Monthly Archives: May 2009

It’s Time for PHP 4 to Be Retired

May 21, 2009 by Matt | Posted in Hosting 3 Comments

On December 31, 2007 the PHP Group discountinued support for PHP 4. Since then, there have been no updates to the branch, security or otherwise. PHP 5 is the currently supported branch, and it is far superior to its predecessor.

Web hosts have, for quite some time, delayed upgrading their servers to PHP 5, despite its many advantages. (SimpleXML and better tools for OOP are just a couple invaluable tools that PHP 4 lacks.) Their favorite claim is that it will break everyone’s scripts.

The only scripts that PHP 5.2.x would break are badly-written ones. Popular packages such as WordPress, Joomla, phpBB all work on PHP 5, and some are even dropping support for PHP 4. The only scripts that will have compatibility issues are custom badly-written scripts, and the required updates would be minor. One of the biggest issues would be register_globals, and that could be remedied with some quick updates to scripts, or by turning it back on.

It’s been put off long enough. Web hosts, upgrade to PHP 5 already! The time is long past due.

Why Validation isn’t All That Important…

May 20

Jeffrey Way (editor of Net.Tuts+) has a new article on his personal blog that brings up a topic that I think deserves some attention. He writes: I woke up this morning to a rude email from a reader today. “Jeff,” he said, “I’m sorry,…

10 Ways to Launch a New Blog with a “Bang”

May 19

Starting a new blog? It sure can be frustrating to be writing to an empty audience. Web Designer Depot has the solution: Launch a New Blog with a “Bang.” Ten things. If you do one or more of them, you’ll have readers in no…

ThemeForest Adds Multi-Project Licensing

May 18

Envato’s ThemeForest marketplace has added multi-project licensing for their products. Buy a 10 Project License for just 3 x the cost of a Single Use License. A 10 project license means you can use the same file over and over – up to ten…

Blogs.mu – DIY Blog Networks and Communities

May 17

A new service called Blogs.mu sprang-up recently. It’s kind of like “WordPress MU in a box.” With a very WordPress.com-like setup, you register to become your own blog provider. So you can setup a topical blog community.

BlogBuzz May 16, 2009

May 16

PHP Version_Compare()

May 15

While I was working on a WordPresss plugin recently, I needed to implement a version check. The plugin required WordPress 2.7 or greater, and it made use of several functions available only in PHP 5 and up (such as SimpleXML). It seemed like there…

Poll: How Many Domains Do You Have?

May 14

How many domain names do you have registered at this time? Do you just have one, or do you have a massive portfolio, some you’re actively using while others are stashed for a future project or for sale? I’m somewhere in the middle. (They…

Tweetable Twitter Plugin For WordPress

May 13

Yesterday I released my newest WordPress plugin: Tweetable. It helps integrate Twitter into your blog. It tweets your posts as they are published and adds a configurable sidebar widget that displays your latest tweets (with optional follower count). The automatic post-tweeting can be configured…

Tracked RSS: Add Google Analytics Tracking to Your RSS

May 12

Google Analytics supports an interesting feature called campaign tagging, where you append variables to a URL so you can track a “campaign.” You could, for instance, add them to the URL of a post of yours that you will be sharing on Twitter. Then…