PHP News Desk

Microsoft WebsiteSpark

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:45:00 EST

Did you know that PHP runs on Windows?? Run Drupal, WordPress, SugarCRM, or other PHP-based apps on Windows today with the free Microsoft Web Platform Installer. Microsoft WebsiteSpark is a specially designed program for PHP Web developers and designers to help you explore running on Windows. This program enables you to get new business leads to grow your business, and receive the software, support and trainingyou may need, at no cost for 3 years. To find out how to start getting new business leads, and leveraging the benefits of WebsiteSpark please enter your information here to download the Program Guide and receive enrollment instructions.

Move Over BI, Here Comes PI - Performance Intelligence

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:30:00 EST

"As companies such as MySpace continue to expand the richness of their site, the big thing is trying to seek a higher level of customer experience by replicating "beyond capacity" in a test environment, so that a company can see what it is exactly that they will need when traffic surges to peak levels and beyond, so that they know the "risk points" of their own success," Tom Lounibos, CEO of SOASTA, told SYS-CON's Jeremy Geelan in an interview with Cloud Computing Journal on the day that SOASTA announced a significant test of the newly launched MySpace Music Videos hub using the Cloud.

Madoff Programmers Busted

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:15:00 EST

Two Madoff computer programmers who authorities say made the whole decades-long $65 billion Ponzi scheme possible were arrested Friday and brought up on criminal charges of conspiracy, falsifying the books and records of a broker-dealer and falsifying the books and records of an investment advisor. The SEC, which never tumbled to the ripoff before Madoff up and confessed last December, added civil charges.

Zend Teams with Varien

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:30:00 EST

Zend has gotten Varien, apparently a hot e-commerce platform, to ship the free Community Edition of Zend Server, the PHP web application server with the free Community Edition of its open source Magento e-commerce software. Varien, in turn, will contribute a number of native e-commerce features such as payment gateways and shipping calculation modules to the open source PHP framework, Zend Framework, which is an integrated part of Zend Server.

Microsoft Nudges Eclipse Developers to Windows-Ware

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EDT

Microsoft was in one of its interoperability moods Wednesday and said that developers using Eclipse, the great open source IDE, will be able to target Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, its Azure cloud operating system and Silverlight. This renewed open source invasion – Microsoft’s no stranger to Eclipse although it’s not a member – is being spearheaded by two open source allies of Microsoft: Canada’s Tasktop Technologies for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and France’s Soyatec for Azure and Silverlight. Tasktop’s CEO, by the way, created Eclipse’s Mylyn project.

What Could You Do With Your Code in 20 Lines or Less?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:12:00 EDT

What could you do with your code in 20 Lines or Less? That's the question I ask (almost) every week for the devcentral community, and every week I go looking to find cool new examples that show just how flexible and powerful iRules can be without getting in over your head.

Well we made it to 30 editions of the 20LoL. Soon we’ll break 100 iRule examples that are under 21 lines of code each. Pretty neat stuff, if you ask me. This week is the hoolio show, it seems. The guy is just a monster in the forums, what can I say? I sure am glad he’s on our side. I’ve got three examples that I randomly pulled from the forums because I thought they were cool. Only later did I realize that he had penned them all. So big thanks yet again to Aaron and all his hard work to better the community.

Pre-loaded searches based on host name

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&postid=86016&view=topic

This cool little example is a neat spin on a simple HTTP redirect. The basic idea is to redirect to a given search site and set the search parameter to be the original host name of the request. So I could request bobschickenshack.com and be redirected to a search for bobschickenshack on the search page of my choosing. Very cool idea, and darn easy to implement.

 
 when HTTP_REQUEST { 

    # Rewrite the host header to www.yahoo.com and the
    # uri to /search?q=$host where $host is the originally requested hostname 
    HTTP::header replace "www.yahoo.com" 
    HTTP::uri "/search?q=[HTTP::host]" 
 }

More fun with nested switch

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&postid=85807&view=topic

I know we’ve covered switch before, but this is yet another good use of it and I really like the idea of selecting snatpools based on which server the request is going to end up going to. I trimmed this one down a little but only by removing a few of the possible snatpool options, all logic is the same, even though it’s just an excerpt of the overall solution provided.

 when LB_SELECTED { 
    switch [LB::server addr] { 
       222.35.42.126 { 
          switch [IP::client_addr] { 
             192.168.3.11 { snatpool snat_crt_test2 } 
             default { snatpool snat_crt_pool } 
          } 
       } 
       221.218.248.155 { 
          switch [IP::client_addr] { 
             192.168.3.11 { snatpool snat_uni_test2 } 
             default { snatpool snat_uni_pool } 
          } 
       } 
       default { snat automap } 
    } 
 }

