This Week’s Link List (April 8, 2011)

Once again, lots going on this week. I found the two articles about Zitec deploying their PHP social networking application to Windows Azure to be especially interesting. And, of course, topics for math geeks are near and dear to my heart…maybe I should make “For the math geek” a regular category? Enjoy…

• Zitec is an IT consultancy that runs its PHP social-networking application on the Windows Azure Platform. This case study and interview are very insightful:
  • Case study: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000009526
  • Interview with CEO Alexandru Lapusan: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/archive/2011/04/05/10149777.aspx

• Windows Azure news…
  • Maarten Balliauw walks you through lightweight PHP application deployment to Windows Azure: http://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2011/04/04/Lightweight-PHP-application-deployment-to-Windows-Azure.aspx
  • Looking back one year after deploying to Windows Azure: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bartr/archive/2011/04/05/sxp-one-year-later.aspx
  • In this podcast, Corey Fowler digs into running PHP in Windows Azure as well as looks at differences between Azure and EC2: http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?ShowNum=651

• Tips and tricks…
  • Ten (potentially) super useful PHP code snippets: http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/10-super-useful-php-snippets
  • A PHP quick reference for performance and security: http://css.dzone.com/news/php-quick-reference
  • Detect your server OS in PHP: http://css.dzone.com/news/detecting-your-serverNeed to validate URLs? This investigation of the filter_var() function and it's possible flags might be helpful: http://www.hashbangcode.com/blog/revisiting-filtervar-and-filtervalidateurl-548.html
  • Ben Lobaugh shares how he uses PHP to strip empty lines and comments from files in a directory: http://ben.lobaugh.net/blog/759/php-strip-empty-lines-and-comments-from-files-in-a-directory-recursively
  • Using CSS PHP/Apache to connect to SQL Server: http://forums.codecharge.com/posts.php?post_id=114931
  • Lorna Mitchell explains how to downgrade a PECL module: http://www.lornajane.net/posts/2011/Downgrading-a-PECL-Module

• General web development…
  • I don't know that I would agree with the statement that "Javascript's sorting mechanism is a model of simplicity," but I this was interesting nonetheless (sophisticated sorting in Javascript): http://blogs.sitepoint.com/sophisticated-sorting-in-javascript/
  • Keep your user's attention by letting them know how long tasks will take: http://www.davedevelopment.co.uk/2011/04/04/asynchronous-cache-priming-with-progress-bars-via-gearman-memcache-and-dojo/
  • Brandon Savage lays out steps for eliminating validation blind spots: http://www.brandonsavage.net/validation-blind-spots-hurt-real-users/

• Framework news…
  • Gonzalo Ayuso shows how to use a Zend Framework class to reflect over PHPDoc: http://gonzalo123.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/reflection-over-phpdoc-with-php/
  • Helpful in understanding how Zend Framework applications work : http://3engineers.clariondoor.com/creating-3-step-layouts-with-zendlayout
  • Jason Gilmore investigates the PHP Fat-Free Framework as an alternative to frameworks with steeper learning curves: http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/php-fat-free-framework/Jason_Gilmore04052011.php3

• Cal Evans interviews Chris Cornutt and Chris Hartjes on Voices of the Elephpant:
  • http://voicesoftheelephpant.com/2011/04/07/interview-with-chris-cornutt/
  • http://voicesoftheelephpant.com/2011/04/05/interview-with-chris-hartjes/

• Meta development…
  • Microsoft suggesting NoSQL standardization?! Cool. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/224335/microsoft_researchers_nosql_needs_standardization.html
  • An interesting discussion about private vs. protected methods: http://www.vancelucas.com/blog/protected-vs-private-scope-arrogance-fear-and-handcuffs/
  • Some thoughts on how TDD and Pairing increase production: http://anarchycreek.com/2009/05/26/how-tdd-and-pairing-increase-production/

• For the beginner…
  • This probably isn't interesting for the PHP expert, but it was new for me (variable functions in PHP): http://php.net/manual/en/functions.variable-functions.php
  • Headers explained (Last Modified, Expire, and eTag): http://www.xpertdeveloper.com/2011/03/last-modified-header-vs-expire-header-vs-etag/

• Miscellaneous…
  • Congrats to Maarten Balliauw for being a Microsoft MVP (again!): http://lucvdv.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/new-mvps-for-belgium-lux-announced-full-list-attached/
  • There is a site for creating dummy images?! http://www.xpertdeveloper.com/2010/09/generate-dynamic-dummy-images-with-php/

• For the math geek…
  • This is SO cool...using prime numbers to generate realistic tiled backgrounds: http://designfestival.com/the-cicada-principle-and-why-it-matters-to-web-designers/
  • But why?! http://phpir.com/benfords-law

Have a great weekend!

-Brian

Share this on Twitter