Michaelangelo van Dam attended this year's Pfcongres conference [joind.in] and has shared some of his thoughts and reflections about the event in a new post to his blog.

This Saturday I started early to go to Pfcongres, a small PHP community conference in Utrecht organized by the Dutch PHP user group PHPFreakz and after about two hours driving I arrived about half an hour in time before the conference started, with me kick starting with my keynote "Community Works", a 199 slide deck explaining what the PHP community is and how people can be part of that community.

He talks briefly about the good (a good balance for Dutch/Non-Dutch speakers), the bad (his early start time, heh) and an inevitable part of any large event - the ugly (wifi issues). Overall, though, he enjoyed the event and praised it as a good example of what a small community can do to provide quality at a low price.

On the Ibuildings blog today Hilary Boyce has posted her wrapup of the Dutch PHP Conference that just recently came to a close in Amsterdam.

I have just returned from the fifth (and my second) Dutch PHP Conference (DPC). For the technical staff at Ibuildings the conference is a highlight of our year. Not only do we have a chance to visit the delightful city of Amsterdam, but we also have 3 days of stimulating tutorials and conference talks. There is the added bonus of being able to meet and exchange ideas with fellow developers from all over Europe and further afield, many of whom are the movers and shakers in the PHP world.

She talks about the value of the conference, the advancement of knowledge it provided and the the shift in focus that's been the trend lately - less focus on the language and more on the professional development processes. She mentions specific talks such as Aral Balkan's keynote and a presentation on web services and the important role they play in application design. Other popular topics at this year's DPC were best practices in development, agile and internationalization and character sets.

On the PHPWomen blog today there's a new post from Lineke Kerckhoffs-Willems talking about her experiences at this year's Dutch PHP Conference (2011) that wrapped up about two weeks ago in Amsterdam.

About two weeks ago I attended the Dutch PHP Conference with many thanks to PHPWomen and Ibuildings for the ticket. So far I have attended almost all editions of the Dutch PHP Conference (DPC), I only missed one. So I knew it would be awesome before it even started and I was right!

She covers each of the days and some of the talks and events she attended including the keynote from Aral Blakan, a talk about test-driven development, the unconference, a look at the "new era of PHP frameworks" and character sets in MySQL (co-presented by Ligaya Turmelle, a fellow PHPWomen member).

The Dutch PHP Conference has officially announced their final keynote speaker (finishing out the schedule) - Aral Balkan will be speaking on "The Art of the User Experience".

We believe the schedule already has a lot to offer the way it is, but we still had one annoying "to be announced" slot on the Friday morning: the opening keynote! With only three weeks to go we are proud to announce that the DPC will be kicked off by one of the most talented speakers out there: Aral Balkan!

He'll talk about making "beautiful, delightful and fun things" as a part of the experience your user has with your applications. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, be sure to grab them now. There's only three weeks left until the event! Full tickets cost 695 Euro and the half-tickets (just conference day or just tutorial day) are 375 Euro.

On the Dutch PHP Conference's site today there's a new post from Stefan Koopmanschap, the organizer of this year's DPC Unconference, talking about some of the recent advancements in it's organization.

Last year we introduced the uncon track at Dutch PHP Conference, a separate track next to the conference tracks where you, the attendees of the conference, could be the speaker. [...] It was a great success thanks to all the speakers who stepped up to take an open slot and present their topic. [...] This year, we have a bit more time in the morning to register for a slot.

He also mentions the lightning talks (that were popular) and where they'll be in the overall schedule. For more information about the conference, look at their site and maybe pick up your ticket while you're there (Full ticket is 695 Euro, Tutorial only is 375 Euro and just the conference is 375 Euro).

In a quick post Ruslan Yakushev points out that the PHP Manager for IIS is now available in five different languages to make it even simpler for the non-English speakers out there to use.

A new release of PHP Manager for IIS (version 1.1.2) is available for download. This release includes translations into 5 languages. [...] Note that this release still includes English and it is recommended to upgrade even if you do not need these translations

The new languages are German, Dutch, Turkish, Japanese and Russian and the post thanks each of the community members that helped with the translation. The PHP Manager for IIS is a tool for managing one or more PHP installations on a single IIS server.

The Dutch PHP Conference has posted an update about the conference today including changes to the schedule and how its represented on the site.

t has been about two weeks since the schedule was published and ticket sales started, but that doesn't mean we haven't done anything in the meantime! There have been a number of updates on both the site and the schedule.

There's five new talks that've been added to the schedule including Paul Matthews' presentation on Solr, Chris Jones talking about high performance PHP apps and David Soria Parra on git. The site updates mainly revolve around the classification of the different sessions - icons added to show skill level and scope of the presentation. There's also an update about the unconfernece and official conference social.

In this recent post to his blog Harrie Verveer talks about his role in organizing this year's Dutch PHP Conference and things he's learned along the way already.

Some of you might already have noticed, others might not, but this year I am part of the team at Ibuildings that is responsible for organizing the DPC: the Dutch PHP Conference. As you can imagine I am thrilled about this! [...] Of course, I could not possibly do this just by myself. [...] Organizing the conference is a huge task and a lot of people at Ibuildings are helping to organize it.

He and Felix de Vliegher will not only be working to create the conference schedule and work with the community and speakers for the event, they'll also be hosting. If you'd like more information about this year's event, go over to the Dutch PHP Conference site for full details. The Call for Papers as only just ended, but keep an eye out for the schedule and when you can order your tickets for this great three day event!

For those wanting to attend this year's Dutch PHP Confernece (in Amsterdam), you'll be happt to know that tickets are now on sale!

Ibuildings is proud to organize the third Dutch PHP Conference on June 12 and 13. Plus a pre-conference tutorial day on June 11. Both programs will be completely in English so the only Dutch thing about it is the location. Keywords for these days: Know-how, Technology, Best Practices, Networking, Tips & Tricks.

The cost per ticket ranges from 500 Euro for a full access pass to conference-only tickets for 250 Euro. You can also get a tutorial-only pass if you'd only like to get in on those sessions (for 295 Euro). The conference happens June 11th through 13th so be sure to get your tickets quickly and reserve your spot now!

You can find more information on the Ibuildings blog.

Lorna Mitchell has posted a reminder for all of those that have been putting it off - the deadline for the Dutch PHP Conference Call for Papers is coming soon!

The conference is being held in Amsterdam again and papers can be submitted until the Call closes on February 13th. The actual conference will be held June 11th through 13th. You can find out more about the conference (including where to submit your talk proposal) on the main conference site.