On the PHPro.org website, Kevin Waterson has written up an introduction to the handy autoloading functionality that comes with PHP5 releases - the __autoload method from the Standard PHP Library (SPL).

The SPL __autoload() method is one of the Magic Methods supplied in PHP. The __autoload method is called whenever a class is instantiated and will load the classs the the first time it is called. No longer is include(), require, include_once() or require_once needed as the SPL autoload takes care of this interally.

He looks at how you can use it to load a directory of classes, how to use multiple autoloads in a single script and how to use it with interfaces to register a loader and include it as needed.

The NETTUTS site has this new tutorial posted today about the creation of a site with a user registration and membership functionality built in.

A tutorial for the very beginners! No matter where you go on the internet, there's a staple that you find almost everywhere - user registration. Whether you need your users to register for security or just for an added feature, there is no reason not to do it with this simple tutorial. In this tutorial we will go over the basics of user management, ending up with a simple Member Area that you can implement on your own website.

They use a MySQL database to store the users' information, show how to create the login form to test the user's credentials and the registration form to make signup easy. They also thrown in a dash of CSS to help style the forms into something a bit more pleasing to the eye.

DevShed continues their look at security in PHP applications in this third part of the series, a focus on filtering and login systems for your applications.

Any web site that is selective in the kind of users that it wants to grant access to will need some method of filtering. This filtering is usually done through a login system. This (and more) is what we will be building.

The site is made up of a few key components - login/logout pages, password management, a registration page and various configuration and settings files. They include everything you'll need, including the HTML and CSS to make things look exactly the same. The backend is driven off of a MySQL database to store the users and their account info.

Christopher Jones points out a free event that Oracle is having at its Headquarters (in Redwood Shores, CA) - "Experience Oracle, PHP & Ruby/Rails".

Oracle is running a free workshop at its Headquarters on August 25th. This is a call for developers interested in developing applications in PHP, Ruby/Rails, Java, .Net or even wanting to use Oracle's free SQL Developer tool or learn web development with Oracle's APEX product.

They'll be providing lunch and the information, you just show up and soak it all in. You can find more information about the event here (and register to reserve your spot).

Eirik Hoem has posted a new look at a function that can be amazingly helpful when you have a script with issues that needs a little extra help cleaning up after itself - register_shutdown_function.

Scripts tend to die, and that's not usually nice. We do not want to show the user a fatal error nor a blank page (display errors off) . PHP has a function called register_shutdown_function which lets us set up a function which is called at execution shutdown. What this means is that our function will be executed when our script is done executing / dying and PHP execution is about to shut down.

He suggests various things that can be done with the functionality, including checking for successful script execution (via a false variable that can be checked for success).

This year's Dutch PHP Conference has been officially announced:

Ibuildings and Zend Technologies are proud to organize the second Dutch PHP Conference on June 14. Plus a pre-conference tutorial day on June 13. Both programs will be completely in English so the only Dutch thing about it is the location. Keywords for these days: Know-how, Best Practices, Networking, Tips & Tricks

This year's even will be happening somewhere in Amsterdam and "big shot" speakers like Lorna Jane Mitchell, Zeev Suraski, Sebastian Bergmann, Matthew Weier O'Phinney, Fabien Potencier, Marco Tabini, and Ivo Jansch will be presenting. If you register before April 14th, you can get in on the Early Bird Special of 350 Euro for both days, 295 Euro for the Tutorial day or 100 Euro for just the conference.

You can get the full story on this year's even (including the schedule) from the conference's main website.

Christopher Jones is trying to bribe you to come to this year's PHP Quebec conference - he'll give you an elePHPant if you show (as sponsored by the OTN).

This year's PHP Quebec conference will be happening March 12th through the 14th in Montreal at the Sofitel Montreal Hotel. There's still spots available and you can still register (only 20 days left!) on the conference website. You can purchase tickets for just the conference, for just the PHPLab event or you can bundle them both together and attend both events.

If you haven't gotten your tickets for this year's PHPLondon conference, you might want to jump on it and reserve your spot soon. The deadline for the Early Bird discount is about to come up at midnight on February 16th.

We've also got less than 50 tickets left, so there is a good chance we'll sell out before then. The standard price tickets are £100, should there be any left.

You can submit your registration on their site and reserve your spot today or, if you're just looking for some more general information, their main site has it all.

The Zend Developer Zone has both announced a winner for their ZendCon commercial contest and posted another contest on their site today:

Now for our grand prize winner, a free ticket to ZendCon '07: Chris McKinney [with his slogan to end the commercial] 'a shiny badge with your name on it!'

The next contest follows in a similar theme, but this time the prize at stake is three free nights at the hotel where the conference is being held, the Hyatt Burlingame. Entering this contest is even easier than the last one - especially if you're already headed to the conference. All you have to do is register before September 12th - it's that easy!

On the JSLabs website, Justin Silverton has posted five cool things that you can do with PHP in a Windows environment:

Many PHP examples out there are designed for a linux/unix operating system. I am going to give some examples of some interesting functionality that only works with php running in a windows environment (IIS or apache).

Here's the list:

• Eject the CD-ROM
• Read and write from/to the registry
• Register and un-register phpscripts as a windows service
• Print pages/data
• List the current system processes

Each item has sample code and a simple explanation to get you started using it.