A new entry has been posted to the PEAR blog with the latest minutes for the group's July 13th meeting.

Some highlights from the meeting include new/upcoming RFCs for package naming schemes, exception handling in PHP 5.3, and a vote on extending the current PEAR2 Policies. Heavy stuff, check it out!

You can check out the full notes here on the PEAR portion of the PHP.net wiki.

This new post from the Mind Tree blog (at hurricanesoftware.com) asks the question "why do you care about friendly URLs in PHP applications?"

Nice URLs, readable URLs, search-engine-friendly URLs. Different names same deal. [...] Turns out this isn't all that hard with PHP - in fact it can turn into something that's very useful from more than just a readability viewpoint.

He shows how to use mod_rewrite and an .htaccess file to automatically grab the request and map it to the right place. Then, the PHP script looks at the incoming data and pushes the correct page back out to the browser. He's also included some modifications to the original idea that allow for numeric grouping and named groups for rewriting content.

The PEAR blog has posted the offical results of this year's elections:

Elections are now over and a new PEAR Group has been formed. Just like last year and always following the Constitution, the new members have been elected by a secret ballot of PEAR Developers.

Those elected include Joshua Eichorn, Christian Weiske, Chuck Bugress and Travis Swicegood. This year's President id David Coallier. You can find out more on the PEAR website page for the elections.

David Coallier has posted both a congratulations and thank you about the PEAR group elections. Congrats to those who were voted in including Joshua Eichorn, Christian Weiske and Travis Swicegood and his many thanks for being voted in as President:

My place as I consider it and as Greg mentioned on the mailing list yesterday is much more "ambassadorial" than "presidential" and being the PEAR ambassador around the world, I'll be glad to discuss, argue, improve the general idea of PEAR to anyone. I'll also be happy to discuss PEAR2 if anyone is interested but first and foremost I'll be happy to help our new PEAR Group (which I am pretty sure won't need help ) and the community.

You can find out more about the results of this year's elections on the PEAR election pages from pear.php.net.

It's that time of year again - time to gather the votes for this year's PEAR elections for the role of President and others to be inducted into the group.

As every year it is the time of the election for the PEAR Group and PEAR President for the year 2008 and 2009. If you haven't casted your vote just yet, NOW is the perfect time to do it so go to the election page and place your vote.

You can find out more about the elections from the page for the Presidental election and for the Group elections. You must be a PEAR developer in order to vote.

Time has come back around for the 2008-2009 PEAR group elections and David Coallier has posted some details about this year's elections.

It is now this time of the year again where the PEAR Group throws in the PEAR Group Nominations. The nominated people will then be called for votes by the community and 7 lucky (even though luck has nothing to do with it) will be elected as the new PEAR Group member for the year 2008-2009.

The entire PHP community is requested to nominate who they think would make the best addition to the group, regardless of how they're related to the PEAR project. Nominations should be sent to Martin Jansen by midnight (UTC) May 31st.

On the Microsoft adCenter website, Walter Poupore has made a few posts to his blog about integrating PHP with various parts of the adCenter technology. Topics include:

• How to Check the Status of an Ad Group in PHP (V5)
• How to Create Keywords in PHP (V5)
• How to Create Ads in PHP (V5)
• How to Create Ad Groups in PHP (V5)

Check out his blog listing for more.

In a moment of divine inspiration (well, at least a thought that passed through his head at the bus stop), Lukas Smith has thought up and is proposing a group to help promote and advocate PHP, one he calls emPHPower.

emPHPower should be a mediator between various (potential) participants in the PHP world. As such emPHPower could serve as a mediator between the PHP.net developers and its user base, between corporations and PHP.net, between corporations and grass roots organizers etc. [...] There are is fundamental concept that I see in this vision: emPHPower is a mediator and catalyst that empowers members of the community to follow their own ideas.

He talks more about the actual "doing" of his ideas and mentions things like the project's budget and where it would come from - the possibility of member fees (based somehow on cost of living).

Ben Ramsey says congratulations to the Costa Rica PHP group on having their first meeting with 37 developers in attendance.

It sounds like they have a very active and vibrant PHP developer community in Costa Rica, and they've found two very supportive universities that have offered to host their meetings and events. I wish that every PHP user group could find sponsors willing to provide computer labs and even bring in outside speakers!

According to the Costa Rica PHP website they had a wonderful response from local developers and found them all eager to contribute however they could. They even have the support of two local universities where they can meet/do work in their labs (even bring in speakers from other countries).