The PHP North West user group has announced their latest meetup happening April 3rd at 7pm in Manchester. Derick Rethans will be speaking about designing MongoDB schemas.

One of the challenges that comes with moving to MongoDB is figuring how to best model your data. While most developers have internalized the rules of thumb for designing schemas for RDBMSs, these rules don't always apply to MongoDB. The simple fact that documents can represent rich, schema-free data structures means that we have a lot of viable alternatives to the standard, normalized, relational model. Not only that, MongoDB has several unique features, such as atomic updates and indexed array keys, that greatly influence the kinds of schemas that make sense.

For more information, check out their event page, complete with details about the venue and maps to the location.

Have a user group meeting coming up you'd like to announce? let us know!

An announcement has been made about an new entry into the PHP community world - the PHP Community Conference happening in Nashville, TN (April 21st and 22nd):

The PHP Community Conference is all about you! Come on out to Nashville for a different kind of conference this spring. We're going to hear from community members about projects they're working on and how they were inspired. It's going to be a fun, laid-back event where you and the people you'll meet can collaborate to build some awesome applications of your own with PHP. Ticket sales will begin on February 3, 2011.

Their Call for Papers is already open and will stay open until January 31st - less than 20 days away! They're looking for topics that focus less of the technical how-to you might find at other conferences and more on the "real world" happenings and projects the PHP community is working on. Speakers will have airfare and hotel costs paid for. To submit a proposal, send it in an email over to proposals@phpcon.org today!

Markus Wolff has posted today about the next PHP unconference happening in Hamburg, Germany:

The remaining question was not if, but when should we do the next one? This question can now be answered: On the weekend of April 26th / 27th, the PHP Unconference 2008 will once again take place in our beautiful city.

They're going with the mix of predefined sessions and on-the-spot talks given by anyone that wants to get up to speak (proposed to the group attending and selected based on the popularity). It will be held there at the local University there in Hamburg again. You can keep up with the latest information on the unconfernece over on its (German only) blog.

Markus Wolff has posted today about the next PHP unconference happening in Hamburg, Germany:

The remaining question was not if, but when should we do the next one? This question can now be answered: On the weekend of April 26th / 27th, the PHP Unconference 2008 will once again take place in our beautiful city.

They're going with the mix of predefined sessions and on-the-spot talks given by anyone that wants to get up to speak (proposed to the group attending and selected based on the popularity). It will be held there at the local University there in Hamburg again. You can keep up with the latest information on the unconfernece over on its (German only) blog.

php|architect has posted their schedule today for the April and May times for their training classes. They offer three courses:

• PHP Essentials - a beginner-level introduction to PHP programming. If you're new to PHP, this is where you should start.
• PHP 5 Certification - prepare for the Zend certification exam here. While this course is focused on ZCE, it is also an excellent intermediate-level PHP course.
• Professional PHP - take your code to the next level. This course covers advanced PHP techniques.

Each of the courses is instructor-lead and can be taken from anywhere with an internet connection. Check out the prices and full schedule on their training website.

php|architect has posted their schedule today for the April and May times for their training classes. They offer three courses:

• PHP Essentials - a beginner-level introduction to PHP programming. If you're new to PHP, this is where you should start.
• PHP 5 Certification - prepare for the Zend certification exam here. While this course is focused on ZCE, it is also an excellent intermediate-level PHP course.
• Professional PHP - take your code to the next level. This course covers advanced PHP techniques.

Each of the courses is instructor-lead and can be taken from anywhere with an internet connection. Check out the prices and full schedule on their training website.

The April Edition of php|arcjhitect magazine has been released today, and includes a feature article on the one topic everyone's been talking about - the Zend Framework.

Other articles included in this month's edition include:

• "Developing a Plugin Architecture for PHP" by Titus Barik
• "Thoughts from an Open Source Recruiter" as told by Brent Marinaccio
• "Aspect-oriented Software Development and PHP" by Dmitry Sheiko

And, of course, the two returning columnists, Jeff Moore looks at properties in classes/objects and Ilia Alshanetsky talks security with a little SQL injection "fun".

As always, you can either subscribe to this fine publication or just order this issue.

The April Edition of php|arcjhitect magazine has been released today, and includes a feature article on the one topic everyone's been talking about - the Zend Framework.

Other articles included in this month's edition include:

• "Developing a Plugin Architecture for PHP" by Titus Barik
• "Thoughts from an Open Source Recruiter" as told by Brent Marinaccio
• "Aspect-oriented Software Development and PHP" by Dmitry Sheiko

And, of course, the two returning columnists, Jeff Moore looks at properties in classes/objects and Ilia Alshanetsky talks security with a little SQL injection "fun".

As always, you can either subscribe to this fine publication or just order this issue.

Codewalkers.com has posted about their latest book raffle - this time offering up a copy of the APress book "Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition".

On April 28th, we will be giving away five copies of Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition. This is an excellent book for someone just starting out in PHP or those wishing to take their basic skills to the next level.

To put your name in the hat, simply head to the entry page and fill in the form at the bottom. The winner will be notified after the drawing has taken place. If you'd like more information on the book itself, you can check out the sample chapter, table of contents, or just visit the site for the book.

Codewalkers.com has posted about their latest book raffle - this time offering up a copy of the APress book "Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition".

On April 28th, we will be giving away five copies of Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition. This is an excellent book for someone just starting out in PHP or those wishing to take their basic skills to the next level.

To put your name in the hat, simply head to the entry page and fill in the form at the bottom. The winner will be notified after the drawing has taken place. If you'd like more information on the book itself, you can check out the sample chapter, table of contents, or just visit the site for the book.