Chicago - Day 5 (php|tek - Day 3)

The days are going by pretty fast over here! Suddenly it’s the last day of the conference and soon we will be going back to Norway. Well … these are the talks I attended the last day:

1. Securing the PHP Environment With PhpSecInfo by Ed Finkler
2. High Performance PHP & MySQL scaling techniques by Eli White
3. APC @ Facebook by Brian Shire
4. The Internet is an Ogre by Terry Chay

The APC talk was pretty much the same as the one I saw at last years php|tek. It included some of the new features of APC but the rest was pretty much the same. Terry Chay’s keynote speech was pretty amusing but contained IMO a bit too many f*ck’s and s*it’s.

After the conference was over we took a short break and headed downtown Chicago for some last day shopping and relaxing. We took a taxi but the driver suggested that he could take us to the nearest Blue Line station instead because of the traffic. We got off at Washington and headed for the nearest restaurant which happened to be The Italian Village. The food was great so if you happen to be in the neighborhood, go check it out.

After eating we went out for some shopping. The others stopped by a big shopping center to buy some jeans and other stuff. I took off and headed for The North Face shop in the famous John Hancock Center. Once I was done there I headed over to an Adidas store nearby to get some shoes.

I met up with the rest of the guys at the top of the Hancock Center for a beer and a break. The view of the city up there is pretty amazing. We didn’t step outside though and the bar was full so we had to sit someplace else.

Once out of the building we took a cab back to the hotel. Our flight left early the morning after so we headed for our rooms to pack our things and just relax.

And that’s it for this years php|tek!

Chicago - Day 4 (php|tek - Day 2)

It was a tad bit hard to get up this morning but I managed to attend the following talks:

1. Test Driven Design in PHP by Jason Sweat
2. Of Haystacks and Needles by Derick Rethans
3. PEAR, Phar, and Smart PHP Application Deployment by Greg Beaver
4. Help, my website has been hacked, now what? by Eli White

After talking to some of the other guys I wish I had went to Performance Tuning MySQL by
Morgan Tocker instead of the Phar talk that was IMO pretty boring and left me with nada. I guess it’s hard to be more specific on the topics when you only have one hour as I wrote earlier…

Anyways, I met up with Shahar Evron from Zend that had a course for some of us at VG last year. I had hoped to grab a beer later on with him but we didn’t find each other so we’ll take it some other time.

After the talks I relaxed a bit before heading over to Gibson’s with the NRK and Dagbladet guys. Erlend was at a family dinner since he has some family here in Chicago and Peter went downtown with Espen and Espen from Go Mobile. This time I had brought my passport so I could enjoy some Samuel Adams with the food over at Gibson’s but this time they didn’t ask us for ID at all!

After the steak orgie I headed over to Shoeless Joe’s with Andreas and one of the guys from Dagbladet for a couple of beers. We were all pretty stuffed from Gibson’s so we didn’t stay at Joe’s for very long.

Last year we went downtown Chicago every day after the talks but this year we have been more around the hotel which has been very ok actually. Several hours of talks each day is pretty exhausting and it’s nice to take it easy once in a while. It’s also pretty boring to spend 45 minutes on the rapid transit each way…

And once again … that’s it for today!

Chicago - Day 3 (php|tek - Day 1)

So, the first official day of php|tek 2008. Andi Gutmans held the keynote which was very good. I’ll post some links to presentations once I find them.

On the first day I attended the following talks:

1. Choosing RIA technologies by Josh Eichorn
2. State & Ajax - How to maintain browser, and application state in an asyc world by Paul Reinheimer
3. XQuery: Next Generation Data Access, Today by Kitman Cheung
4. Building Distributed Web Applications by Jason Rexilius
5. Facebook performance caching by Lucas Nealan

It’s quite exhausting to go through all this in a day and at the end of the day it’s hard to stay focused. It might be better to have each talk last about 2 hours and be more in-depth instead. Some of the talks I have attended are quite basic stuff, and I think it’s a waste of time to do that at a conference such as this one. People don’t come here to learn basic php, right?

