In case you missed it, earlier this month the publishers of php|architect magazine published a definitive guide to working with dates and times in PHP (by Derick Rethans). Marco Tabini posted about it to his blog:

Date and time programming is one of those topics that almost everybody tends to think they're doing well and almost nobody does correctly. Thus, the most challenging aspect of selling this book is the fact that almost all those who could benefit from it - and that's just about everybody - will tend to think that they don't need it.

Marco mentions a specific time when the updates to the date/time handling in PHP caused issue for them (like changes to the need to set a default timezone) and how having the information in Derick's book would have helped immediately.

You can find out more information about the book (and order your own copy) on this page of the php|architect site.

Don't forget! Tomorrow is the first of the free webcast series from php|architect leading up to this year's php|tek conference!

As we all wait for php|tek to arrive, join us for a series of free webcasts! Discover new topics, learn from your favourite authors and enjoy chatting with your fellow PHPers—and all completely free of charge, including exclusive access to Marco Tabini's opening keynote at php|tek 2009! Each webcast features an interactive look at a technology, technique or topic that is relevant to the world of PHP and web programming—and is completely open and free to everyone.

Tomorrow's webcast is presented by Keith Casey and will look at time and project management with the web2project software. You can reserve your spot here.

The Zend Developer Zone has launched a new feature for their PHP Abstract podcasts to help make giving feedback on the episodes even simpler (especially on mobile devices) - a TwitterBridge.

We know many people listen to PHP Abstract on their cell phones or mobile music device. Many of you aren't near a computer when you listen. Even so, we want to hear from you about the episodes. So we’ve installed our handy new TwitterBridge. Now, all you need to leave a comment about an episode of PHP Abstract is a twitter account.

You'll need a Twitter account (obviously) and then set it up to follow phpa, then any comments that are sent starting with "@phpa" will be grabbed and pushed into the comment system automatically.

The Zend Developer Zone has launched a new feature for their PHP Abstract podcasts to help make giving feedback on the episodes even simpler (especially on mobile devices) - a TwitterBridge.

We know many people listen to PHP Abstract on their cell phones or mobile music device. Many of you aren't near a computer when you listen. Even so, we want to hear from you about the episodes. So we’ve installed our handy new TwitterBridge. Now, all you need to leave a comment about an episode of PHP Abstract is a twitter account.

You'll need a Twitter account (obviously) and then set it up to follow phpa, then any comments that are sent starting with "@phpa" will be grabbed and pushed into the comment system automatically.

We mentioned briefly in a post a while back about the latest offering for those PHP developers out there that were looking for a more robust shell to work in. One has been developed by Jan Kneschke and in this new post from the Zend Developer Zone, it's compared to two other offerings, all going for the same goal.

There's mention of the default interactive shell (with the --with-readline) that comes with PHP5 installs, but it's just not as full-featured as many would like. Thankfully, there are three alternatives presented - php_shell, phpa, and phpinteractive. For each, there's a bit of a description and some of Cal's opinions on how well they work.

We mentioned briefly in a post a while back about the latest offering for those PHP developers out there that were looking for a more robust shell to work in. One has been developed by Jan Kneschke and in this new post from the Zend Developer Zone, it's compared to two other offerings, all going for the same goal.

There's mention of the default interactive shell (with the --with-readline) that comes with PHP5 installs, but it's just not as full-featured as many would like. Thankfully, there are three alternatives presented - php_shell, phpa, and phpinteractive. For each, there's a bit of a description and some of Cal's opinions on how well they work.