The challenge is to secure the box not just from outside attack (something you have to do anyway, and which I'll cover later in this series), but also to make sure that code running on one website can't steal confidential data like MySQL passwords from any of the other websites.

It's not just a problem that PHP has, but it does, thankfully, have several settings and things that you can do to help. Among those on the list are things like: safe_mode, open_basedir and how PHP 6 will effect both of these. He's included settings for both of them to get you started.

A few months ago I've posted an article about running multiple Apache instances with different PHP versions. In that article I showed how to make multiple configurations running Apache on different IP addresses. By using different ports instead of different IP addresses, we can give our customers a way to check their site before it goes live.

He modifies the settings in that tutorial with a few updates he includes to make two different apache configurations - one for PHP4 and the other for PHP5. When used together, they can run two different PHP versions on the same code, just on different ports.

The ViewRenderer "action helper" is the class Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_ViewRenderer. It's primary purpose is to facilitate the automated rendering of View scripts (templates) based on the generally accepted Zend Framework conventions. It's these conventions which will cause a lot of people grief, since the previous reliance on programmers defining the template to render has likely led to inconsistent template names.

Included in the post is a list of some of the common issues developers have including "ViewRenderer is enabled by default", "Inconsistent location of template files" and "Reusing template files across Controller actions". For each, he's included a "quick hit" solution to get you back on the straight and narrow road to having a nicely working Zend Framework application.

I developed the (Atalink) site using the Seagull php framework, using the publisher module (which has recently been superseded by the CMS module).

The publisher module requires a bit of hacking to make it run effectively, especially if the site requires content pages which have different layouts. But, overall the site works well and looks pretty good, even if I say so myself ;) .

I have still had a number of difficulties, so for those of you who are planning on building a similar site, here are some of the things which I have learnt.

Included among his "lessons learned" were some tips for using the publisher module, solving a server issue, fixing browser-related problems, and the integration of Google Maps.

With its fast deployment cycles, PHP is ideal for companies short on skilled programming resources and/or facing tight time to market deadlines. PHP's features and benefits are so compelling it should be considered for your SOA solutions.

They talk about the PHP integration kit that IBM offers to make using PHP as simple as plugging in things in the right places and how that would fit in with a "Service Component Architecture" and "Service Data Objects". They even give a simple example of a SCA component that works much like a PHP class.

They wrap up the article with a look at some asynchronous messaging with PHP - using the SAM extension to communicate messages back to the server for common tasks (like putting text messages in a queue).

I've had problem with Zend Framework not being able to find its files, which is usually not good. The "workaround" of adding the realpath works, but would be overwritten when updating. Besides, going through the files just to add realpath locations is a hassle.

The php_value only works with mod_php, so good luck if you are running PHP using CGI/FastCGI. Actually, you'll have no luck, because it won't work using CGI.

Essentially, it uses the ihi_set function to define the correct include path. Check out the comments of the post for some other suggestions.

Welcome to this review of "PHP5 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach", published by Apress. Although PHP5 has been available for quite some time now, I must admit that I'm still beginner myself when it comes to PHP5's new features, so this book is exactly what I need, and I bet many others do as well. Read on to learn more about this book.

The bulk of the review covers the contents of the book (all sixteen chapters) and includes the topics of introductory OOP techniques/terms, using dates/times, regular expressions, functions, using forms, and using MySQL.

The reviewer's opinion of the book was not good. While the name implies a book focused on "what's new" in PHP5, it's really more of a beginner book, taking a developer through more of a "what's PHP" tour. There were a few points where PHP5 features shined through, though.

w2box - Web 2.0 File Repository for PHP is actually a little more than just an upload script, it's a full-blown file management script. It shows you what has been uploaded, allows you to view/delete files that have been uploaded and allows you to upload with a progress bar. (DISCLAIMER: After being wrong on the last progress bar discussion I do not present this as a REAL progress bar but in my exhaustive testing of uploading a single file to the demo site, it did seem to be accurate.) Aside from the fact that the progress bar uses a cgi written in Perl (why? Why? WHY?) it does seem to be a pretty cool (and free, did I mention free?) piece of code.

The rest of the brief post mentions some of the features that w2box has, including direct deletion using Ajax, and the ability to protect/hide uploads easily.]]> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:44:56 -0500