For the Canadians that wanted to get in on the WinPHP Challenge but couldn't because, well, where you live, there's good news (as pointed out by Stuart Herbert) - Mircosoft has announced the Ultimate Coder Battle event.

The premise is quite interesting: one student and one professional developer will be the chosen finalists, and they will battle head to head at the "Make Web Not War" conference. The winner walks away with substantial cash prizes - $5000 with another $5000 in bonus awards available. Entries close 3rd June.

Unlike in the WinPHP Challenge, you can use both a new application or a port of an older application as your entry. One application will be chosen for each of the two categories (Professional and Student) and prizes will be awarded to them along with the runners-up. Extra bonuses will be given out for developers that use .NET/PHP together the best as well as other various prizes.

You can get more information about the event from the main site or just head over and register right away. Remember, the deadline is June 3rd so hurry!

The PHP Unconference group (putting on the meetup in Hamburg, Germany in September) has announced that tickets are now officially on sale for the event.

The PHP User Group Hamburg and the Department of Computer Science, University Hamburg, Germany are delighted to invite you to the third PHP Unconference. The main focus of the unconference is PHP and related web technologies. There is no official agenda; anyone can suggest a session. The PHP Unconference 2009 will take place on September 12, 2009 and September 13, 2009 at the Geomatikum, Hamburg University. See the location on Google Maps: http://tinyurl.com/bu5mom.

The tickets cost 25 Euro for both days (Sept 12th & 13th), but students of the Hamburg University can get in for free. You can find out more about the event on the unconference's site and you can reserve your spot now by purchasing your ticket.