I had a great time for three main reasons: I learned new stuff, I met people and I got inspired by topics I already knew about. I like to (shortly) share on the experience itself and I hope to explain why I think it is valuable to visit a conference every once in a while.

He recaps the conference, mentioning the talks he attended (including one on the PHP community and a keynote from Zeev Zuraski of Zend about the state of PHP) and compliments the group for putting on a good event. He also includes his three reasons he thinks everyone should attend an event like this:

• It's a great place to learn about new tools and things you didn't know about current ones
• It's inspiring to be around fellow developers and get excited about the technology
• You meet new people that you might not ever have in just your day to day development work

Those of you who follow me on twitter (@calevans) know that recently I asked for opinions on conference attendance. I've collected what I learned in this blog post.

He asked three groups of people - speakers, non-speakers and managers - for their opinions as to why they attend or send their developers to these events. his results were interesting, finding that slightly more people were looking for networking than just the training you get in the sessions. General community interaction also scored high. On the flip side, the things that mattered most to the managers were the training and a good price that seemed right for what was offered.

Both sides are reinforced by comments from people who submitted to the survey, both well-known PHPers and general community members alike.

So, it's your first conference. Yes, it can be a little intimidating. Yes, it will be exciting. Yes, it will be exhausting. Here are some tips to get you started.

His tips include:

• Do look at the schedule to find your "must see" sessions
• Don't be a starstruck fanboy
• Don't try to sell anyone anything
• Do follow up after the conference

Check out the rest of the post for more great tips on getting the most from your conference of choice.

As I wrote earlier, several TestFest events will be held soon with the biggest one being the European TestFest initiative of quite a big bunch of European usergroups. But why should you attend such a TestFest?

Here's his four reasons:

• To improve PHP
• Improve your own knowledge
• To expand your network
• Because you're friggin cool!

You can find out more about TestFests in your area at this page on PHP's QA website.

Zend employees have been busy submitting to Call for Papers at various tech/PHP conferences and will be presenting talks around the world. Here is a list of who will be where.

Conferences on the list include PHP Quebec, PHP Con Italia and php|tek. You can find out more about who will be there and what they'll be presenting in the Zend Developer Zone post.

I can't believe it's already ZendCon time again! I've been meeting with the planning committee and I'm really excited about this year's conference. All the usual things are back to make it great: we have a great lineup of speakers, the Meet the Teams session, and special guests like noted PHP security expert Stefan Esser, Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith of ajaxian.com, and Alex Russell from Dojo.

He mentions things like the unconference (with even more great speakers, just in a more "unofficial" setting) and about the conference wiki with more details on who will be there and what they'll be attending.

There's still seats open for this year's conference, so reserve your spot today - check out the registration page on the ZendCon site for more information.

If you plan to go to the PHP Forum in Paris next week (Thursday 9 and Friday 10), this might be a good opportunity to meet with François and Fabien, who will be attending the Forum.

If you have questions about the framework or just want to get to meet up with the developers, track them down there at the conference. They're even trying to get an informal meeting together to help make it easier.