We had such a great time at PHP Appalachia '06, we've been dying to do it again... so here we are!

WHAT IS PHP APPALACHIA? A PHP unconference nestled in the Smoky Mountains, for those who like to camp or stay in a cabin, enjoy spending time with friends, and talking about PHP. As before, we will have a few presentations, but a lot of the time will be flexible and spent how the group sees fit at the time.

WHEN? The first week of September, 2008 (that's Labor Day for you US folks).

WHERE? We are moving the shindig to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge Tennessee area, and we're considering renting something like this:

http://www.alpinechaletrentals.com/viewproperty.aspx?PropertyID=18016

This is only one of the large group chalets we're considering renting; it's all going to come down to how many people we have and the dates we can reserve.

Besides PHPing, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg offer many fun things to do, including hiking, horseback riding, whitewater rafting, outlet shopping, indoor skydiving, and of course who could forget Dollywood?

TAKE NOTE:
We're immediately opening up pre-registration to whomever is interested in joining us for this adventure; a great time is guaranteed to be had by all.

HOWEVER - SPACE IS VERY LIMITED! We are cutting off the number of attendees (staying at the chalet) at 50 and those spots are filling up fast.

HOW CAN YOU REGISTER? Send me an email to elizabeth _at_ naramore _dot_ net. I will email you back with PayPal information.

HOW MUCH IS IT? Right now, we're taking a $200 + $15 registration fee if you are interested in reserving a spot in the chalet. If you want to attend, but would rather camp somewhere or make other sleeping arrangements, that's perfectly okay, you can still send us your $15 registration fee, and we'll mark you down.

We have groups coming in from Cincinnati, Washington DC, and Atlanta, so if you're in those areas and are interested in attending, you should contact your local PHP usergroup to perhaps arrange rideshares or sharing a room with someone.

REMEMBER, SPACE IS LIMITED AND FILLING UP VERY QUICKLY, so if you want to participate you'd best hurry.

Remember this is in the planning stages so if you have any suggestions or questions, don't hesitate to contact me or Keith Casey.

Oh yeah, WHAT ABOUT FOOD? Well, to be honest, we haven't quite figured that out yet. But we're working on it :). Suggestions are always welcome.

By the way, if you want to see pictures from the previous PHP Appalachia, you can see them all at Flickr.

Hope to see you there!

The PHPWomen.org site now has an easy way for you to help out, if you're so inclined. We've added a "Donate" button so that if you have some extra cash and want to support a good cause, you can do so easily and securely.

Where will the money go?As you know, we like to give out our free t-shirts at conferences to help spread the word about our group. Soon, you'll be able to buy them yourself, but in the meantime the cost for all of those shirts (and the travel to and from the conferences) comes out of our pockets. Occasionally we get help from corporate sponsors, which helps tremendously, but other than that it's really been up to us. So some of the money will go to promoting our group through giveaways and exhibiting and traveling to conferences.

We also want to help out those who may be in need of training materials, help with the ZCE exam, or who want to speak at conferences, but may not afford to be able to do it. So part of the money will go to help our members achieve their goals.

Additionally, we have some cool fundraising ideas floating around, but there are times when you have to have money in order to make money. So some of the money will go to helping our fundraising ideas get off the ground.

What if you want to help out but don't have any spare cash?We can still use your help! We are always in need of volunteers for our mentoring program, website help, writing articles that will help our members, and help in other areas. We welcome anyone (and yes that means you too, guys) that wants to lend a helping hand. We can also use your ideas! If you have a great idea for a fundraiser or something that will make our group better and more effective, we would love to hear it! You can email me at elizabeth [at] naramore [dot] net.

Is this PHPWomen thing really making a difference?I have had numerous women come up to me and say "thanks". Thanks for giving them a place to go for PHP help and friendship, thanks for bringing us out of the woodwork, and thanks for saying things that they've always felt but couldn't really say to anyone. I also had someone thank me for being "normal" about it and keeping the group open to everyone. Of course, the same issues exist in other languages besides PHP. Just last week I spoke to several other women at Codemash (Python, Ruby and C# devs) and while we laughed at the lack of the female presence there, it's still unfortunate. It'd be nice to see a difference made in our PHP subculture that other groups can use to their advantage.

