Don't Forget About PHP-CON!

I'm posting this at the request of the very, very nice folks at PHP-CON.  I can't say enough good things about these folks.  They're putting on a conference in tough times and doing a fine job of it.  (Note that I'm a paid speaker so I'm biased here but I get nothing on attendance, posting this is a favor.)

We know times are tough and budgets are tight. But the need to keep up with technology and technical education never ceases.  This is why we’ve extended our Early Bird registration discount an extra week.

If you eat, sleep, and breathe web development -- if you have your hands in PHP everyday – you need to attend this conference. And if you register on or before Friday, October 18th – you will continue to receive a $100 discount on fees.

PHPCon 2002 offers attendees a comprehensive, practical technical program featuring:

• Keynote by Rasmus Lerdorf, Inventor of PHP
• Three Technical tracks including Enterprise PHP, Applications Development, and XML/CMS.
• Best Practices from gurus and greats such as Dirk Elmendorf of Rackspace, Introduction to SOAP for PHP with Shane Caraveo, ActiveState,
• Reading the PHP Source with Zak Greant, MySQL Community Advocate, and High Performance PHP:Profiling and Benchmarking Techniques with George Schlossnagle, OmniTI
• Opportunities to meet and mingle with peers, gurus, and greats in a relaxed, congenial setting.

PHPCon 2002 is just around the corner. Join us on October 24th and 25th at the Clarion Hotel in Millbrae, California for the first PHPCon! For full program and online registration, log onto our website.  [ Go ]

6:24:29 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

Via Ben. A Soap service for parsing RSS.  This sounds very cool and is supposed to work with Flash Remoting.  [ Go ]
6:17:10 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Here's a good source for  PHP News.  I don't know how I missed this one (but I do know how I found it -- I checked my referrer logs).  It even has an RSS feed about PHP, another about Google, one on RSS, several on Open Source stuff, one on Soap and even more.  Recommended. [ Go ]
6:15:39 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

Go Jenny! Jenny has a great comment on the Nielsen Group and their new report on Flash and disabilities (it seems appropriate to comment on this since today I'm teaching 2 disabled folks about web design).  Go Jenny !  I couldn't have said it better myself.  [ Go ]
6:13:59 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Heh.  eWeek agrees with Me.  My post last week that XDocs is a stab at the heart of the browser has been supported by eWeek.  Very cool.  And don't forget that buying into XDocs takes you back to the bad old days of distributing client software that needs to be upgraded.  That's bad.  [ Go ]
6:12:15 AM      Google It!   comment []    IM Me About This   

If you are using the PHP based SquirrelMail then you should take a look at this new update which fixes some cross site scripting security issues.  Ver 1.2.7.  [ Go ]

6:10:33 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

How can I not love the name?  The FurryGoat.  It's a blog about embedded programming and such.  [ Go ]
6:08:53 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Another free text adventure: Worlds Apart.  Adam, who I really respect, says Worlds Apart is really good.  [ Go ]

6:05:37 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Inluminent thought I wrote a good coverage of the Microsoft issues.  Thank you John but Fireball (via Scripting) did a far, far better job.  Recommended.  [ Go ]

6:03:16 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

One of my favorite SF writers, Daniel Keys Moran, has a new short story on his new site.  Very cool.  Look for the PDF of Left Behind or here it is. Best of all it's a Continuing Time tale (which means nothing to 99.0035189% of you)  [Go]
6:02:46 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Myelin's blogging ecosystem seems to be doing really nicely.  It's another approach to blog metrics like BlogStreet and it's always astonishing to look at yourself and see how you rank versus another blog.  I couldn't believe (and still can't) that I rank "higher" than Moxie.  Thank you very much for this service.  [Go]
6:02:01 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Gross but really, really cool.  Thanks! [ Go ]
6:01:24 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

A really good article about Sun's Java follies with Microsoft.  As someone who participated in the Applet wars of 96 - 99 and was badly burned, I really appreciated it.  We all love to blame Microsoft but Sun's not blameless here.  [ Go ]
6:00:50 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Thank You.  Thank You.  Thank You.  The Kalsey Group eloquently expands on the issues of layout for the web.  It's very well said and I think it should be folded until it's all sharp corners and then force fed to most Flash designers.  Teasing but there's truth in that statement.  [ Go ]

6:00:29 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Even Google thinks I'm a bitch!  I'm now the #2 hit for "Font Bitch".  I guess my ranting has "paid" off although I'm not certain that being #2 for Font Bitch is a prize.  [ Go ]
6:00:02 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

Via Scripting.  Mitch Ratcliffe has a great article about how bloggers are now getting offered press junkets to go and see Microsoft and not telling their readers.  I like Mitch and I respect him but I wonder a lot about this piece.  A lot.  I'll agree that bloggers need to disclose but so do journalists.  Where do you think the term "Press Junket" came from?  How many times have we seen journalists report on the latest CEO trip to Gates' house and I rarely if ever recall clear disclosure of this type of thing.  If you have ever worked in high tech at a marketing capacity you are probably familiar with the "veracity" of Gartner, Forrester, Zona, Meta, Giga and others.  And these are "journalists" or at least "analysts".  So I do think Mitch is right but I think the rules need to be more clear for everybody.  Here's a very real question for any computing journalist -- do you return the hardware and software you review?  A lot of them don't and how can that NOT affect their coverage. 

And, bear in mind, that if a blogger operates in the open, with reader postable comments, the reader has a much easier time interacting with them -- and calling them on things than they do with journalists.  One of the reasons why I'm a real fan of Radio's comment system is that the comments aren't deletable.  I look at comments that can't be deleted as something that keeps the whole process honest.  Sure if a troll shows up that's an issue but that's pretty rare.  [ Go ]

From Nick Denton on this Issue: [ Go ]

5:56:27 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

PHP Preg_Replace.  Here are some good thoughts on preg_replace and the -e option.  Frothy! [ Go ]

5:55:49 AM        comment []    IM Me About This   

The Mozilla project may have been 4 years in the making but it's producing some damn fine stuff.  I look at things like Uzilla and Phoenix and I'm just so impressed.  Phoenix 0.3, which is a smaller, lighter, faster browser based on the Mozilla core, just shipped and I'm already running it.  Sure it's 0.3 but it actually works and works well and actually has useful new features.  [ Go ]
5:53:24 AM        comment []    IM Me About This