The first meeting of the PHP SouthWest User Group will be at The Third Floor, Bush House, Bristol from 7pm. The room is booked (big thanks to Del for that), and we have a projector sorted too; now we just need our first speakers

What Is Planned

As this is the very first meeting, our agenda is still being pulled together, but I’m hoping that Bitterman will treat us all to a rehearsal of his upcoming talk for the PHPNW10 conference in Manchester in early October. I’m looking for backup speakers just in case, and of course for anyone who wants to speak at next month’s meetup.

We’ll be at The Third Floor until 8pm, after which we’ll move into one of the local pubs (probably the Watershed) for the social half of the meet-up.

How To Get There

We’ll be at Bush House, 72 Prince Street, Bristol BS1 4QD. This Google Map has directions if you’re walking from Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station.

When you get to the entrance for Bush House, you’ll need to press the bottom buzzer (marked ‘The Hub’) to gain access.

If we like the place, I can get a discount (thanks to Del) for a regular booking.

How To Get Involved

Please join the PHPSW Google Group and say hello!

After over 4 years at Schematic, it was time to move on. Everyone seems to be hiring like crazy these days and with some soul searching and pondering the future ™, I decided to go with an opportunity to work on the Flickr dev team. I started in June. This involved leaving my beloved New York City for the cleaner, milder, better-produce-providing and wth-is-up-with-the-weather San Francisco. (This post is late in the making mostly due to the craziness of a cross-country move and only maybe 30% laziness).

Working at Flickr so far is pretty amazing. In addition to the NY vs. SF culture shock, it seems like every day something points out how different it is to work for an agency when compared to working for a company that owns its own product. Maybe it’s just the size, too. My previous clients tended to be pretty large companies, while Flickr, even though it’s owned by the Yahoo! behemoth, is allowed to operate quite autonomously. Also, apparently Flickr is obsessed with pandas.

My latest book on Git, Pragmatic Guide to Git goes on sale today! I’m really excited about this new book. It’s the culmination of a year’s worth of work on an entirely new format for Pragmatic Bookshelf.

From today’s announcement:

Last summer, Pragmatic author Travis Swicegood proposed a new kind of book covering the popular version control system, Git. We thought it was a good idea–so much so that we’ve launched a whole new series in this format. Check out the details on the series below, as well as Travis’ new book, Pragmatic Guide to Git, now available in beta.

Having a good idea is cool. Having a good idea that you can get other people excited about too is even better. I thought I was onto something interesting when I pitched the idea to Prag, and so did everyone else there. A year later and here we are with an entire new series lined up.

Here’s the quick description of the new book:

Need to learn how to wrap your head around Git, but don’t need a lot of hand holding? Grab this book if you’re new to Git, not to the world of programming. Git tasks displayed on two-page spreads provide all the context you need, without the extra fluff.