For the Symfony developers out there, sometimes it's easy to forget a few things when it comes to getting your application ready for deployment. The Symfony-check site is here to help. It has a list of things to consider before you go live like:

• checking the "Oops! An Error Occurred" error page
• checking the "Credentials Required" error page
• ensuring a favicon exists
• test the production server to be sure it's ready for the Symfony application
• setting up the escaping

Each of these items (and many more) give more information when you click on them of how to perform the check and a checkbox next to it so you can work your way through it easily.

Matt Williams has a quick post to his blog about using the combination of PHP and Apache's Solr to more powerful searching than something like a MySQL fulltext index can give you.

When data sets get large and MySQL database querying to search become too load heavy and slow, full indexing is required. Several solutions are available but in this article I will be demonstrating the Apache foundations Solr Java Lucene implementation. For this a Java build will be required. Linux or Mac is less of a problem but for windows I use the Apache Tomcat server.

He shows ho to use the Solr PHP interface to make the connection to the server, ping it to be sure the connection is working and, based on the schema and search information, return a set of results in a PHP object.

On his MSDN blog today Brian Swan has a new post looking at connecting PHP with the OData SDK (more on that here) to work with data over a HTTP interface/web service.

I'll start with an over simplification: OData is a protocol for creating data services that make it possible to retrieve and edit data using HTTP. More specifically, OData enables you to define a data model that lets clients address data as resources by using URIs. Data is retrieved and updated by using the HTTP actions of GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and MERGE.

He shows how to use the OData SDK for PHP to connect to a data source, build out some pre-generated classes and pull down the information from the Northwind service based on a customer ID.

Brandon Savage shares some of his thoughts on software development and how creating the spec for the project affects it by basic it on a rule - the 15 Minute Rule.

Since most developers (myself included) are also generally bad at developing good specs, it becomes even more difficult to create such a rule. However, I heard a great adage from someone recently that I thought summed up how developers can see specs nearly perfectly. "If it takes more than 15 minutes to determine what it is that you're building, the spec wasn't done properly".

He suggests that not a single line of code should be developed before the spec is completed and, since developers usually aren't the ones creating the spec, they need to have a clear, concise definition of what's expected before hand.

On PHPBuilder.com today there's a new tutorial from Jason Gilmore showing how you can interface your application with the Google Analytics service through its HTTP API. Jason shows ho to use the Google Analytics API PHP Interface tool to take most of the hard work out of it.

Google Analytics (GA) is the de facto solution for analyzing web site traffic and trends. [...] If you're not regularly relying upon Google Analytics or a similarly capable analytical service, then you're left at a major competitive disadvantage in terms of your ability to effectively understand the interests, demographics, and technical requirements of your audience.

Using the Google Analytics site is a pleasant experience, but having to log in just to check your numbers each day can get tiresome quickly. Jason introduces a way, using the GAPI class to pull things like traffic statistics and account information. More examples of how it can be used are shown on the GAPI website.

New from NETTUTS.com there's a recent tutorial showing you how to use the GD graphics library (bundled with PHP) to resize images on the fly.

Ever wanted an all purpose, easy to use method of resizing your images in PHP? Well that's what PHP classes are for '" reusable pieces of functionality that we call to do the dirty work behind the scenes. We're going to learn how to create our own class that will be well constructed, as well as expandable. Resizing should be easy.

The simple eleven-step process (don't worry, it sounds worse than it is) has you go from a basic image and, with the help of a custom PHP class, create a resized image based on a type such as "landscape", "auto" or "exact". Full code is included for you to cut and paste or you can download the source and have the full code ready and waiting.

• Ibuildings techPortal: 8 Reasons Every PHP Developer Should Love Javascript
• Juozas Kaziukenas' Blog: Zend Framework is NOT bloated
• Johannes Schluter's Blog: Future of PHP 6
• Chris Roane's Blog: 10 Things I Wish I Knew as a Web Programmer 10 Years Ago
• Matthew Weier O'Phinney's Blog: Module Bootstraps in Zend Framework: Do's and Don'ts
• Alan Sorkin's Blog: The Difference Between A Developer, A Programmer And A Computer Scientist
• Pablo Viquez's Blog: Zend Framework Documentation
• PHPBuilder.com: Customize Your WordPress Blog with PHP Plugins and Widgets
• P'unk Avenue Blog: Faster, PHP! Kill! Kill!
• Phil Sturgeon's Blog: CodeIgniter 2.0: Everything you need to know

On the Symfony blog there's a recent post from David Herrmann looking at how to run a TV station (well, its website at least) using the Symfony framework on top of a few other various technologies.

When I (David Hermann) joined OktoLab in mid-2008, we had to face some serious challenges. The previous (and at that time only) developer had abandoned the company at short notice and left a mess of various software services that were either loosely or not at all coupled. [...] This situation was not caused by the developer, it was a result of the evolution of the company. The situation had gotten out of hand though, so there was a huge pressure to improve it.

His choice of framework for this new software tool was, obviously, Symfony and he combined it with some javascript/ajax, working with the external-facing APIs the other data sources had and what all of his work got for him and the company - a 30% drop in how long it took to get things done.

Eli White has an interesting new post about the PHP community and the conferences/presentations associated with it. According to his commentary, it's being done wrong and not quite how other communities/companies do it.

The PHP 'conference circuit' if you will, is one that has grown up in a different manner than other conference circuits that I've been familiarized with in the past (Java, Adobe, 'Web', etc). In most of these other areas, the speakers are PAID to attend. [...] On the flip side, in the PHP conference circuit, every speaker there, in fact, is PAYING for the right to attend that conference and be a part of it.

He talks about the fact that speakers will have more than just the cost of the conference to worry about. In fact, sometimes they can all add up to more than the conference would have cost them normally.

In the end, my point is this. I feel that given the nature of all of these conferences. That the organizers and attendees need to understand the situation and treat the speakers not as a '˜professional speaker that they paid good money to see'. But as what they really are. Far more akin to an Open Source Developer, who is donating their time for the better good and education of the masses.

On the Ibuildings techPortal site today Ivo Jansch takes a look at a type formatter they've created to work with Zend Studio to more correctly format your code as per the official coding standard for the Zend Framework.

One problem we have with the current versions of Zend Studio is that its default Zend Framework formatter is not consistent with the official Zend Framework coding standard. Luckily, that can be easily fixed. Sandy Pleyte, one of our developers, created a formatting file for Zend Studio that does adhere to the formal standard. There might be a few issues here and there but we've found it to work much better than the default one in Zend Studio.

If you're a Zend Studio user and want to get a little less frustrated at the formatting it uses for your applications, download the tool and follow the instructions in the post to get it working in your IDE.