NETTUTS.com recently posted a handy tutorial for those wanting to use the font of their choice on their site using sIFR3.

Last week, Philo showed you how to implement sIFR3. This time, I'm going to show you how to implement Facelift Image Replacement (or FLIR), an alternative to sIFR that does not require Flash.

This second part shows you how to install/setup the tool, configure it correctly for your setup and includes some of the pros and cons of using the software.

In this new post to his blog Marco Tabini eloquently explains something that less and less seem to be able to understand - the tool is only a means to an end. It's more about the artist and the end result than the tool.

What is beautiful code? Ask ten people, and you will probably get ten different answers. Ask them what makes a programming language beautiful, and you've got yourself the beginnings of a holy war.

He compares code to art - the language is just a tool, the canvas an editor waiting to be filled with lines of artist-generated works. Because of PHP's wonderful flexibility, it can be molded to fit just about any need a coder might see fit and gives them the power they need to really dig into the code and about the "paint by numbers" sort fo things language like Ruby have to offer.

On his blog recently Felix De Vliegher has posted about work he's done to gather some stats and great some data about how his PHP scripts are working based on a little statistical analysis.

Lately I've been interested in applying static analysis to PHP projects. Static analysis is the process of analysing software code - in our case PHP source code -, without actually executing the (compiled) result of the source code you're analysing.

He mentions some types of analysis and some of the tools that can be used to measure it. He also talks about issues it can help with (like the potential for harm if a part of code is changed) and a pointer to the Pixy software he used to generate the statistics (and images like this).

Federico Cargnelutti has posted an interesting overview that graphically shows outlines for a few major PHP projects showing where the includes are coming from.

The includes of the system map out the dependencies of the system, which files depend on which, which subsystem depends on which. When working with a system, it's always useful to map out the dependencies before hand.

The software he's created the images for include WordPress, phpBB, and a few frameworks - Symfony, Zend Framework and CakePHP. He used the Inclued and Graphviz software to make the charts.

The PHPedia blog has posted their top five list if scripts to replace the default listing Apache does for a directory without an index file.

Here's their list:

• phpFe - PHP file explorer
• fileNice
• Autoindex
• QuiXplorer
• GaMerZ File Explorer

Check out the PHPedia post for example screenshots of each.

The PHPClasses.org website has posted a new review of CodeGear's latest version of Delphi for PHP.

A new version of Delphi for PHP IDE was released this year. It is a follow-up of Delphi for PHP 1.0 released for the first time in 2007.

Manuel already reviewed a previous version of the software, so he only really focuses on the differences. He spends time reintroducing what Delphi is and how it plays a role in a PHP developers experience before getting into the new functionality. New features like third-party library support, how to run the software on other platforms (like Linux or OS X) and several of the updates to the user interface itself.

On the Ibuildings blog today Mikko Koppanen talks a bit about Open Source software projects and things that can help to make them successful.

An idea can be a tool or a library that you need and think others might find useful; a new technology innovation; or something you think you could implement better than the existing tools. Extra care has to be taken if you decide to create a new tool to replace an old one. In most cases, these projects end up reinventing the wheel without any added value. A wheel is wheel, right?

He recommends a team infrastructure growth as the application grows and the importance of documentation and maintenance after the project has been launched.

Matthew Turland has said goodbye to Wordpress and hello to Habari - a "next-generation free software blogging platform". He also includes one of the more helpful tips for those thinking on doing the same:

So after eventually getting fed up with WordPress, especially after the WYSIWYG editor disappeared in the 2.3.3 update, I finally decided to bite the bullet and migrate my blog over to Habari. Once I'd been through the process, I thought I'd write a short blog entry about the experience.

The two tips he mentions are about exporting the old content (made simple from the WordPress admin interface) and making Habari support his WordPress URL scheme (so as not to loose links to any content out there). He found this to help on that front.

Software company BlueStatic will be releasing their native Mac debugger, MacGDBp tomorrow (June 18th) to the community.

Here's more information from their press release:

Blue Static today is announcing the release date of MacGDBp, a native Cocoa application that allows Web developers to debug their PHP applications. The tool makes use of the Xdebug (http://www.xdebug.org) PHP extension that provides remote debugging functionality. Blue Static will be releasing the software under the GNU GPL version 2 on the morning of Tuesday, 17 June 2008.

The interface for the application is modeled after the XCode product from Apple to help integrate it more fully into the OS look and feel. It will require Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to run and screenshots of the tool can be found here and here.