Free ZendCon Pass

[Bradley Holt]

Great news, the Burlington, VT PHP Users Group has won a free pass to
ZendCon '09! See:
http://devzone.zend.com/article/4842

Now it's time to pick the one lucky member to receive the free pass.
If you'd like to apply, please send an email to the group with the
following information:

1. How will you benefit from going to ZendCon? For example, are you
looking for a job and this conference will look great on your resume?
2. How will you bring what you learn at ZendCon back to the local
group? This can be through a presentation, helping people on the
mailing list/IRC, etc. You can get creative here. If you're not
comfortable with giving presentations, that's fine, just think of some
way that you attending ZendCon will benefit people locally.
3. What contributions have you made to the PHP community (either
locally or elsewhere)? These don't need to be big contributions:
simply answering a question on a mailing list is a contribution.
4. Anything else you think would be relevant for people to know in
making a decision.

Remember, the point of this contest is to send someone who couldn't
otherwise afford to go, so please keep that in mind when deciding
whether or not to apply. In other words, if you or your organization
could afford to send you to ZendCon then please let someone else who
otherwise couldn't afford to go have a shot at it. Also, while the
ZendCon pass is free there will still be costs: airfare, hotel, some
food (I think breakfast and lunch is included), etc. so please be sure
you will actually be able to use your ZendCon pass before applying (if
you can't attend then the pass is not transferable: we will try to
find a runner-up to use the pass). Applications are due 8/1/2009 (just
over two weeks from today).

Hopefully we can reach a consensus through this mailing list once all
applications have been received. Please keep the discussions cordial
and focused on the selection criteria outlined above. If we can't
reach consensus, we will have a vote with a simple majority choosing
the winner.

Alternatively, we can have a cage match to determine the winner as Rob
suggested ;-)

Thanks,
Bradley

--
http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/

[Jase Roberts]

Hi All,

> Now it's time to pick the one lucky member to receive the free pass.
> If you'd like to apply, please send an email to the group with the following information:

Sorry I won't be able to be at the PHP UG meeting tonight for the live
discussion of the ZendCon pass. I'm currently out in San Diego
visiting my girlfriend's family.

Again, thanks to Bradley for taking the initiative to apply for this
free ZenCon pass. Awesome how a couple hours' work has produced this
benefit for our group.

> 1. How will you benefit from going to ZendCon? For example, are you
> looking for a job and this conference will look great on your resume?

Well, yes. :) I've been a PHP developer since 2001, most recently at
Propeller Media Works, where I was a "Senior Interactive Developer",
and also Head of Underwater Operations. Propeller has been forced to
downsize by nearly 1/2 this year, and I was let go in April. Prior to
being laid off, I was rapidly moving into a role which blended my
interests in programming and technical management, becoming a liaison
between clients and programming team on ongoing maintenance issues.

I'm especially interested in this ZendCon because of the track
focusing on "Lifecycle Best Practices":
http://zendcon.com/tracks?tid=1356
While I'm still primarily a developer, my skill set and interests are
leading me more toward a "Lead Developer" or "Team Leader" type role
which blends programming and tasks like developing and documenting
requirements, quality assurance, and managing workload. While I have
a lot of hands-on experience in this type of role and have done a lot
of reading on the topic, I've never had the opportunity to attend a
professional conference on the topic.

As I'm looking for a new position, I'm focusing on roles that will
provide this blend of coding and tech management. Attending a
conference with a track that exactly matches my goals would be a great
boost for my career.

> 2. How will you bring what you learn at ZendCon back to the local
> group? This can be through a presentation, helping people on the
> mailing list/IRC, etc. You can get creative here. If you're not
> comfortable with giving presentations, that's fine, just think of some
> way that you attending ZendCon will benefit people locally.

