Mojtaba Jamali (mojtabajml)   Iran for his XQuiz and help on Oxygen

This month the award goes to  Mojtaba Jamali (mojtabajml) from Iran for his work on XQuiz and Oxygen (where he teamed up with Voltan)

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I am from Iran and I'm living in Esfahan

How long have you been programming? 

About 4 years, started with C after C++ and php sometimes coding with C#.

What is your expertise? 

My expertise is Artificial intelligence and I love web development and PHP programming specializing in XOOPS.

What got you to XOOPS? 

3 years ago, my brother asked me to create a website for his company and I've tried many CMS and finally decided XOOPS on XOOPS

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

OO architecture, modularity and open source.

Why did you decide to work on the XQuiz Module? 

It's a project for my internet engineering course in my university. But I continue this aspect and I want to develop an e-Learning module for XOOPS.

Together with Voltan, you've work on Oxygen, which really rocks. Who came up with the idea to improve the EXM admin theme and did you like to work as a team? 

Me and Voltan are student in a same city, so sometimes Voltan comes to my dormitory and we are talking about XOOPS. One day I said that I have many problems with EXM, especially in EXM menus, and then Voltan asked me to solve this problem by myself, so I've developed some PHP code for this and built a dropdown JavaScript menus and Voltan improved the user interface.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

I like to develop e-Learning systems maybe as a XOOPS module and I want to develop LMS module for my next project based on SCORM standard.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

Taekwondo (I have 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo),swimming, mountain climbing with my friends or my family.

You favorite dish and drink? 

Fesenjan (a Persian food) is my favorite dish and I drink a lot of tea during the day.

What about movies and music? 

I like action movies and mostly I listen rock music (e.g. Evanescence).

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

Esfahan, the city that I living in it now. (In Persian Esfahan means: half of the world)

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

No specific choice.

Simon Roberts  (Wishcraft)  Australia

The second Award recipient is  Simon Roberts  (Wishcraft) from Australia for his work on Multixoops and X-Invites 1.06. This is already the second Innovation Award for Wishcraft, who was already recognized in June 2008.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I am from Sydney, Australia, I live with my partner in Sydney still.

How long have you been programming? 

Programming from a young age, and working in various industries, not all the time in the computer, My expertise is years of experience. I have not really wanted to sit in a learning institute and get a degree as most of the people I have met from University (at least fresh mans) have little experience and not much skill and are generally really prudent about what there course was. I find this being a bit of an anarchist and activist annoying, as well as enjoying music and culture. What got you to XOOPS? I was doing a contract with a client #1 Computing that never paid their development bill due to there dodgiest mentality, but they where using xoops for a system of roms.. I decided to check it out and decided to learn about it more. What is your expertise? 

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

It flexibility and age of the project. A lot of CMS are very young and not matured but xoops has a resource and management system of websites that most people are use to. For example, when I was giving a demo of a site people where ‘ohh it is like myob’ which I felt was a great comment about the administration side of the site; also the fact it behaves much like most libraries being a very good RAD. You can have a simple module together in an hour or so that is working on the system. It also has a fantastic group of developers and support groups behind it.

In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why? 

Recently, I have been contributing to the modules repository, documenting these on the wiki and putting my 2 bits worth into most sections of the site. Kris_FR put me on the design team, which was a great honour, but I feel I would be more suited being a coder to module or core development, even though I am busy with work. I contribute to XOOPS, to make a better community for all, I also contribute to get more contacts and business, as I work from home and would like to expand my business to a few developers and an operation specializing in xoops.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

Well it was a couple of visual basic application, I wrote something called The Nexus Billing System, which took 5 years it was a windows application with a mysql backend that would provided interfaces with free radius etc, for billing ISP etc. The other achievement was coding a fractal encryption set (FES).

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

Coffee, music, events

You favorite dish and drink? 

Butter Chicken and mixed dalh, I like a butterscotch snapps and soda water to drink.

What about movies and music? 

Rap, Psychedelic Trance, Punk Rock & Easy Classics.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

One World, One Unity with a pictures of people with there computers networked.

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

I like Sydney, but I would consider living in Cyprus or England.

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

I would like to meet the queen of England to ask why sports stars should be knighted and not computer profession who are the staple foundation of the world communication are not knighted.

