To say that we have been hard at work here at Nomad PHP, or that I'm excited about these three announcements would be a tremendous understatement. Over the past several months, behind the scenes, we've been working to bring even more features and benefits to Nomad PHP - these have already included unlimited streaming of all past meetings and access to PHP Architect.

Available today, however, you'll also have access to online, live workshops - as well as soon have the ability to stream select PHP conferences live, and finally to prove the knowledge you have gained through our online certification.

## Online, Live Workshops

Like our online meetings, we are excited to announce that available today you can participate in online, live, and interactive workshops. Our [first workshop](https://beta.nomadphp...


A brief (by Mike's standards) note

> As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. - John F. Kennedy

I wanted to take a brief moment to express my gratitude this holiday season. First and foremost, a huge thank you to the beautiful Tanja Hoefler who has put in countless hours behind the scenes of Nomad PHP, ranging from finding the best articles and tweeting them out, to tracking down great speakers, to countless hours of video editing (including fixing all my mistakes from the live broadcast).

### Thank you to our Founders

I also need to thank Cal and Kathy Evans, an amazing husband and wife team who have done so much for the community over many, many years - including founding and being an inv...


In his talk, “[Writing Viruses for Fun, Not Profit](https://beta.nomadphp.com/video/220/writing-viruses-for-fun-not-profit),” **[Ben Dechrai](https://twitter.com/bendechrai)** (after making the viewer take a pledge to only use this knowledge for good and not evil) walks through how many viruses operate, and just how easy it is to build your own self-replicating virus in PHP.

The danger of many of these viruses according to Ben is that the most dangerous viruses often escape detection by not looking like a virus. Instead they encrypt their code to hide their true intent, while also constantly adapting and evolving.

Perhaps even more dangerously, they act like they’re benign and don’t actually do anything - often times laying dormant until called upon by the malicious actor.

### Crea...