Updating referrers

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&postid=85807&view=topic

Hoolio does a good job of not only pointing out the inherent problem with trying to replace referrer headers with hostnames from requests, but giving an option that works as desired even if it’s a little bit different direction than the OP was headed. This is a good example of in-line string replacement with string map, too, which is an often under used command that’s worth a look.

 
 when HTTP_REQUEST { 

    log local0. "[IP::client_addr]:[TCP::client_port]: New [HTTP::method] request to [HTTP::host][HTTP::uri]\ 
       with Referer [HTTP::header Referer]" 

    if {[HTTP::header exists "MyHeader"]} {  
       log local0. "[IP::client_addr]:[TCP::client_port]: Updating Referer to\ 
          [string map -nocase {http:// https://} [HTTP::header Referer]" 
       HTTP::header replace Referer "[string map -nocase {http:// https://} [HTTP::header Referer]" 
    } 
 } 
 when HTTP_REQUEST priority 501 { 
    log local0. "[IP::client_addr]:[TCP::client_port] (501): Current Referer [HTTP::header Referer]" 
 }

There you have it, 3 more iRules to show off just how much you can do in only 20 lines of code. Next time we’ll break past the 100 examples mark. See ya then.

Technorati Tags: 20 lines or less,20LoL,DevCentral,F5,iRules,Colin Walker

#Colin

Zend Server Gets a Plane-like ‘Black Box’

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:45:00 EDT

Zend Technologies, the PHP company, has hung Zend Server 5.0, which support IBM i as well as Linux and Windows, out for public beta. A production release should be out by the end of the year. The widgetry is a major new version of the company’s enterprise-ready PHP application server, including Code Tracing, which is supposed to slash problem resolution time by up to 50%.

Swine Flu Stocks are Seeing Their Largest Pullback Yet

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:06:00 EDT

After posting large gains throughout 2009, swine flu stocks are seeing their largest pullback yet. For investors looking to position their portfolios for flu season, there are more ways to trade the flu than ever. Investors have large-cap pharmaceutical plays to choose from, and some of the more volatile, small-cap names have proven the efficacy of their drugs, while others are too far behind in their clinical trials to capitalize on the current pandemic.

IBM, Microsoft, Others in Lock-Picking Cloud API Push

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:15:00 EDT

Half the apps on the Internet are written in PHP. That gives Zend Technologies, the PHP house, a stake in the cloud. So it’s rounded up cloud merchants Microsoft, IBM, Rackspace, GoGrid and Nirvanix and has gotten them to support its new open source drive to create a so-called Simple API for Cloud Application Services that developers can write to – or, Zend thinks as likely, rewrite to – to get native cloud apps.

New Simple Cloud Storage API Launched

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:30:00 EDT

PHP/Zend, Microsoft, IBM, Rackspace, GoGrid and Nirvanix have launched a new low level cloud API for PHP called the "Simple Cloud API". The API can best be described as low level storage focused API (An API for other API's). In a sense it's a way to create other higher level programmatic API interfaces such as REST or SOAP using an easy, yet portable PHP programming environment. The Simple API allows you to easily interact with a variety of cloud interfaces including support for File Storage, Document Storage, and Simple Queue services. The Simple Cloud API is not a web service; it is an API that exposes common operations in application services offered by different vendors, making it easier for PHP developers to build ‘cloud native’ applications.

KITE (Keynote Internet Testing Environment) 3.0 Soars Higher Than Ever

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:12:00 EDT

Keynote Systems, a provider of on-demand mobile and Internet test & measurement solutions for continuously improving the online experience, today announced Version 3.0 of KITE (Keynote Internet Testing Environment). KITE 3.0 is Keynote’s free desktop tool for real time testing, diagnosing and troubleshooting of Web performance issues from the end user perspective. KITE 3.0 makes it easy for all Web teams, especially QA testers, Web developers and IT Operations teams, to optimize Web site performance from the end user perspective. And KITE 3.0 arrives just in time for online retailers preparing their sites for the upcoming 2009 holiday shopping season.

The Curious Case of Build Release Management eBook

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:15:00 EDT

Build Release Management (BRM) is truly the next generation of IT Change Management. With BRM, you can get compliant and implement total process automation while continuing to work with whatever version control tool, testing application or IDE you are currently using. Download this essential eBook "The Curious Case of Build Release Management" and learn the basics of what BRM is, why users love it and why every application development team should consider it.

