ZendUnCon 2008 – Update 1

The ZendCon UnCon is underway…the first batch of presentations have been chosen. With no further ado, here we go:

We'll hear from Ruslan Yakushev about IIS 7.0 URL rewriting capabilities for PHP applications. Most of us know how to do it in Apache with ModRewrite, but IIS is a whole new world with its own rules, concepts, and equivalents. While there aren't many PHP'ers deploying to IIS for production, there are a few and learning an alternative way to look at things is almost always useful. Definitely worth exploring.

We'll hear from Matthew Turland on Web Scraping. While there are lots of organizations who implement SOAP or REST or even CSV, sometimes we have to play with sites that aren't quite so… enlightened? Matthew has some tips and tricks to pull information together and make it useful. If you've ever imported lots of data into a CMS… well, you know the need for this one.

Somewhere in there, we'll hear from Derick Rethans on KISS and learn what it takes to create a rock music empire and sustain it for over 30 years… no wait, I think I messed something up there. Actually, this one has little to do with music and more about how to interact with the PHP Community, where it's been in the past, and where things are going. If you're new to PHP – or just new to PHP conferences – this may be key to your entire week.

If you're attending ZendCon and want to get in on the fun, post an idea, pitch people on it, and see what happens.