Performance Management Opportunities

In this issue, Zeev Suraski and Brad Young tackle an issuethat is becoming more and more important: performance enhancementsfor PHP applications.

With the Web experiencing continued growth, the problem of beingable to squeeze the last CPU cycle out of each web server to bothsave money and reduce complexity is a reality we all have to dealwith at some point.

Zeev and Brad take a look at PHP’s strengths and weaknesses inthe area of performance and caching, comparing them against thoseof other technologies available to web developers.

This articleis a must-read for all PHP developers—from the beginner tothe seasoned professional!—by Zeev Suraski

Curses! Writing Cool Shell Applications With PHP

Marco Tabini writes about the nCurses bindings for PHP andhow they can help you write killer shell applications that usemouse input, multi-level windowed displays, and much more.—by Marco Tabini

SNMP Management With PHP

Harrie Hazewinkel, author of the PHP-SNMP module, guides youthrough the benefits of using PHP to create tools that can manageyour network through SNMP.—by Harrie Hazewinkel

A Concrete Look At Database Abstraction Layers

Maxim Maletsky tackles the topic of developingdatabase-independent applications by presenting an abstractionlayer that you can use with most database systems.—by Maxim Maletsky

Creating A Multi-Item Visual Catalogue System With PHP & Internet Explorer

Written by Davor Pleskina, author of his famous PHP IDE(which we also review in this issue), this article introduces theart of writing e-commerce catalogue system, from their inceptionthrough the basket and checkout process.—by Davor Pleskina

Writing a Web-Based PDF Converter

Ever wondered if you could find a cheaper alternative to allthe commercial PDF distillers? Marco Tabini shows how you can writeone of your own—and for free—using PHP and a handful ofother open-source applications.—by Marco Tabini

Directing Mail With qmail s maildirs

Jonathan Sharp’s words will show you how you can build acomplete webmail system without using the IMAPextensions—which means fast execution and fewerheadaches.—by Jonathan Sharp