Conferences

May 4, 2023

Getting back into the swing of things

Monthly php[architect] readers might have noticed I haven't been in the past three issues and I have a really good reason: the day job. We had a pretty ambitious Q1 and it meant that for my own health, writing had to be pushed off the calendar. I was fortunate enough that Eric and John understood and while I made some connections for guest columns they largely left me alone which is exactly what...

conferences speaking writing

February 3, 2023

Join me at php[tek] 2023 May 16-18th in Chicago

As a seasoned web developer, I have had the privilege of speaking at and attending numerous technical PHP and web developer conferences over the years. I can attest that attending these conferences has made a big impact in my career, providing me with valuable insights, networking opportunities, job opportunities, and the chance to stay current with the latest developments in the field. The...

conferences speaking

July 22, 2018

PHP Detroit Tutorial: Hit the ground running with Laravel and Set up

I am giving a four hour Laravel tutorial before the main PHP Detroit conference. To fully participate in the exercises you'll want to follow the directions below. Please reach out to me if you have any issues. Laravel Valet is a fine solution if you’d prefer not to have to install Virtualbox or Vagrant. I will not be able to fully support everyone’s configuration so to create the best...

community conferences laravel speaking

February 10, 2018

Slim PHP when you do not need the kitchen sink

This year a SunshinePHP I debuted a brand new talk "Slim PHP when you Don't need the kitchen sink" Description: Full stack frameworks can often be too much for an application. What if you have a one off project that doesn't need "everything and the kitchen sink"? What if you have a large project you want to build yourself to be as lean as possible? Join us for an introduction into the Slim...

conferences php slimphp speaking

September 14, 2017

Rejecting Speakers

If you follow me on Twitter you have probably noticed I'm the main organizer for TechCamp Memphis 2017. By main organizer I mean: I have a handful of badasses that I get to hand out task assignments to and they get shit done. We held our CFP using PaperCall.io and that was a pleasant experience overall. I did miss some features of OpenCFP and I do feel like I betrayed my PHP roots a little....

conferences speaking

July 6, 2017

php[world] Training Day Requirements

I am giving a full day of Laravel Training before the main php[world] conference. To fully participate in the training exercises you'll want to follow the directions below. Please reach out to me if you have any issues. Laravel Valet is a fine solution if you’d prefer not to have to install Virtualbox or Vagrant. I will not be able to fully support everyone’s configuration so to create the...

conferences laravel speaking

June 13, 2017

How I rate talks for conferences and events

"If you've given a talk that's been recorded more than once. it's probably time to stop submitting that to conferences." -- an offhand comment I made on twitter. I made this comment after going through the first round of rating talk submissions for a conference I have the privilege of helping with talk selection. I feel like there was a lot of back and forth and it's obvious people have strong...

community conferences speaking

May 18, 2017

Open Sourcing Mental Illness Conference TV

The great nonprofit that I help out with Open Sourcing Mental Illness has an ever increasing presence at conferences. We've been stepping up our booth visibility lately by adding a nice tablecloth as well as the purchase of a TV to have a looping video playing on to lure conference goers to our table. Originally we played video from an iPhone or laptop via an HDMI cable. I thought there would be...

conferences maker projects

May 8, 2017

php[tek] 2017 Training Day Requirements

I’m excited for php[tek] 2017. This will be my fourth year attending the conference and I always have a blast. I am again giving a full day of Laravel Training before the main conference. To fully participate in the training exercises you'll want to follow the directions below. Please reach out to me if you have any issues. Laravel Valet is a fine solution if you’d prefer not to have to...

conferences laravel speaking

March 20, 2017

Midwest PHP 2017 Short Recap

I was invited to speak at Midwest PHP 2017 to give my “DevOps for Small Teams” talk. I’m always excited to head up north because I’ve always had amazing experiences with the community there. Also a conference on my birthday weekend this year sounded like a great idea. The speaker dinner event was fantastic, nice finger food with fellow speakers and getting to know new friends and...

