September 2006 :: Working with Queues

Today we talked all about Queues. Not just the shift/unshift kind of queues, but the good stuff – those database-driven, keeps everything from happening at once kind of queues.

You can find the presentation in both [url=http://kcpug.org/doghouse/2006_sep/Queues.swf]SWF[/url] and [url=http://kcpug.org/doghouse/2006_sep/Queues.odp]ODF (OOO Impress)[/url] formats.

Feel free to start a discussion! What other Queues have you built? What else could you use this concept for? Any thing that you know of that makes working with Queues even easier? Don’t be shy, feel free to add a comment!

Website Change

Sorry gang, the link-spammers have finally beaten me down. I came in today, and we had over 100 pieces of link-spam to clean out. So, I’ve disabled all anonymous posting. If I’ve missed any areas or comments, please [url=http://www.kcpug.org/site/modules/contact/]let me know[/url].

Of course, you can all still post anywhere on the site simply by logging in first. Naturally, this won’t completely eliminate it; but it should help a bit.

Thanks for your help in keeping our site clean!!

Daniel Holmes
KCPUG.org
Kansas City’s AMP Community

KCOUG ORACLE TRAINING DAY 2006 – OCT 11

KCOUG Oracle Training Day 2006, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. October 11 at Overland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS. Keynote Speaker Tom Kyte, VP Oracle Public Sector Group and author of Expert Oracle Database Architecture. Some training tracks available are Database Administration/Development, Oracle Applications, Data Warehousing and PL/SQL. For more information and registration: http://www.kcoug.org. Steven Feuerstein will be autographing his books.

PHP Programmer Job Available

So I realize I’m cheating by putting this on the front page instead of in the [url=http://www.kcpug.org/site/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=6]Jobs and Opportunities Section[/url], but what are ya gonna do? 😀

As many of you know, I’ve been running my own [url=http://www.shazpro.com/]consulting and web development business[/url] for the past couple of years. I’ve been doing it alone so far, but I’ve been wanting to expand as soon as I could. Well, I’m happy to announce that its about time to start expanding. I have too much load to handle myself and I have a couple of projects that could turn into pretty big deals. I’d like to hire someone on a contract basis to begin with — with the possibility to become fulltime later on (I’m really just lazy and don’t want to set up payroll yet). I’m currently located in offices in Overland Park but telecommuting is a possibility.

You’d be working on projects large and small. Our clientele ranges from small KC based businesses to entrepreneurial startups to large government organizations in the Department of Defense.

If you are interested, [url=http://www.kcpug.org/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=196]read more![/url]

Here is what I’m looking for:

A PHP developer with a decent amount of experience. Someone who has built fully functional applications in the past and is motivated and willing to learn more and grow with the company. You’ll need to be able to read other people’s code and improve upon it. Good documenting skills are required!

* A degree in Computer Science is a plus (but not required)
* Basic Sys Admin abilities (any type of unix experience) is a plus
* Knowledge of and experience in other languages than PHP is a plus
* Extensive experience with any open source content management system (such as Drupal) is a plus
* SQL expertise is a huge plus. Basic SQL experience is at least required.

You’ll be developing in both PHP4 and PHP5 and using MySQL/Postgres/Oracle in a variety of different environments. You’ll be asked to do both object-oriented and procedural programming.

Pay depends on your abilities and experience. Please include your own salary requirements (if you have them) in your resume or cover letter. Send your resumes to the e-mail address listed in my profile.

– Doug

August 2006 :: Coffee Talk

We had so many great new people with great new questions and things to discuss that we actually postponed the scheduled talk until next month.

I want to thank everyone who dropped by for keeping the conversations constructive, open and alive. Hope to see you all next month!

Image Manipulation with PHP and GD

This two-part article on [url=http://www.phpit.net]PHPit[/url] blipped across my [url=http://digg.com/]Digg radar[/url] today. At my last job I actually had to play with PHP/GD quite a bit. This is one of the better tutorials I’ve seen on the subject.

[url=http://www.phpit.net/article/image-manipulation-php-gd-part1/]Part 1[/url]

[url=http://www.phpit.net/article/image-manipulation-php-gd-part2/]Part 2[/url]

Check your PHP code with unit tests

This article covers installation and use of the PHPUnit2 pear module, and discusses how to test your applications at the module, DB and interface level. This is a good read, especially for those of you who must deploy tested, solid applications.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-unit/

Five common PHP Database problems

This article on IBM DeveloperWorks discusses five common mistakes that PHP developers make when working with databases.

I’m guilty as charged on a few of these. 😳

[url=http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-dbmistake/?ca=dgr-lnxw97Avoid5PHPerrors]http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-dbmistake/?ca=dgr-lnxw97Avoid5PHPerrors[/url]

PHP Encryption for mere mortals

I’ve really been loving IBM DeveloperWorks lately! Here’s another great PHP tutorial!

The author provides a quick primer on information security and cryptography, then jumps right into applying it to PHP with some very useful advice on proper implementation. Several code examples and a good number of external links are also provided.

[url=http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-encrypt/?ca=dgr-lnxw97PHP-encrypt]http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-encrypt/?ca=dgr-lnxw97PHP-encrypt[/url]

PHP Designer – A nifty windows PHP IDE

I’ve been doing some mild PHP Programming at my new job. The contractor before me left a few things installed on the computer, including this little freeware gem that I’ve never heard of.

[url=http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php]http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php[/url]

Of course, the reason I haven’t heard of it is because I don’t usually choose Windows as my development platform. In the corporate world, though, I don’t have much choice. PHP Designer integrates really well with many of the *AMP packages for Windows. They recommend XAMPP however I’m certain it would work equally well with WAMP or the others.

Within, it offers syntax highlighting for several languages aside from C, a built-in PHP debugger (you must have the PHP executable installed somewhere for it to use), and several other features. While I wish it offered VI-esque text editing commands, I’ll survive if it feels a little more like wordpad than vi.

I don’t have much PHP IDE Experience to compare PHP Designer to, but I’ve enjoyed working with it for the past 2 weeks. Give it a shot.