PHPWomen.org recently held an article-writing contest on their Best Practices Forum. Authors of the two winning submissions each received copies of Zend Studio for Eclipse, a 1-year subscription to Linux Pro Magazine (which is called Linux Magazine outside North America), and the opportunity to feature their articles on the magazine websites. Congratulations goes to Gerard Sychay for his winning submission!

This article explains in four simple steps how you can use a home-based Windows PC to secure a notebook and circumvent systems such as the "Great Firewall of China". With OpenVPN, mobile users can surf without fear of the restrictions that might otherwise affect them on the local network to which they are connected, and can access all Internet content without danger of being bugged or censored.

Journalists at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing will not have unfettered access to the Internet. However, GPL software OpenVPN can be used to easily circumvent such censorship.

O'Reilly's annual OSCON event attracted a range of open source enthusiasts who were treated to impressive keynotes, a range of "lightening talks," and plenty of in-depth technical sessions.