Cal Evans and the Zend Developer Zone are hosting a new contest for all of the avid PHP readers out there - a giveaway for free PHP-related books.

There are a lot of good programming contests out there for PHP programmers to enter and win. Most of them require you to write a piece of code or solve a problem. There’s nothing wrong with that but programmers are busy people. So I've come up with a contest for busy programmers. Give blog about PHP Abstract and you could win a free book. Not just any book though, these are programming books. (you know the ones, when you go to check out at your favorite book store they charge you by the pound.)

Entering the contest is simple - just blog about your favorite episode of PHP Abstract (DevZone's great podcast series) and get it tracked on Technorati.

Cal will scan the listings each week and pick the one he likes the best. He'll send along the book of his choice and will spring for the postage to send it along. Nice and easy - so check out their podcast series and find an episode you like the best (or just talk about it in general) and get it tracked.

Click here to subscribe to their podcast in your favorite feed reader.

Cal Evans and the Zend Developer Zone are hosting a new contest for all of the avid PHP readers out there - a giveaway for free PHP-related books.

There are a lot of good programming contests out there for PHP programmers to enter and win. Most of them require you to write a piece of code or solve a problem. There’s nothing wrong with that but programmers are busy people. So I've come up with a contest for busy programmers. Give blog about PHP Abstract and you could win a free book. Not just any book though, these are programming books. (you know the ones, when you go to check out at your favorite book store they charge you by the pound.)

Entering the contest is simple - just blog about your favorite episode of PHP Abstract (DevZone's great podcast series) and get it tracked on Technorati.

Cal will scan the listings each week and pick the one he likes the best. He'll send along the book of his choice and will spring for the postage to send it along. Nice and easy - so check out their podcast series and find an episode you like the best (or just talk about it in general) and get it tracked.

Click here to subscribe to their podcast in your favorite feed reader.

php|architect's php|tek conference has officially started, and this year they're looking to provide the most up-to-date coverage they can of the event for those unable to attend.

They've included lots of resources to attendees (including travel info, the conference program, and the Zend Certification exam schedule) as well as the live resources for anyone and everyone:

• live media including a live photostream from the event
• The Board to communicate with fellow conference attendees
• and the Photostream Challenge for anyone up to some coding fun.

You can check out the current photostream on thias page of the site, where it grabs the latest shots from Flickr accounts tagged with the "phptek" tag. There's also an effort underway to "community blog" the conference via the use of Technorati tags.

php|architect's php|tek conference has officially started, and this year they're looking to provide the most up-to-date coverage they can of the event for those unable to attend.

They've included lots of resources to attendees (including travel info, the conference program, and the Zend Certification exam schedule) as well as the live resources for anyone and everyone:

• live media including a live photostream from the event
• The Board to communicate with fellow conference attendees
• and the Photostream Challenge for anyone up to some coding fun.

You can check out the current photostream on thias page of the site, where it grabs the latest shots from Flickr accounts tagged with the "phptek" tag. There's also an effort underway to "community blog" the conference via the use of Technorati tags.

Taylan Pince has posted a quick new item over on his blog today with a look at how to "ping" services like Technorati and Weblogs to let them know that you've updated your site.

I spent some time today to research the ways I could "advertise" my new blog on the web. I knew about del.icio.us and other web goodies like technorati, but I had never actually used them before. After a bit of googling around and a crash course on tags and pinging, I set up a simple XML-RPC ping module that would notify technorati every time i added or edited an entry here.

He talks briefly about how and where he found the documentation and the simple package he includes to help make it work. After that, he shows the code for both the Technorati version and the weblogs version - a simple five to size line script depending.

Taylan Pince has posted a quick new item over on his blog today with a look at how to "ping" services like Technorati and Weblogs to let them know that you've updated your site.

I spent some time today to research the ways I could "advertise" my new blog on the web. I knew about del.icio.us and other web goodies like technorati, but I had never actually used them before. After a bit of googling around and a crash course on tags and pinging, I set up a simple XML-RPC ping module that would notify technorati every time i added or edited an entry here.

He talks briefly about how and where he found the documentation and the simple package he includes to help make it work. After that, he shows the code for both the Technorati version and the weblogs version - a simple five to size line script depending.