Every time I start a new project with CodeIgniter I find myself tasked with something, often a small thing, that I've never "solved" before. I try to use these moments as opportunities to explore PHP and CodeIgniter a little bit deeper. Often times I surprise myself by learning something new, or surprise myself at having forgotten something relatively "basic". Here are 5 things I've discovered or rediscovered in the last few years. If you're a CI veteran, some of these will be old news to you, and some might be new.

Here's his list of five handy tips:

• There is an optional second parameter in $this->uri->segment()
• Any library can have a configuration file
• remove_invisible_characters()
• CodeIgniter 2 allows for libraries to have drivers
• Views can be returned as data with a third parameter

You can find out more about the CodeIgniter framework on its website.

The author, Geoffrey, with some help from Arnaud Limbourg, has created a PEAR channel to use in installing Zend Framework. As with any PEAR channel, the first thing you have to do is tell PEAR to go "discover" the channel.

Cal gives the simple commands to get the process underway, showing both how to discover and install the framework from this new resource.