In a new post to his blog Ulf Wendel has pointed out that the mysqlnd query cache plugin quickstart is posted on the docs.php.net site.

New in the PHP manual: a quickstart for the mysqlnd query cache plugin. PECL/mysqlnd_qc, the mysqlnd query cache plugin, is transparent and ease to use. But, how? Some pointers have been given in assorted presentations, here on my blog and in some, few examples from the manual. Fixed. You can now browse a quickstart to gain a quick overview.

The query cache plugin can replace the query caching MySQL does and can help with things like multiple storage options (memory, APC, Memcache, etc) and almost no changes to your application. There's also a method (mysqlnd_qc_get_query_trace_log) that comes with the plugin that gives you a "stack trace" of every query run through the MySQL interface.

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

Josh Adell has posted a quick start guide to getting your application up and running on the PHPFog PHP platform as a service offering.

Being it was Christmas and all, I decided to give myself a present and sign up. I was very surprised by how easy it was to get up and running. I managed to build a simple "echo" service in about i.8 minutes, following roughly these steps.

It was as simple as "launching" a new custom application, waiting for it to become available, cloning the git repository and setting up a simple app. In his case , it's a basic Silex-based app that makes a simple site to greet users with a "Hello world" message. Throw in a basic .htaccess file and the app is all set to push.

For anyone looking to get started helping on the Zend Framework 2 project but not sure where to begin, Robert Basic has some recommendations of places to look.

OK, here are some tips and resources so you can start helping out and contributing to Zend Framework 2.0.

Things on the list include:

• a getting started page on the ZF wiki
• Fixing unit tests on the framework
• working on the port of ZendService
• Porting patches from ZF1 to ZF2
• Check out the quickstart on github to get the ball rolling

Michael Kimsal has put together a Zend Framework starter kit currently posted over on github here.

Feel free to fork it and send me pull requests. There's a load of things I'd like to do to/with it, including a default basic authentication and user mgt system, a basic forms generator, some menu stuff on the side, and some other small stuff. It's got Doctrine built-in, and ready to go with a sample book/author object set, although no sample *data* yet, nor any examples of how to use the code specifically. Maybe I'll add some of that soon.

The ZFKit brings helps you get started quickly by giving you an example of a site that combines Doctrine, PHPUnit and the Zend Framework into one "ready to go" bundle.

If you're looking for a stripped down, bare-bones look at how to get started with interfacing your PHP script with Facebook, take a look at this quick guide from Emran Hasan.

The new Facebook API has already spread over the application developers and if you're like me, you've already got your hands dirty to see how this new thing works. If you have tried to follow the documentation to authorize/get session in your canvas application, it is likely you have already hit roadblocks. Well, I am no savior but I have glued together a few clues and got it working for myself.

He walks you through the three simple steps: getting the new API, setting ip a correct configuration file and creating a sample "main page" for your application that echoes out a "Hello World" sort of message to each visitor.

Matthew Weier O'Phinney has a recent post to his blog giving a quick introduction to the Zend_Application component of the Zend Framework and how it can be used to create custom resources.

Zend_Application works in conjunction with Zend_Application_Bootstrap, which, as you might guess from its name, is what really does the bulk of the work for bootstrapping your application. It allows you to utilize plugin bootstrap resources, or define local bootstrap resources as class methods. [...] Additionally, Zend_Application_Bootstrap provides for dependency tracking (i.e., if one resource depends on another, you can ensure that that other resource will be executed first), and acts as a repository for initialized resources.

Matthew gets right into the code, looking at how to create a simple bootstrap (for the "zf" command line tool to make the project) and the contents of the application.ini file. From there he looks at creating resources - bits of code that can be executed as a part of your bootstrapping process. His example shows the implementation of "_initCurrency" and "_initRegistry" methods.

In this recent post to his blog Bogdan Albei looks at using the Zend Framework to "quickstart" the development of a simple web service.

Web services are software systems designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. Nowadays if you want to connect external systems, you probably want or have to use web services. What I will discuss here is how to get your own SOAP web service up in minutes.

Bogdan looks at creating a simple controller with actions for displaying a WSDL file and for handling actions that might come in. Sample code is provided as well as example code.

Akash Mehta has posted a look at unit testing for PHP applications with the SimpleTest tool in a new post to the Developer Tutorials blog.

We recently looked at front-end testing of web applications with Selenium. Today, we'll take another approach to testing your PHP applications: backend unit testing for your actual PHP code. As part of our posts on test driven development, here's a quick intro to using SimpleTest to test your PHP applications.

He introduces the SimpleTest software and shows what a sample test might look like for a simple math question (testing to see if the result of the addition is correct). He also points out a good tutorial on the SimpleTest website to help you get started.

Eirik Hoem has posted about the latest update of his favorite framework being ready for download - Prado.

My favorite PHP framework just got a new release, adding several new components and fixing 30-ish bugs. The bundled JavaScript libs (Prototype / script.aculo.us) have also been upgraded, so that should help lots of people struggling with the old versions.

You can download the framework from its website and, if you're new to it, check out the tutorial to get you started. Prado is a free PHP5-based rapid application development framework that doesn't go with the usual MVC format of most frameworks. It opts instead for "logic be stored in classes and presentation in templates".