Alain Breuer (Lord_Venom)   France for his MP ManagerModules

This month the award goes to  Laurent JEN (DuGris) from XOOPS France for his work on XOOPS Installer to be featured in XOOPS 2.3.3!! It's a great and innovative piece of software, and we very much appreciate Laurent's contribution!!!

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I come from France, I live near Paris in Seine-Saint-Denis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seine_Saint_Denis)

How long have you been programming? 

For the last 15 years, starting with object oriented SGBDR, currently mainly in PHP/MySQL

What is your expertise? 

Consulting in intranet and web solution

What got you to XOOPS? 

In 2004, to create a website community

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

That it's Open Source, this corresponds to the xoops slogan "powered by you", but also its modularity, ...

Why did you decide to develop the XOOPS Installer?

Skalpa started working on an installer, but it had never been used, so I decided to adapt to the needs expressed by the French team (www.frxoops.org)

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

For XOOPS, the class security image, and today this class is even more relevant, because the functions of creating images used in the Captcha class of XOOPS are based on my work

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

I like to read, listen to music, but I try to give as much time as possible to my family. I am also engaged in politics and charity

You favorite dish and drink? 

I am French, and you know the reputation of our cooking and our wines  but I am also very amateur of beer, wisky

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

Stop the war, poverty and misery in the world and think about how to preserve our planet

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

everywhere in the world where you can find women and men of goodwill

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

I have no name in particular to give you, but mainly those who fight for peace in the world and for human rights

Laurent JEN (DuGris)   France for his XOOPS Installer

This month the award goes to  Laurent JEN (DuGris) from XOOPS France for his work on XOOPS Installer to be featured in XOOPS 2.3.3!! It's a great and innovative piece of software, and we very much appreciate Laurent's contribution!!!

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I come from France, I live near Paris in Seine-Saint-Denis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seine_Saint_Denis)

How long have you been programming? 

For the last 15 years, starting with object oriented SGBDR, currently mainly in PHP/MySQL

What is your expertise? 

Consulting in intranet and web solution

What got you to XOOPS? 

In 2004, to create a website community

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

That it's Open Source, this corresponds to the xoops slogan "powered by you", but also its modularity, ...

Why did you decide to develop the XOOPS Installer?

Skalpa started working on an installer, but it had never been used, so I decided to adapt to the needs expressed by the French team (www.frxoops.org)

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

For XOOPS, the class security image, and today this class is even more relevant, because the functions of creating images used in the Captcha class of XOOPS are based on my work

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

I like to read, listen to music, but I try to give as much time as possible to my family. I am also engaged in politics and charity

You favorite dish and drink? 

I am French, and you know the reputation of our cooking and our wines  but I am also very amateur of beer, wisky

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

Stop the war, poverty and misery in the world and think about how to preserve our planet

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

everywhere in the world where you can find women and men of goodwill

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

I have no name in particular to give you, but mainly those who fight for peace in the world and for human rights

Hong Kai Wu  (tad)   Taiwan for his X-School System!

This month the award goes to  Hong Kai Wu (tad) from XOOPS Taiwan for his work on various Tad-modules and his contributions to X School System !! Hong Kai Wuis also author of the "Easy Creation of Websites with XOOPS"

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I am form Taiwan and live in Tainan County ('south Taiwan').

How long have you been programming? 

When I became a teacher, my school was located in the mountains and I had only 3 students. So...I had a lot of time to learn other skills. I started to learn PHP by myself during that time. So all together I have been programming about nine years.

What is your expertise? 

I am a elementary school teacher in the daytime, but now I work at the Educational Network Center of Education Department of Tainan County Government. At night I am teaching a XOOPS class in Tainan Community College.

What got you to XOOPS? 

We needed a CMS software for School System in 2005. So I tested most of the major CMS systems at that time. We needed a system that can work in Chinese language and XOOPS was one of the few that offered this.

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

Double-Byte Character Support!

Why did you decide to develop School System ?

Because that is one of my work projects. In fact, the School System has two programmer - me and JRH. I developed the modules for school website like Tad News (News Module), Tad Cbox (Chat Widget like cbox for XOOPS Site), Tad Gallery and Tad Player...etc, and JRH has developed modules for students information that contained student profile, score...etc.

How is it now popular in Taiwan? 

I am not totally sure about it. Maybe about four hundred or five hundred schools in several counties are using our School System.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

The fact that many people in Taiwan now use the modules that I've developed.  I'm also proud that I could create a XOOPS module in a very short time.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

I like to read comics and novels when I'm not coding.

