Last week I wrote about how me being active in Open Source helped boost my career in several ways. Now this is all very interesting, but how to go about actually contributing to Open Source. That is the topic of this blog post. How to look for the right project to contribute to, and what ways are there of contributing? Let's have a look.

He looks at things like finding the right project for you and some of the ways that you can give back to that project including:

• Core code/patches
• Plugins
• Documentation
• Promotion
• Deliver presentations
• Support

He expands out each topic mentioning more specifics on what that contribution type entails and even a few examples of projects on some of them.

A friend of mine who shall remain nameless pointed a post out to me on the PHP DZone web site recently. Noting that the article's content was misinformed at best and downright ignorant at worst, even when examining it sheerly from the author's knowledge of PHP as a language, this friend asked that I set the author straight.

He mentions his comments on the post correcting the author on some points as well as a more "clued in" post on the xml.lt website talking about using PHP's DOM functionality instead.

This is a detailed description about how to set up a Fedora 8 server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of Fedora 8, but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications as well.

It's a seven page process with plenty of screenshots and settings to help make the installation nice and easy.

• A tutorial from Sabbir about installing PHP and MYSQL on an IIS server to get phpMyAdmin up and running (part one).
• A post from Drew Robbins about extensibility in PHP applications running on IIS.
• A how-to screencast on getting PHP and FastCGI working happily with IIS.

I want to show you how to install Xoops on Ubuntu. I used the Ubuntu 6.10 Server Edition, but it will probably work on other systems as well. Xoops is a modern Content-Management-System which can be extended with a variety of modules. Further information about Xoops can be read on the official Website.

The process is pretty simple, there's basically only four or five main steps to the process, but some have several substeps (like the Xoops install screens that take up a lot of step four).

I have produced a HOWTO for both our system administrators and our developers. I've condensed this down to be a bit more generic and useful to anybody looking to establish their own PEAR Channel for the same purpose. My example hereon is that your channel is at pear.example.com.

Come along on the journey of a developer making their very first PEAR package and deploying it to a PEAR channel using a real-word example. Seasoned PHP developers be packaging and deploying PEAR compatible packages in no time.

He walks you through how to install the PEAR package creator, package up your application into a PEAR package, and how to make it available anyone and everyone that wants to give it a shot (including the PEAR commands they'll need to get it).

This is a detailed description about how to set up a Fedora Core 6 based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of Fedora Core 6, but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications as well.

The install uses Apache 2, MySQL 5, Postfix, BIND9, proftpd, dovecot, and Webalizer to round out the system. There's screenshots and steps the whole way, so you're sure to be able to follow along easily. PHP is installed via a package so it makes things simpler.

He recommends three steps to follow to help you on your way:

• purchase/borrow the Sams Publishing book from Luke Welling and Laura Thomson, "PHP and MySQL Web Development"
• listen to the podcast he's created
• and the most important step of all - code (practice).

People without experience in programming tend to think that you need ot learn everything about the language first, then try to go code something in it. Unfortunately, they realize (sometimes after a lot of work already) that that's just not the way to go.

Find a project - simple or hard - just find one. Even if you don't know the "best" way to do it, try. It can only help, and trust me, you'll learn more from doing than just reading any day. The book is a great starting place, and good for examples, but the real learning happens when developers do what they're meant to do - develop.

They describe what it is, how it works, and what kind of situations it's best suited for before getting into the code. They show you how to reference values as objects, grab their attributes, and how to use the XPath function to pick out just the data you need.

This article doesn't look to be comprehensive on the topic, but does provide a great introduction to the hows and whys of using cURL in PHP. There's no installation procedures here, so you'll need to already have it installed, but other than that, you should have a great grasp on things by the time you're through.