Starting today (January 3rd) php architect are running their '7 days' promotion. For each of the following days you can buy certain products at heavily discounted rates. Today the offer is for 50% off the cost of the Zend PHP 5 Certification Guide book (both print and PDF version).

This means you can pick it up for $17 instead of $35. Of course shipping costs are added on-top of this, but they're the same as usual and it's a great way to pick up a very good book, half price. Check out the offers here: http://www.phparch.com/sevendays.

Many years ago I bought version 3 of Nusphere's PhpEd. To cut a long whine short, I was sorely disappointed with it. It was full of bugs and couldn't do some of the most basic tasks. I complained, didn't get very far, and dropped it and some months later moved onto the Zend IDE instead. I used this for years, and while it had flaws, it also had just about the right level of features for me.

A few months back Nusphere emailed me to say that version 4.6 of PhpEd was out, and did I want to trial it. I figured what the heck, and here is what I found out when you compare the two ...

Today I released a piece of source code that will take any GIF, JPEG or PNG and create an new image based on it, which is a nicely formatted reflection of the original. You can use it to give your site that 'iTunes / Apple' look if you so desire. I created it to make image uploads to a site I run look that little bit nicer, so figured I would share it with you all. You can grab it from here along with instructions and examples.

It has been a LONG time since I posted to my blog, or even approved some of the many comments sat here (and deleted the spam). The reason for this is that shortly after the last post I made my wife gave birth to our first child, a boy that we named Thomas. As any parent will tell you, the first few months are hectic! and with a new child, something of a culture shock too But we've now at least managed to settle into some kind of daily routine (or at least as routine as a 6 month old will allow), so I'm ready to dust down this place and get the content flowing again.

After a short break the PHP Life team are back. In this strip we look at the Zend/Oracle deal. If Oracle do buy-out Zend then let's hope things fare better for the Zend staff than Oracle staff at the moment!

When it comes to debugging PHP applications most developers fall into one of two camps. They either use a package such as Zend Debugger, set breakpoints and painstakingly go through their code checking the variable values. Or alternatively for those of you not using $200 worth of IDE, and a common method employed by more php 'beginners', they will print_r() and var_dump() all over the place to check what is going on, the resulting dumps appearing inline with the rest of the site.

Personally, I use both methods, and I imagine most other developers are in the same boat. When you need a quick variable output or to see the full contents of an array you often can't beat var_dump for speed of implementation. Which is why this superb little class file that was recently bought to my attention (thanks Chris!) should be of interest to you all.

We're into February already and this is only my second post of the year. Project after project poured in over January, and my development schedule has been insane. Trying to juggle all of the proverbial 'balls' - or as my boss likes to say 'keep all the plates spinning' - became a full-time role of its own. And then today I read the entry on Robert Peake's blog about his son and it stopped me full in my tracks, smacking me around the earhole with a heady mix of extreme sadness for them both, and an all too common 'why did it have to happen' sense of feeling.

As we embrace the changes that 2006 will bring to the PHP community, I can but only wonder about what is to become of PHP 5. Talk and debate over PHP 6 is already a hot topic, and despite being in a stable release for over 2 years PHP 5 has failed to see any significant kind of adoption rates, lingering at an astonishingly low 4.2%. Will PHP 5 be the version that everyone 'skipped', or could the Zend Framework be its saviour?

I work primarily in the games industry, and it's a fun and exciting place to be, but somewhat volatile. While flicking through one of the magazines I subscribe to I noticed an advertisement from Amazon who were looking for software engineers. It's a reflection on the state of the games industry that a company like Amazon is trying to snag skilled developers from the turbulent market, but what interested me most wasn't the fact it was Amazon, but rather they way they phrased their advertisement.

In this weeks PHP Life comic strip, Alex gets an interesting Christmas present from a client!

As a recently qualified Zend Certified Engineer I spent many an hour pouring through this book as part of my exam revision. The book is a relatively slim affair, the page count equalling that of only a few chapters in most other study guides, such as the Microsoft, Cisco or Novell examination publications. This is somewhat of a double-edged sword – on the plus side it means it will not take you very long to read through it. On the down side it means if you're quite new to PHP and are reading this book in isolation, you'll be left thinking “huh?” a number of times.

I started the PHP Life cartoon strip last week, and thanks to encouraging feedback both here and via email I bring you the second instalment. This week I'm taking a small pot-shot at the new Zend Framework - and the PHP Life guys have moved over to their own domain at www.phplife.org. This will make it easier for me to keep the 'funny' side of things clean from my blog, which is supposed to focus on the more serious aspects of PHP development. Plus it lets you view the previous cartoons from a cleaner interface. Enjoy and please bookmark

Update: Ok I will include the strip in my blog as well! View the full article to read this weeks.

Update 2007: The phplife.org domain has expired and I won't renew it, as I don't have the time to create many new strips - however I have fixed all the image links, and if I do create some new strips they will just appear in my blog.

How about something a little different? A weekly comic strip dedicated to a PHP development company. Come on in and meet the team...

As you may be aware the core PHP group of developers all met in Paris on November the 11th and 12th 2005. The minutes from the meeting are fascinating reading, but there is a lot to go through. So I've gone through all of the points raised and chewed them over from a developers point of view. Your comments as always are welcome.

The PHP Mailer class is a wonderful piece of work, and I've used it for years now to handle email sending from PHP (specifically HTML emails and attachments). Although it provides sending via SMTP, it only supports direct SMTP Authentication. Which was great until an application I built moved host and needed "POP before SMTP" Authentication instead. So I wrote this class. I figured I'd post it here incase anyone else had a use for it.