p. 
The chairs are all folded, the displays are back in their tubes and the speakers have all move on to their next big thing. Before the shadows of time fog our memory, let’s take a look back over our shoulder at what was “The Dutch PHP Conference”:http://www.phpconference.nl/.
p. I knew it was going to be a great conference when Ivo told me that not only were they sold out for the event but that people were calling the Zend home office trying to pull string to “score” tickets. 
p. I started the day off with a few jokes and my share of technical difficulties. It’s hard to do a presentation about a mashup when the Wi-Fi isn’t working. I’m not sure if it was my laptop or an overall problem but I just couldn’t connect to the network. (After lunch, I was able to reboot and it connected then) Everything turned out OK thought because the audience was forgiving. For those disappointed that you didn’t get to see the examples in action, visit “myfirstmashup.com”:http://myfirstmashup.com. You will need a UPS package ID. If you don’t have one handy, email me at cal@zend.com and I will see if I can find you one.
p. 
Once I finished Kevlin Henny took the stage. He too had technical issues but of a different sort. As they were being sorted out, Kevlin told jokes. (and pretty good ones at that.) Once he got going though, no one was laughing. (Except when they were supposed to) Kevlin is an engaging speaker and if you get the chance to see him, I highly recommend you do. He gave the same presentation he gave at the London PHP conference, “Objects of Desire”. I had already seen it and I still learned something new. I home Kevlin makes it over to the States to give that presentation one day because it’s something every PHP developer should see. After Kevlin finished we broke for lunch.
After lunch I stuck around for Gaylord Aulke’s “Zend Framework”:http://framework.zend.com presentation which was high-level mostly but still a great overview of the project. Then I sat in on Lukas Kahwe Smith’s presentation on PHP Data Objects. (PDO) Lukas, being a firm believer of “Don’t Reinvent the Wheel”, borrowed “Wez Furlong’s”:http://netevil.org/ slides for most of the presentation. Even so, it was a good presentation and Lukas did a great job. By that time jet lag had once again reared it’s ugly head and I had to limp back to the hotel to recharge.
p. 
All in all it was a great conference. The people, both organizers and attendees were very nice and I was able to pick up a few new things, “see some sights”:http://blog.calevans.com/2007/06/21/amsterdam/ and meet a few new people.
So as I adjust my battered Fedora and again mount my trusty steed to ride off to the next conference, I’d like to say thanks to the entire iBuildings crew for such a wonderful conference and a big thank you to all the attendees for making me feel right at home.
June 21, 2007
Events