New York City Zend Framework Meetup and SIG started

After the Zend Framework presentation at the February NYPHP user group meeting a bunch of members came upto Alan and myself asking to start a SIG or meetup, so we did. You can join the NY/NJ/PA Zend Framework Meetup here. We'll try to find interesting speakers to talk about ZF and other relevant topics. Members will also be encouraged to present applications that they've built with Zend Framework and share interesting challenges and their solutions with the rest of the meetup group.


Our first meetup March 24 is after the NYPHP meeting (4th Tuesday) you can RSVP to get into this months meeting at NYPHP.org and then meetup with us at TGI Friday's at Lex and 56th St. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=677+Lexington+Ave,+New+York...



We also will have meetings in Princeton, NJ and Philadelphia in the coming months. Let me know if you have ideas for a meeting room in your organization.
More info about http://framework.zend.com/



If you're looking for a complete list of ZF meetups I'll keep this list updated, CA, NJ and PA meeting are upcoming but here are the links to join:
CA/LOS GATOS - Zend Framework Meetup
NJ/PRINCETON- Zend Framework Meetup
NY/NYC - Zend Framework Meetup
PA/PHILI Zend Framework Meetup

CISCO and IBM bet big on Open Source this week

Its been a busy week of open source activity by two of the tech industry's bellwethers. Early this week CISCO made a big announcement of its new architecture called Unified Computing. Aside from the usual new CISCO hardware there was a big bet on using open source software on its complete virtualization solution, based on LAMP and yes PHP can be shipped on every hosted server.

If you recall, it was only last month that I wrote an article in our Zend Newsletter and quotes from CISCO leader John Chambers. He was hinting about "aggressively investing in new markets to ensure success when the economy becomes healthy once again", but he said that Cisco will be even stronger, I think he was referring to his big bet on Unified Computing and Open Source initiatives. You tell me, here's that article and Cisco comments at the end.

Another divisions at Cisco called Webex, continually rolls out innovative PHP projects. The latest project took only 4 days to develop a iPHONE application in PHP, wow that's real agile development. How did they roll out soo fast, they took advantage of open source Zend Framework and our developer stack to quickly develop it.

Today's big rumor was about IBM merging with SUN MICRO in the Wall St. Journal. Sun has been struggling to revive its financial prospects and declining Solaris business, the only semi-bright spot has been its open software. But open sourcing Java has been a rocky road, and more agile environments like PHP and others, have made significant progress. Ajaxian claims more new web2.0 app developers are using PHP then Java, Burton study reported on Ajaxian, more then 5 times more PHP developers. oDESK high tech job site reports 6 times more demand for PHP developers even during these difficult economic times. And over 22mil websites run PHP on the internet, its because PHP is easy and usually installed by default whenever a new LAMP server is spun up.

But inside the firewall, Java and other tech like ASP and Client/Server have ruled for a long time because of the head start, but luckily PHP programmers can play nice if they need to frontend a Java server. Its call Java Bridge for PHP and its available in our beta Zend Server, see this Caffeinated PHP video webinar to get a good insight of what is possible by my pal Kevin who was using our current production version of it. Works the same in the beta.

So I am excited about this IBM rumor, I have to say its a big bet by BIG BLUE on open source and IBM has been betting on both Java and PHP for a long time. Zend has had a long partnership with IBM and recently all IBM iSeries boxes ship with Zend PHP stack by default. Read more about the announcements in our Zend IBM Newsletter. And if you want to see all the interesting PHP projects at IBM, look here on IBM developerWorks. Take a look at one of my favorite IBM projects built on Zend Framework in the early days, here's the case study, and video.

Have you placed any open source bets inside your own company? If not, take a look at using ZEND PHP stack to do a project faster, better, cheaper. Lots of info on Google, and our site, but if you want to chat with a live person to help get you started, you can ring us at Zend or ping us on chat.

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Here's a musical selection for this article to celebrate the symphony of these announcements, a classical favorite of mine from the USSR Orchestra playing Chopin, press play

My Pilot is picked up for another season

My pilot blog has been picked up, woohoo! Like a news article circulation or a TV series it’s important for the pilot to hit a cord with the audience, and I’ve been lucky enough that after a few articles on my blog my editor is giving me the opportunity to have my own space and corner in the Zend newsletter.

So my blog went from a few eyeballs to a few million and the pressure is on. The readership of the Zend PHP newsletter goes to some of the most advanced internet thought leaders in business. As you can imagine this diverse audience creates a challenge for an engineer like myself. What does my audience want to know about open source PHP, since it’s very well documented, and plenty of great magazines and sites online with examples, user groups/conferences/training etc? But as well documented and supported PHP is in the internet, it is far less understood in the enterprise and behind the firewall. Gartner Group finds 85 percent of enterprises adopting open source, and published a report recently that said that in the next 5 years, there will be a 5 fold increase in enterprise PHP developers.

Much of that development will be new work or modernizing and converting older systems, most legacy mini and mainframe system need to be put on the web. And client/server systems have a high costs of maintenance and distribution problems that a web system would drastically improve. 67% of all internal systems are still legacy and will need to be updated to the web. PHP is a technology that already has been proven outside the firewall to be cost effective in this type of migration. And this climate favors open source based solutions like PHP that allow companies to start working with little to no budget and prove the concept quickly before they invest in the whole business plan. Take a look at this webinar about an example PHP project and ROI with PHP. It’s a far cry from the past when companies spent precious corporate funds on proprietary software only to find out that it limits what they needed to do, or would take months to years to complete a project, or worse wasnt a fit at all. Now you can implement a pilot project to prove out your concept, and then use enterprise open source technology to go production with it. Like using fedora before rolling out RHEL, or using PHP, Zend Framework and the community edition of Zend Server, you can do a lot with the basic software . Imagine what can be done with the enterprise version, well how about a boost of at least 30% more productivity in development. Now that's a good return ontop of the already big gains from PHP alone.

So what happens behind the firewall with PHP is not very well documented and I hope to share and collaborate with my audience about the PHP innovations that are not as visible as the ones outside the firewall. From Government to Health care to Media to all sorts of interesting businesses sectors, I hope to use this blog to highlight the work that is going on behind the firewall with PHP. Its the hidden side of PHP. And yes, I will still write about PHP internet sites here, as some of the interesting concepts start outside and work there way into the corporate datacenter. Collaboration is always welcomed on this blog, just send me a note here or email with any ideas you have for articles.

oDesk says PHP development outstrips demand for all other programming skills

EDC predicts PHP is best all around scripting language based on its latest developers survey results

Evans Data Corp Scripting Language Ranking 2009 Report

This song goes out to Ifat my editor its a band in Stafford England I just discovered a few months back, you guessed it called The Editors

Auto Industry goes OPEN today, VROOM VROOM VROOM

With today's announcement another industry goes OPEN, the automotive industry announced GENIVI alliance. Its a non-profit organization committed to driving the development and broad adoption of an open source In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) reference technology platform. Early partners include BMW, Delphi, GM, Intel, Peugeot, Visteon, Wind River and Magneti Marelli have already joined but its open to any open source automotive, consumer electronics, communications and application development company.

I love the press release today, it was jam packed with interesting tidbits of how open source will help the ailing automotive industry compete better in these hard economic times.

“GENIVI will challenge the traditional approach of proprietary solutions and spawn a level of creativity not yet seen in this segment,” said Graham Smethurst, GENIVI spokesperson and BMW Group General Manager, Infotainment and Communication Systems. “Collaborating on a common reference platform in non-differentiating areas of the architecture will allow GENIVI members to focus on the development and integration of innovative customer functionality.”

“The automotive business needs to improve its efficiency continuously through open competition and the avoidance of unnecessary rework on mature technologies, which is especially true in this current economic environment,” said Gerulf Kinkelin, PSA Innovation Area Manager. “We firmly believe that GENIVI is the right forum to put in place as it will drive business efficiency through an open environment and foster a rich ecosystem that will likely go far beyond what we can imagine today.”"

I've always been a big believer in open standards in autos, GPS is a good example, I have to say it saved my marriage. About 8yrs ago GPS stood for Global Positioning (HOT) Seat in my family car. That's when my wife tells me to go one way and the other way is better, yup many loud discussion about how to get somewhere since, we got something new. Anyway 8yrs ago we got our first GPS or should I say built one using a PDA + GPS, I'll try to upload a picture to show you what saved us on our long road trips, when we didnt have a map. We've since upgraded to a dedicated device, but I just cant wait for what is planned by this new open source auto alliance.

From the press release, GENIVI’s work will result in shortened development cycles, quicker time-to-market, and reduced costs for companies developing IVI equipment and software. GENIVI is headquartered in San Ramon, Calif. First car should have these open system inside by 2011, now that's a business plan you can be proud of presenting in Washington, boys.

So how are you using open source to change your own industry. let me know?

Research Articles:

• GENIVI launch Press Release
• GENIVI Fact Sheet and architecture
  
• Open source .vs. MS: Automotive battlefield
• CeBIT 2009 Keynote is GenIVI
  
• AUDIO selection, you guessed it was easy to pick for this article

The most technically savvy use of PHP in government award goes to...

A MP3 drum roll plays in the background, digital camera lights flashing all over, YouTube video camera rolling, and as the twitter volume starts to explode… for what is the first ELE award in government to ever be awarded (ELE stands for Enterprising Leverage of elePHPant technology, aka "super-powered by PHP" — the award is pronounced “elly!”) – and the excitement is simply electrifying here. It is award season after all and from the Oscars to the Golden Globes shows, the crowd has only just been warmed up for this online one. As the email envelope is struggled to be opened… the presenter continues chatting on Skype... "And the winner is?" … pause … then a longer pause … and then an even longer pause for that extra percentage of traffic on twitter and advertising revenue:

And the winner of the 2009 ELE is … President Barack Obama and his team at political social network sites on FACEBOOK and MY.BARACKOBAMA.COM for the most technically savvy use of open source and PHP in government ever!


Obama’s presidential campaign was praised for being one of the most technically savvy and what most people don't realize, was that a lot of their technology was powered by PHP:

• On My.BarackObama.com, Obama's own social network powered by PHP, 2 million profiles were created


• In addition, 200,000 offline events were planned


• About 400,000 blog posts were written


• And more than 35,000 volunteer groups were created - at least 1,000 of them on Feb. 10, 2007, the day Obama announced his candidacy


• Obama has gained 5 million supporters in third party social networks.


• On Facebook (a PHP powered site also), where about 3.2 million (during the campaign) signed up as his supporters, a group called Students for Barack Obama was created in July 2007.


• It was so effective at energizing college-age voters that senior aides made it an official part of the campaign the following spring.


• And Facebook users did vote: On Facebook's Election 2008 page, which listed an 800 number to call for voting problems, more than 5.4 million users clicked on an "I Voted" button to let their Facebook friends know that they made it to the polls.

"It doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat, if you care about how technology has changed campaigning, you watched what they were doing," said Mindy Finn, who worked on President Bush's eCampaign team in 2004 and supervised Mitt Romney's online strategy.

There is a presentation being offered at the Boston PHP User Group in April called "Lessons from My.BarackObama.com" presented by the creators at Blue State Digital. Both Josh King and Chuck Hagenbuch will share their experiences building and scaling some of the tools which powered my.barackobama.com and the millions of phone calls and over a billion emails that helped make history this year. I plan to attend this meeting on April 1st and deliver the ELE award in person to both Josh and Chuck. Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes from Facebook will be contacted by our HQ in Zend’s California office for his award. If anyone from the Obama organization would contact me and let me know how I can deliver Pres. Obama's award in person, I would be honored to meet the most technically savvy president in history. Send email to edwardk@zend.com

In one of his first official acts as president, Obama ordered more government openness and transparency. In an excerpt from his memo:

"Information maintained by the federal government is a national asset. My administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public."

From another Obama speech in 02/2007: "Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.”

