Zend Developer Zone: Actuate and Zend Collaborate to Deliver Reporting for PHP
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted a press review with some good news for PHP developers all over - Zend and Acutate are collaborating to provide reporting (BIRT) to PHP.   he collaboration between Zend and Actuate has resulted in new capabilities in the 3.0 version of the Zend Platform, which is available today for download as a pre-release version at www.zend.com. Zend Platform 3.0 allows PHP developers to quickly integrate reporting capabilities, including charting, to web applications by calling Actuate BIRT reports via the Zend Java Bridge.  New functionality included in this collaboration includes flexibility when generating the reports (output formats/export options), an easy-to-use visual environment, and an integrated charting system including various graphing formats (like pie, chart, area, scatter, and stock).   Check out the full press release for the full story on this collaboration.
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Nick Halstead has announced a contest on his blog today for PHP developers everywhere to participate in - a programming competition surrounding a challenge he's created.   It has been a lot harder than I thought to come up with a fair programming challenge that would not take too long or require lots of knowledge in any particular framework or other associated technology. It could have been to make use of a whole host of currently available API's and to make a useful mash-up but these again require other external knowledge beyond just PHP. I finally settled on a logic problem that is hopefully not too hard to solve but will test a range of PHP skills.   The problem he's worked up involves changing a word, one letter at a time, into another word using user-defined lists and choice of word. There's several requirements you'll need to follow an d rules for things like the submission process and what server setup can be used.   So, what's the motivation? First prize is a copy of Zend Studio Professional and a year of support, second prize is a Zend t-shirt, and third is a Zend Pen. For full information on participating and on all of the rules you'll need to follow, check out Nick's full post.
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With the date for the Zend/PHP Conference & Expo (October 8-11th, San Francisco) conference growing closer all the time, the more updates the better. The Zend Developer Zone has such an update with more details about the keynote talks, sessions, the "after hours" events and more.   Ok, it's been a few days since I've given a ZendCon update so let's burn a few bytes and talk about what is being planned.   The updates concerning the keynotes are the topics the two speakers will be presenting - Cory Doctorow on "copy machines" and Joel Spolsky with his "Great Software" talk. The sessions for the conference are still mostly the same, but the "after hours" activities have exploded.   Things on the list include a ZCE party on Monday, Happy Hour 2.0 on Tuesday and on Wednesday an all-out karaoke party poolside at the hotel.   There's still plenty of time to register for the event and to get more details on the conference and the whens and wheres, check out the main conference site.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted the latest episode of their PHP Abstract podcast hosted by Rob Richards and covering service oriented architectures in PHP.   Our special guest today is Rob Richards. Rob is an author and maintainer of many of the XML-based extensions of PHP 5, as well as one of the maintainers of libxml2. He is also the author of Pro PHP and Web Services, published by Apress. Rob is going to give us an overview of Service Oriented Architecture and what it means to us as PHP developers.   The direct link to grab the show is here, but you'd be doing yourself a favor to subscribe to the podcast feed and get all of the great content on a wide variety of topics presented by the experts.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted their latest episode of their PHP Abstract podcast series - an interview with Sean Coates (of php|architect).   Today we are going to do something a little different. I was privileged to attend php|works in Atlanta. While there, between tasks, Sean Coats agreed to sit down with me and talk for a bit. Given his level of participation in php|works I was grateful for any time he was able to spare. Come listen as we talk about his work at php|architect, work on the PHP manual and programming in general. This is the first of a couple of interviews I was able to do at php|works.   As usual, you can grab just the mp3 directly, or you can subscribe to their feed and get this and tons more great PHP-related content (including talks on things like PHP and Oracle, attracting talent and looks at several of the popular frameworks like CodeIgniter, Solar and the Zend Framework).
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The latest weekly summary for the PHP mailing lists has been posted over on the Zend Developer Zone. This week, discussions included:  Sandboxed semaphores Focus on *printf [continued] PHP 5.2.1 RC2 and PHP 4.4.5 RC1 It's all in the HEAD  Descriptions of each of the headings are provided, including code and a "short version" for those on the run.   Be sure to check back each week for a new summary.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted the latest podcast in its PHP Abstract series. This time it's hosted by Paul Jones, developer of the Solar framework project, who talks gives an overview of the project and its place in the PHP community.   Today's special guest is Paul M. Jones. Paul is an internationally-recognized expert PHP developer and technical consultant living in Memphis, TN. On his blog, he writes mostly about his software projects, but also touches on management, business, politics, and culture.   You can grab the show directly or subscribe to the feed to get this and more great shows from the podcast (with topics covered like PHP & Java, CodeIgniter, Security and much more)
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted the fourth part (or a five part series) from Stefan Priebsch about testing and debugging your applications with XDebug.   Welcome to the fourth installment in our five-part series of xdebug articles on the Zend DevZone. This week, we will explore debugging PHP code with xdebug, the swiss army knife for PHP developers. [...] This fall, the problem of having no release-quality cross-platform xdebug client has been solved with the release of Eclipse PDT. Eclipse PDT is a free IDE for PHP supporting xdebug out of the box. So, without further ado, let us install Eclipse PDT to get started with debugging.   He includes the setup procedure for getting XDebug and the Eclipse PDT extension to play nice together (including some screenshots of example output).
