This Week’s Link List (January 28, 2011)

You might need more than a weekend to get through all of these links. My favorite is Ashay Chaudhary’s post about the journey to adding SQL Server support to Drupal 7. But there are lots of other interesting links, including webinar and conference announcements, and a PHP on Azure contest…

• Lots of Drupal-related news this week highlighting the new module that provides SQL Server access:
  • You can now install Drupal 7 (with SQL Server access as an option) from here: http://www.microsoft.com/web/drupal
  • Jean Paoli, General Manager of the Interoperability team at Microsoft, provides his thoughts on the latest Drupal release: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/01/24/welcome-drupal-7-a-new-version-with-greater-interoperability-with-the-microsoft-platform.aspx
  • Craig Kitterman, Senior Technical Evangelist on the Interoperability team, blogs about 4 new Drupal 7 modules (Bing Maps, Windows Live ID, OData, Silverlight Pivot Viewer): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/01/24/using-drupal-on-windows-azure-hands-on-with-4-new-drupal-modules.aspx
  • Ashay Chaudhary provides some insight into the journey to providing SQL Server support in Drupal 7: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlphp/archive/2011/01/25/drupal-7-and-sql-server-our-pdo-journey.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

• Cal Evans posts parts 5, 6, and 7 of his 6 part series (huh?) about how to be a better client for your developer. In between, he squeezed in a post about starting a project with Zend_Service_Twitter.
  • Know your budget: http://blog.calevans.com/2011/01/24/six-ways-to-be-a-better-client-for-your-developer-point-5/
  • Do the paperwork: http://blog.calevans.com/2011/01/26/six-ways-to-be-a-better-client-for-your-developer-point-6/
  • Do your part: http://blog.calevans.com/2011/01/28/six-ways-to-be-a-better-client-for-your-developer-point-7-the-secret-hidden-bonus-track/
  • In this post, Cal references two resources that were helpful in obtaining a token and secret for accessing Twitter via Oauth and in getting him off the ground with Zend_Service_Twitter: http://blog.calevans.com/2011/01/25/accessing-twitter-via-zend_service_twitter/

• Framework news
  • Nate Abele is hosting a webinar on the Lithium framework (overview + dives into patterns and paradigms): https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/500215874
  • Symfony Live conference updates (+ registration link): http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2011/01/28/symfony-live-conferences-updates
  • "Why Kohana is an awesome framework": http://shameerc.com/2011/01/why-kohana-is-an-awesome-framework.html
  • Setting up Zend_User_Agent (video): http://www.zendcasts.com/setting-up-zend_http_useragent/2011/01/
  • Jason Gilmore provides an introduction to the Zend_Cloud component: http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/zend_cloud/Jason_Gilmore01242011.php3

• PHP programming
  • The benefits of struct classes: http://qafoo.com/blog/016_struct_classes_in_php.html
  • Concurrently running multiple versions of PHP: http://olemarkus.org/2011/01/concurrently-running-multiple-versions-of-php/ (I have to point out how easy this on IIS: Video Tour of PHP Manager for IIS)
  • Gonzalo Ayuso compares plain PHP with some templating engines: http://gonzalo123.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/php-template-engine-comparison-part-2-versus-plain-php/

• Miscellaneous
  • This post raises an interesting (if not over-asked) question: Should web applications store images in the database or file system? (I'd like to think you can have the best of both: Store images in database or file system?): http://www.findbestopensource.com/article-detail/store_image_db_or_file
  • A preview release of the Microsoft JDBC 4.0 driver for SQL Server is now available (I might have to start playing around with Java :-)) : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=49c554ca-41a0-472c-b728-75df5789369c
  • Maarten Balliauw blogs about the PHP on Azure contest (win a trip to Las Vegas!): http://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2011/01/28/Introducing-the-PHP-on-Azure-Contest.aspx
  • Important dates for the ConFoo.ca conference: http://confoo.ca/en
  • I thought this was a balanced look at WebMatrix: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Microsoft-WebMatrix-Lowers-Barriers-to-Web-Development-on-Windows-773157/
  • Did you know that WebPI functionality was available from the command line? http://blogs.iis.net/satishl/archive/2011/01/26/webpi-command-line.aspx

• Just for fun
  • My, how the Stack has grown: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/01/state-of-the-stack-2010-a-message-from-your-ceo/
  • I posted this link a while back (What new features would you like to see in PHP?). Since then, the thread has seen a lot more action: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/27564/what-features-would-you-like-to-have-in-php/27898

Have a great weekend.

-Brian

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