Incidentally, on our site, we've also posted the conferences where we will be exhibiting, so if you're going to be there, please stop by our booth and say hello! (And make sure to pick up your t-shirt, sticker, or whatever we happen to be giving away at the time :) )

I mentioned that Michael Kimsal recorded an impromptu podcast from Codemash, and lo and behold he's already posted it to WebDevRadio. Since he's already posted it, that probably means he didn't do too much editing, which should make for an interesting podcast ;).

As Michael says,

I had a chance to have a fun discussion with Dave Kroondyk, Adam Lumsden and Elizabeth Naramore about web development, ecommerce, project management, content management systems, shark dissection, PHP, Mozilla's Weave project, general MIchigan awesomeness and some other topics.

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This was fun, and if you listen close, you'll hear a little story about shark eyeballs. :)

Codemash 2008 has commenced and I'm proud to be a part of it! The day began with a keynote from Neal Ford who spoke about polyglot programming, and how the future holds much potential for dynamic languages on managed runtimes with testing as the driving factor. He used the concept of software engineering being similar to civil engineering and how the art of developing an app is like designing a bridge. He told an interesting story about the gentlemen who realized reinforced concrete was the wave of the future for bridge building, but the math didn't support his theories and he had many critics (including the one engineer who designed the famous "swinging bridge" that twisted in the wind (and eventually collapsed). To prove his point, he used testing. And sure enough, now we use reinforced concrete in almost every bridge that is made. Like the FUD that said "you can't build a bridge using reinforced concrete", it's FUD to say "you can't build an enterprise app with dynamically typed languages." It's the testing that will prove the critics wrong.

However, I was disappointed to not hear PHP's name mentioned in the keynote, and in fact there is scarce presence of PHP at all here. There is only one talk that deals with PHP - a talk on the Zend Framework that will he going on tomorrow. But while that bothers me, this conf is also a great venue for learning about other technologies all in one shot.

I attended a fabulous intro to Groovy talk (which I really didn't have much knowledge of beforehand), a great intro to Python where we got a look at Visual Python, and a Groovy/Grails talk. Some great info for a lowly PHP developer such as myself :).

Of course, there are also a few x-boxes set up with Rock Band and Guitar Hero going in full swing. As well, the vendors got a chance to host informative talks, which I'm sure is good PR for them, but also offered some good info for the attendees. I attended a talk on Consulting in the IT business, which was interesting although we ran out of time before we got to the stuff I wanted to hear about.

They also have a few other unique things going on:

• Expert Areas - where the speakers hang out in a designated room at a designated time and answer any questions from anybody who happens to come in
• Open Spaces - similar to the lightning talks given at other conferences, but even less formal than that. Basically you put a sticky note on the schedule board and start a discussion with whoever happens to walk in
• Kidz Mash - a track coinciding with the conference that is for kids, with lego robotics and other fun stuff (this actually only runs tomorrow)

The Open Spaces was interesting - I joined one where the topic was "Joomla! Pros/cons" to see what other PHPers were around. Unfortunately for me there were only 2 guys in there, and one was actually a dot net guy. :) But in the course of our conversation, my buddy Michael Kimsal happened to pass by and requested that we all be interviewed for his webdevradio podcast (thanks a lot, Michael! ;) ) You can probably hear that sometime next week, but I was representin' the PHP posse.

I also got to hook up with my good friend Cal Evans and I finally had the pleasure of meeting Jason Gilmore who I'd not met before but of course I knew the name. As he was one of the organizers, I asked him about the lack of PHP and he said they'd only received one PHP related talk submission (the ZF talk). Come on PHPers, we need to be represented! :)

Because the venue (the Kalahari Resort) is simply amazing, I brought the hubby and kids along for the ride. The Kalahari boasts the world's largest indoor water park, and it sure did keep them busy all day while I was geeking out. There is a wave pool, many water tubes and slides, a lazy river, a water basketball section, and a body surfing simulation just to name a few of the attractions. After dinner we also enjoyed a round of mini-golf (also in the resort) where I proudly nailed 2 holes-in-one. The wi-fi here is fantabulous... well, at least in the conference area - the hotel rooms are touch and go. But I'm willing to forego room wi-fi for great connections during the conf.

