We've released PHP 5.3.18RC1 and 5.4.8RC1. This is a regular bugfix release, the full list of issues fixed can be found in the NEWS files. Please test and report if anything is broken. If no critical issues is found in this RC, the final version will be released in two weeks.

Bugs fixed in this release include issues with is_callable, the catching of an exception in an __autoload call, fixes for the SOAP an dSPL extensions as well as updates to the CLI server (501 response, PATCH support) and changes to the DOM, FPM and cURL extensions. You can download these latest Candidates and get testing here:

5.3.18RC1:

• http://downloads.php.net/johannes/php-5.3.18RC1.tar.bz2
• http://downloads.php.net/johannes/php-5.3.18RC1.tar.gz

5.4.8RC1:

• http://downloads.php.net/stas/php-5.4.8RC1.tar.bz2
• http://downloads.php.net/stas/php-5.4.8RC1.tar.gz

Windows binaries for both as always are at: http://windows.php.net/qa/

The podcast hosts talk about popular trends and technology in the open source world and interview developers behind some of the useful tools you may use every day. Recent topics include Vagrant with Mitchell Hashimoto, Spine and client-side MVC with Alex MacCaw and Foundation and other Zurb goodies.

They've also spotlighted several interesting new libraries including:

• LiveReload
• Requests (for PHP)
• SpacePen
• active_attr
• sidekiq

The PHP development team is proud to announce the 4th release candidate of PHP 5.4. PHP 5.4 includes new language features and removes several legacy (deprecated) behaviours. Windows binaries can be downloaded from the Windows QA site. THIS IS A RELEASE CANDIDATE - DO NOT USE IT IN PRODUCTION! This is the 4th release candidate. The release candidate phase is intended as a period of bug fixing prior to the stable release. No new features should be included before the final version of PHP 5.4.0.

Updates in this release candidate include an update to the max_input_vars directive and a fix for a segfault in the traits code. You can find the full notes for the release in the NEWS file and can download the latest from the PHP.net site - source downloads, Windows binaries.

All of the stories on PHP Quick Fix (you can also follow it on twitter) are still hand-selected out of the mounds of PHP content that shows every day to ensure the best quality. There's no automatic syndication here - just more good, useful PHP (and related topics) to add to your day.

Additionally, if you're interested to see how it all works (thanks to a GimmeBar backend) check out this post on blog.phpdeveloper.org.

PHPMaster is the latest and greatest in the SitePoint family, dedicated to bringing you the highest quality in tutorials from some of the web's best PHP Developers, as well as news and information on events in the PHP Community.

Tutorials posted so far include:

• Migrate from the MySQL Extension to PDO
• Monitoring File Integrity
• From Zero to Cloud: Settings up an EC2 Sandbox - part one, part two
• Why You Should Use Bcrypt to Hash Stored Passwords

PHP 5.4 alpha3 is available for testing now. Please give us a hand and compile it on your platform and run a "make test". Download it from http://qa.php.net and you can see the changes in the NEWS file at http://t.co/bBVGj8P

Updates in this alpha include the shortened array syntax, binary numbers format, support for the "Class::{expr}()" syntax, removal of magic quotes related features, a change to include E_STRICT in E_ALL and several others. Head over to the PHP QA site and download this latest version to test in your environment. Remember, environments are unique, so the more test results the better - it helps make for a better quality end result.

Every a few months we publish a post regarding news about PHP conferences. In the last few years the number of conferences being held around the globe has increased dramatically. 2011 spawned a few days ago but we felt it was time to do one of those articles due to the number of conferences being held right at the start of the new year. Here is a quick list of conferences that are coming up and that you should seriously consider attending if you are close or can travel.

They mention the latest from PHP Benelux, Symfony Live (US), Symfony Live (Paris), PHP UK and Confoo.

It's idea is to be a community website for PHP programmers from Serbia and other countries from the region. The idea for this website "hit" me somewhere in April or May I think, while I was lurking the interwebs for some, any PHP communities in the region, user groups, anything really, where local PHP programmers could share ideas, news, interests, etc., but found nothing (well, besides 2 bulletin boards and a few of us on Twitter). So, I decided to try and create one.

There's some good content in there already, so if you're in the area (or really anywhere for that matter) and want to keep up with some of the latest PHP-related news from a Serbian's perspective, check out PHPPlaneta.net.

On February 25th, 2009, less than 90 days after the new infrastructure was rolled out, it was stress tested when a Turkish Airliner crashed at Schiphol. On that day the new site set a single day traffic record by serving up 21 million page views in a 24 hour time period, all without any noticeable slowdown and without having to bring additional hardware online to handle the additional load.

Their framework of choice, CodeIgniter, allowed then to create snippets of content - cached versions - that could be pulled and displayed without having to render them every single time. They looked into the Varnish project and a ATK-based CMS to piece it all back together.

abcphp.com is a social news website made for people to discover and share PHP related content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories.

The site lets you vote (with a registered account) on the PHP-related articles they've posted ala Digg.com and breaks them up into categories like "New Releases", "PHP Dev Tools", "Database" and "Security". You can even create groups of people that share the same interests. Check it out and maybe submit a story while you're there.