You favorite dish and drink? 

My favorite dish is "sashimi" and black tea.

Your favorite movies and music? 

Yes, I like movies, I watch at least two movies a week with my family. It can relax me.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

If it's true, I would be dumbfounded.

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

I never think about that. Because there are too many places I would love to go.

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

No one special.

Dirk Herrmann  (dhsoft)   Germany for his Simple-XOOPS!

This month the award goes to Dirk Herrmann (dhsoft) for his work on of Simple-XOOPS, a very innovative extension of XOOPS. Dirk is also the current Administrator of XOOPS Germany.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I come from Germany, near Leipzig and still live there

How long have you been programming? 

Over 15 years, starting with Basic on C/CPP , currently is PHP/MySQL

What is your expertise? 

OOP in PHP5/6 , CSS and my http://www.simple-xoops.de 

What got you to XOOPS? 

... the search for a challenge

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

plain, simple, modular, easily expandable

You've became recently the Administrator of XOOPS Germany. Tell us more about the German community - how long have you been involved, what are the strengths of the German community? 

I joined XOOPS Germany in 2004.  I think that the strengths lies in the design (Themes) and translations (German / English). But there are also some very good modules being created (debaser by frankblank / DH Info - alfred) 

What are your goals as the new leader of XOOPS Germany?

More user enthusiasm for XOOPS

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

The DH-INFO module

Why did you start with the development of Simple-XOOPS? What was your desire for it? 

Because me and the users were missing features that would make XOOPS perfect!

Did Simple-XOOPS, as it is today, fulfilled your expectations? 

Not quite, but it is well on the way there...

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

Model railways

You favorite dish and drink? 

I like to eat Greek food and drink sometimes glass of wine

Your favorite movies and music? 

Film: Independence Day, music -> I like it all, I don't really have a favorite one

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

Stop the wars in the world

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

Canada. Why ? I love the mentality of the people there

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

mhhh, sorry, I will not reveal it to the public 

Julian Egelstaff  (jegelstaff)   Canada for his Formulize!

This month the award goes to Julian Egelstaff (jegelstaff) for his new version of Formulize!

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I am from southern Ontario, Canada, although I spent nine years living in Ottawa during and after going to Carleton University there. I have lived in Toronto since 2001.

How long have you been programming? 

I have been programming since I was around 10 or so. I learned BASIC in school on Commodores (back when they actually taught you something about computers in school, instead of teaching you how to use one particular piece of software), and I had to teach myself the Atari dialect of BASIC using only the barest of reference manuals for the language -- which was actually quite hard because, for example, in Atari BASIC you had to dimension your string variables before you could use them, but in Commodore BASIC you didn't have to, so for months I only wrote programs that relied on number inputs.

I actually stopped tinkering with most of that stuff during most of high school, but kept an aptitude for computers. Later when I ended up working in software companies, it showed through that I knew more than how to turn a computer on, so I ended up programming scripts to automate desktop publishing procedures. 

Plus the internet exploded around that time, so I learned HTML and related things, and eventually in a very round about way, that led to PHP programming.

What is your expertise? 

My primary expertise is consulting. I listen to what people are trying to do, and then figure out the technical options that are available for achieving their goals. Usually, I'm talking to people about web-based systems that they are trying to design or build, but it's not always web-based. 

I co-founded Freeform Solutions (http://www.freeformsolutions.ca) as a not-for-profit company, with a mission to help other not-for-profits use computers and technology to better meet their own missions. So it's a big umbrella in which I can focus my consulting expertise to help organizations that are doing good works, and I can hopefully help them do things better. 

All the programming and web development stuff is actually secondary to the primary goal of providing good technical options to people who have great ideas, but no technical capability.

What got you to XOOPS? 

We were looking for a flexible system as the base for a data entry and reporting tool. XOOPS had a strong set of fundamentals -- user management, permission management, decent set of standard community website modules, etc -- plus it had Formulaire, which was pretty close to what we wanted at the time. 100 hours of hacking later and we had Formulize 1. That was 2004. 

XOOPS was attractive because from 2000 to 2002, I had worked in house at an organization that had built a portal system for their own use, and many of the concepts of permissions and user management that we had explored in that system, without really knowing what a portal system was -- no one had really created a portal system as a product in 2000 -- many of those concepts we had, were similar to what XOOPS had, so it was a good fit and a natural extension of what we had started with a few years earlier. 