October 28, 2016

php[world] 2016 Laravel Training Day Setup

I'm really excited to be going back to Washington, DC for php[world]. I'll be doing Laravel Training Day. I'm really excited for this because We'll be covering Laravel 5.3! To fully participate in the training exercises you'll want to follow the directions below. Please reach out to me if you have any issues. If you struggle with the Homestead set up you can skip that part as long as you can run...

conferences laravel speaking

October 13, 2016

ZendCon 2016 Laravel Tutorial Information

If you are planning on coming to this tutorial there are a few things you'll want to have pre-installed to make the most of the tutorial. If you want to follow along and run all of the examples you will need to bring a laptop running a current version of Linux or Mac OS. VirtualBox 5.1.x VirtualBox 5.1.x Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack Vagrant 1.8.6 PHP 5.6.x or higher (7 is fine!)...

conferences devops laravel linux speaking ubuntu

September 5, 2016

Madison PHP Conference 2016 -- Dev Environments with Vagrant

I'm excited to be going back to Madison PHP Conference this year to give a tutorial "Create Your Own Local Development Environments With Vagrant". If you are planning on coming to this tutorial there are a few things you'll want to have pre-installed to make the most of the tutorial. If you want to follow along and run all of the examples you will need to bring a laptop running a current...

conferences devops linux speaking ubuntu vagrant

June 10, 2016

php[tek] 2016 in St. Louis was a blast!

This year php[tek] was in St. Louis, an easy four and a half hour drive from Memphis. Since I didn't have to fly to the conference I stocked up on a lot of local Memphis beer to share with my fellow PHP beer connoisseurs. Originally, my awesome wife Kara was going to join me, however, it didn't work out. Because I was giving a day long Laravel training on Monday and wanted some time to settle...

community conferences speaking testing

April 26, 2016

Join me at php[tek] 2016!

You should come to php[tek] May 23-27, 2016 As you'll learn in the video below, I'll be doing a full day in person training on Laravel. I'll also be giving a brand new talk "So you just inherited a $Legacy application..." Hope to see you there!

conferences php speaking

February 6, 2016

Acceptance and Functional Testing with Codeception -- SunshinePHP 2016

Feedback via Twitter SunshinePHP 2016 was the second time I formally gave my Acceptance & Functional Testing with Codeception talk. I had built the talk from a handful of demo sessions at my local user group: MemphisPHP.org. The first time I gave the talk was at DevSpaceConf in October 2015. I only had two attendees show up to the talk which turned out to be really...

conferences php speaking testing

February 5, 2016

Adventures in Laravel

Sunshine 2016 was my second year at coming to this really great conference. Last year I gave my Secure Form Processing talk and it was a great conference as a speaker and as an attendee. When I was invited back to give a tutorial as well as another talk for 2016 I was really excited. The wife and I also arranged for her to join me on the trip to Miami, she wasn't attending the conference, just a...

conferences laravel speaking training

October 23, 2015

Last Night in Las Vegas

My last night in Las Vegas was pretty rough. Came back to the Hard Rock Hotel after an awesome dinner out and played some Blackjack. Heard someone mention the power (including elevators) was out in the tower I was staying in. Great. I cashed in my chips and decided to see what was up since I had to be up in 7 hours for my flight out. I walked over to the elevators and they were...

October 23, 2015

ZendCon 2015 Thoughts

ZendCon 2015 was my first ZendCon experience. I was selected to give two talks, "Laravel Forge: Hello World to Hello Production" and "DevOps for Small Teams". This was my first time giving the updated talk about Forge which also includes a basic Envoyer review and I feel like the talk went really well. Attendees seemed to enjoy it and a lot of people told me afterward they enjoyed the talk. I...

community conferences devops laravel php speaking

August 17, 2015

Laracon 2015 Thoughts

In February 2015 when I found out Laracon US was going to be in Louisville, Kentucky I dropped everything I was doing and bought tickets. Even if I wasn't selected to talk I was going to attend a PHP Conference that was easy driving difference from Memphis. Laracon US in previous years was held in New York and Washington, DC. The closest PHP conferences to Memphis are in LoneStarPHP (Dallas) and...

community conferences laravel

August 2, 2015

Speaking at ZendCon 2015 in Las Vegas!

I have been selected to give two talks at ZendCon 2015 in Las Vegas! This will be my first ZendCon and the first time they have opened up to having other framework talks. I will be talking about Laravel and DevOps and judging from all of the other Laravel speakers also selected, there will be a lot of great Laravel content represented.

conferences speaking

July 30, 2015

Speaking at php[world] 2015!

I'm happy to share that I'll be speaking at php[world] 2015 in Washington, DC! I spoke at the first php[world] conference in November 2014 and it was a blast. I'm really excited to be going back for the second year. I will be giving an updated version of my Laravel Homestead & Forge talk entitled "Laravel 5.1: From Homestead to the Cloud" A lot has changed and I'll cover all the new stuff...

conferences speaking

May 14, 2015

OpenWest Conference 2015

I had the fortunate opportunity to speak at the 2015 OpenWest Conference and it was a great experience. I've never been to Utah and flying into Salt Lake City was beautiful. The mountains around Salt Lake City and Orem were absolutely amazing. The conference badges were great and really helped people get excited about hardware hacking. It was a soldering project with an expansion that could be...

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