PHP READING LIST

For those of you who wish to delve more deeply into PHP..."IBM developerWorks has put together a PHP recommended reading list. It provides resources for developers and admins adopting PHP and tackling advanced topics such as building extensions and writing secure code. There's also a list of books and blogs for keeping up with changes to the language itself."

Sources:
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/06/03/16/2146207.shtml [threaded discussion]
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-read/ [reading list]

BLOGGING FOR PROFIT

The below could provide the basis for a very interesting and hands-on class experiment. In a time when the functionality, ease-of-use, and easthetics of the weblog form are the main drivers for the development of the new model of "doing business on the Web", the simplicity and process-streamlining offered by the below described integration of a free weblog tool and e-commerce tools (ie. shopping cart, paypal) could potentially be revolutionary. Read on...

Zero to (free) shopping cart in sixty minutes

This cycle can feasibly be completed in under an hour; most of the time is spent filling out forms over and over again. PayPal account verification steps may take up to 5 business days, though, but that shouldn't prevent purchases from taking place.

1. Using Blogger, get a blog (and configure it to use your FTP server, if so desired).
2. Using Picasa, create a new Hello account and configure it for the blog.
3. Using PayPal, get a merchant account.
4. Using Picasa and Hello, send a merchandise photo with a short description to BloggerBot.
5. Using PayPal's merchant tools, generate an "add to cart" button for the item.
6. Using Blogger, edit the new post to include a title, a description, and "add to cart" and "view cart" buttons.

Feedback welcomed as to how this performs for y'all out there.. One interesting side effect of this process is that, without any advertising on the site whatsoever, it's a new way to (theoretically, at least) make weblogs profitable.

Note: Many people distinguish weblogs from websites by looking for the series of timestamps that are commonly associated with a series of "posts". If you remove the dates from the main page, others may then choose to say that it is not a weblog. This is up for debate, I suppose; at what level of post-processing and customization does a weblog stop being a weblog?
[via Richard Soderberg]