The Suburban Chicago PHP & Web Development Meetup

Back when I worked on Pick systems, it was common for Pick developers to gripe about the way Java programmers always had a browser window open, pointing to Google or Sun’s Java site. While today’s programming environments offer a lot of flexibility, the days of knowing an entire programming language and its standard libraries by heart are gone.

If you find yourself checking the PHP docs at php.net a lot, the PHP devlopers have provided PHP.net Search Bars for the popular Windows browsers, and a Sherlock plugin for OSX — not sure if it works in Spotlight.

I have mine up in Firefox’s “bookmarks” toolbar, so I can just click it to open up a new search sidebar next to whatever I’m working on at the time.

It’s much better than surfing over to php.net every time I want to find something out, and lets me leave Firefox’s search box pointed to Google for anything else I want to look up.

I’ve always kept a coffee can next to my bed for collecting my spare change at the end of the day. But now, even the banks want a few bucks to count through a full can of coins. Now, I use the Coinstar machine at the local Jewel.

Coinstar doesn’t charge any fees if you take your money in a gift card or e-certificate, and Amazon is among the retailers they deal with (as are Starbucks and iTunes). A couple of times a year, I take my coins when I go shopping and end up with enough for one or two technical books that I’ve been wanting to read, but didn’t want to spend the money on. This “found money” is a great way to catch up on my reading.

Zend posted video “webinar” on their website explaining why you should be planning your migration to PHP5 now, rather than later.  You will need a zend.com account, but they’re free.  If you’re worried about privacy, you might even find one that works at BugMeNot.

Then again, if you’re looking for any excuse you can find to not migrate to PHP5, you might find a good one at Stop PHP5 (NSFW – language).