PHP date.timezone warning fix

OK, Have you gotten this (or similar):

PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for '-8.0/no DST' instead in Unknown on line 0

I am running PHP 5.3.0 on my Windows XP, and have spent the better part of the day to try to get rid of this warning and finally managed to do it. How, you say?

The breakthrough came after I have read this instructions from the PHP web site Changes in PHP datetime support. Here is part of it:

Since PHP 5.1.0, there has been an extension named date in the PHP core. This is the new implementation of PHP’s datetime support. Although it will attempt to guess your system’s timezone setting, you should set the timezone manually. You can do this in any of three ways:

• in your php.ini using the date.timezone INI directive
• on your system using the TZ environmental variable
• from your script using the convenience function date_default_timezone_set()

All supported timezones are listed in the PHP Manual.

Notice that you can set your system’s timezone setting using php.ini, set TZ environment variable or from your php script.

The first option did not work for me. The third option does not work for php scripts that are not written by me, so the only option left is to set environment variable TZ. That finally saved the day!
On Windows XP:

1. go to My Computer
2. View System Information
3. Advanced Tab
4. Environmental Variables
5. Add New Variable with name ‘TZ’ and value whatever your timezone is. In my case is ‘America/Los_Angeles’.

That’s it. I hope this saves somebody few hours of searching.

Say Hello to the Newest Kindle

Amazon came out with a new smaller 6″ diagonal Kindle. It goes for $259 and has international wireless coverage. Check it out at Amazon.com.

Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Following this post on Flare Data Visualization library, here is one more entry for visualization. Includes Data , Information, Concept, Strategy, Metaphor and Compound Visualization, Enjoy!

“B.S.” Stands for Business-Speak

Flare Data Visualization

Flare is an ActionScript library for creating visualizations that run in the Adobe Flash Player. From basic charts and graphs to complex interactive graphics, the toolkit supports data management, visual encoding, animation, and interaction techniques. Even better, flare features a modular design that lets developers create customized visualization techniques without having to reinvent the wheel. View the demos and sample applications to see a few of the visualizations that flare makes it easy to build.

Zend, Microsoft, IBM join forces to simplify cloud-app devlopment for PHP coders | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

As this article says all the right buzzwords are part of a newly unveiled Simple API for Cloud Application Services. It’s an open-source initiative that currently includes Zend, Microsoft, IBM, Nirvanix, Rackspace and GoGrid as the founding members. (No Google and no Amazon, however.)  Here you can read more : Zend, Microsoft, IBM join forces to simplify cloud-app devlopment for PHP coders | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com.

A Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) system for PHP

Anyone, that has searched the web for anything related to PHP,  sooner or later must have come accross the web site of  Tony Marston. It is very rich source of ideas and information, and it is worth visiting any time you have a moment to spear. One of the topics that web developers tackle often is the issue of  providing accurate and flexible access to the web site users. One way to do this is by using RBAC or Role-Based Access Control system. This system is most ofter implemented with a database, but this is not a requirement. Recently I looked again at one of  Tony Marston’s articles about RBAC implementation for PHP and I thought, I share the link with you. I hope it will help or inspire somebody. Enjoy!

Modular applications in ZF 1.8

OK, so you jumped ahead and upgraded to Zend Framework 1.8. What now? One of the new features, that came along with this new release, was the possibility of individual module bootstaping. Or.. does it? If you find the whole thing about module bootstraping confusing, read this blog post and may be it will become a little bit clearer. It was for me. Let us know how you did. Happy coding!

Have you made the jump to Zend Framework 1.8?

Over the weekend I  have finally made the jump to 1.8. There, of course, are few changes in this new version, some of the most significant is the introduction of Zend_Application and Zend_Tool. Several blog posts helped me along the way, but I should be honest with you, it took me a good number of hours to assimilate the new “Bootstrap.php” paradigm and move my project to the the new way of doing bootstrapping. If you are starting new project, take a look at this clrean writeup. I, however, was not starting a new project and needed something that will accomodate a modular directory structure. A good start was this blog post. I hope this two links will help somebody to make the jump to the new Zend Framework version less painfull.

Geography Of Jobs

I have stumbled upon this post and thought it is pretty interesting.

Saving Bulgaria’s Jews: An analysis of social identity and the mobilisation of social solidarity

Interesting read.

Phing

One of the best Phing resources I have come across is the blog of Raphael Stolt. I have used Phing based scripts for backup and code generation, but that is not all you can do with it. As Raphael is showing in its blog, you can use it for unit testing, phplocing (see my post on phploc), refactoring, code sniffing, database generation and so on.

phploc

phploc is cool tool, by Sebastian Bergmann, to check the size of your php project. You can install it with PEAR. The short version of the installation goes like this:

// add PEAR channel
user@host ~ % pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de
// install phploc
user@host ~ % pear install phpunit/phploc
// run
user@host ~ % phploc /path/to/your/project/code/folder

For more detailed instructions and system requirements, here is the link.

Now we are going to play a little honesty game:
Run the tool against your php project library code

[user@host] phploc ./library/Zend/
phploc 1.0.0 by Sebastian Bergmann.
Directories: 285
Files: 1372
Lines of Code (LOC): 275436
Comment Lines of Code (CLOC): 130251
Non-Comment Lines of Code (NCLOC): 145185
Interfaces: 53
Classes: 1321
Functions/Methods: 9170

 Run the tool against your php project own code:

[user@host] phploc ./my_application/my_modules/
phploc 1.0.0 by Sebastian Bergmann.
Directories: 30
Files: 85
Lines of Code (LOC): 6644
Comment Lines of Code (CLOC): 580
Non-Comment Lines of Code (NCLOC): 6064
Interfaces: 0
Classes: 94
Functions/Methods: 284

Now calculate the percentage of your code vs. your favorite framework library codepercentage = my_code_NCLOC/my_library_NCLOC*100in my case the result is 4.17% !!! :) How about in your project?

Zend Framework Tutorials

Zend Framework Tutorials

Zend Framework API Documentation

Zend Framework API Documentation

Zend Framework Programmer’s Reference Guide

Zend Framework Programmer’s Reference Guide

Aspin: ASP Scripts, Applications, Tutorials

Aspin: ASP Scripts, Applications, Tutorials

ASP.NET Web: The Official Microsoft ASP.NET Site

ASP.NET Web: The Official Microsoft ASP.NET Site

15 Seconds : asp tutorials, asp.net tutorials

15 Seconds : asp tutorials, asp.net tutorials

The Code Project – Role-based Security with Forms Authentication

The Code Project – Role-based Security with Forms Authentication