Stefan Mischook is back with another video in his series. This time he looks at a part of the Model/View/Controller framework - the Controller.

In this video, I talk a little about the MVC design pattern with special attention to the middle layer in MVC: the 'controller'. [...] The Controller is the part that brokers the communication between the View and the Model.

If you like the video and want to see more, check out the PHP videos section of his website.

Stefan Mischook has posted another video to his KillerPHP.com site today. This time he looks at the Zend framework and gives some reasoning being making it your framework of choice.

In response to my a recent podcast where I recommended that PHP programmers learn the Zend Framework, I was asked why I choose Zend, rather than other PHP frameworks.

He covers what to look for in an MVC framework and why a flexible, well-supported (community) framework can really make a difference.

The Dutch PHP Conference is coming up fast but if you weren't able to attend this year, you might want to follow along with Paul Reinheimer's (interesting) video series leading up to, and possibly during, the conference. He's already posted several from the days leading up to the conference:

• Dutch PHP Conference, Day -7
• Dutch PHP Conference, Day -6, part 1/?
• Dutch PHP Conference Day-6 Part 2
• Dutch PHP Conference Day -5, part 1/?
• Dutch PHP Conference day -4.5 drunken adventures
• Dutch PHP Conference Day -4
• Dutch PHP Conference Day -1
• Dutch PHP Conference Day 0
• DPC - Day 0 Christian Wenz
• DPC Day 1 - Speakers Dinner
• DPC Day 2 - The End

This list will be updated as he posts more videos.

On Stefan Mischook's blog today there's a new video tutorial posted that answers a question several developers have asked him: "Should I always use MySQL for my database when working with PHP?"

Yes, this is a beginners question, I know. Nonetheless, it is a legitimate question that I think is worthy of comment. In answering this question though, I briefly talk about the other database options you have with PHP.

You can check out the video here (in high definition this time!)

Been hearing about the PHPWomen group but not sure exactly what they're about? Brian Gorbett took the opportunity of having several of the members of the group in one place at this year's php|tek conference and shot a video interview with three (then joined by one more) of them.

I sit down with 4 women (3 at first, then lig joins us) in chicago at php|tek that are helping women get involved in programming and technology. Learn how they got started and what they are doing today.

If you're interested in the group, male or female, you can find out more about them on their website or in their About page.

Stefan Mischook has posted a video podcast looking at the Zend Framework and Web 2.0 development:

I just released a new PHP video podcast where I answer a few questions put to me about php. I answer these questions: Do you need to learn the Zend Framework?, Do you need a PHP certificate?, How does PHP fit into Web 2.0.

You can view the podcast here or check out some of his other great videos in the Video section of his site.

Keith Casey (of Blue Parabola) has been wandering around php|tek this week doing some video interviews with speakers about the conference and other various PHP topics. He's posting them over on the Blue Parabola blog - here's the list so far:

• Paul Jones on benchmarking
• Michaelangelo van Dam on PHP Testfest
• Cal Evans on distributed teams and telecommuting
• Lorna Mitchell and Matthew Weier O'Phinney on subversion
• Eli White on the PHP community, ZendCon, etc
• Wez Furlong on PHP core development
• Rafael Dohms on PHP in Brazil
• Jason Sweat on Design Patterns
• Tony Bibbs on Technology in Government
• Travis Swicegood on Git and Subversion
• Elizabeth Smith on PHP-GTK
• Arbi Arzoumani on Conference Organization
• Robert Purcell and Matt Schraeder on Conference Thoughts
• Brett Bieber on PEAR2
• Aaron McCall on the Conference Experience
• thePHP.cc on Code Reviews

Keep an eye here for more videos as they're added to the Blue Parabola site or you can follow along here for the news directly from the source.

If you've been enjoying the pre-php|tek 2009 webcase series but have been wondering where the video and slides for the presentations were, BlueParabola has what you need!

After long wait, we've finally gotten things together and have slides and some of the video available for the php|tek webcast series.

Presentations posted so far include Keith Casey's look at project management, Matthew Turland's web scraping talk and, most recently, Tony Bibbs' look at using Propel.

You can find out more about the webcasts (and sign up for upcoming ones) on this page from the php|tek website. There's still time to register for today's event - the second part of the "PHP and Flash" series from Lee Brimelow.

Ever wondered where all of those elePHPants [some images nsfw] came from? Well, Vincent Pontier has created a movie showing how he came up with the initial idea.

El Roubio presents the film "Birth of the ElePHPant" made a day in the year 1998 has just been published. Why the elephant? Everyone loves the animal and its is powerful but at the same time flexible. It's fast when it attacks (databases) and it fits with the PHP name (elePHPants).

You can find more pictures of these blue globe-trotting ambassadors of PHP in this group on Flickr.

On the NETUTS.com website they've posted a part of their "Dive into PHP" series (part thirteen) cross-posted from the ThemeForest blog (subscribe here). In this edition the vidcast looks at how to handle file uploads in PHP.

By posting short ten minute episodes, beginners can easily digest each lesson, rather than become overwhelmed with more information than their minds are able to consume. [...] In this lesson, you'll learn how to upload files, and how to use regular expressions to ensure that inappropriate file types aren't uploaded to your server.

You can follow along with the vidcast and check out the demo or just skip straight to the source code to get going right away. Links to some of the other video tutorials are also included for things like working with variables, regular expressions and getting started with MySQL.