A recent question on a mailing list was the best practices for UTF-8 and PHP/MySQL. The following are the configurations I used in my multi-language projects.

MySQL UTF-8 Configuration

# my.cnf
[mysqld]
default_character_set = utf8
character_set_client       = utf8
character_set_server       = utf8
[client]
default_character_set = utf8

PHP UTF-8 Configuration

#php.ini
default_charset = "utf-8"

Apache UTF-8 Configuration

#httpd.conf
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
<VirtualHost>
    AddCharset UTF-8   .htm
</VirtualHost>

HTML file UTF-8 Configuration

 <meta charset="utf-8">

PHP file UTF-8 Configuration

header('Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8');

MySQL connection (extra precaution)

SET NAMES utf8;

Shell UTF-8

And last but not least, even editing files in shell can be affected (.e.g UTF-8 data to be …

Installing Apache2 With PHP5 And MySQL Support On Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (LAMP)

LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache2 webserver on an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server with PHP5 support (mod_php) and MySQL support.

Recently, got an opportunity to do some implementation using Ajax and PHP. Having previously used NetBeans IDE 6.1/6.5 for PHP, it was an obvious choice to come back to NetBeans IDE again.

Although, I am yet to download the latest version, I am currently using 6.8 and I enjoyed every bit of it, while playing with CSS and jQuery for the first time, while implementing Ajax with PHP.

As I am gonna stay with PHP for sometime now, so I guess I better get my NetBeans IDE upgraded, before I miss out on any useful features.

It’s good to be back

After updating the AVGFree virus definitions, I was surprised to find that Zend CE (Community Edition) 4.0.6 had a worm in the JavaServer.exe file. There was greater surprise when Zend CE 5.3.9 (5.6.0-SP1) also had the same worm.

This is the message identifying the worm (click on it to see a full size image), and you can read about this particular worm on the Mcafee site:

Unless you have the full version of AVG or another security program to try and fix the file, you can only quarantine the file. Quarantine or removal disables Zend CE from working. It begs the questions, “how does Zend release a core file with a worm?”

I’ll update this when there’s a fix to this problem.

exec("/path/to/convert -strip -quality 85 -thumbnail 160x100^ -gravity Center -crop 160x100+0+0 +repage '$img_path' '$thumb_path'")

Engineering cultures differ from shop to shop. I have been in the same culture for 13 years so I am not an expert on what all the different types are. Before that I was living in Dilbert world. The culture there was really weird. The ideas were never yours. It was always some need some way off person had. A DBA, a UI "expert" and some product manager would dictate what code you wrote. Creativity was stifled and met with resistance.

I then moved to the early (1998) days of the web. It was a start up environment. In the beginning there were just two of us writing code. So, we thought everything we did was awesome. Then we added some more guys. Lucky for us we mostly hired well. The good hires where type A personalities that had skills we didn't have. They challenged us and we challenged them. On top of that, we had a CEO who had been a computer hacker in his teens. So, he had just enough knowledge to challenge us as well. Over the …

Installing Apache2 With PHP5 And MySQL Support On OpenSUSE 12.1 (LAMP)

LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache2 webserver on an OpenSUSE 12.1 server with PHP5 support (mod_php) and MySQL support.

We’ve seen the rise of open source software in the enterprise and also beyond the IT industry, but the real keys to openness and its advantages in today’s technology world — where efficient use of cloud computing and supporting services are paramount — exist in open application programming interfaces, or APIs.

Open source software continues to be a critical part of software development, systems administration, IT operations and more, but much of the action in leveraging modern cloud computing and services-based infrastructures centers on APIs. Open APIs are the new open source.

Read the full story at LinuxInsider.

The latest episode of our “Meet The MySQL Experts” podcast focuses on MySQL & PHP! Andrey Hristov and Johannes Schlüter from the MySQL Connectors Team talk about various ways PHP developers can use MySQL, and also how they can leverage the MySQL Query Analyzer to optimize queries.

Enjoy the podcast!

For additional information about MySQL & PHP, check out our last special edition newsletter.

The latest episode of our “Meet The MySQL Experts” podcast focuses on MySQL & PHP! Andrey Hristov and Johannes Schlüter from the MySQL Connectors Team talk about various ways PHP developers can use MySQL, and also how they can leverage the MySQL Query Analyzer to optimize queries.

Enjoy the podcast!

For additional information about MySQL & PHP, check out our last special edition newsletter.