All in all, it has been a very interesting and informative conference, and I'm very glad to be a part of it.

As I pulled out my "To-Do" list for 2007, I realized I hadn't looked at it since March. Ha. Kind of hard to accomplish things on a list when you haven't looked at the list in nine months. But when I pulled it out and as I've done some introspection in the past few days, I realized a few things. 2007 should have been a stellar year for me. No major traumas, some awesome milestones were reached, and I had some wonderful experiences and opportunities presented to me. But as I look back at some of the writing I did in my journal, and "thanks diary" it was really a difficult year for me with regard to my own motivation and inspiration.

My goals for 2007 were:
Do More/Read Less. (Instead of just reading about all the cool things people were doing and trying, I should be doing some of my own cool things). I didn't do this to the extent that I would have liked, although I do enjoy reading about the cool projects people around me are working on.Code More. (Especially using better coding practices) Well, I did code more through the giftshop, but I found myself cranking out code based on bad habits as opposed to best practices. Shame on me.Count My Blessings. (Appreciate those things around me and spend more time with those around me) I started a "thanks" journal where I write down things I am thankful for, big and small. This was a great exercise and I find myself carrying around a deeper appreciation and respect for those around me. I also am very set on making one-on-one time with the kids every day, but I didn't religiously do this until recently.Take More Pride in My Home (give it some decorating sprucing up) Haha, I tried this but found that we neither have the money nor the time to really devote to home decorating. I did get a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens, but somehow it just made me feel crappier about my outdated kitchen and ecclectic mix of hand-me-down furniture. Stick to My DietI did great on this until Halloween candy time. Yes, I've gained 7 pounds in the last 2 months. Yikes. Get Back to Running RegularlyNope. Not even close.Create Just for the Sake of Creating (such as painting, making jewelry, writing, whatever) This is an interesting one. I found myself feeling pressured to work in "me" time, then resenting the fact that there wasn't enough of it to go around.

As I said before, 2007 should have been one of my happiest years ever. But it wasn't. I found myself stressing out a LOT in 2007. Looking back I can count numerous times where I was depressed, emotional, irritable and completely uninspired. I was tired a lot.

So actually, back in December, I started working on some changes that I'd like to continue in 2008, both personally and professionally. For once, I was actually ahead instead of procrastinating on my New Year's Resolutions. So here it is, my "To-Do" list for 2008 (which hopefully I'll be looking at a little more often this year).

1) Drink More Water. I've been reading this fabulous book, The Energy Edge and while I'm not finished yet, it brings up some interesting points. I NEVER drank water. As in, NEVER. I'd have 2-3 Diet Cokes a day and maybe some coffee, but never had any water. Mild Dehydration can result in headaches, tiredness, hypotension (low blood pressure), dizziness, and other varied symptoms. Interesting to note that hypotension can also result in depression (no, I'm not saying I'm depressed because I didn't drink water.. I'm just saying that's a weird coincidence). So the past few weeks I've made an effort to drink water, and I must say I feel about 200% better. I'm also excited to read the rest of the book and see what else I'm doing wrong.

2) Keep Personal & Professional Time Balanced. Balance has always been important to me, and as the year progressed, I noticed a shift away from Personal time and toward Professional time. This left me feeling stressed, overworked, and left little time for family, fun, and my own endeavors. So in December, I made a conscious effort to not let the stress of the holiday season get to me, and I made sure there was time for everyone. I will say that this has been one of the best Christmases ever - we had a ball with the kids this year, and I'm back to being my obnoxiously pleasant self. This is a continual process for me, and I'm currently testing out a few different systems to see what works best for me.

3) Work on my Pet Projects. I have a few things brewing around in my head (as we all do) and I really want to give them life. Actually, my list is up to 20, so I'd like to bring some of these out into the world.

4) Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative. Not to quote Bing Crosby, but I really want to just enjoy myself this year. Life is short and it's becoming apparent to me that I need to appreciate each day for what it holds. I made a list of all the things I really like to do (about 18 things) and all the things that I didn't really like to do, but had to do (or should do) - (about 20 things).. so now I have to figure out how to minimize my hatred for the things I don't like to do or get rid of them all together. I'm working on that, I'll let you know how it goes.