Are you ashamed to admit you're a PHP developer? Have you been using the same old, boring PHP framework for years? Tired of your PHP applications turning into enormous beasts? Maybe you've heard about Laravel but haven't made the effort to dive into it? In this presentation, we'll walk through what makes Laravel an elegant, fun, and exciting framework to make PHP applications that you'll be proud of.

The meeting is happening June 7th at 7pm at the Strongbox West on Defoor Place. Food will be provided and there'll be giveaways of AtlantaPHP and Laravel swag!

Have a user group meeting coming up you'd like posted? send it over and we'll get it posted!

For those who haven't put the reoccurring event in their calendar, this announcement is for you: the Zend Framework Monthly Bug-hunt is here again! Next Thursday, Friday and Saturday (the 23rd, 24th and 25th of June), we'll be hosting our monthly bug hunt. For those of you unfamiliar with the event, each month, we organize the community to help reduce the number of open issues reported against the framework.

If you're wanting to get involved but aren't sure where to start, you'll first need to get a CLA on file then you can start browsing unresolved issues of check out their "getting started" guide for more information.

The Lone Star PHP Conference brings together some of the best local speakers from around Texas. They bring their experience and knowledge to this day-long event, the first PHP conference in North Texas.

The event will be on June 11th and will last from 8am through 5:30pm with a break for lunch. The price of the ticket includes beverages all day (water, coffee, sodas) and a boxed lunch for all attendees.

Tickets for this one-day event cost $60 USD and includes some great talks on topics like working with Zend_Form (Zend Framework), dependency injection, Windows Azure, application deployment and benchmarking frameworks. Tickets can be purchased from the event's Eventbrite site.

It's that time of the month again- but this time with a twist! Today [June 17th], Tomorrow and Saturday, 17-19 June 2010, Zend Framework will host its monthly bug hunt. You read that right! We are adding Saturday into the event for those developers who want to do a little weekend bug hunting. For those of you unfamiliar with the event, each month, we organize the community to help reduce the number of open issues reported against the framework.

They've added the Saturday onto the end of the days to give more people time when they're away from work obligations and can spend time closing the bugs they want. If you're interested in helping out these next two days, you'll need to have a CLA on file, have read over the guide to get started and possibly drop by the Freenode IRC channel (#zftalk.dev) to talk with other bug hunters and Zenders.

It feels like a long time since we started on this road in February 2009. So much has happened since then ... and now we are two days away from the 9th May when several European groups will run events. We have 22 groups registered in all, Munich and Quebec have already run successful events. [...] It's great to see user groups helping out with PHP development in this way - I'm just amazed and humbled by the enthusiasm and talent of PHP users.

She takes a second to thank sponsors - including Microsoft and Ibuildings (including their swag). The event will last through the end of June and test numbers will be calculated and evaluated for inclusion quickly after. You can get an idea of the current testing runs here.

He also has a note about the two days prior to the conference for the in-depth training on two tracks - Programmer and Designer. Early bird specials ended with the last of April, but you can still register online for the event - prices start at $395 USD and range all the way up to $1695 for the complete package.

They discuss where the name came from, why they chose the "unconference" route, and what's expected of it.

The conference also seeks to be more affordable that some others out there, only costing 20 Euros to attend (as well as simple food/place to sleep). You can get complete details on the conference's main site. (Open registration will open in about a week or so, according to Zak Greant)

The conference will be happening in Skein, Norway from June 24th through 25th and will follow the "unconference" mentality - allowing the attendees to set the agend for the event. Rooms for the conference and amenities will be provided (including wireless internet), and space will be provided for attendees to stay (space at a local school) as well as simple meals.

Registration for the event will cost 20 Euros, and all of the money raised will go to various "free culture, free information, and free software groups".

For complete details and updates on the conference, check out their site...

The FrOSCon (Free and Open Source Conference) is organized by the Computer Science faculty at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg. It will be happening the 24th and 25th of June with two of the local usergroups setting up a PHP room for all attending PHP enthusiasts.

For more information on the conference or on their Call for Papers, check out their site.