Justin has posted a few cool things that you can do by combining PHP with someof the Windows functionality PHP has access to (either via direct function calls or through the COM object).

Many PHP examples out there are designed for a linux/unix operating system. I am going to give some examples of some interesting functionality that only works with php running in a windows environment (IIS or apache).

Hist list includes little things like ejecting the CD-ROM and sending things to the printer out to working with the registry and listing the current system processes.

In a recent post to his blog Nick Circelli has posted a book review of "Wicked Cool PHP" (from No Starch Press) - a "real world examples" book that drops you right into the code without much of an introduction.

My main reason for this was, from what I hear, that PHP is good for simple projects that need a fast turn around. [...] I starting going through a bunch of lame tutorials on the web, but they’re mostly geared for a beginner and there’s a lot I can skip over. I decided to get a couple of recommended books on PHP and one that I found very useful is called Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems by William Steinmetz with Brian Ward.

Nick looks at why the book could be useful to other developers out there (nice, clean and short examples including security suggestions) and his opinion on who should read the book.

PHPClasses.org has posted a review of a recently released book from No Starch Press, "Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems".

n the PHP development life-cycle everyone faces common problems. Considering this, No Starch Press came with a good book named "Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems" written by William Steinmetz and Brian Ward. Wicked Cool PHP is a wide collection of complete PHP scripts that solve specific problems frequently encountered by PHP coders. The book contains 12 chapters covering 76 frequently encountered problems.

He goes through each chapter, mentioning what its about and any extra tidbits it might include. There's wide range of topics covered - everything from the basics of configuring PHP out to security and user/session tracking.

Joshua Eichorn points out the slides that he worked up for the benefits of upgrading from PHP4 to PHP5 for your applications:

Yesterday at azPhp I gave a short presentation about the benefits of upgrading to PHP 5. The slides for cool things in php 5 are available. If you goto the single page view you can see the notes that go with the presentation, there are article links for most items giving more details.

The talk is broken up into sections - better object oriented support, better xml handling, simpler web service functionality, database libraries, user code that can work more like the core constructs and, best of all, that it's faster.

Joshua Eichorn points out the slides that he worked up for the benefits of upgrading from PHP4 to PHP5 for your applications:

Yesterday at azPhp I gave a short presentation about the benefits of upgrading to PHP 5. The slides for cool things in php 5 are available. If you goto the single page view you can see the notes that go with the presentation, there are article links for most items giving more details.

The talk is broken up into sections - better object oriented support, better xml handling, simpler web service functionality, database libraries, user code that can work more like the core constructs and, best of all, that it's faster.

As both Andrei Zmievski and Clay Loveless mention in new blog posts from each, things in the PHP framework scene are getting a bit out of hand.

Andrei's comments:

I know you might be lusting after Rails for some reason and want to have the fame, the glory, and the dancing girls of DHH, but are we not going to be satisifed until Sourceforge is filled with the object-oriented diarrheal remains of our overblown egos and delusions of grandeur?

And Clay's thoughts:

Build a cool app. Forget about your own personal stamp on the framework world; you missed the boat on that one. But, if you want to make a mark, the world is wide open for new and cool applications. Pick an existing framework, start building your app, and contribute fixes back to that framework's community as you find shortcomings in your needs for your app.

They're both in agreement, and on more that one point. They recommend the best course of action for anyone out there with "the itch" to really work with a framework - fine one of the already established ones and dive right in. It might not be your own code, but you can contribute your own functionality and thoughts into the project and establish your own little niche.

As both Andrei Zmievski and Clay Loveless mention in new blog posts from each, things in the PHP framework scene are getting a bit out of hand.

Andrei's comments:

I know you might be lusting after Rails for some reason and want to have the fame, the glory, and the dancing girls of DHH, but are we not going to be satisifed until Sourceforge is filled with the object-oriented diarrheal remains of our overblown egos and delusions of grandeur?

And Clay's thoughts:

Build a cool app. Forget about your own personal stamp on the framework world; you missed the boat on that one. But, if you want to make a mark, the world is wide open for new and cool applications. Pick an existing framework, start building your app, and contribute fixes back to that framework's community as you find shortcomings in your needs for your app.

They're both in agreement, and on more that one point. They recommend the best course of action for anyone out there with "the itch" to really work with a framework - fine one of the already established ones and dive right in. It might not be your own code, but you can contribute your own functionality and thoughts into the project and establish your own little niche.

On the Zend Developer Zone today, Cal Evans shares a cool bit of software to help make file uploads a clean, simple task - w2box, a Web 2.0 File Repository for PHP.

w2box – Web 2.0 File Repository for PHP is actually a little more than just an upload script, it’s a full-blown file management script. It shows you what has been uploaded, allows you to view/delete files that have been uploaded and allows you to upload with a progress bar. (DISCLAIMER: After being wrong on the last progress bar discussion I do not present this as a REAL progress bar but in my exhaustive testing of uploading a single file to the demo site, it did seem to be accurate.) Aside from the fact that the progress bar uses a cgi written in Perl (why? Why? WHY?) it does seem to be a pretty cool (and free, did I mention free?) piece of code.

The rest of the brief post mentions some of the features that w2box has, including direct deletion using Ajax, and the ability to protect/hide uploads easily.

On the Zend Developer Zone today, Cal Evans shares a cool bit of software to help make file uploads a clean, simple task - w2box, a Web 2.0 File Repository for PHP.

w2box – Web 2.0 File Repository for PHP is actually a little more than just an upload script, it’s a full-blown file management script. It shows you what has been uploaded, allows you to view/delete files that have been uploaded and allows you to upload with a progress bar. (DISCLAIMER: After being wrong on the last progress bar discussion I do not present this as a REAL progress bar but in my exhaustive testing of uploading a single file to the demo site, it did seem to be accurate.) Aside from the fact that the progress bar uses a cgi written in Perl (why? Why? WHY?) it does seem to be a pretty cool (and free, did I mention free?) piece of code.

The rest of the brief post mentions some of the features that w2box has, including direct deletion using Ajax, and the ability to protect/hide uploads easily.

Des Traynor shares some of his opinions on PHP in his latest blog post - "I hated php back when it was cool".

This is a short smug entry, written in the "Yeah, well I liked them before they even had a record deal" style associated with trend snobs. Except in this case, its the opposite, I am claiming that I hated something back when it was cool. Thanks to blogging my opinion earlier, I even have proof! PHP should stand for Pretty Huge Problem.

He mentions some of the rants, langauge switchers, and general complaints that have come up about PHP, including the combination of code and HTML, the "safe mode" feature, and PHP's "battered on" nature of development. He also goes off a bit on the (inevitable) backlash that Rails and Ajax will see in the future, and wonders how far off it will be.