After all the talks we went to our rooms and relaxed a bit. I got to write some posts and uploaded some photos to my flickr account.

Later there was a Rockband battle here at the hotel which was quite fun. Paul Reinheimer and some other guys had dressed up as Kiss and was rocking out when I got there. Microsoft sponsored the event and the drinks were on the house for the first hour (and then became ridiculously expensive). I had some experience from Guitar Hero III on my 360 and we formed a band called Fjord that consisted of me on guitar, Andreas (from NRK) on vocals, Fredrik (also from NRK) on drums and another guy (Mike?) on bass. We failed miserably and didn’t qualify for the second round. I totally blame the other guys!

After the Rockband battle we headed over to the hotel bar for some drinks where we met up with two guys from Dagbladet (another Norwegian news paper) and some other guys from Sweden. We had great fun and then headed over to a nearby bar called Shoeless Joe’s and stayed there for a while having fun. To get there we had to play frogger across the main highway right by the hotel. Since it was pretty late it was not that much traffic though.

And that’s it! Another day gone by in Chicago!

Chicago - Day 2 (php|tek Tutorial day)

Today I got up early after a really good nights sleep to register for php|tek. This was the in-depth tutorial day and each talk lasted for 3 hours. I went to Working With Web Services by Rob Richards and Testing with PHPUnit and Selenium by Sebastian Bergmann.

I’ll try to write some posts about unit testing in php using PHPUnit sometime soon since Mats and I will use that allot for a project we are doing together.

After the tutorials I headed back to the hotel room for a quick rest. I met up with the NRK guys a bit later and we took the metro to Damen to get something to eat. Andreas wanted to visit a comic book store there as well to pick up some more comic books.

We decided to eat at a place called Earwax Cafe. It was a pretty good choice since the food there was really good! After a little while we headed over to a place called Nick’s Beergarden to grab some beers before heading back to the hotel.

And thats pretty much it for this day.

Chicago - Day 1

The flight over here went pretty quickly and we got our bags at once so we headed out to see if we could find the shuttle bus to the Sheraton Gateway hotel. We stood outside for a while waiting for the bus until a guy offered to take us there for a rather small amount of bucks, so why not!

Once at the hotel we checked in and went to our rooms to pack out our stuff and relax a little. After a while I went over to Erlends room where I met up with Erlend and the two guys from Go Mobile (Espen & Espen) that’s here for php|tek as well. We were all pretty hungry so we quickly ordered a table at Gibson’s Steak House that is close to the hotel we stayed at last year.

Once there we had to wait for about 15-20 minutes so we hung out in the bar having a beer while waiting for our table. Once we got our table the waiter needed our passports if we wanted alcohol but since I only had my Norwegian drivers license I had to stick with water. No problem since I came for the yellowfin tuna that was absolutely delicious! I’ll go back there once more during the week to try out something else.

When we got back to the hotel we met up with the NRK guys in the hotel bar and had some beers before going to bed. And thats it for the first day in Chicago!

New York - Day 4 (last day)

Now onto our last day in NYC…

When we got home the night before our last day the janitor had not yet come home so we didn’t know if he were staying somewhere else or that he was coming home later that night. But when we woke up he was there and it felt kinda weird not having said hello to the poor guy who had his apartment invaded by a bunch of Norwegian guys. He told us that the room was used if the hostel was overbooked so he was used to having “guests” over. We never got his name but some of our guesses included Johnny and Gordon. Maybe we’ll find out the next time!

First we headed out to some diner nearby that I can’t remember the name of to get some breakfast and then went over to check out of the hostel. We had about three hours left in NYC so we decided we could just get on one of the numerous tourist buses to see some of the things we had missed. The bus ride took about 2 hours and we got to see a lot of places we hadn’t been to. Near the end of the ride the weather got really cold and windy so we jumped off a bit early and headed over to the hostel to pick up our bags.

And that’s about it! We headed over to the airport and got on the plane to Chicago! I had a great time in NY this time as well. Last year I visited some museums and saw a lot of the typical tourist sites and this year we had a more relaxed schedule. Well … we didn’t really have a schedule at all this year and that was quite nice, and I can’t wait to come back to NY!

