Maarten Balliauw has a new post to his blog with some resources you can use if you're looking to get started using PHP and Azure for your application.

The good reason for not being that active on my blog lately is the fact that I’m producing content for Microsoft’s Interoperability team. Have you ever wanted to start working with Windows Azure and PHP? No idea where to start? Meet the official portal: Developing Applications for Azure with PHP.

He also links to a few specific resources that are cover Azure+Eclipse, the Azure SDK, using the Queue and using blob storage.

The PHPClasses.org website has posted a new book review about the Packt Publishing offering "Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals and Community Websites" (book by David Mercer, review by Zoltan Hunt).

This Packt book takes the reader through installing the Drupal software, configuring and theming, adding content and deploying a Web site. It is aimed at the end user who is looking to setup and customize Drupal's themes, but not actually write their own modules, which would be a topic for book on its own.

The review talks about some of the origins of the content management system, the contents of the book (use cases, introductions to the functionality, etc) and how to manage your site.

Alex Netkachov is asking for some feedback from the PHP community on a project he's thinking of undertaking - a PHP implementation of the JSR 286 - Portlet 2.0 spec.

Specifically, there's five questions he's wondering about:

• Do you know about portal/portlet technology?
• Do you like it?
• Is it a cool idea to create a PHP analog of javax.portlet?
• Do you want to participate in such project?
• Will you use it in your projects?

There's been a good comments on the post already from Bill Karwin (of the Zend Framework project) mentioning some of his experience on the matter and on how portlets usually work.

Alex Netkachov is asking for some feedback from the PHP community on a project he's thinking of undertaking - a PHP implementation of the JSR 286 - Portlet 2.0 spec.

Specifically, there's five questions he's wondering about:

• Do you know about portal/portlet technology?
• Do you like it?
• Is it a cool idea to create a PHP analog of javax.portlet?
• Do you want to participate in such project?
• Will you use it in your projects?

There's been a good comments on the post already from Bill Karwin (of the Zend Framework project) mentioning some of his experience on the matter and on how portlets usually work.

The Drupal project has made a big release today - version 5.0 of their popular portal software:

After 8 months of development we are ready to release Drupal 5.0 to the world. Today is also Drupal's 6th birthday, so the timing could not be more perfect. Drupal 4.0 was released in 2002 and finally we feel confident to increase the major version number from 4 to 5.

They make mention of some places where the software is used (Tim Berners-Lee's blog, TWIT.tv) and of some of the stats over the years:

• 492 contributors
• 1173 patches
• a new Drupal core theme
• a web-based installer
• and an expansion of the framework to allow for more flexibility for developers and themes

You can get the full information on what's new in this release from the official announcement or just head over and download the latest!

The Drupal project has made a big release today - version 5.0 of their popular portal software:

After 8 months of development we are ready to release Drupal 5.0 to the world. Today is also Drupal's 6th birthday, so the timing could not be more perfect. Drupal 4.0 was released in 2002 and finally we feel confident to increase the major version number from 4 to 5.

They make mention of some places where the software is used (Tim Berners-Lee's blog, TWIT.tv) and of some of the stats over the years:

• 492 contributors
• 1173 patches
• a new Drupal core theme
• a web-based installer
• and an expansion of the framework to allow for more flexibility for developers and themes

You can get the full information on what's new in this release from the official announcement or just head over and download the latest!

DynamicWebPages.de has launched the latest effort in keeping the PHP community educated - their new Training Portal site.

It's been two years since we started out PHP certification training programs to Germany (as well as the entire German-language PHP community). Today, we're announcing that we've become an official training partner for Zend in Central Europe in a new format. The basic and certification training courses will still be there, but a new course has been created - Professional level training. There are also 1 1/2 hour seminars covering things like OOP, the Zend Framework, security, PEAR, and Ajax at the price of only 29.95 Euro. To celebrate this launch of this new effort we're offering a seminar hosted by Tobias Schlitt covering eZ components for free. The new address to get directly to the site is phpzertifizierung.eu.

Always great to see more and more groups expanding their offerings for keeping the PHP public educated, especially when they're coupled with Zend and all they bring to the table.

DynamicWebPages.de has launched the latest effort in keeping the PHP community educated - their new Training Portal site.

It's been two years since we started out PHP certification training programs to Germany (as well as the entire German-language PHP community). Today, we're announcing that we've become an official training partner for Zend in Central Europe in a new format. The basic and certification training courses will still be there, but a new course has been created - Professional level training. There are also 1 1/2 hour seminars covering things like OOP, the Zend Framework, security, PEAR, and Ajax at the price of only 29.95 Euro. To celebrate this launch of this new effort we're offering a seminar hosted by Tobias Schlitt covering eZ components for free. The new address to get directly to the site is phpzertifizierung.eu.

Always great to see more and more groups expanding their offerings for keeping the PHP public educated, especially when they're coupled with Zend and all they bring to the table.