Is Microsoft as Free as Open Source?

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:30:00 EDT

Jon has a point; Microsoft’s restricted (i.e., Express) editions are as free as the open source alternatives. This is undeniably true, since the purpose of many software vendor’s “Express” edition is to compete against open source on price. However, the difference is that with open source you get the full-powered editions. For example, Linux (e.g., CentOs), Xen (for virtualization), PostgreSQL/MySQL, Apache, Java, Tomcat, AspectJ, Lucene, Hibernate, and Eclipse are all robust, full-featured, and powerful technologies available for free to developers. The variety and the quality of product available from the open source community are just astonishing.

VS.Php for Visual Studio 2010

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:45:00 EDT

Now that VS.Php 2.7 is out, I'll like to share our progress with VS.Php for Visual Studio 2010.

If you are currently participating on the VS2010 beta program, you can try VS.Php for Visual Studio 2010.

Here is a screenshot of VS.Php running on Visual Studio 2010:

There are a number of things broken but basic functionality is there.

You can download the latest build here: vsphp_en_2010.exe

Aspect-Oriented Programming and You

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:30:00 EDT

One of the coolest parts of the new SproutCore View layer is its ability to use aspect-based programming to add behaviors to views. Aspect-based programming is built on the premise that often objects that don’t follow from the same class hierarchy may in fact need similar behaviors. This is especially true in GUI programming when designers come to you and say something like “I came up with this new widget - it looks kind of like a progress bar but it acts like a button when you click on it”.

IT Personnel Hit Hard by New Flu Outbreak

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:54:00 EDT

IT presenters are being hard-hit by a rampant new disease: the F5 Flu, a variation of Death by Power Point. Read on to find out about transmission, symptoms, and most importantly, how to get vaccinated.

Open Source Selenium Web Application Testing System

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:15:00 EDT

In my recent blog post – Get more out of functional web testing: How to correlate test reports with server side log information? – I discussed the problem that testing results are usually not linked to the log and diagnostics information captured by the application under test. The blog entry offered a way to link the two sides using HTTP Tagging via an HTTP Proxy. Tagging individual Web Requests allows linking each individual request executed by the testing tool with the transactions that are executed on the server side. Your logging framework or diagnostics solution can then take this tag and link the transaction to the originating web request. Tagging Web Requests with Selenium

What Could You Do with Your Code in 20 Lines or Less?

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:30:00 EDT

What could you do with your code in 20 Lines or Less? That's the question I ask (almost) every week for the devcentral community, and every week I go looking to find cool new examples that show just how flexible and powerful iRules can be without getting in over your head. Here are a few more cool iRules from the forums. This week I’ve included one of the simplest, shortest iRules to ever make the 20LoL. It just struck me as something quite useful that I’m willing to bet several people will look at and say “oh, that’s handy” despite the fact that it’s not complex or long. Keep the code coming.

VS.PHP 2.7 Adds Support For Silverlight Integration

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EDT

We pleased to announce the release of VS.Php 2.7 for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005. This release introduces a number of new key features and enhacements of existing features. Silverlight One of the most exciting new features is Silverlight integration. With VS.Php 2.7, you can develop Silverlight applications and host them in your server side PHP application. VS.Php makes it easy to develop, debug and deploy these types of applications.

David Eaves Talks About Vancouver’s Open Data Initiative

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:34:00 EDT

As more and more data become available as a matter of course, the examples set by organisations such as MySociety become increasingly attainable for us all. Other than ensuring that it is ‘open,’ do we need to be asking for more from those making data available? And once it’s there, will its use and scrutiny move beyond the enthusiasts and activists to encompass the population at large? David shares his views on these and other questions during our conversation. Back in May, ReadWriteWeb reported on a Motion put before legislators in the Canadian city of Vancouver. Duly passed, the Motion commits the city to three closely related ‘open’ agendas; the City of Vancouver will move as quickly as possible to adopt prevailing open standards for data, documents, maps, and other formats of media; the [...]

Using a Perl Debugger with Server Side Triggers

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:30:00 EDT

This article describes a method to use a perl debugger on trigger scripts without advanced interprocess debugging tools. Using a perl debugger with a V4.x server side trigger launched by the server is very difficult and encounters two known obstacles: The server will fire the trigger and the debugger will run in a thread of the detached server process; the debugger will start but will probably not communicate with you. However, if you manually started the server via a shell command then the perl debugger will start, accept input from the keyboard, then you will loose contact with the debugger; it does not have exclusive access to the keyboard because it is running in the context of the detached server process. The next command you type will go to the shell, not the debugger. It gets messy from there.