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The Zend Developer Zone has made some major announcements about this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo including the reveal of one of this year's keynote speakers.   Keynote - We have the name of the final keynote speaker. In case you canlt guess [from the picture], Cory Doctorow, blogger, author and co-editor of Boing-Boing will be speaking on Thursday morning at ZendCon. Speakers - We have a new speaker in the lineup. I'm pleased to announce that Chris Shiflett will be presenting his talk, "Security 2.0". Party 2.0 - Finally I'm excited to announce that at ZendCon this year, we will be hosting the very first "Happy Hour 2.0". In conjunction with Terry Chay and the Lunch 2.0 gang, we will open up the Exhibit Reception to everyone...for free.   You can get more information on the schedules and happenings (oh and register for the conference) over on the main conference website.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted some information about some freelancing work that the International Press Association is looking to have done.   If you've got spare cycles and want to help a brother out, read on. I received this from Leonard Rapoport of the International Press Association, (Disclaimer: Zend is a member of the IPA) The IPA is looking for some help. As you can see from the email below, they need a PHP programmer to help them out on some small projects and know of some larger projects they could turn you on it.   Any interested parties should contact Leonard via email and get things started.
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Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:PHPClasses.org: File upload progress meter for PHP 4, at last!Zend Developer Zone: Zend Framework Preview Release 0.6.0 AnnouncedIBM developerWorks: Generate Flash movies on the fly with PHPMike Bernat's Blog: Creating a Simple Registration Script using PHPphp|architect: An overview of the CakePHP frameworkPHPBuilder.com: Reading RSS feeds in PHP: Part 2The Bakery Blog: SwiftMailer Component TutorialPHP-GTK Community Site: Merry Christmas (A Holiday Widget)Ben Ramsey's Blog: Installing the Eclipse PHP IDEZend Developer Zone: Zend Studio 5.5 WalkthroughCommunity News: Vancouver PHP Conference 2007Edin Kadribasic's Blog: BenchmarksJSLabs Blog:  phpBB 3...is it worth the wait?Christopher Jones' Blog: Installing Oracle XE on Ubuntu with PHPChris Chabot's Blog: phpSocketDaemon
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Chris Shiflett has posted his own recap of the (just passed) php|works conference up in Toronto over on his blog.   I've been traveling non-stop since php|works, so I haven't had a chance to reflect on the conference, what I learned, who I met, and things like that. (Zak has been doing a good job of this lately, and I'd like to follow his lead.) I've probably forgotten more than I remember, but this is my recap.   Included in the things he mentions are:  The people he was able to meet (like Joshua Eichorn and Sebastian Bergmann) The talks he gave ("Truth about XSS" and "Agile PHP Testing") His interview with Cal Evans of the Zend Developer Zone The PHP 5 Certification and Wez Furlong's "Not PDO" talk
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The Zend Developer Zone has starting up their own contribution to the security side of the PHP community - a "Security Tip of the Week" starting with the first three new ones posted just recently:   Tip number one involves a good recommendation - keeping your PHP version up to date. Many security issues and exploits have come around because of older versions and the issues they hold. Tip number two focuses on the errors that your site gives to the viewing public and the information they can betray (file locations, etc) Tip number three talks about using other applications to help you find issues in your code that you might not even know were there - such as Chorizo and the PHPSecInfo reporting tool.  Stay tuned for even more security goodness from Cal and the Zend Developer Zone over the coming weeks...
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Richard Lord has posted some thoughts about why he likes one of his latest explorations - the Zend Framework - on his blog today.   I've been researching the Zend Framework for PHP in relation to a project I'm working on and I have to say I'm now a fan of it. There's lots to like about it, and some to dislike about it too. But to me the best aspect of it is the flexibility it offers.   He also mentions other reasons for liking it, including the simplicity of working his current application/workflow into the Framework's methods. There is one hit he mentions that the Framework team could improve on - the documentation.
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Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:The bla.st Blog: Process your URLs in PHP with Apache mod_rewrite and wildcard DNSZend Developer Zone: Book Review : PHP and MySQL by ExampleBen Ramsey's Blog: Zend Executable Debugger Eclipse PluginIlia Alshanetsky's Blog: PHP 5.2.1 RC1 Available for testingphp|architect: 7-Day Promo Fest BeginsNew Earth Online: Detecting Users OnlinePHPBuilder.com: Beginning Ajax with PHP: From Novice to ProfessionalVexxhost.com: Top 5 new (and cool!) features in PHP5 that you probably haven't heard ofFelix Geisendorfer's Blog: A PHP developers guide to JavaScript - Part 1DevShed: Introducing Bridge Classes with PHP 5Book Review: The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web SitesPaul Jones' Blog: New Year's BenchmarksHowToForge.com: Building Apache with PHP,MySQL, OCI8 instant client supportManfred Weber's Blog: Consuming PHP SOAP Webservices with Flash - Part IZend Developer Zone: Who Uses the Zend Framework?
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Aaron Wormus has a new note on his blog today about his presentation at this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo and another speaker he's excited to hear.    One of the Zend conference sessions that I'm pretty excited about is Don Samisa Abeysinghe's (of WSO2) "Fully Fletched Web Services with PHP".   I'll be presenting a session on "Moving to PHP5 with Style." This tutorial/case study will be based on experience in transitioning several codebases from PHP4 to PHP5, creating unit tests & started a move towards a service based architecture without a complete platform rewrite.    Aaron's talk fits under the banner of the "PHP Development" talks, including others on topics like hosting PHP applications on Windows, working with PDO, unicoding in PHP6, and using PHPUnit.
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In this post on the Zend Developer Zone, Cal Evans takes a look at an article published in a recent php|architect issue from Chris Hartjes about how several recent advancements in the PHP community have helped developers think more in "the Rails way" of development.   Chris does a good job of laying out his points. As with any article of this nature, you are going to agree with some of them and you'll disagree with some of them. However, to get to that point you'll have to consider all of them. That's really the point of the article; making developer sit back and think for a minute. It's well worth the read.   Cal also mentions some of the topics presented in the article including more conceptual ideas like "Convention Over Configuration" and "Rapid Should Mean Rapid".