Installing PHP on Windows

The Windows version of PHP has always lagged behind the otherplatforms in terms of features and stability, however, thesituation has improved drastically during the last six or somonths, with PHP on Windows reaching feature parity with otherplatforms. Developing with PHP on Windows is now easier than everand, in some cases, has resulted in important PHP innovations.Learn how you can set up a development environment to compile anddevelop PHP on Windows within minutes.—by Hank Janssen and Pierre A. Joye

Introduction to Silverlight and the HTML DOM

This article is intended to serve as an introduction toMicrosoft Silverlight for developers that are probably not .NETdevelopers. Learn how to get started integrating your PHP apps withthe Silverlight features.—by Joe Stagner

Configure and Optimize PHP on Windows

It has been pretty hard in the past to figure out how toinstall and configure PHP on Windows. Additionally, when you didget it installed, finding information on how to optimize PHP waseven harder to find. Due to the recent work done by the PHPCommunity and Microsoft, doing exactly that is now easier thanever.—by Ruslan Yakushev and Hank Janssen

Pre-Launch Checklist

Shortly after most new sites are launched, the creatorsdiscover that some necessary elements have been forgotten. Pilotsemploy a pre-flight checklist to avoid problems while airborne, soit is only natural that web sites should have a pre-launchchecklist to avoid problems once users begin visiting thesite.—by Eric David Benari

Getting Started with the SQL Server Driver for PHP

Microsoft recently produced a PHP extension to communicatewith SQL Server 2005 and 2008 databases, the SQL Server Driver forPHP. This article will cover the basic workings of this newextension, demonstrating how to connect to SQL Server, executequeries, retrieve results and manage transactions.—by David Sceppa

Security Roundup: The Cost of Security

Take a look at the costs of securing your code up front orrepairing it later. What are the actual costs, and what are thequestions you need to ask yourself when deciding?—by Arne Blankerts

PEAR Corner: Quality Assurance Teams—Truth or Myth?

In the last couple of years, there seems to be a growingtrend in the PHP world where application and library developers putout claims that their piece of code is high-quality and thoroughlytested. Indeed, in many cases, this is more than true, but how canyou really guarantee quality like this?—by Helgi Þormar Þorbjörnsson

Collecting Garbage: Cleaning Up

In this second part of the three-part column on the newgarbage collecting mechanism in PHP 5.3, we’ll dive into a solutionto the problem with circular references.—by Derick Rethans

Enterprise PHP: The Rise of Frameworks

Frameworks are more popular than ever, and seem to havereplaced the CMS as the implementation of choice for websites. Inthis article, Ivo interviews Matthew Weier O’Phinney, softwarearchitect for Zend Framework, on several topics, such as thereasons why frameworks are so popular.—by Ivo Jansch

exit(0): Thinking in Circles

When the budget is tight and we have to develop for multiplebrowsers and platforms, creativity loses out.—by Marco Tabini