Zend Upgrades

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Zend Technologies, the PHP commercializer, has put out a major new release of Zend Studio, its IDE for the PHP language. Designed to improve productivity for professional-grade web application development, Studio 7.0 supports the newly released PHP 5.3 language as well as tight integration with Zend Server and Zend Framework. Meanwhile, Zend Framework has been updated for the fifth time in two years.

Rackspace Cloud APIs Open Sourced

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:30:00 EDT

Rackspace Hosting Thursday open sourced the specifications for its Cloud Servers and Cloud Files APIs under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. It says it worked with developers in an open community to create the specifications and they can now copy, implement and modify the specs, which Rackspace figures should help enable a "truly open cloud." Of course Eucalyptus already offers an open source cloudware.

Walter Cronkite's IT Career Advice

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:00:00 EDT

IT managers can look to an unlikely source for career inspiration: the late Walter Cronkite. The guiding principles that made Cronkite, "the most trusted man in America" can help impact your career in the world of high tech. The late Walter Cronkite as a role model for IT managers? At first glance, we might not see the connection between "the most trusted man in America" and high tech management. But if we pull back the layers of how Cronkite approached his job, there are solid day-to-day career lessons for those working in IT.

Configuring the PHP Version of Eclipse 3.5 RC4

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:30:00 EDT

Step by step instructions to configure Eclipse for PHP with the WampServer on a Windows platform. The most recent version of Eclipse, version 3.5 RC4, is used.

Windows Azure PHP Development Kit

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:15:00 EDT

Microsoft announced at TechEd India — a show running simultaneously with TechEd 2009 in Los Angeles, a new software development kit for people interested in building apps in PHP for Windows Azure cloud. The PHP SDK for Windows Azure, a.k.a. PHPAzure, is an open source project, available for download from Microsoft CodePlex. The SDK provides consistent programming model for Windows Azure Storage (Blobs, Tables, Queues).

In Defense of Joel Spolsky

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:15:00 EDT

Joel Spolsky doesn't need my help in defending himself. But since he's my favorite blogger and a person I highly respect, I feel obligated to speak up. Mr. Curt Monash has written an article implying that Joel overestimates his importance while not achieving that much since he was able to grow his company to "only" 25 people.

Ulitzer to Give Drupal 6.0 Its Biggest Scalability Challenge Yet

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:30:00 EST

Ulitzer.com, which initially made the headlines with its “job descriptions from the future,” announced today that it will launch its Ulitzer “beta” site with more than 16,000 authors and more than 1 million original articles, published in more than 5,000 topic-specific online journals. Each journal offers up to 14 content-specific sections, written by the world’s most-respected authors in their fields. All Ulitzer authors will earn 100% of their Google AdSense revenues.

Aptana PHP with AJAX and Cloud Computing Features

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:00:00 EST

Aptana has launched the 1.0 version of Aptana PHP, an open source, integrated development environment (IDE) for PHP application development. Aptana PHP extends Aptana Studio, the Eclipse-based IDE for AJAX and Web development that is on track to exceed 2.8 million downloads before year-end. Aptana PHP features code assist and instant syntax checking features simultaneously support PHP, AJAX libraries, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

An Introduction to Ant

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:15:00 EST

Writing shell scripts to automate the build and deploy process for ColdFusion applications is not very much fun. The Jakarta Ant project is an open-source, cross-platform alternative that makes it easy to automate the build and deploy process.

HP and NetSuite to Deliver Cloud Computing Solutions

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:41:00 EST

According to AMI Partners, a leading SMB research firm, 62 percent of midsize businesses see customer relationship management as strategically important, yet only 14 percent have implemented it due to return on investment pressures and limited resources. Further, while 64 percent think enterprise resource planning is important, only 16 percent have implemented it for the same reasons.(2) HP’s infrastructure technology and robust channel network combined with NetSuite’s hosted SaaS suite offer SMBs an easy-to-implement, reliable business management solution delivering an affordable alternative to on-premise solutions in this tough economic environment.

Is PHP the Answer to Interoperable Cloud Computing?

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:15:00 EST

"There is already sort of a cloud ecosystem out there in the world of PHP," notes Sun's Tim Bray in a recent post. "There are a whole bunch of competitive vendors where you can upload a bunch of .php files and database dumps and with only a moderate amount of twiddling, get your app running," he adds.