That other code base was not open source and we couldn't keep working on it, so since XOOPS was a mature code base that was freely available and maintained by other people, this was a huge plus.

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

I like the clean object structure, and the effective use of the smarty template engine, not that we make full use of that in Formulize, but anyway. 

XOOPS by itself doesn't do a whole lot out of the box, but it's a very flexible platform for developing applications on. It's a very lightweight programming framework, almost more that it is a portal system. On that basis, it functions very well. 

This also makes it very flexible for integrating with other systems, which is my greatest interest right now. So that makes XOOPS a good candidate system for using when you want to extend the functionality of other websites by using some XOOPS-based tool, like Formulize, for example. This was the subject of one of my presentations at the FSOSS conference in Toronto this year (http://fsoss.senecac.on.ca/2008/?q=node/85). There will be a video of the presentation available on the fsoss website in another week or two.

Why did you decide to develop Formulize ?

We wanted to build something that was an evolution of what we had built in the earlier non-open source code base I mentioned. We had a client who needed a webform-based, data entry and reporting tool, and we knew exactly how to build one that could meet a variety of business needs, since we had done it already. So we started rebuilding what we had already done, using Formulaire as the base, since it was close to a lot of the basic functionality we needed. 

One of the key ideas was to build something that was flexible, because we knew the client would have needs in the future that were different from what their immediate needs were, but they would not be able to have us build something new in the future. So there was a very specific design goal with Formulize, from the very beginning, to make the capabilities very general, so you would be able to use it to model a variety of processes and procedures, in a standardized way. 

It turns out that approach is very flexible and extensible, and a lot of the later development has been motivated by trying to see how far we can push that idea, and whether we can come up with the most powerful business process modeling tool in the open source world, while still being mostly accessible to non-programmers.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

Without a doubt, my ZCE certification. 

That's the industry certification for being an expert PHP programmer. You have to understand, my post-secondary educational background is in Journalism and Philosophy. I was a computer dabbler, I was good at math, but I was not a super computer nerd in school. I did not study computer science or computer engineering, or anything remotely technical in high school or after that. But I had some kind of knack for programming, and I ended up with jobs that crossed the boundary between technical implementations and system design. 

Before I did the desktop publishing automation work that I mentioned, a fully trained programmer at that company had tried to write something for the desktop publishing department. And it was a complete failure, because the programmer didn't understand the desktop publishing process, the subject matter. So when I stepped in to give it a try, I didn't know one tenth of the programming that the original programmer knew, but I knew the subject matter, and I knew enough programming that I made a workable automation script, that was in use at that company for four years, which is a long time in the computer business! 

So I kind of fell into programming sideways, by being the guy who had the global overview of what we were trying to achieve, and I understood just enough of the technical stuff to make sure the implementations I was working on would actually work right. Recently I read in an article in PHP Architect magazine, that when it comes to programming, it's better to do the right thing really badly, than to do the wrong thing really well. That about sums up my entry into the real world of computer programming. 

So as I transitioned to web-based stuff and started using PHP about 8 years ago, there was a bit of a learning curve you might say. But by the time I was at the PHP Works conference in 2006, and they were offering the ZCE exam to all attendees free of charge, I thought, what the heck, I know a thing or two about PHP now, after writing Formulize and hacking on XOOPS and other things for a few years. 

So I sat down and wrote the exam, no preparation, just with what was in my head that day. And I passed. So that was a pretty big validation that I was not really just doing the right thing in the wrong way anymore.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

Well, it's not exactly a hobby...I spend most of my time that I'm not working, looking after my daughters. My wife has a very successful career as a lawyer for public sector groups, not-for-profits, and legal aid clients, and works outside of the house at that. So my main job is actually looking after our daughters, and I only do this "work" thing when they are in school, or when my in-laws are looking after them, which very generously, they do a couple afternoons a week. 

So coding is really more like the hobby, and being Dad is the job. We also have a very nice 46 gallon aquarium that I enjoy maintaining and looking after the fish. And I am a bit of a movie buff, nothing huge, but we do have a small library of DVDs at home.

Your favorite movies and music? 

It's hard to have absolute favourites, but Children of Men is probably the best movie I have seen in the last few years. I am a big fan of the new Battlestar Galactica, too bad they're drawing out the series on such a stupid schedule. And I can't get enough of Pixar movies, those guys are geniuses. 

