The most recent episode of the Loosely Coupled podcast, with hosts and PHP community members Jeff Carouth and Matt Frost, has been posted: Episode #22 - Resolution Won't Fix.

In this episode Jeff and Matt talk about a very important skill all developers need to learn: how to say no. Saying no is pretty easy but there are ways to appropriately convey the reason why doing what is being asked is not a good idea.

You can listen to this latest episode either using the in-page audio player, by downloading the episode or you can subscribe to their feed to get the latest as they're released. Also, be sure to follow them on Twitter too!

Cal Evans has posted the next in his series offering advice to companies (and recruiters) out there looking to hire good, qualified and technically competent candidates. In this new post he suggests that these organizations learn something from when they get a "no" from the candidate.

Most companies have some variation of [the same] process for interviewing developers. [...] Between each bullet point is a decision point on the part of both your company and the candidate whether to move to the next step. Don’t assume that just because you have a job, the candidate will be willing to move forward at each step. Some candidates will excuse themselves from the process for a variety of reasons.

He suggests that it's important to learn from the "no" and change things up accordingly. If you can find out the "why" behind the "no", you can make a change for the better. He reminds companies that "no" could also mean "not right now" or "not without extra information I don't have".

Set aside some time in your schedule soon after the break, but not immediately after – to contemplate why [the candidate said no]. Yes, this is largely navel gazing but it is important navel gazing. Did they see something in your team that you can correct? Is there a problem you can work on? Not every NO will be something you can fix, or even your fault, but make sure you spend a little time thinking about it.

Aaron Wormus has some sad news for those that enjoyed attending the annual Amsterdam PHP Conference - apparently, this year's edition has been canceled.

The news has broken in a report on PHP-Center that the traditional annual PHP Spring Conference in Amsterdam has been cancelled this year. Because of the World Cup, people from all over the world will be flooding into Amsterdam, this influx of tourists has created a shortage of some of the essential ingrediants without which the conference cannot operate. Of course, I’m talking about the lack of a venue.

It's sad to see that one of the more popular European PHP conferences won't be happening this year, but there's always the International PHP Conference to look forward to:

On the bright side, there’s word on the rumor mill that the International PHP Conferece in November is going to be bigger that ever, and will introduce a big sponsor which has yet to sponsor PHP events.

Aaron Wormus has some sad news for those that enjoyed attending the annual Amsterdam PHP Conference - apparently, this year's edition has been canceled.

The news has broken in a report on PHP-Center that the traditional annual PHP Spring Conference in Amsterdam has been cancelled this year. Because of the World Cup, people from all over the world will be flooding into Amsterdam, this influx of tourists has created a shortage of some of the essential ingrediants without which the conference cannot operate. Of course, I’m talking about the lack of a venue.

It's sad to see that one of the more popular European PHP conferences won't be happening this year, but there's always the International PHP Conference to look forward to:

On the bright side, there’s word on the rumor mill that the International PHP Conferece in November is going to be bigger that ever, and will introduce a big sponsor which has yet to sponsor PHP events.

Joshua Eichorn has posted about some updates that he's made to his "file upload progress meter" example in the wake of major popularity via del.icio.us and digg.

Over the weekend my file upload progress meter code got lots of traffic. It seems it made it made it on the del.icio.us popular list as well as getting over a thousands diggs. To celebrate this i’ve updated the code.

The main new feature is giving you feedback without having to patch PHP. Now the patched version gives you more information such as upload speed and estimated time to completion. But we still provide some nice user feedback even without it now.

I also created some wiki pages to start the documentation process.

He includes tagged: ajax file upload progress meter update popular no patch ajax file upload progress meter update popular no patch

Link: