The Google Hangouts On Air edition is not yet generally available to all Google+ users. However, thanks to the guides of the Google Top Contributor program, on which I have the pleasure and the privilege to participate, this feature was enabled on the PHP Classes site Google+ account. Therefore, starting the next episode, we are going to try recording the Lately in PHP podcast using the Google Hangouts On Air. This is still an experimental idea, but if all goes well, all the upcoming podcast episodes will be recorded this way.

Instructions are included in the post if you'd like to participate in the upcoming episode (recording time is yet to be determined).

In this panel discussion, we tackle topics including the direction PEAR and Pyrus will be going in the next few years, obstacles that may be on the horizon, and more.

PEAR is the package library of standardized packages for a variety of common development tasks. Pyrus is a new package manager to make installing and maintaining PEAR packages simpler. Engine Yard's next webcast will cover the Lithium framework with core contributors Nate Abele, Garrett Woodworth, and John Anderson on December 1st.

There are a lot of webinars out there begging for developers to participate. Many contain quality content that is useful to developers; others, not so much. As a company who builds tools for developers, most assume Zend's webinars are nothing more than ads for their products; this is why we don't assume things. In reality, about 1/2 of their webcasts feature prominent members of the PHP community talking about open source tools that developers will find interesting. Here are a few of the recent ones.

Some of the topics that were presented include using PHP 5.3 namespaces, new SPL features in 5.3, unit testing in the Zend Framework and the powerful combination of the Zend Framework and Doctrine. You can find these recordings on Zend's Recorded Webinars page.

Cal also points out some other webinar recordings from php|architect as a part of their webcast series leading up to this year's php|tek conference.

Phactory is an alternative to using database fixtures in your PHP unit tests. Instead of maintaining a separate XML file of data, you define a blueprint for each table and then create as many different objects as you need in your PHP code. By using a database factory instead of fixtures, your unit tests will be more clear and easier to write. You'll also be able to change the objects you create programmatically instead of being stuck with the same old fixtures.

You can watch the video (with slides for the presentation) either through the in-page player or by downloading the file itself.

Just a quick not for those of you who missed my Zend webinar (Unit Testing after Zend Framwork 1.8" last Wednesday. You can view the whole webinar on the Zend website. I want to thank Zend Technologies, Inc. for giving me the opportunity to present and I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all attendees (about 150) for enduring me the whole hour. Your feedback on twitter and facebook was awesome.

Zend also has lots of other webinar recordings on other Zend-related topics like Zend Framework+Doctrine, running PHP application in the cloud, optimizing Drupal and making a Flex-based CRUD application with a Zend Framework backend.

A quick romp though installing a full php development tool chain. Starting at A for Apache and ending at X for X-debug including U for unit testing and S for source control.

You can watch the video and check out the source he uses in the talk. For more great sessions, check out the latest news on the PHPNW site.

Most PHP talks are given from the point of view of people who work on a project internally. These people are mostly developers, designers, project managers, QA's and there's even an occasional business man who shares his opinion on PHP. I would like to talk about PHP through the eyes of a hoster.

His talk covered some of the things a hosting company has to worry about including support issues and what to do when things go wrong. You can listen to the episode either via the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly. The slides are also available.

MongoDB is part of a new wave of persistent storage engines that make up the NoSQL movement. The most popular websites in the world are switching to or already use non-relational databases. Why? Scalability. This session will cover why, when, and how to use MongoDB: a fast, stable, easy-to-learn document database.

You can find out more about MongoDB from its website and more about the remaining TEK-X webcast series (only two left!) on the TEK-X webcast series page.

Welcome to the ZendCon 2009 edition of the ZendCon Sessions. The ZendCon Sessions are live recordings of sessions that have been given at previous Zend Conferences. Combined with the slides, they can be the next best thing to having attended the conference itself. [...] This episode of The ZendCon Sessions was recorded live at ZendCon 2009 in San Jose, CA and features Ilia Alshanetsky giving his talk: "PHP 5.3 == Awesome!"

You can listen to this new episode in three different ways - either via the in-page player, through the direct download link or by subscribing to their feed.

The recording for last Friday's webcast Play-doh: Towards Better Object Modeling, hosted by Matthew Weier O'Phinney and part of our popular Summer Webcast Series, sponsored by Microsoft's Interoperability Labs is now available directly on our site.

Te webcast is a part of a series of presentations leading up to this year's CodeWorks conference with seven more to go before the big event. You can check out the webcasts page on the php|architect site for more details and to sign up for the upcoming events.

If you want more information on the touring CodeWorks conference, check out its main site.