LornaJane

I use a lot of apps from the command-line, partly because command-line stuff is the same on every system, and partly because I struggle to use a mouse for RSI reasons. Unsurprisingly, the best keyboard-navigable apps are ones that only use the keyboard in the first place! One app that I can't live without is screen which allows me to have one ssh connection with multiple windows in it. What's even better is that I can detach and reattach it - so if I've got a complicated set of screens open on a server, or even if I'm just using IRC over a dodgy connection, I can run it in screen and go back and re-attach when I need to.

I use a custom .screenrc file, which adds numbered labels so show which screens I have open, so I see something like this at the bottom of my screen (click on it to make it normal size, the thumbnail is somehow tiny):



My .screenrc file looks like this:



Don't ask me what any of it does, I got it from someone else and just copy it around machines all the time! The tabs create themselves when you create a new screen (ctrl + a, c) and then you can edit the labels with ctrl + a, A. What else can you do with .screenrc? I must confess I've never really looked

Speaking at conferences is a great way to share ideas and meet people - but actually getting the opportunity to do is a little more tricky and usually involves proposing a talk. In the last year I've attended IPC in Germany and PHP London, spoken at DPC in Amsterdam, submitted talks to and attended ZendCon, and helped select the sessions for phpnw - so I've seen it from all angles.

The first thing to say about submitting talks, is that there are no pre-requisites. You don't need to be published, well-known, or have letters after your name (in the PHP community, the latter is probably more hindrance than help). If you want to go to a conference, and there is a topic you'd like to share some thoughts on, then write them down and submit! A lot of conferences have a Call for Papers - usually this will be an online form where you put in your personal details and the details of the talk you'd like to give. If it sounds simple, that's because it really is ...

Proposing your talk

It can be tricky to know what to write in the boxes and how to sell your talk to the conference organisers. The call for papers should give information about the themes of the conference, the expected audience, and the kind of content they are looking for - so pay attention to this. Usually you'll be expected to submit an "abstract", this is a description of your talk that will be put on the schedule if you are accepted. A good way to get started with these is to read the abstracts from current conferences - these are the ones that got through the selection process and will give you a good idea of what you should say here. Its usual to also be asked to supply a biography, either when you submit your talk or when the talk gets announced as part of the conference schedule.

If there is room for additional information, then give it - and give the organisers as many opportunities as possible to feel like you would be a positive and safe addition to their event. I've seen a few variations on these but for the phpnw call for papers, we added a box which we didn't publish the contents of and where speakers could tell us why we should have them and/or their talk. This was illuminating, responses varied from "because this topic is so cool!" to "not sure really, thought it might be interesting though" and the unforgettable "meow" (that last one was from an entry that didn't get accepted - it was hard to tell if the speaker was taking the whole thing seriously or not).

My advice is to start planning your submission in plenty of time - take a look at the information that you will need to supply and make sure you have it all (and do write in the optional boxes). Its also a really good idea to bounce your idea off some other people, who can help proofread and point out any obvious problems with your submission - for example the time I tried to submit a talk to a PHP conference without the word "PHP" anywhere in my proposal ...

Getting your Talk Accepted

I have yet to successfully submit a talk via a Call for Papers and be accepted to speak at a conference - so I have no idea how to get talks accepted. If anyone else can add advice on this topic, that would be great :)

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 :)

If you've been following the previous entries in this series, you'll have seen how to start to crochet, and if you've followed the instructions you should be able to add another couple of rounds onto your project and end up with something that looks like this:



There are a number of things you can do with these little squares. They're a very traditional form of crochet (and a really good way of using up odds and ends), you can see the kind of thing I mean if you search for "granny square" on flickr. When I was first learning to crochet I made myself a coding blanket that I still love!



Crochet doesn't have to be square and it doesn't have to be traditional - I've seen everything from the subversive (crochet covers on parking meters) to the cute (amigurumi). I'm currently working on (currently in the sense that I've begun and I haven't finished yet, rather than it being truly ongoing) a set of hexagonal string coasters. The idea is that they will tesselate and form either a big placemat to put hot pots on or several smaller cup-sized coasters. They're not radical, but they're not really your traditional granny square either!



I'm sure there are many more uses of crochet in general and granny squares in particular - answers in the comments please :)

rsnapshot is a great tool that I use for all my backup stuff, its really easy and seems pretty robust (or rather, I haven't broken it yet!). When I set it up most recently, I discovered that it has a very useful flag, no_create_root. The problem I often have is that since I back up to removable media, if the disk isn't mounted, rsnapshot will back up to the local drive instead, in the mount point - and then I'll promptly run out of space. Stopping rsnapshot from creating directories means no writing rubbish into your mount point, and this setting is designed specifically for this issue with removable media.

This setting does have a gotcha, however. It does the check for whether the directory exists before it calls the script named in cmd_preexec - so if you were hoping to mount your drive in the pre-exec script, you can't! I was very confused why my rsnapshot configuration didn't work to start with. My workaround is to run a separate mount script before calling rsnapshot in a cron job, not ideal but it does work for me.

Tickets are now on sale for PHPNW - the PHP Conference in Manchester, UK, on November 22nd. This is a conference aimed at bringing together and promoting the amazing wealth of local talent and activity in PHP within the North West and wider area. The schedule is online already and tickets are priced at a very reasonable and credit-crunch-friendly £50 (with discounts for students and OAPs) - and all that isn't enough to persuade you, remember I'll be there on the day too :)