"How to Get There" Presentation Citations
In my php\[tek\] keynote, " How to Get There", I make several references to books, cognitive psychology, TED talks, dead Austro-Hungarian writers, and 1980’s television dramas. For those interested in pursuing any of these (especially “L.A. Law”), and to give due credit to my influences, here are the things I named.
(Separately, you can see the slides at SpeakerDeck. The video was recorded, but I’m not sure when that will be posted.)
Why You Should Finish Your Presentation Earlier
My goal today is to finish the rough draft of the two presentations I’ll be giving at php\[tek\] in Chicago next week:
- How to Get There (keynote)
- Faster Web Development with Yii 2 (technical)
In trying to finish up these presentations today–a full 10 and 11 days before I give each presentation (respectively), I’m reminded of the myriad benefits of finishing the presentations you’re giving way, way, WAY earlier than you’re probably used to.
I’ve been to conferences where there’s a dedicated speaker room, and there’s undoubtedly many presenters in there, actively working on completing their presentation, even up until the time the presentation is given. At other conferences, I’ve seen presenters in the hallways, or in the backs of other presentation rooms, working away.
Frankly, if you’re still working on your presentation while at the conference, you’re doing it wrong.
Here’s why you should have your presentations finished way, way, WAY earlier than you’re probably already doing it…
"Effortless E-commerce with PHP and MySQL (2nd Edition)" Giveaway
Approximately 1,000 years ago (or 5 months), I promised to give away copies of my " Effortless E-commerce with PHP and MySQL (2nd Edition)" book to those people that have purchased " The Yii Book". The only problem is I had to create the code to do that. Which I now have. And it may even work.
If you’re interested in possibly winning a copy, log into your account. Then click the “Giveaway” link that appears in the navigation sidebar. If you can’t recall your password, use the reset link.
Pesky details of this giveaway…
Chapter 20 (beta) of "The Yii Book")
On Sunday night I posted Chapter 20, “Working with Third-Party Libraries,” of " The Yii Book". The chapter is 39 pages long as a PDF, with the following contents:
- Installation
- Accessing Library Classes
- Working with Composer
- Using Symfony
- Using Swift Mailer
- Using Elasticsearch
Most of the chapter covers Elasticsearch, creating the shell of a search engine. This rules out the need for Chapter 24, “Implementing a Search Engine,” in my opinion. So, by my count, after this, there are 4 chapters left.
Yii 2 Status and Looking Forward
As you may already know, the beta of Yii 2 was announced yesterday. Besides being another release, which is a good thing, officially reaching beta status means that no new major features will be added before Yii 2 is released. In other words, what Yii 2 looks like in beta will be pretty close to what Yii 2 is. Yay!
Rather than discussing all, or the most important, changes in Yii 2, I’d recommend you read the announcement page linked above. As for how I imagine this will play out looking forward…