Welcome back from the holiday! I hope you all had a great one and got to spend some good time with the family. And now, on with the news...

First off, Zend has two new things this morning - first, they have added to their books section with Core PHP Programming. I have several people tell me that they swore by this book when they were first learning PHP, and that it helped them out immensely.
Also, Zend has posted the second in the Using PHP to Develop Three-Tier Architecture Applications (now there's a mouthfull). This is a different approach to most things where it's an "all in one" solution where the database and webserver are all in the same "piece" (machine, location, etc). For those out there used to doing a "one machine" approach, this would be a good read...throw a little XML-RPC into the mix and you could have a fun little app.

PHPInfo.net (French site) has a neat little piece that helps to explain some of the new things you can do with the new PHP variables like $_get, $post, etc... This article is in French, so you'll either have to be able to read it or need the Fish to help. I've been looking for something like this to help aquaint us old PHPers with the new format of using the "$" variables.

And, lastly, I'm going to work hard these next few days and try to get everything ready for a "New Year's Launch" on the new site. It'll take some doing (and a little less DAoC) on my part, but you guys are worth it. Thanks for sticking it out and not complaining too much about how long I'm taking ;)