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PHP Roundtable:
019: The Business of PHP
May 01, 2015 @ 16:52:23

The PHP Roundtable podcast has posted their latest episode hosted by Sammy Powers and featuring guests Michael Kimsal, Gary Hockin, Yitzchok Willroth and Matt Stauffer. In this new episode they talk about the "Business of PHP".

We discuss freelancing as a PHP developer, managing client expectations, niches, good customer service, project scope & scope creep, hourly rates vs value based pricing, and whether or not to run a SaaS.

You can catch this latest episode either through the in-page video player or by heading over to YouTube and catching the video there. If you enjoy the roundtable, be sure to subscribe to their feed.

tagged: phproundtable podcast video ep19 business garyhockin michaelkimsal yitzchokwillroth mattstauffer

Link: https://www.phproundtable.com/episode/the-business-side-of-php-clients-customer-service-pricing-oh-my

PHPClasses.org:
Lately in PHP Podcast #47 - PHP is the Best Competitor of PHP
May 23, 2014 @ 16:20:56

The PHPClasses.org site has released the latest episode of their "Lately in PHP" podcast series today - Episode #47: PHP is the Best Competitor of PHP.

PHP developments gained new life thanks mostly to Facebook Hack language and Zend reaction with PHPNG. Since Facebook Hack is mostly a fork of PHP, it seems PHP is the main competitor of PHP. These developments were one of the main topics discussed by Manuel Lemos and Michael Kimsal in the episode 47 of the Lately in PHP podcast. They also discussed new proposals for the next PHP versions like negative string offsets, offsets to Reset() and End(), a mail handling interface similar to session handlers, error handling in PHP.next, and return type hinting declarations.

You can listen to this latest episode in one of a few ways: either using the in-page audio player, by downloading the mp3 or by watching the live recording of the episode on YouTube.

tagged: phpclasses latelyinphp ep47 competitor language michaelkimsal

Link: http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/235-PHP-is-the-Best-Competitor-of-PHP--Lately-in-PHP-podcast-episode-47.html

Community News:
Indieconf - A Conference for Independent (Technology) Contractors
Sep 10, 2010 @ 13:20:44

Michael Kimsal has submitted some info about a conference that he and others in the Raleigh, NC area will be putting on targeting independent web professionals - a single day event with twelve different sessions aimed directly at folks out on their own - indieconf.

indieconf is a conference for independent web professionals. Whether you're a full time freelancer or part time contractor, designer or developer, you'll find something for you at indieconf. Web and tech conferences have traditionally focused on the technical side of things. While the sessions are often useful, they don't often address the realities of living as an independent.

The event will be happening November 13th with a $99 USD Early Bird rate (before September 25th). Snacks and drinks will be provided during the event, but there will also be a Friday night dinner with all attendees and speakers. The event will be on the University of North Carolina campus in the McKimmon Center. For more information about the conference, check out it's site!

tagged: indieconf2010 raleigh nc northcarolina michaelkimsal

Link:

PHPClasses.org:
Lately in PHP podcast Episode 4 (Michael Kimsal)
Aug 30, 2010 @ 15:17:15

On PHPClasses.org today the latest episode of their "Lately in PHP" podcast has been posted - among other things, an interview with Michael Kimsal from WedDev Publishing.

On this episode of the Lately in PHP podcast, Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert interview Michael Kimsal from the WebDev publishing company.

Other topics include the launch of JSClasses.org, some of the new developments that have been made towards the next release in the PHP 5.x series (PHP 5.4?) like type hinting as well as some aspects of Michael's company like JSMag and the IndieConf.

You can listen either via the in-page player, direct download or by subscribing to their feed and getting this and other episodes from the series.

tagged: latelyinphp podcast phpclasses michaelkimsal jsmag indieconf

Link:

Dave Marshall's Blog:
Competition: PHP Job Hunters Handbook up for grabs
Jan 06, 2009 @ 13:56:31

Dave Marshall is having a contest to give away a few copies of the "Job Hunter's Handbook" (by Michael Kimsal) - all you need to do is sign up:

I've got a couple of copies of Php|architect’s PHP Job Hunter’s Handbook to give away, the only catch is you have to sign up to PHPPositions’ feed via email. It’s managed by Feedburner, so it can be trusted and you wont get any spam, just super smashing great php jobs in the UK.

If you'd like to find out more about the book (or to order your own copy), head over to the book's page on the php|architect website. Normal price is $27 CAD for Print/PDF and just $23 CAD for the PDF.

tagged: contest job hunter handbook michaelkimsal phparchitect book phppositions

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Doug Brown's Blog:
Review: PHP Job Hunter's Handbook
Aug 28, 2008 @ 18:07:07

Doug Brown has posted a new review of a book by Michael Kimsal, the "PHP Job Hunter's Handbook" (from php|architect publishing).

Michael Kimsal's new book, PHP Job Hunter's Handbook. I pre-ordered this book a few months ago, and read the PDF version all the way through before I received my hard copy. [...] It wouldn’t be extreme to go as far as saying that the book covers too much territory, but for it only being 106 pages, it's a fair conclusion.

Doug lists some of these topics (like how to find a full-time job, contracting, freelancing and some advice from other developers/those on the hiring side). He looks at what it does have and doesn't have as well as his recommendation on if you should buy it or not.

tagged: job hunter handbook book review michaelkimsal phparchitect

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Interview:
Michael Kimsal On "php|architect's PHP Job Hunter's Handbook"
Jun 09, 2008 @ 19:38:01

I recently caught up with Michael Kimsal, author of the newly-released PHP Job Hunter's Handbook from php|architect that can be ordered now in both PDF and print versions. I wanted to get inside his head and find out all about the reasons behind the book, his experience in writing it and any tips he had to share, so I had him answer a few questions. Read on for the interview...

