PHPClasses.org has posted a review of a new PHP-related book from Packt Publishing, "Building Websites with Joomla! 1.5":

This book is a tutorial guide to Joomla! 1.5. It was written and published during the development of Joomla! 1.5. It is intended for Web developers, designers, Web masters, content editors and marketing professionals. It is suitable for anyone starting out with Joomla! 1.5, for people who upgrade to Joomla! 1.5, and for those who just want have a good printed manual at hand.

R.L. (the reviewer) goes through some of the chapters, detailing their content including some of the software mentioned in them (like Fireboard and DOCman). He recommends the book to anyone looking for a good in-hand Joomla! resource but notes that a chapter on security would have been a nice addition.

If you're in the area of The Netherlands and you're into PHP, consider yourself lucky - just look at all the events that Ivo Jansch mentions in one of his more recent blog entries:

PHP is still growing in The Netherlands (according to nexen.net, 46% of Dutch domains use PHP). A good indicator of PHP's growth is the number of conferences and other events that are organized this year. [...] This year alone, there are already 6 major (>50) events; 3 done, 3 to go.

Some of the events (like Dutch Joomla Days and the PHP Business Seminar) have already passed but there's still a chance to get in on a few others like Kings of Code and the Dutch PHP Conference.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted a review of a new book from Packt Publishing that introduces you to the Joomla! content management system and how to create your own bits of functionality for it - Mastering Joomla! 1.5 - Extension and Framework Development.

Planning to write a few extensions for site's I host I was looking for a book that could at least in part be a replacement for this documentation. As I went through the site of Pact publishing My eye fell on this particular book because of the example chapter they show. And indeed now I have the book I'm in no way disappointed.

He mentions the target audience of the book (and how well it hits it), the approach the book takes to the topics it covers and specific looks at several of the chapter topics like web services, error handling, security and plug-in structure.

The latest release of the Joomla! CMS has been announced - version 1.5 Beta-2 has been posted for download.

Joomla! proudly presents its most important coding adrenaline surge to the development and designer community. With today's release of Joomla! 1.5 Beta-2, we're shifting gears into turbo mode; an entirely re-factored core, internationalisation, FTP layering, next-generation API and framework that's so flexible and powerful and, of course, a designer's dream for unparalleled templating flexibility.

Along with this release ("Red Barchetta"), they also encourage the community to participate and to contribute to the community, giving back their time and skills to help make the CMS even better.