It's said the tool doesn't make the craft - a carpenter can drive a nail into a wooden plank using a hammer, a rock, another plank, or his forehead, but he'll rarely choose anything other than the hammer. [...] I'm talking about using a text editor versus using a full-fledged PHP-dedicated project-oriented IDE for PHP application development. Both will get the job done, but productivity-wise, one is obviously a better choice than the other.

Bruno Skvorc goes through a brief summary of what the editor is about and talks about some of the more notable features including:

• Being built on Java (good and bad)
• The IDE being strictly project-oriented
• Supports the latest PHP version, including 5.4
• Smart refactoring
• Good intellisense support

He also mentions the plugin architecture that's included with the product and a few of the more handy plugins available. They're also running a giveaway in collaboration with the PHPStorm folks and are giving out IDE licenses and copies of SitePoint's "PHPMaster: Create Cutting Edge Code" book (rules are included in the article).

If you, or someone you know with connections to the developer community at large, have something to show, we would love to hear so we can showcase at this year's ZendCon. We are looking for music, digital artwork or video media submissions (including fun videos) which will be played or displayed at various places around the conference, with attribution, of course. Physical media submissions are also welcome though we will be limiting that to local artists.

They include some of the guidelines for submitting your work (with an obvious preference on digital media) including the formatting and what sort of topics it should be relevant to. Prizes will be offered to the winners - a spotlight in a ZendCon newsletter and press releases as well as exposure via each category on Zend's social media properties.

If you'd like to send in your submission, you can use the form on this page and link to the media you've created.

Good news! We've managed to acquire a conference ticket for the Dutch PHP Conference in Amsterdam, on June 8th and 9th, to give away to our readers. We know that since you're reading techPortal, you are interested in technology in general and probably PHP in particular. The Dutch PHP Conference is one of the leading european conferences for PHP content and we hope you can join us there!

The ticket to this year's Conference also includes admittance into the Dutch Mobile Conference if you're interested in that as well. You can find out more about the Dutch PHP Conference on the main event site.

Ok PHP fans, we don't do this often, but once a year we do give away a ticket to php|tek to one lucky programmer. This year, however, you are going to have to work for it. Starting Friday, April 13th, 2012, those of us who work at php|architect will tweet clues, and you are going on a web scavenger hunt. That's right, dig up other people's websites, trash their JavaScript and generally make a nuisance of yourself as you follow the clues to the…well, you'll just have to wait and see.

You'll need to follow the php|architect folks on Twiiter (Elizabeth Tucker, Marco Tabini and Cal Evans) to get clues about the hunt. First prize is a ticket to php|tek this year but other prizes include a ticket to their next Virtual Summit, any three books from their catalog and a free one-year subscription to the magazine.

Once you've found the solution, you'll need to enter it here to be entered. Good luck!

GrUSP is organising a tweet contest and its prizes will be two tickets, one for each conference. The contest will start today (March 29th) at 1pm CEST and will end April 1st at 7pm CEST.

Anyone can enter - all you have to do is tweet a post with a few things: the "#grsup" hashtag, a mention of the twitter accounts for the events, a link to the conference site and something about the event. Be sure and get those tweets posted before April 1st a 9am CEST - they'll pick the winners soon after! (Oh and multiple entries are accepted so the more you tweet, the better your chances!)

We believe you can massively improve the user experience and engagement of your existing applications by making them realtime. Pusher lets you do that quickly and simply with our hosted API. In the Pusher challenge, we want to see the innovative ways you can turbo-charge your apps with a sprinkling of Pusher magic.

Pusher uses Websockets to handle the notifications. You can sign up for a developer account to get the development ball rolling but the deadline is midnight (GMT) on October 16th (just five days away!) so dive in and get realtime quickly for your chance to win!

I recently had a chance to catch up via e-mail with Ben Waine, winner of the 2011 PHP on Azure contest. [...] I only followed the contest from a distance while it was happening, but after hearing that Ben had won the contest (I had the good fortune of meeting Ben in person at the 2010 Dutch PHP Conference) and after reading a bayesian filter he developed to help filter out some of the twitter spam.

]]> Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:44:39 -0500 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/15965 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/15965 The Ibuildings techPortal has announced a contest today where they're giving away a free pass to this year's Dutch PHP Conference.

I'm wildly excited to announce that we have a ticket to give away for the Dutch PHP Conference 2011!! The conference is entirely English-language (although you will hear many languages spoken in the hallways!), and takes place in Amsterdam between 19th and 21st May 2011. The schedule is online now, and it promises three days of really excellent technical content from some of the leaders of the PHP Community from Europe and beyond. The tickets are on sale already; bookmark this link in case you don't win the ticket.

Entering the contest is simple - just leave a comment on the post with an email address and the winner will be picked from the group. You'll have to leave a comment before March 18th, though or it won't count towards the contest!

]]> Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:48:46 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/15955 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/15955 Stefan Koopmanschap has a new post today talking about the latest contest being put on by Microsoft - writing an application with PHP on Azure - and why you should get involved.

So as you might or might not have noticed yet, PHPBenelux is organizing a new contest in collaboration with Microsoft: The PHP on Azure contest. The idea is simple: Build an application in PHP that runs on the Windows Azure platform. I think it's a great idea to participate, let me try to tell you why.

He suggests a few reasons including that you'd get to work with cool new technologies (well, the 99% of you out there that don't host on Azure), you have the chance to win some great prizes and, of course, to have fun in the process. Development's great, but if you're not going to enjoy it, there's not much of a reason to try.

]]> Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:55:33 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/15918 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/15918 On the php|architect site today Beth mentions a contest that's being put on by the WestHost hosting group is putting on to find the best function - custom bits of functionality that are the most impressive and do their job the best.

Submit your entry by March 15th to win one of the above prizes. Winner's will be selected from a panel of judges reviewing the top rated PHP functions / code based on utility, creativity, efficiency, and readability. Make sure to get the word out about your submission in order to get votes to have a chance to win.

The submission form lets you fill in your contact details and copy & paste in the function. You can use any version of PHP you'd like and even the framework of your choice (just be sure it include instructions on its use).

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