code to the downloads page.

Finally, I am not making any statements as to when I think the next release will be, or how long the entire edition will take. I’ve not done well estimating such things in the past, and the only reliable fact is it’ll take longer than anyone likes, including me. This first update arguably took longer than the others will but… I have goals in mind; some times I reach them, other times I don’t. Anyway, 200 pages is a good start!

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In this edition…

• About This Newsletter
• On the Web => Working Real Hours
• On the Blog => How to Screw Up Professionally
• What is Larry Thinking => The Pros and Cons of Freelancing
• Larry Ullman’s Book News => Four Revisions Coming in 2015 and 2016

For those of you interested in such things, here’s an update on my forthcoming books for 2015-2016 (spoiler alert: they’re all revisions of existing books).

My presentation to the Frederick Web Tech group, in Frederick, Maryland, originally scheduled for March 3, 2015, was postponed due to nasty weather. (At least from my side, that was a good decision, as all of central Pennsylvania got covered with two inches of ice.) I’m happy to say the presentation has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The event is free, and if you’re in the greater Maryland-Washington, D.C.-Virginia-Pennsylvania-West Virginia-Delaware (why not?) area, I encourage you to come out. It’s going to be a cozy affair, with pizza and beer!

The specific presentation I’m doing is “How To Get There”, first given at the Northeast PHP 2013 conference, and revised as a keynote for php\[tech\] 2014 in Chicago. This is a motivational-type speech, in which I lay out the attitudes and behaviors you need in order to achieve  your personal and professional goals. The official talk description is below.

The talk itself will begin around 7:00pm, and last around 45 minutes. There will be plenty of time for questions, during and after. Or you can have a beer with me later that night!

My thanks to the Frederick Web Tech group for having me!