And already in the first 100 days there is a US stimulus bill that pushes e-health records for all medical records online, read more. So congratulations to the entire Obama campaign team for your win and using PHP to make so much impact in politics via web technology. After all it is the people that use tools like the hammer and nail that will rebuild america, and you used PHP to implement your creative digital ideas on the information highway. You needed your ideas built fast, low cost but built well and that's why you picked PHP (it can be the nail gun when you're rebuilding on the information highway)

He's not the only one in government making big changes with open source and PHP, here's a great audio podcast from 2006 of someone I admire in government Tim Vaverchak (Director of Open Source Strategy) at the Commonwealth of MASS IT (ITD) when he began to use LAMP a bit over 2yrs ago. Contact me if you know of other great PHP examples in government, I am always eager to learn more and as I live near the North East Corridor Amtrak line in Princeton, NJ, I am close to Washington DC. My email will accept all invitations from the oval office as well as your office edwardk@zend.com :-)

My Research Articles:

• Propelled by Internet, Barack Obama Wins Presidency
  
• Obama Raised Half a Billion Online, How?
  
• Case Study: The Barack Obama Internet Strategy
• Learning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 and Beyond
• The Secrets of My.BarackObama.com
• What Next for My.BarackObama.com?
• My.BarackObama.com is RESTful, a techie review of the website
• Why is the award a Blue elePHPant? and why do you keep misspelling it?

------------------------ end of article ------------------------------
As you read this article, click here for audio of a band I first saw in a small club in NYC in late 90's

Wine with your meal? from the MP3 container

You ever go to a nice restaurant that matches the meal with a specific wine (or BREW)? Yea I have seen that a lot and depending on the place and chef I will order it together, and I have discovered some interesting vineyards I would never have tasted. The idea is to enhance the meal with a beverage that complements it, the recommendation is usually by the chef. Its the combo of both together that makes for a unique and sometimes surprising result, like when I tried a glass of sweet German Gewürztraminer offered by the proprietor at our favorite sushi place in Princeton NJ. Why do I bring this up?, well at the end of my longer articles you will see a musical selection, because music inspires me as I write the article. So just like a menu at a fine restaurant or brew pub that offers suggestions from the chef about the beverage, I too will offer a musical selection of what I had blasting in my room as I write the article to share the audio portion of it, hope you like the matching of content + MP3. For this short one I was just curious if there was a band called WINE (and Yes there is, I dont like them) They sounded like a band I do enjoy "The Smiths" and lead singer went soloist "Morrissey"

A good chef will pour his heart into the dish and most, like me, will want feedback. Let me know what you think of the content here, please feel free to add your own comments and feedback even about the music if you want. (And for those that are curious, in these economic times I cant afford to go to a place that employs a Sommelier, and rarely had the opportunity to go in the past. :-)

Btw I do love to cook also as a hobby, and the real reason I blare music is that English was not my first language and music helps me drown out the noise and distractions so I can focus on my topic and writing. Hopefully you enjoyed my dish of content online but even if you didnt this chef wants to hear from you.
----------------------------------- article end ---------------------------------
AUDIO: For this dish the chef recommends a wonderful blue indie MP3 from London, its a great vintage 1985 from the house of the "Smiths" called "How soon is Now on Meat is Murder album"

I'll be at NYPHP User Group Feb 24th in IBM facility on Madison Ave

Zend Framework Circa 2009 at NYPHP Feb 24th 6:30pm
http://www.nyphp.org/index.php

I'll be at the NYPHP User Group meeting Tuesday 24th of Feb, ask me about the new Zend Server and quick demo. I'm hoping to get onto next months calendar to do a demo for the group. See you there.

NYPHP TOPIC = The Zend Framework is known for its flexibility, corporate-friendly licensing, and compatibility with diverse platforms and database systems...

When: Tuesday, February 24th at 6:30pm sharp

Where: IBM 590 Madison Avenue, Room 1219 (12th Floor) [ map ]

RSVP: RSVP Online by 3:00EST

IMPORTANT RSVP POLICY:
All attendees MUST RSVP within 30 days of this particular meeting and no later than 3:00pm the day before the meeting.
http://www.nyphp.org/index.php


And dont forget about the Zend Webinar "Unveiling Zend Server" Feb 24th 12:00EST
bruary 24, 2009 - February 24, 2009: 9:00 AM PST - Your computer via Webex

Zend Server is Zend's next generation PHP Web Application Server - a complete solution for running and managing PHP applications that require a high level of reliability, performance and security.

During this webinar you will learn how to deploy a complete PHP stack in minutes, pin-point, diagnose and resolve application problems quickly, and achieve significant performance gains for you PHP applications.

Join this webinar - see a live Zend Server demo!
Click here to register

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