If you've been looking for a good way to get introduced to the latest version of the Zend Framework but didn't know where to start, you might grab a spot in this upcoming webinar from Zend about the Zend Framework 1.10.

Zend Framework 1.10 sports a ton of new features, as well as completely revamped online documentation. In this webinar, Matthew Weier O'Phinney, Framework Project Lead, and Ralph Schindler, Zend Framework Software Engineer, will present a synopsis of the new features, discuss the new online documentation system and how it's built, and answer your questions about the new release.

The webinar will be happening this coming Wednesday, March 17th, at 9am PST and will be happening via WebEx. Matthew Weier O'Phinney and Ralph Schindler will be talk about the new features, current functionality that was enhanced and will answer your burning questions. To reserve your spot, head over to the registration page and enter your info.

If you're looking around for software to fill the needs of your company or group and your sights fall on Open Source software, Builder.com.au has a few suggestions for you to consider.

All open source projects, by definition, provide the end user with certain perpetual rights and freedoms in using, studying, modifying and redistributing the product. However, there is a lot of inconsistency in terms of the product quality, the governance model and the availability of support. Thus, when selecting open source components for your enterprise, it is important to do some background checks to ensure the open source product you have selected is compatible with your enterprise business model and IT standards. Below are 10 questions you can ask to evaluate open source maturity.

Among things on their list to consider are:

• Are the open source licence terms compatible with my business requirements?
• How well is the product adopted by users?
• How is this project governed and how easily can I influence the road map?
• Will the product scale to my enterprise's requirements?
• Are there regular security patches?

Following some of his recent experience in finding a new source of employment, Brandon Savage has shared some of the common questions he was given during his search for a PHP development position.

There are a large number of PHPers looking for jobs right now. After having just gone through the process myself, I wanted to put together some of the most common PHP interview questions. These questions are all non-technical, but do represent the soft side of PHP interviewing. I cannot help you if you don't have the technical skills to answer the technical questions, but answering these questions correctly is often the key to making or breaking your chances with an interviewer who otherwise has fine technical candidates.

Questions he was asked included "How did you get into PHP?", "Where do you ultimately want to be in life?" and the more random "How many gas stations are there in Los Angeles?". For each, Brandon recommends a few tips on dealing with them and includes some possible tactics on answering.

As a continuation from his previous post ("How do GOOD developers ask questions?") Mike Bernat is back with this suggestion on how should good developers answer questions.

When given a very specific question that you know has a very specific answer, your first reaction might be to blurt out the answer and be done with it. However, I like to go the extra step and ask what they've tried so far or what research they've done. I like to show them how to arrive at the answer on their own as well as provide the solution.

He suggests that it's more about the thinking behind the answer than just reciting something from memory. Anyone can memorize facts and terms (and solutions, for that matter) but a good developer will be able to explain why he came to that conclusion.

Mike Bernat has a new post that anyone, experienced or not in the development world, should read. The post is a good overview of how good developers (ones who really want a genuine answer and aren't just being lazy) should ask questions.

First of all, let me say this. If you consider yourself a developer and don't find yourself wanting to ask questions on a daily basis, you're doing something wrong. Asking questions without being afraid of humiliating yourself is critical.

His suggestions include not being afraid to over-describe the problem, speculate on what the possible answer might be (it can help to get the thoughts flowing), providing some examples of the problem you're facing and, most importantly, don't get offended by the responses you get. Sure, some might be blatantly insulting but those aren't worth the read anyway. Find value in the answers that can help, though - no matter how simplistic the advice seems.

In this new post to his blog Marius Stanciu-Sergiu suggests that if your question is "what framework should I use?" you're already headed in the wrong direction.

You're already off on the wrong foot. The reason? You're thinking you need a framework to get whatever you need done. All too often I see posts on forums: "What framework should I use for a large networking site, like MySpace?" If you have to ask, you're doing it wrong.

He suggests a few other questions you might ask instead - how to gauge framework performance, does it support memcache, what kind of templating does it allow, etc. There's no simple answer to the question of which is best for you and your project and there's certainly not a one-size-fits-all framework out there.

On the NETTUTS site today there's a new article (continuing on from this tutorial) looking at how to make a "forgot your password" system to add on to their current login technique.

In my last tutorial, 'A Better Login System', a few people commented on how they would like to see a tutorial on password recovery, which is something you don't always see in user access tutorials. The tutorial I am bringing you today will deal with just that. Using mySQLi, we will learn to recover unencrypted and (one-way) encrypted passwords.

They give you what you'll need to set up the database for the user information and the PHP code you'll need to connect to it and fetch the user's information. The script then generates an email with a custom link that will take the user to a page asking them to answer a security question before they can continue.

On the Liip blog today Christian Stocker has posted about a few common issues developers seem to have with the upload progress meter extension and a few answers to help them out.

After I released uploadprogress 1.0.0 some days ago and finally declared it as stable, it's time to write that blogpost about some of the limitations and caveats one has to know.

The post links to a demo and answers a few different questions on issues such as:

• Running it on other modules than mod_php on Apache ( like fastcgi)
• Checking if files are too big
• The position and content of UPLOAD_IDENTIFIER within the form is important
• Why not use $_SESSION for the info?
• It segfaults, when I don't include UPLOAD_IDENTIFIER

See the PECL page for the extension for more information.

In this new post to his (newly WordPress-ed) blog Brandon Savage looks at a consideration most developers think of too late and when their applications are already starting to bulge around the edges - scalability. It's the first part of this series.

Before we actually get started hacking on our code, let's make sure we've got the right questions asked and answered. We're going to need some resources, the help of others in our organization, and probably some understanding of the current system structure before we're successful in our goal. Some of these questions may seem mundane, and others will be extremely important. But we must ask and receive answers to all of them, so let's get started.

The questions touch on the topics of bottleneck sources, why scalability of the application is needed and what other services are out there that could do what I need without having to roll my own.

Michelangelo van Dam has posted his summary of his experience at this year's FOSDEM conference (Free & Open Source Developers European Meeting) and includes some answers to the "top five" questions they were asked there.

On days like these, we're a central point for information and people used the opportunity to ask us a lot of questions regarding PHP.

Their top five list varied from questions about training and certifications to where they might find a local PHP user group. Here's the full list:

• Where can I/our company turn to for advanced PHP training courses ?
• Is there a certification program for PHP developers (like for Java, .Net, ...) ?
• Is PHP enterprise ready ?
• I'm from ..., is there a PHP user group in my neighborhood ?
• Where can I get more information about PHP ?