Andrew Vayanis Developer, Gamer, Thinker

I recently published an article trying to shed some light on the Zend_Form component, in particular, when using it with Zend_Config_Ini. In the article I presented a config I developed while trying to learn Zend_Form myself, but unfortunately realized that using generic elementDecorators comes with a price.
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In my previous post Zend Framework, A First Look, I discussed the lacking nature of ZF’s documentation, in particular, with regards to Zend_Form. I have since then learned that this is partly due to the fact that Zend_Form is a relatively new component. However, I still wanted to make use of Zend_Form in my current project and decided to trudge through the learning curve of creating a simple custom login form in conjunction with Zend_Config; the end result being an easy to maintain, custom form and this guide. Hopefully, this guide will make it easier for anyone else looking to take advantage of this very cool feature.
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Having used Code Igniter for some small projects at work, I recently decided to take the time to acquaint myself with the Zend Framework(ZF) so that I could build my own comparison between two of the most, in my opinion, developed and used PHP frameworks. While I love the flexibility and functionality offered by ZF, I have become very frustrated and annoyed with some of their documentation. Even though it is detailed and expansive, it is no where near complete and somewhat frustrating to use.
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I recently found myself writing a REST web service, which, in my opinion, is the easiest way to create a web service, for a project at work. Using XML.com’s How to Create a REST protocol as my Guide, I went to work. However, when I tried to create a service to update some data, I wasn’t sure how to send my data in a POST request using PHP. After some stumbling around, I found what I was looking for on Wez Furlong’s blog which led me to PHP’s documentation on HTTP and HTTPS wrappers.

The following is a code snippet from the HTTP and HTTPS documentation that shows how to easily send data using HTTP POST:
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After another week of configuring this site, I have found another gap in functionality that I would like to have for my Wordpress installation. Namely, the ability to integrate or centralize my site’s external services. For this reason, I have started my first Wordpress plugin, Command Center, as a way to give myself and of course, anyone else who shares this need, a way to integrate certain external resources into their own Wordpess control panel. This plugin is still far from being mature, but I think it is at least stable and usable as a way to store, access, and manage a list of links.

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