Zend Studio for Eclipse – VIDEOS!

Posted on October 22, 2007 by Dan

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If you have been waiting and wondering what Zend was going to do with their Studio for Eclipse–wonder no more!

http://www.zend.com/products/zend_studio/eclipse/videos

Here you can get a good feel for what the product is, what it will do for you, etc.

You can even [url=dhttp://www.zend.com/free_download/studio]download the beta version[/url] and try it yourself!

40 Tips for optimizing your php Code

Posted on October 20, 2007 by Dan

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Joel hooked us up with a fantastic list of 40 tips to overly optimize your PHP code. If you are all about squeezing out every last microsecond…this list is for you.

And, it is just kind of fun reading.

[url=http://www.kcpug.org/site/modules/mylinks/visit.php?cid=1&lid=50]40 Tips for optimizing your php Code[/url]

Thanks Joel!

Building a better Programmer

Posted on September 24, 2007 by Dan

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Spend 2 minutes on Google, and I’m sure you can have a bunch of PHP is better than Ruby and visa-versa. That’s not why I’m posting this. This article doesn’t interest me because it is Ruby vs. PHP, nor does his use of cursing appeal to me all that much. What I like about it are the lessons the author provides.

Look at that old cruddy PHP code you worked on two years ago. You know what I’m talking about. Seriously, it’s only cruddy because you are two years wiser–two years more experienced. The site is still up–still maintainible.

Now, go learn Ruby and Rails…go learn .NET, J2EE or who knows what else. When you come back to PHP (and you will ;-)) you are going to crank out the meanest, slickest, hottest code you ever wrote.

That’s the lesson I liked so much: Never stop learning new ways to make the best tool for the job even better.

http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html

Scripting Fun :: Automatic Next Meeting Date Calculation

Posted on August 18, 2007 by Dan

OK. I have finally taken the time to hack together a block for automatically stating the Next PHP Meeting date. What I needed was a way to get the third Saturday of the current month unless it has already past. Then it would get the third Saturday of next month.

If you want to have some fun with a nice academic exercise, read the article and start hacking!

The “algorithm” I hacked together was:
[code]
[/code]

Now make me proud and post your improvements.

Happy Hacking!!

HTML Purifier

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Dan

Do you offer HTML input on your website or blog? Are you nervous about XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) vulnerabilities; or even more concerning–are you unsure what they are? Does it frustrate you when your users continue to use depricated tags like center in their posts?

Well, be troubled no more. Check out the [url=http://htmlpurifier.org/]HTML Purifier[/url] today. Now in version 2.0: tidy and tag extensibility!

[url=http://htmlpurifier.org/news/2.0.0-released.html]Get your HTML Purifier today[/url] and code safer!

Zend Framework Webinar

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Dan

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I hope many of you got to see the Webinar from Zend on their new [url=http://framework.zend.com/]Framework[/url].

If you missed it, do not dispair–you can find the [url=http://cts.vresp.com/c/?ZendTechnologies/30b665b54a/8c50b6436f/7af5e442dc]download of the presentation[/url] on their site.

Not only do they cover their much anticipated implementation of the MVC pattern, but they also introduce a ton of the other modules as well. Very exciting stuff indeed!

Be sure to check it out!

Zend Framework Webinar From Zend

Posted on June 16, 2007 by Dan

Zend is going to offer a Webinar this week for the Zend Framework

[url=http://devzone.zend.com/article/2143-Zend-Webinar-Wednesdays-Zend-Framework-1.0—An-Overview]Zend-Webinar-Wednesdays-Zend-Framework-1.0—An-Overview[/url]

From the site:

Tunein to learn more about the value Zend Framework can offer your web
project. You will leave having learned:

* Three ways you can use Zend Framework to make your applications more secure
* Four ways Zend Framework promotes software development best practices
* Five ways Zend Framework can free you from reinventing the wheel – so you can focus on your area of innovation

January 2007 :: 2 new Firefox Extensions for Developers

Posted on January 23, 2007 by Dan

For those of you who haven’t been able to join us recently, we are still meeting. 😉 While we have not had any formal presentations in some time; this month saw some great discussion.

two companies looking to hire some talent
a request for volunteers to develop an XSL based templating layer
and a host of other great topics that I’m sure others will add in the comments of this post.

We did discuss two Firefox Extensions that may be very interesting to Web Application developers out there.

The first one is called [url=http://www.getfirebug.com/]Firebug[/url]. I’m a HUGE fan of the Web Developer tool bar, but seriously; If you haven’t used Firebug, please go get it now. Think of it as a JavaScript / CSS IDE built into the browser.

The second one is more of a complete package with a FireFox extension. If you have ever wanted to generate a testing harness on your user-interface itself, or you have wanted to automate any functional testing; [url=http://www.openqa.org/selenium/]Selenium[/url] may be the tool for you.

Selenium (from OpenQA) comes in two parts, the [url=http://www.openqa.org/selenium-ide/]Selenium-IDE[/url] and the [url=http://www.openqa.org/selenium-core/]Selenium-core[/url]. Grab the IDE and kick the tires, or just [url=http://wiki.openqa.org/display/SIDE/Recording+a+Test]watch the movie[/url]. If you want to see how take your single test and start building an automated suite; go check out Selenium-Core.

Again, I hope you all had a great time! See you again next month!

September 2006 :: Working with Queues

Posted on September 16, 2006 by Dan

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

Posted on September 16, 2006 by Dan

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