On PHPMaster.com today they share a list of helpful tools and tricks that you can apply not only to your PHP development, but programming in general. They highlight code templates, using hotkeys and Ditto.

There are also other helpful pieces of software such as libraries, code snippets, and third party applications. In this article I'll show you how I use a feature built into NetBeans along with two other applications to increase my productivity when programming on Windows. These tips and techniques offer a different way of thinking about things which should be helpful to any developer, regardless of his skill level.

They start with a look at the Code Templates available in NetBeans (other IDEs/editors have a similar feature) to provide an easier starting place for your code, a tool called AutoHotKey that lets you define custom hotkey shortcuts and Ditto, a clipboard manager that lets you manage your copy/pasting better than the single-shot functionality Windows normally has.

On NetTuts.com today there's a new screencast posted showing you how to create an Alfred extension with PHP (OS X only, obviously). Alfred is "a productivity application for Mac OS X, which aims to save you time in searching your local computer and the web. Whether it's maps, Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia, you can feed your web addiction quicker than ever before".

The tutorial walks you through the process of creating the extension (requires v0.99). His example extension is a shell script that pulls contents from Lipsum.com and puts it on your clipboard. He uses the PHP Simple HTML Dom Parser library to extract the contents of the page.

If you're just looking for the source, you can download the extension here. For more information on creating extensions in Alfred, look at this new post on their blog.