New York - Day 3

Another day in the big apple! So … how did we spend our third day in NY?

Once again we woke up pretty early. Damn that jet lag! Again we had no major plans for today but we all wanted to go over to Brooklyn and look around. After a small breakfast at the Bread Factory Cafe that was just around the corner from where we lived we headed up to Columbus Circle St. up at 59th to catch the A-train to Brooklyn.

We went off at a random station once we were across the river. We just walked around a bit to see how it was. Last year I think we took a different train and went off somewhere closer to downtown Brooklyn. The place we got off at this time seemed pretty boring.

After a while we came across the Polytechnic University where they had some computer fair that we had to visit! There were a bunch of people there selling off old computers, games, monitors, adult dvd movies (!) and whatnot. We took off pretty quickly and headed over to the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn is a really cool place and I regret not spending more time there this time but since we were only here for a couple of days you can’t do everything right?

We went across Brooklyn Bridge back into NYC and just walked around looking at all there is to look at. The only mission for today was to visit B&H Photo Video to pick up some stuff. Erlend got the very sweet Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 for Hilde at work and I picked up the awesome Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 USM L along with a Canon EF 2x II Extender (one for Mats as well) and the Canon Speedlite 580EX E-TTL II Flash. I’ll probably try to get some shots with the 70-200 while in Chicago to see what it can do!

After the shopping spree at B&H we went back to our hostel. We had to move over to another room for the last night since the Hostel was overbooked so we had packed our bags earlier today. Once there we met the lady in charge and she took us outside towards our new room. We though we were just going in the next door or something when we walked out but we ended up walking over to 55th and 8th and shared our last night at the hostel with the janitor in his apartment. He wasn’t there when we came so we just unloaded our stuff and took a short break. While there I solved some Sudoku puzzles and wrote yesterdays post.

This post is not meant to criticize the Swiss 1291 Hostel by any means! When I come to New York again I will probably be staying there again and I would recommend it to anyone else going to NY as well if you’re looking for something cheap and central.

After the quick break we headed over to Hooters at 56th and Broadway for some good American food … ehm … At least that what we like to think! The food was ok and so were the waitresses. No more comments! :p

After the meal we headed over to McGee’s again for some beers. We ended up only having one and almost falling asleep at the table so we just headed back to the apartment.

And there you go! Another day spent in NY! I’m writing this post from the hotel room in Chicago and I’ll post some more later today about our last day in NY and some other stuff about what I plan to attend at php|tek!

New York - Day 2

Time to write about the major happenings of our second day in New York! I’m actually on day three now and I’m writing this from the janitors apartment, but thats a whole other story (actually it will be tomorrows story).

As we woke up between 0700 and 0800 yesterday after a night out we were all a bit tired, but because of the jet lag we couldn’t sleep any longer. The weather was really nice so no reason to stay inside anyways! Erlend had already been out for breakfast when I got up so we had to find something for Peter and myself. There was a fair at the 9th avenue so we wandered around there for a bit and looked at some of the stuff they sold there. It was mostly t-shirts and some typical photographs of famous buildings and stuff in New York. There were a load of burrito stands so Peter and I had a big burrito and a coke for breakfast.

After a while we decided to head up to the GE Building (Rockefeller Center) to get a better view of the city. I was in the Empire State Building last year and the view was slightly better there but the line at the Rockefeller was much shorter. I guess the wait over at the Empire State isn’t worth it. I didn’t bring my camera so no pictures for you!

After some more snacks at the fair we headed back to the hostel for some rest. While there I wrote yesterdays post, picked up my camera and then headed for Central Park. Since the weather was great we relaxed a bit in the sun just looking at all the people. We also saw some bouldering in the park but the problems looked pretty boring. The park was pretty crowded so I can’t imagine how it’s like in the middle of the summer on a good day. I took some pictures in the park but the open wireless networks we can use from the apartment are really unstable so I won’t be able to upload any pictures until I’m in Chicago.