[break]

Q: So, first off, what inspired you to write a book for those developers out there looking to land that perfect position?

I had the initial idea in 2006, and had started a draft then. The idea came to me after looking back at the ups and downs of my web career over the previous 10 years. As I thought about it more, I realized that there wasn't a book that spoke specifically to some of the things web developers face that may be slightly different from other career paths.

My initial idea was to write a larger book that spoke to a wider audience of "web developers", but I decided to tackle at least a first version specifically focusing on PHP developers. PHP's become a giant force in the web industry, and is certainly one of the major skills many employers are looking for. Having a more clear notion of who the book is targetted at made it easier to keep the book focused on PHP.

Q: Who is the target audience and how could picking up a copy of the book help them out?

The book is aimed primarily at early-stage PHP developers. There's a wide variety of PHP technologies out there, and the book gives an overview of some of the ones you should be aware of. One certainly can't be an expert at every single technology out there, and I don't think many employers expect that, certainly not of early- to mid-stage developers. However, if you're interviewing at a PHP shop and you've never heard of Zend Studio, or Symfony (or perhaps even something more esoteric like Xdebug) you certainly stand less of a chance of landing the job.

Another aspect that I think will help people get an idea of what to expect when job hunting is the interview section with the hiring decision makers at some PHP-oriented companies. By getting a no-nonsense look at how these people think - what's important to them, what skills they're looking for, what turns them off, etc. - people will have a better idea of how to prepare for an interview process.

Q: How was your experience in writing the book? Any advice to offer potential authors?

The book was written in 2 stages - an early draft, and then a second stage a few months later of finishing it off then reviewing and updating some areas. On a second book, I would not leave as much of a gap between those phases. I also had some collaborative input from people, and if/when I write again, I would try to make an effort to meet a collaborator in person, if only once. It might seem a minor thing, and maybe not important at all to some writers, but it's something that I'd still like to try to do.

I'd done the whole first draft in OpenOffice, but that's not what php|architect uses for publishing, so there was a conversion process (which Elizabeth Naramore handled for me!) and some learning curve associated with that, but not much.

Q: How much outside input did you get for the advice that's in the book (like others in the community)?

Honestly not as much as I would have liked. I tried to get as much input as I could, but there wasn't as great a turnout for this first edition as I'd hoped. The input I did get, both from the hiring companies and from some PHP community members, was great. I'd like to think that if a second edition eventually comes out, people will have a better understanding of the project and help contribute their input and experiences more.

Q: Do you think this book could be used for the other side of the equation (managers not experience in interviewing PHP developers) as a sort of guide on what to look for?

In the course of writing this, I learned there's at least one book series already focused on that aspect, but not specifically focused on PHP. I really didn't have that audience in mind when writing, but thinking about it now, it probably would help some companies. Companies that already have strong tech leadership likely already know what they're looking for. Smaller companies that perhaps inherited a PHP website from a designer who's abandoned them would likely get some benefit, if only in the tech section, which gives a rundown of some of the more current PHP technologies. It would help non-PHP managers detect some technical BS at a bare minimum.

Q: Do you have any "quick tips" of your own to offer to developers headed out to interviews?

While this is pretty simple, it bears repeating: Don't Lie. Even be careful when stretching the truth. One of the things I've found has worked for me (and others I've spoken with) is being at times overly truthful about your skills, accomplishments and limitations. One of the worst things you can do is get hired in under false pretenses, as more often than not this leads to many problems pretty quickly.

Network, network, network. The 'not what you know but who you know' adage still applies in web development as in just about every other field.

Specific to web developers, have a web-based portfolio accessible from anywhere, or better yet, bring a laptop with your code and samples. While it sounds rather obvious, it still seems to be a pretty rare (though growing) thing. I'm suspicious of any company I interview at that refuses to look at my code or online work. To be fair, I *did* take a job once at a company with that policy, but it was in spite of that policy.

If you don't have code samples available, because your work has been all 'internal' work at previous companies - make your own code samples. Even if it's just a few code samples, it's going to be more than most of the competition will have, putting you at an advantage. It may only take you an hour or two to put together some example code you've written and put it online some place, but that can pay off greatly when looking for that perfect job.

tagged: michaelkimsal interview job hunter handbook phparchitect

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Community News:
More on the PHP Wiki
Mar 11, 2008 @ 17:07:00

Both Lukas Smith and Michael Kimsal are talking about a new project started up by the PHP development group to help provide more information to the users (and other developers) of the PHP language - the PHP.net wiki.

Michael comments:

This has been a long time coming and I'm glad to see it in place. I hope it will continue to help open up the development process to a larger audience. [...] This is definitely a large step for the project and I hope it'll get traction and become one of the key tools used to drive PHP forward.

And Lukas talks more about the planning behind the project:

So things are moving forward. Thanks to Pierre who set up a dokuwiki on the libgd server (if you are unware libgd is now a subproject of php.net) and Hannes for setting up a new auth API against the master.php.net user database we have a wiki up and running on wiki.php.net. [...] I am quite happy that we managed to get this far.

You can check out the wiki yourself at wiki.php.net.

tagged: wiki project todo lukassmith michaelkimsal

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