The SitePoint PHP blog has a new post from author Christopher Vundi that shows the use of Laravel Cashier to create a custom site connecting to Braintree for subscription handling.

Subscriptions to services online are something extremely common – from subscribing to music streaming services to tutorial sites to access premium content.

With Laravel 5, we saw the introduction of Laravel Cashier, an official Laravel package to help developers manage Stripe’s and Braintree’s subscription billing services without writing most of the boilerplate subscription billing code. [...] In this tutorial, we will be building a dummy Courses site with Braintree subscriptions. In the process, we will learn how to use the various methods offered by Cashier.

This part of the series will help you with some of the setup steps you'll need to create the environment for your application. It also shows you how the custom code would look to allow a user of your system to subscribe to a custom plan. They walk you through all of the setup steps to follow and the code you'll need to make the subscription process work. Some screenshots are included so you can ensure you're setting things up in the correct places.

The SitePoint PHP blog has posted the second part of their series about making a subscription -based website with Laravel and Recurly (part one is here). Improving on the code from the previous part of the series, they create the interface with Recurly.

In the first part of this series we created the bare bones of a subscription-based website using Laravel. We also set the site up with roles, and granted a pending role to new users. We’re now at the point where we can perform basic registration, login, and logout. In this second part, we’ll integrate Recurly to set up our paid membership plans.

Using the Recurly javascript library and the PHP packages installed in the first part of the series, they show you how to set up the API and configure the script to connect with your account. They integrate this with the signup process and include the PHP (Laravel) code to handle the registration and the Javascript to make the Recurly call. There's also some code creating some of the management pages letting users update things like plan choice and billing information.

On the SitePoint PHP blog there's a post by Lukas White (part one of a series) showing you how to make a subscription-based website with Laravel and Recurely. Recurly is a subscription billing service that takes case of the recurring billing process.

In this two-part series I’ll show you step-by-step how to create a paid subscription-based membership website using Laravel, a PHP5-based framework, and the Recurly payment processing service. First we’ll start by creating a simple site with basic registration, authentication, and user roles and permissions. Then we’ll add payment processing and tie it into the registration process, allowing people to purchase different membership tiers.

He walks you through the full process (well, the first part of it at least) to getting a new Laravel project up and going and a few other libraries you'll need to connect to the Recurly service. He creates a simple user table and roles/permissions functionality for the Authority connections. He also shows how to make the basic template, login mechanism and user registration system.

On PHPMaster.com there's a new tutorial showing you how to use the Facebook API and get real time subscription information and updates using this code as a base.

Facebook’s real-time updates allow us to declare our interest in certain information about our users and have Facebook notify us when it changes instead of us continually querying the API. [...] There are of course other uses for real-time updates – and indeed we’ll take a look at one in this article: an example application which emails people when others “unfriend” them. (Actually that’s not strictly true – it tells you when someone is no longer your “friend” regardless of who did the unfriending.)

He helps you get everything you'll need installed (via Composer) including the Facebook SDK, PHPMailer for emails and Underscore for output handling. The sample interface uses a Slim-based structure (a PHP microframework) to make a callback URL that the Facebook application uses for it's real-time notifications. There's also an endpoint that's called when people allow the application access to their accounts, complete with the redirect URL. They show you how to handle the incoming JSON message from Facebook and how to create the email contents and send it out.

As a part of the sponsorship they're providing to this year's event, php|architect will be providing one-year subscriptions to the magazine to all Dutch PHP Conference attendees at this year's event.

We're back with more good news! Our friends at php|architect are sponsoring the Dutch PHP Conference 2011 with a sweet deal: they're offering every attendee a free, one-year subscription to their awesome php|architect magazine! In case you're not familiar with it, php|architect is a monthly magazine (pdf, epub and mobi version available) that features articles, columns and more awesomeness on PHP.

If you haven't already gotten your tickets, now is the perfect time - you can get a full conference pass for 595 Euro or either a tutorial-only/conference-only pass for 325 Euro.

php|architect magazine has started a program to help out those in need via the Red Cross. To encourage donations, they'll provide a free subscription for anyone giving $25 USD or more to the Red Cross' effort.

It is in the time of crisis that communities pull together to help those in need; the PHP community is no different. Past experience has shown the generosity of the PHP community and we know that many of you have already stepped up to help. All of us at php|architect want to encourage you to join us in giving to the Red Cross to support their relief efforts in Japan.

By forwarding the contribution confirmation email to the address in the post, you'll be sent a subscription coupon good for a free year of the magazine. You must have your email submitted by 5pm EDT on Friday Marth 18th to be considered.

php|architect is hosting a coding contest that started on Saturday. The task is to grab the contents of an HTML file and grab all of the links out of it, removing duplicates.

You may use any built in function, the phpinfo() of the server used for testing will be attached. You just need to retrieve the links, you don't need to worry about them being relative or absolute.

It should be able to be called from the command line and return the links, one per line. They include how the scripts will be measured (speed, accuracy, etc) and the prize list - $100 gift card for phparch.com, a one year subscription or *drum roll* an autographed picture of ProPHP podcast hosts Paul Reinheimer and Sean Coates.

To submit your entry just email it over to c7ycontests@phparch.com with the subject of "C7Y Contest - February" on it.