After relaxing in the park we headed back to the apartment for showers and the we headed out to meet Andreas for dinner and a concert. We took the A train over to Washington Square and found a random Italian restaurant that turned out to be pretty good! Can’t remember the name of the restaurant though but if I did I would recommend it! Peter was a bit disappointed though since he only got a regular coke when ordering rum and coke, but considering his shape at the end of the previous night it was probably good that he didn’t get that rum!

After the dinner we went over to Joe’s pub at Lafayette streed to see The Hitmen of Music Row. These guys are songwriter that have written numerous #1 hits over the years and it was really cool to see them sing and play their own songs. The Hitmen of Music Row consist of Bob DiPiero, Tony Mullins, Jeffrey Steele, and Craig Wiseman. They have written songs for country artists such as Faith Hill, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tim McGraw and numerous others. The best song IMO was Jeffrey Steele’s “Drunk Girl”. Great stuff!

After the show was over (it only lasted about an hour) we went over to a blues pub called Terra Blues that had a live band playing cover songs and just jamming. I believe it was Clarence Spady Band who played there yesterday and they were truly great! Erlend and Peter went home early since they were tired but I stayed there with Andreas to meet up with the other two guys from NRK. When they arrived we went over to a bar called The Red Lion. Just your average bar with an overeager waitress who seemed to believe she was working at Coyote Ugly. I had some Brooklyn Pale Ale which were absolutely great! Not as good as Brooklyn Lager but still … pure greatness!

And thats about it! We are leaving for some food and maybe a movie pretty soon so I better stop writing. More about what happened today tomorrow!

New York - day 1

Arrived in New York yesterday. It was raining hard so we took a cab to the hostel as soon as we got out of the airport.

We are staying at the Swiss 1291 Hostel at 337 West 55th street between 8th and 9th avenue so it’s pretty central. The place is somewhat like the hostel I stayed at last year except we share rooms with three others. It’s fine by me since we’re not going to stay at the hostel too much (I’m writing this post from the hostel though).

You’re all probably wondering what we did the first day here, so here’s a quick recap:

After we had stashed our bags at the hostel we went out for a quick snack. It was around 16:00 (22:00 back home) and we were not really that hungry after two meals on the flight over. As soon as we went out from the hostel we came across this Mexican place that seemed nice enough. Since it was still raining quite hard we didn’t want to walk around too much looking for restaurants.

Next we went to a pub called McGee’s to lay down the plans for the night. Little did we know that visiting pubs were pretty much all we were going to do for the rest of the day. Not that I’m complaining!

At McGee’s we started talking to a firefighter from Tahoe called Scott that was here for the weekend to see the Mets game or something like that. After a little while he took us down town to some other pubs where we played some pool and had some more beer. Finally I got to taste the lovely Brooklyn Lager again! I have a feeling I will have some more of those before I go back home. After a while at the pool table we went to some other place nearby that had some live music. We spent some hours here and we all started to get really tired after a while. We had all been up for about 24 hours (8 of them on an airplane) so it was time to go back to the hostel.

And … thats about it actually. We met some nice people and had a great time so the first day was a success. Because of the rain I didn’t bring my camera so no photos yet. The weather is really nice today though so I’ll probably take some later today.

Time to go!

Soon off to New York and Chicago

Friday next week Erlend from work and myself will be going to New York for a weekend before heading off to Chicago for php|tek 2008. Last year I went with Andreas (who no longer works for VG, but will be going with us anyway with some other guys from his new employer NRK) and Naveed. Since we’re a bit short on manpower at work these days Naveed will have to stay in Oslo and keep vg.no alive … poor guy!

Erlend has booked some place to sleep in NY for the weekend. I can’t remember where but it was pretty central (and cheap) so it’s probably crowded and smelly. :p But we won’t be staying there too long so I don’t really care about that. Details schmetails!

I’ll try to do some blogging from NY and upload some new photos (which I have been really bad at lately). I did take some pictures last year though (some of which are on my flickr page). I think I have a huge amount of photos from that trip that I still haven’t uploaded to flickr though. Yeah, I know … I’m lazy.

I still haven’t decided on what to see at php|tek though, but I’ll have a look at the schedule later this week and hopefully fill up the calendar. You’ll get the details once I’ve made up my mind!