Aptana Delivers Cloud Computing Solution

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:00:00 EDT

Aptana has announced the general availability of Aptana Cloud, an online service that integrates with Eclipse software development tools to enable hosting, scaling and managing Web applications in "The Cloud." Aptana Cloud provides an end-to-end solution for deploying, scaling, staging, managing and monitoring your Web sites and Internet applications.

Appcelerator Named "Platinum Sponsor" of AJAX World RIA Conference, October 20-22, in San Jose, California

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that the leading global rich Internet technology provider Appcelerator named "Platinum Sponsor" of SYS-CON's upcoming AJAX World Conference & Expo 2008 West, which will take place October 20-22, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California. Appcelerator, Inc. is an open source software company specializing in products and services for rapid rich Internet application (RIA) and SOA-based services development. The Appcelerator Platform SDKs enable developers to develop rich Ajax and DHTML applications using cross-browser widgets, a unique Web Expression Language and other open standards-based languages like HTML and CSS - without the use of Javascript. Appcelerator supports most languages, including Java, Ruby, PHP, .NET, Python and Perl.

Learn Server-Side, PHP-Generated AJAX

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:00:00 EDT

As web-based applications are pushing the "Rich User Experience" envelope, AJAX is quickly becoming a standard front-end for any PHP application. But unfortunately as PHP applications that utilize AJAX are being forced to morph from two-tier to three-tier architectures, pushing code to the client adds inherent issues with security and code maintenance. New techniques are being developed which focuses on server-side generated AJAX, allowing developers to code AJAX applications in PHP instead of JavaScript. This session will discuss and demo many of these new techniques which will allow for the development of rich, AJAX user experiences without needing to code any JavaScript whatsoever.

IBM's Got Its Head in the Clouds

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:00:00 EDT

Reminding people of how its backing was the making of Linux, IBM, to no one's surprise, has thrown its support behind cloud computing, that delicious nexus of every chi-chi buzzword technology currently in vogue: Web 2.0, rich Internet applications, software-as-a-service, SOA, grid computing, Web Services, virtualization and utility computing. IBM calls its initiative Blue Cloud - like it could have another name - and claims it's a 'game-changing model for Internet-scale computing,' providing customer with just the right size computer power while at one and the same time being 'green' as well as 'self-healing and self-managing' based on open standards and Linux. Lordy, if this thing was a cute guy with money, it would be every mother's dream.

Red Hat Pits Itself Against VMware

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:00:00 EDT

Watching VMware stock and its market cap spike since it IPO'd must have had Red Hat positively pea green with envyWatching VMware stock and its market cap spike since it IPO'd must have had Red Hat positively pea green with envy - so green in fact that it's gonna try taking VMware on by pushing the Xen virtualization integrated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Red Hat's new goal is to underpin 50% of the world's servers by 2015. And since virtualization is projected to take over the world by then that's a lot of Xen virtualization - and there's no extra cost in it like there is with VMware since it's bundled with RHEL. (Red Hat's telling people they'll save $20,000-$30,000 a server.) Red Hat claims it's got its first 18,000 virtualized servers - although it's a little fuzzy about whether those 18,000 are actually in production - anyway, it's confident they'll get there eventually after all the testing and evaluating is done.

Stage Set for Suite of Python Tools to Integrate Web Development with Cloud Computing

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:45:00 EDT

Aptana announced the acquisition of Pydev. The combination of Pydev with Aptana Studio, which is approaching 2.3 million downloads, will bring Aptana's excellence in AJAX development ease to the Python community and bring Python support to Aptana's product lines. The move further reinforces Aptana's standing in open source products and related services for organizations who use dynamic Web application languages such as AJAX/JavaScript, Ruby/Ruby on Rails, PHP, and Python.

Server-Side, PHP-Generated AJAX

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:00:00 EDT

As Web-based applications are pushing the "Rich User Experience" envelope, AJAX is quickly becoming a standard front-end for any PHP application. But unfortunately as PHP applications that utilize AJAX are being forced to morph from two-tier to three-tier architectures, pushing code to the client adds inherent issues with security and code maintenance. New techniques are being developed which focuses on server-side generated AJAX, allowing developers to code AJAX applications in PHP instead of JavaScript. This session will discuss and demo many of these new techniques which will allow for the development of rich, AJAX user experiences without needing to code any JavaScript whatsoever.

Photon Announces New Drupal Training Center

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:45:00 EDT

Photon Infotech announced the opening of the Photon Drupal Training Center, a new facility that will leverage and expand Photon's experience and expertise with Drupal, an open-source PHP-driven Content Management System. With a goal of certifying 200 new Drupal experts a year, Photon will have the industry's largest and best trained army of Drupal consultants in the world.