In a new post to the Zend Developer Zone, there's an announcement from Cal Evans about his temporary return to Zend's Developer Zone site and provide it with some great content.

For the next few months Blue Parabola will be helping out by managing DevZone. We will continue the 5 year tradition of finding great PHP related content from around the Net and making sure you have access to it. Along the way we may even write some new articles and tutorials. So come back often. See what, Marco, Keith, Beth and I find and share with you.

Keep an eye on the Zend Developer Zone for some great content from this group. You can also check out some of their other efforts over on the php|architect site.

The latest episode of the php|architect OddWeek podcast series has been released today - Talking with a recruiter.

Cal Evans spends some time talking with Scott Gordon (the anti-pimp) about things to look out for and what you need to bring to the conversation. He also references a recent post from Scott with five stupid and five real interview questions

You can listen to this latest episode either by using the in-page player or by just downloading the mp3 directly to listen offline whenever you'd like. You can also subscribe to the show notes mailing list to get even more info about this and future episodes.

As a part of this year's TEK-X webcast series, Cal Evans will be presenting today on a subject near and dear to his heart - working with (and correctly handling) remote developers for your projects. From the php|architect blog:

Come join us for this week's TEK·X webcast as Cal Evans discusses the details of managing remote developers. Cal won't be speaking on why you should allow your developers to telecommute - he has done that already. For those who see the light, however, he will give practical advice on the tools and techniques to use when managing distributed teams.

The webcast will be happening today at 1pm (EDT) and there's still spots open, so if you want to get in on this great session, head over to the gotomeeting page and signup!

On the Zend Developer Zone there's a new episode of the PHP Abstract podcast featuring a roundtable with Eli White, Keith Casey and Cal Evans talking about the future of the PHP language and standards that need to accompany it.

In this episode I sit around a table with Keith Casey and Cal Evans as we ramble on a bit discussing the future of PHP (including PHP 5.3 and PHP 6) as well as talking about the framework standards group that has been formed. This was recorded while at php|tek in Chicago, before PHP 5.3 was released.

As always, there's the same three methods for getting this new episode - grab the mp3, listen in-page or subscribe to the RSS to get this and other great past/future episodes of PHP Abstract.

PHPClasses.org has posted a new book review of a php|architect publishing book, their "Guide to Programming with the Zend Framework" (by Cal Evans).

But why was this book released? The answer is that now Zend Framework is one of the frameworks that satisfy the requirements of developers that need to build PHP project. Of course there are other frameworks that meet these requirements, but the team that keeps this project knows PHP and tends to build structures that can make the best use of language and avoid its pitfalls.

The reviewer talks about the contents of the book, giving a summary of each of its twelve chapters (as well as an appendix) and his opinion as to the quality of the book. You'll have to read the review yourself if you want to know how that turns out.

The Ibuildings group has officially launched their techPortal website - their new "home on the web" that'll provide resources to the community like articles and tutorials as written bu some of the Ibuildings staff.

Cal Evans (once again sporting the title of Editor-in-Chief) has this to say about the site:

techPortal is the place where we will talk about PHP. We work on a lot of interesting projects and get to work with a lot of cool technologies. Our goal with techPortal is to share what we learn with the wider PHP community. Our hope is that you will visit often, read about the technologies with which we are working, and some of it will spark your imagination. Ibuildings believe that Information is only valuable when it is shared. When something you read here helps you, make sure and share what you learn on your blog as well.

The portal has launched with the first article from Lorna Mitchell about memcached and how you can use it to make the load lighter for your application.

Here's a few other comments on the launch: the Ibuildings blog and Lorna Mitchell's blog.

According to this news release from Ibuildings, Cal Evans (of Zend and the editor-in-chief of the Zend Developer Zone) will be taking on a new role as the Director of the Ibuildings Center of Expertise for PHP.

Ibuildings recently announced the launch of a PHP Centre of Expertise. The news has been received very positively by the PHP community worldwide. The centre will be led by Cal Evans, a world-renowned PHP expert. He is, among many other things, the editor-in-chief of one of the most important portals for PHP developers. In October Evans will move from his current residence in Nashville (Tennessee - US) to the Netherlands.

The goal of the Centre is to give the PHP community a boost through education, promotion of good coding standards and information about different methodologies (such as Agile programming) and much more. Check out this post on the Ibuildings blog for more information.

Check some comments from David Coallier too.

Ivo Jansch has posted his review of the php|architect book about the Zend Framework by Cal Evans:

Before I voice my opinion, a disclaimer: I have met Cal personally; in fact I'm having diner with him next Monday, I'm writing a book for php|architect, and my company is a Zend partner. I could not be any more biased. If you still trust my judgement (and I will try to remain objective), read on.

Ivo mentions the important things - like how fun the book is to read (a book about a framework, who knew?) and what sort of things it covers. Components of the framework are mentioned but so are things like caching, layouts and web services. I'd give away the ending but that wouldn't be any fun so go check out his unbiased opinion of hos the book turned out.

Cal Evans has officially announced that his book, php|architect's Guide to Programming with Zend Framework, has been pushed out the door and into the world.

Well, my first book, php|architect's Guide to Programming with Zend Framework has officially been released in PDF format. You can order it now or pre-order the dead-tree edition. [...] On a related note, the support site for the book, www.zfguide.com is now live.

Right now the site only has a few code examples (the ones mentioned in the book) but he does have plans for a lot more content including some possible "lost chapters" going over what there just wasn't room for between the covers.

Check out some of Marci Tabini's comments on the book and its release as well.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted an announcement about a new book from php|architect (authored by DevZone's own Cal Evans) - Guide to Programming with the Zend Framework.

This is a project I've been interested in since it's very beginning, mainly because I'm the author of this particular tome. [...] The php|architect web site was a bit more helpful giving a breakdown of the contents of the book and a useful quote.

The book covers topics on the framework like the parts of MVC, web services, authorization, exceptions and even some tutorials to help you get started (including a look at the brand new Zend_Layout class).