LornaJane

I'm currently struggling a bit with my Christmas crochet, so I'm posting here to hopefully pressurise myself into actually finishing it in time. The plan is to make a blanket for my granny for Christmas (its a surprise, I'm banking on her not learning to work the 'net before then) and I've been working on this for 6 months already. It will have 36 squares and I'm currently at 24 squares and losing my way! Here it is so far:



The spaces are the squares I haven't made yet ... I need to get a move on!

In a month's time I'll be in Manchester, ready for the PHP North West conference. The conference is a one-day event (Saturday, 22nd November), although the social side of things will kick off the night before. Tickets are 50 GBP for the early bird, 35 GBP for students and concessions - so register now.

There are some amazing speakers, I hate picking out names, so go and look at the schedule and pick your own favourites to shortlist! As well as traditional hour-long conference slots, we've got a selection of shorter talks, plus a panel discussion at the end of the day ... right before we party some more :)

Attendees get a year's subscription to php|architect magazine with their tickets, and there will be sponsors and other exhibitors there - including some interesting user and voluntary groups so plenty to see and plenty of people to talk to. There are also some very nice giveaways so look out for those if you are there.

All in all, its a pretty exciting event, there hasn't been anything like it outside of London that I know of for a while - and with the London conference still months away, this is a great chance to get to meet a few people and also pick up some new technical ideas in the meantime. If you're coming, let me know so I can say "hi" at the event itself - looking forward to meeting you :)

Yesterday I attended my little sister's graduation ceremony - she has a BA in Early Childhood Studies from University College Birmingham and I am so proud of her I can't actually express it! She's worked hard to get to here and the path was not always smooth. I uploaded a selection of pictures from yesterday to remember the day by.

I'm also very pleased to have been able to be here to cheer her on and also very pleased that we now have the sequel to a photograph taken at my own graduation day 5 years ago.



Well done, little one!!

So, at the Dutch PHP Conference, they were making a video and they interviewed me. The video is at http://www.bachelor-ict.nl/dpc and it is also featured in this article on DevZone which is exciting! The video is mostly about the PHPWomen organisation, rather than my talk but it does have some footage of me speaking and of the conference itself.

Well, its a misleading title because the day is only half over but the Dutch PHP Conference 2008 is well and truly underway! Today I've been in the Zend Framework tutorial given by Matthew Weir O'Phinney, which is a full-day session. Its been excellent - with some concepts, some examples, and now a real working application to take a look around and learn from. I've had to work with ZF a little bit lately and I wish I'd been able to have this tutorial before I did that!

I've been able to catch up with a lot of people since arriving late last night and making the mistake of not going to bed until late because I wasn't tired (still on UK time) and then having to get up early today! Tonight we have an Ibuildings employees event which will be great, I'm excited to put faces to names for all my colleagues - the downside of the telecommute is that I mostly know people on Skype or IRC and not in real life. Later on there is a pre-conference social as well (from 8pm) - which is why my day is only half done :)

Looking forward to tomorrow, when there will be a phpwomen stand upstairs outside the main hall, we'll be giving out shirts (they're white this year) so if you want one then come and get it! Tomorrow at 2pm I'm giving my talk "PHP Deployment with Subversion" which looks like it will be well attended. Oh and its Worldwide Knit In Public Day as well so I'll be attempting to fit that in as well!

Today I leave for Amsterdam, to visit the Dutch PHP Conference where I will be getting my first experience as a conference speaker. It would be fair to say that I'm very nervous - its a high profile event and the other speakers in the lineup are pretty amazing!

When I was invited (or perhaps that should be "volunteered") to speak at this event, I realised that I would need a lot of preparation in order to be able to deliver something like this. I arranged to give short technical presentations at local GeekUp events and went to both Leeds and Sheffield and spoke there. When I had assembled the content of the talk for Amsterdam, I circulated the slides around a few technical colleagues and friends, to make sure that it was accurate and covering sensible material. I was also charmed and excited to have the chance to attend the PHP London User Group meet last week and to give the actual talk there. So, at this point, there is little more I can do to prepare other than attempt not to get too drunk at the pre-conference social on Friday night!

The social side of things is something I'm really looking forward - this conference is organised by my employers, so I'll have the opportunity to meet the developers I work with every day but haven't met yet or don't see often. This in itself I know will be fabulous, although I will certainly forget everyone's names! In addition there will be people I know online from #phpc and of course some members of phpwomen.org as well - we are running a PHP Women stand at the conference and giving out shirts - so if you want one you had better come along and ask nicely :) I am also looking forward to meeting new people that I don't yet know I'm going to meet - so here's hoping for a wonderful time and not too many talk nerves!! To recover I'm staying on in Amsterdam for a few days since I haven't visited the city before, seems like a good opportunity.