OpenBSD + Apache + MySQL + PHP (OAMP?)

Posted on January 20, 2008 by Noah Dunker

Here’s a quick little article I threw together for getting Apache/MySQL/PHP working nicely on OpenBSD. You know, for all 4 of you who use OpenBSD.

[url=http://www.h-i-r.net/2008/01/sysadmin-sunday-openbsd-apache-mysql.html]Sysadmin Sunday: OpenBSD, Apache, MySQL and PHP[/url]

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!

Three PHP Frameworks Compared/Contrasted

Posted on October 12, 2007 by Eric Poe

IBM DeveloperWorks has posted the first part of a five-part series on three PHP frameworks: [url=http://framework.zend.com/]Zend Framework[/url], [url=http://www.symfony-project.com/]symfony[/url], and [url=http://cakephp.org/]CakePHP[/url]. In this series, the author will build a web application using each of the three frameworks.

Part I: [url=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-php-fwk1/index.html]Getting Started[/url]
Part II: Building the application in each of the frameworks – compare and contrast.
Part III: Weaknesses in each of the frameworks when extending the application
Part IV: AJAX support
Part V: Working outside of the frameworks

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!!

PHP 4 End-Of-Life Announced

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Noah Dunker

Maybe this will get vendors to start switching their buggy code over to PHP 5, which is already 3 years old. Of course, PHP 6 is on the horizon… Support (patches, mostly) will be offered through the end of the year 2007. Then it’s game over for PHP 4.

[quote]
The end is in sight for the 7-year-old but still popular version 4 of PHP, open-source software that lets servers create customized Web pages such as online catalog pages or a list of search results.[/quote]
Full Story via cNet News.com

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!

Pixy: Application vulnerability scanner for PHP code

Posted on June 20, 2007 by Noah Dunker

Cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection (SQLI) vulnerabilities are present in many modern web applications, and are reported continuously on pages such as BugTraq. In the past, finding such vulnerabilities usually involved manual source code audits. Unfortunately, this manual vulnerability search is a very tiresome and error-prone task.

More about Pixy here

A Month of PHP Functions

Posted on April 11, 2007 by Eric Poe

Nexen.net is sponsoring “[url=http://www.nexen.net/the_month_of_php_functions.php]A Month of PHP Functions[/url].” Each day of April they highlight a lesser-known yet useful PHP function. The site is in French, but the tutorials are in English.