Ulf Wendel has a new post to his blog pointing out the new mysqli quickstart that's been added to the PHP manual.

New in the PHP manual: a mysqli quickstart. You are new to PHP but you know how to code, you know SQL, you know relational databases and MySQL? Then, I hope, this is for you. All you need is a quick overview on the concepts? The rest is in the reference section! Here you go.

It includes sections on:

• making connections
• executing statements
• stored procedures
• multiple statements

In a new post today Martin Sikora has points out a Google Chrome extension he's created that lets you view some of the basics of the PHP manual without leaving the browser.

Finally, I released my extension for Google Chrome called PHP Ninja Manual (Ninja - because I like Avinash Kaushik'sblog and he always call people who are very skilled in something as "Ninjas"). I was always lazy to open PHP documentation every time I had to look at some method definition and its parameters so I made this extension which is actually preparsed official PHP manual available instantly in a popup window.

You can see a screenshot of it in action here including the auto-complete searching and the example of the function's summary details. If you try it out and have feedback, go over to the forum for it and leave your comments.

The PHP documentation team has made a new announcement about some major changes that are happening with the PHP documentation - three interesting new additions to this part of the PHP project.

PHP has several [three] new documentation features that the community should be aware of.

They've introduced the following:

• PHP manual pages (man pages) - pman - installed via PEAR
• An enhanced CHM (Windows help) version of the manual with user notes
• The Online Documentation Editor allowing edits from anyone.

In a new post to his blog Maarten Balliauw shows a method that's a bit more lightweight than some of the other Windows Azure deployment methods you might have used in the past - creating a .cspkg from scratch to describe your project.

Those of you who are deploying PHP applications to Windows Azure, are probably using the Windows Azure tooling for Eclipse or the fantastic command-line tools available. I will give you a third option that allows for a 100% customized setup and is much more lightweight than the above options. Of course, if you want to have the out-of-the box functionality of those tools, stick with them.

He's broken it out into five steps to keep things clean and simple:

Creating a baseline package template (three XML-based definition files)
• Creating a script to auto-install the PHP runtime for you on deployment
• Creating a startup task or two to populate some environment variables for you
• Creating a packaging script to handle the actions you might need to do over and over for deployment
• Test the created package

You can download and test out this sample template by grabbing this archive.

From the UncleCode.com blog there's a recent post showing you how to install PHPUnit manually without PEAR if you either don't have the access or just want to install it yourself.

This tutorial is an easy start to test your PHP source code which is build using classes i.e. OOP's with/without wamp/xamp doesn't really matter. The key to PHPUnit installation is set correct include path of your PHPUnit directory and extend correct phpUnit class in test case file.

They give you a quick eight step process that'll have you up and running in no time (including the download of the latest PHPUnit version). He shows how to set the paths in a sample unit test file to point to the right location for PHPUnit based on the root directory of your application. The runner can then find the correct files and classes when you run your tests.

In a new post to his blog today Sean Coates talks about some of his work with Iterators in PHP and how, despite a bad example in the manual, he solved his issue (and updated the PHP manual too).

In the back end, we have models that connect to CouchDB. These models implement the Iterator pattern to allow easy traversal of a record's keys. [...] Little did I realize that this implementation is very broken. [...] Over the past few years, I've implemented many iterators in this way, using PHP's implicit array manipulation functions (reset(), current(), key(), next()).

He points out some issues with how PHP handles array index tracking and how, in the previous PHP manual example, it incorrectly checked for "false" against the current array value. His updated version doesn't have this issue. You can see it here.

In a quick new post to his blog Richard Thomas talks about a change in one of the two things there's the most complaints about when it comes to the Solar framework - documentation.

The 2 biggest complaints about Solar have been it being in "beta" and lack of good docs.. Well its been out of beta and in release for a few months now so that should no longer be a concern. As for docs you can find the new and improved manual here.

The documentation isn't 100% complete but its head and shoulders above some of the automatically generated manual pages the project has had before. They're also looking for interested parties on writing a book (collaboration anyone?) about the framework to help developers get started. You can find out how to get involved in his post.

In a new post from SitePoint's Server-Side Essentials blog today, Abbas Suterwala talks about something that could save you and your WordPress website in a pinch - a simple backup of everything.

No matter how much you trust your hosting company, disasters happen to everyone. You might also decide to change hosts, in which case you'll need to migrate your WordPress installation. In either case, you should have a full backup of your WordPress database and files from which you can easily restore, without losing any important data.

He shows two different ways to get the job done - one, doing a manual backup, is a bit more complicated than the other method, using plugins to help out - but they both end up with the same result. For each method there's detailed instructions and screenshots (as well as links to the two plugins they chose to use).

From CMStr.com there's a new tutorial showing you how to set up Joomla manually just in case something happens with the install and you need to change things yourself.

Why would I want to do a manual install when my web host has this Fantastico thingy that will install Joomla for me? Good question. [...] If you are building websites for a living, and or plan on using Joomla a lot, then you really need to start doing your own installs. [...] If you are an experienced parachute jumper, you would pack your own chute right? This is no different.

Screenshots are included to help make the process easier as they walk you through setting up the basics like language settings and database information. They also touch on the FTP setting (off for security) and removing the admin user's information to help make things a bit more secure. It's not a comprehensive list of the things you'd need to do to get it 100% configured for just what you need, but it's a start.

In another of his "Solar Shorts" Richard Thomas talks about the road to Solar 1.0 as broken down into three points that will lead up to the framework's 1.0 release.

If you haven't taken a look at the Solar Framework in the past now is the time to do so as the three biggest complaints about Solar are on the road to be resolved.

Some of the things that might have made you skip over the framework in the past are being worked on right now:

• Solar has been in perpetual alpha/beta forever..
• Documentation, all the cool Frameworks have cool docs.
• Examples, sometimes the easiest way to learn is to study a working application

For more information about the Solar framework, head over to SolarPHP.com and grab the latest copy.