I like jazz music, and the occasional bit of classical. I haven't listened to any rock or pop music since high school really. Though I do have a soft spot for the Pet Shop Boys. Their last album was really good actually.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

Something about climate change. There are some really, really, really terrifying things going on there, and I am convinced time is running out to do anything about it that will truly make a difference. 

People think that it doesn't matter what they do themselves, because they think the emissions of the US are really half the problem, or the emissions of China are what really matter. But that's not true, at least that's not the whole story. 

First of all, someone has to show the way forward. There has to be innovation and setting an example, so we can see a way out of this mess. There has to be leadership by example. 

But also, there's an old saying that is 100% true for mass population issues like climate change: "none the raindrops believes it's responsible for the flood". We all contribute to this problem. We can all contribute to the solution.

Christophe Capitaine  (Burning)   France for his Theme Gallery

This month the award goes to Christophe Capitaine (Burning) for his cool work on our new Theme Gallery, and for his several new Themes contributed to the community!

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I'm from Brittany, a very beautiful region of France. But now I live near Versailles.

How long have you been programming? 

Well, I do not know any programming language, I have learn History and Political science at school.

What is your expertise? 

Desktop publishing, that I discovered in 2001, before web. Actually, I'm learning HTML and CSS, thanks to XOOPS and theme templates created by Kris.

What got you to XOOPS? 

I was learning Dreamweaver when I discovered CMS technology. Perfect tool for noob like me ! I chose "XOOPS" because its name was very funny 

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

His simplicity to customize. With some knowledge about HTML and CSS you can almost do anything you want. But the real interest for me is its slogan: Powered by you. The current leaders of XOOPS should be thanked for allowing beginners to take a part in the XOOPS project.

Why did you decide to make a new theme library ?

Someone asked me : "Where do you got a simple theme for my new website project ?" I was not able to answer quickly, so I have started to make some screenshots of existing themes. And with eXtGallery module, it was very funny to make an album...

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

I try to draw, comic book style (I love Uderzo and Crisse styles...).

You favorite dish and drink? 

Pancakes and rum.

What about movies and music? 

Old french movies and ... Britney Spears    

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

I don't know if it is really commercial : "Turn off your TV !"

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

hmmm... I think at the end of 18th century in Paris, to see some rich heads fall. Today I believe it is forbidden 

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

... this dwarf garden to do the same, again and again 

Jerry Pfeifer (Tank1955)   USA for his Video TubeModule

This month the award goes to Jerry Pfeiffer (tank1955) for his cool Video Tube module

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

Born, raised and still reside in Central Illinois, USA

How long have you been programming? 

Started programming in the early 1980’s so roughly it’s been about 25 years

What is your expertise? 

Although I love writing web-based software my real expertise is industrial controls and automation.

What got you to XOOPS? 

I stumbled across XOOPS when I was trying out all the different listings under CMS category in Fantastico (through CPanel)

What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

As far as the code, I believe the structure is designed in such a way that it promotes developers’ creativity. The possibilities are endless. But if I had to select just one thing I would have to say it is the people that make up the XOOPS community. Everyone I have encountered has been helpful and has made me feel very at home.

Why did you decide to develop Video Tube?

I guess I would have to use the old cliché here, necessity is the mother of invention. One of the sites I operate is a community website (Classy International) and the users wanted a way to embed videos in their personal profile pages. After I wrote the code, the response was so positive I decided to give making it a XOOPS module a try.

What you you major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 

Over my 35 year career in the electrical/electronics field there have been so many projects in which I have been involved, it is very difficult to pick just one. Probably my most impressive achievement was development of software to control 53 material-handling and spot-welding robots to bring full automation with diagnostics to body shop fabrication for a major automobile manufacturer.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 

Enjoy traveling and home remodeling/renovation.

You favorite dish and drink? 

My wife makes Lasagna like no other and like any good developer, that stays up coding ‘til the wee hours of the morning, I have got to have my coffee.

What about movies and music? 

Love action movies. There is nothing like watching Chuck Norris walk into a bar with about 40 bikers and in the end Chuck is the only one left standing.

I enjoy any music that ROCKS. Nickelback, AC/DC. Ozzy, etc.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 

I think I would play a clip from the Montgomery Gentry video, You Do Your Thing … I’ll Do Mine.

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 

I can’t think of any time in history that is more exciting than the present. The rapid advancement of technology, conflicts and resolutions, living on the edge and wondering what tomorrow is going to bring.