Were I to go to this conference, I'd be very happy to give a
presentation at a PHP UG meeting on whatever topic(s) I find
especially worthwhile. In reading about the sessions, I'd expect "It
Works on Dev" about managing the development->deployment process for
maintenance work to be especially relevant to the small web shop
developers who make up most of this group:
http://zendcon.com/tracks?tid=1356#session-11669

I'd also like to take the opportunity to really talk up the
Burlington, VT area as an emerging hotspot for quality web
development. We have a pretty amazing situation here combining an
extremely livable area with a lot of very high-quality businesses and
individual developers. Other people around the country should hear
about what we have going here.

> 3. What contributions have you made to the PHP community (either
> locally or elsewhere)? These don't need to be big contributions:
> simply answering a question on a mailing list is a contribution.

I've reported bugs on php.net as far back as 2002, when I first
started becoming capable as a PHP developer.

I've only been a member of this group for a few months (didn't know it
existed until then !), and I've not yet been able to make a meeting.
I have answered a question or two in recent weeks, and plan to
continue doing so.

One of my claims to fame as a PHP programmer is that I'm one of the
seemingly few developers who have never written a CMS, thus I don't
have any open-source CMS or likewise to my name. I generally focus on
writing smallish libraries/utilities which do only a few things, but
do them very dependably and with exceptional documentation. My
"documentInfo" class is a component of the (aging) open-source
SyntaxCMS. The focus is on generating information about PDF, DOC,
etc. files uploaded to or linked from a website (type, size, URL of a
free viewer, etc.) Although it was written in 2002, it may actually
still be of use to folks:
http://www.syntaxcms.org/docs/docinfo/

I've also just today posted two tiny utilities which are of use in
working with uploaded/generated files when you don't have a
full-featured framework to help you out. Both of these are items
which I've seen implemented in half-cooked versions dozens of times
over the years -- most of which fall down in overlooked fringe cases.
A couple months ago I decided to write (hopefully) "bombproof"
versions I could use for years to come.
http://tinyurl.com/makeUniqueWithinDir
http://tinyurl.com/santizeFilename

> 4. Anything else you think would be relevant for people to know in
> making a decision.

I'm an all-around swell guy. :) I'd love to go to the conference,
but definitely won't be going fully paying my own way (although I
could justify picking up airfare and the other peripheral costs).
I've spent several years in an employment environment which provided
almost no opportunity for professional development other than in
personal time, so I'd love the opportunity to make up for a bit of
lost time.

Thanks for reading,
Jase

+------------------------------+
Jase Roberts
802.272.6406 . ja...@jaseroberts.net
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaseroberts
red wiggler compost worms: http://vermontworms.com/
+------------------------------+

[Bradley Holt]

Jase,

Thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough contest entry! Good luck :-)

Thanks,
Bradley

--
http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/

[Jase Roberts]

Sure thing.

I should have added that I'm throwing my name in the hat only if
Bradley doesn't want/need the pass. Given that he did all the work to
get it, I'd consider it his if he wants it.

Cheers from California,
Jase

[Bradley Holt]

Jase,

Thanks -- but I want to give someone else an opportunity to go. When I
went last year I thought it would be great to have a Vermont
contingent at ZendCon so when I heard about this contest it sounded
like a great way to make that happen. I'm not 100% sure I'm going yet
but if I do go then it would be myself, Matthew, and whoever wins this
contest. Does three make a contingent? :-)

Thanks,
Bradley

--
http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/

[Bradley Holt]

The deadline for the free ZendCon pass contest was 8/1. We had one
application from Jase Roberts. I think his entry was very thorough and
made a good case for awarding him the free pass. Since we said we'd
vote on entries, we should probably follow through with the
formalities so: +1 for Jase Roberts. Any other votes? :-)

--
http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/

[Stanley Brinkerhoff]

I did want to thank you Bradley for doing this work!  I would apply -- but the non-admission costs are still rather high (flight; hotel; time off from work) -- and to be honest if I was motivated I could probably get them to pay as well.  If it was closer (Bos/NY) I would be applying.

Thanks!

Stan

[Bradley Holt]

Stan,

Definitely, it was fun writing it up! You may want to check out
CodeWorks in New York:

http://cw.mtacon.com/schedule/city/new-york

Thanks,
Bradley

--
http://bradley-holt.blogspot.com/