This year I’m excited to be heading to the php|tek conference in Chicago (May 19th to 22nd), and even more excited to be going there as a speaker. Over the course of the conference I will present or co-present three sessions; one tutorial and two talks.

The tutorial session is a half-day on Tuesday afternoon – I’m co-presenting with Matthew Weier O’Phinney of Zend and our session is “Practical SVN for PHP Developers”. We’ll be walking through the concepts of source control, adminstering subversion, repository structure strategies and also showing some hands-on use of subversion. We’ll talk about the issues around introducing subversion into a team and looking at how this tool fits in as part of the development process. If you’re a subversion user looking to learn to get more fromthe tool, an architect looking to include it in new or existing setups, or a development team leader or manager looking for information about setting up and managing subversion, then come along!

The next talk I’ll give is on Wednesday when I’ll be presenting “Linux-Fu for PHP Developers”. If you’re already a linux wizard then feel free to drop by and heckle – but if you’re either a beginner or a competent user looking to raise your game then this session is for you. Its a tour of the commands I use day-to-day; an opportunity to metaphorically look over my shoulder and take a peek at the tools I use and how I use them. There are code samples and although there is a lot to take in, I hope it will make command-line linux usevery approachable for everyone – if I can do it, anyone can :)

Finally I get to co-present with my friend and Ibuildings colleague Stefan Koopmanschap a session entitled “A Guide to Using and Understanding the Community”. This session is an overview of what happens in the community outside of people’s nine-to-five jobs, how to access the community and what you might find there if you do. A lot of the value of open source software is in the community but knowing what information and interactions you can find there and how to find them is a mystery to many. For business in particular, free software with no guarantees can be slightly daunting! Stefan and I have lots of community involvement and will give a tour of what’s happening, how you or your employees can gain fromthe community, and how you can give back.

I’m really looking forward to the conference, to meeting old friends, virtual friends, and friends I haven’t made yet – if you will be there let me know and make sure to come and say “hi”!