PHP Programmer Job Available

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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

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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

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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]

Posted in PHP

Check your PHP code with unit tests

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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/

Posted in PHP

Five common PHP Database problems

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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]

Posted in PHP

PHP Encryption for mere mortals

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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]

Posted in PHP

PHP Designer – A nifty windows PHP IDE

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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.

Optimizing PHP Objects

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I ran across this article on Digg yesterday when surfing from my PDA in a coffee shop on lunch. I bookmarked it but never got around to posting it yesterday. The author provides some tips and tricks for streamlining PHP Objects. Some of the tips are just good solid programming advice for PHP.

[url=http://www.whenpenguinsattack.com/2006/07/21/optimizing-object-oriented-php/]http://www.whenpenguinsattack.com/2006/07/21/optimizing-object-oriented-php/[/url]

Posted in PHP

July 2006 :: Users need tools too!

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In this month’s meeting, we discussed the SpellingPages library as well as the FCKEditor (That’s FredCK Editor). Both of these easy to drop-in libraries could find a place in nearly all of our applications.

SpellingPages was something that my colleague Vincent Miller showed me. We will be using it on our own site management system back at the office. While it is not as “sexy” as a little red-wavy-underline, it certainly does the job better than I could hope for…and it is just near trivial to work with.

The other item we talked about was the FCKEditor…I find myself needing to call it the FredCKEditor or just “f-edit.” It is so nice to see software reach a certainly level of maturity. We began using a version of this tool back in the day that only supported IE. Now look at it! Lots of features, very customizable.

My notes, discussion points, and demos are available here on the demo site.

You can find more info on the [url=http://spellerpages.sourceforge.net/]SpellerPages[/url] site, and the [url=http://www.fckeditor.net/]FCKEditor[/url] site.

Hope you all had a great time. Feel free to add to the comments if there was great discussion after I left.

Today’s Topic

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In continuing with our easy-yet-cool series, we will be showing off a couple of simple (yet jaw dropping) ways to help your users give content to your site. Whether you are developing your own CMS, blog, or just adding a feedback form; you won’t want to miss seeing these tools in action!

You may even be inspired to write that wiki-less-wiki you have always wanted to write.

See you at the Daily Dose!