This article at developer.com, gives first hand information about creating neural networks in PHP language. Artificial neural networks are developed mostly in high-level programming languages such as C or C++, So reading about them in PHP is a refreshing experience.

What are Neural Networks?

The network works similarly to the human brain: it is comprised of neurons that communicate with each other and provide valuable outputs. Although just a model — and not even close to human thinking — artificial neural networks have been used in prediction, classification, and decision-support systems, as well as in optical character recognition and many other applications.

Read complete article at developer.com

Why you should use Zend Framework? This is not only an interview question, while taking structural decisions about a project, we should ask this question to ourself. This article gives good reasons why you should adopt Zend framework in your working culture and what kind of benefits you can get out from Zend Framework.

1. Extend Classes like There’s no Tomorrow
2. Object-oriented Goodness
3. Use What you Need, Forget Everything Else
4. It lets you do a Lot of Things!
5. No Model Implementation – Choose your Own Adventure!
6. Integrate with Whatever you Want!
7. Guidelines and Standards
8. All Code is Guilty Until Proven Innocent (aka Test-Driven Development)
9. Community and Documentation
10. Certification

Read in details at  10 Compelling Reasons to Use Zend Framework

Zend Framework is not only a framework but a robust library for many kind of operations and services. While working with Drupal or WordPress sometime we found that a good library for one particular operation is already available in Zend Framework.

You can easily use Zend Framework library in your projects with bothering about its app framework and MVC structure. Drupal and WordPress both have mechanism to use Zend framework in them without doing any major work.

Drupa module for Zend Framework

Its very easy to setup and use. You can start using Zend Framework in your Drupal modules within few minutes.
Installation and usage instructions are available on Module’s page.

http://drupal.org/project/zend

This module is available for version 6 as well as 7 of Drupal.

WordPress plugin for Zend Framework

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/zend-framework

This module also provide embedded Zend framework library and easy to install and setup.

Plugin’s official setup instructions need one clarification (As I am writing this).

On page

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/zend-framework/installation/

Following instruction has been mentioned.

1. Upload plugin-name.php to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory

I think writer forgot to change the instruction template, this can be read at

1. Upload zend-framework folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory

One more plugin is also available for WordPress at

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-zff-zend-framework-full

This module has instructions which are more detailed and precise to be used.

Let�s plug the power of Zend Framework library to these wonderful CMSs and enjoy the benefits.

I am really disappointed and I should emphasis, REALLY disappointed. I have gone through an online ebooks library promoted and managed by a big publication house named Packt Publishing (http://www.packtpub.com)yesterday and I was surprised to see their bad user interface in ordering system as well as major bad logical and technical decisions while planning and developing the website.

Usually I did not write reviews, but today I am writing this because I want to let other people know “How bad their site is?”.. this post may also serve the purpose of quality testing for their IT team (Alas, I am not being paid for this quality testing)

I was looking for a good affordable online library where I can read books at a good price, because I spent almost 18-20 hours on my laptop and reading physical books nowadays has become tough for me. I only got time when I travel and I can not keep all physical books with me (they have already occupied one room in my house). Amazon Kindle is one of my best companion on my PC and Android Phone, but you need to purchase each and every book, it cost you a good amount of money… and taking a sneak preview is not always available before you purchase something. So idea to subscribe an online library was lucrative.

After some research I found that Packt Publishing is providing access to their whole book library online on a yearly subscription fee. Fee of around 10,000(INR) with a discount of around 13 percent was also attractive. So I decide to go ahead with that, and my journey ofa bad user experience starts here.

I was in my trial so when I click on a “grayed out” book title it ask me to add subscription, I clicked on the link and follow the other page to add subscription to my cart, I was surprised to see two same items (All books subscription) in my cart, may be I have clicked on Add to cart for the same item from other screen and now they were showing it twice… they just forgot a simple rule for online products.. they can/should not be ordered more than once for the same user and quantity does not matter in “online delivered” products. (Amazon was intelligent enough to alert me when I tried to purchase the same book which I have ordered in the past)

They automatically selected my currency as INR, I feel proud that they are giving option for my country, but after filling the form when I click on “Checkout with Paypal” I got “Currency not supported” error from Paypal. In first place if a non-supported currency has been selected (by them, not me), they should not give me option of paypal or at least they should give me an option to change my currency so I can change my currency and process my order.

Well after some search about changing currency (their small FAQs page), I decide to go ahead with my credit card. That was also not too good, they open payment process in an html iframe and that look really non-professional, but who cares… I was only looking for my aim of reading books online.. and order process has to be done only once in the product lifetime, so I was mentally prepared for such issues.

BUT main problems starts when order was finished and payment was done. My order was finished and order status is shipped in my account.

I was exciting to see the books in my PacktLIB now, (to be honest, they are really good publisher and have good title with them)… But when I visit .. I still see all books (except free ones) grayed out.. I thought order process may take some minutes as data replication on different servers may take some time. So I tried after sometime, but nothing changed.

I also tried logging out and then re-login because some system store all information about users and their related information in cache system at the time of login (in my view their programmer deserve this level sympathy from me being a member of my programmer community) but nothing change..

I even tried clearing all cache data.. as PacktLIB may be using heavy caching on client side to give good user experience, But nothing change…

I tried to found online help and wrote to their support about the issue.. almost 8 hours has been passed and I only got a automated reply.

I have tried it just few minutes ago and things are still same.. I was planning to read a lot on this weekend.. and they have ruined my weekend. Do not know when I will get reply. Their automated reply say “We have replied 80% of emails within 24 hours”.. I am only praying that I am NOT in remaining 20%.

(Screenshots of cart, error of paypal I took before writing this post, by running the same process again.)

Recently I have done few projects where sites were growing rapidly in terms of functionalities and their current wordpress structure was not good enough to handle those changes. I am going to write about the summary of these personal experiences in this series of articles. I will summarize the steps and work I have done to do this migration.

Why Migration?

We should not do something because we can, should only do if need is there. So before starting it is necessary to understand if you really need the migration from WordPress to Drupal. WordPress is really a fantastic system and I have used the wordpress on website where we have done big customization and those sites were getting users visit in millions.

Following points can be considered and discussed with the team before finalizing migration :-
1. What is main purpose of migration?
2. What are the main problems which you are supposed to solve with migration?
3. Is there any available way in the current system using which current system issues can be solved?
4. What is the time different between estimation of migration and solving problem within current system?
5. do you see any future benefits in migration?
6. Do you have required skill set and resources to do the migration?
7. Are you migrating because you do not have resources to manage current system?

Gather answers for these questions and then analyze your situation.

In next part I will discuss what benefits Drupal can provide over a WordPress system?

Hi, I have created a page on my this blog named PHP Interview Questions on which I will compile a list of questions which I normally asks to my candidates. I am not worried about leaking my questions strategy as I know only a good person can handle my supplementary questions I asked on the spot.

I got several messages that I should point out a list of topics which a developer should know in wordpress to categorize him/her as a wordpress programmer.

“WordPress Programmer” or “WordPress Developer” terms can be new to someone but due its popularity, term is getting attention and several companies are doing hiring based on wordpress experience only.

So in this post I am just enlisting some points which a wordpress programmer should know.

• How to install wordpress? (Yes it really easy but you should know that )
• How to edit config file of wordpress if needed? You should also know what normally can be edited?
• How to install a plugin in wordpress?
• How to install a theme in wordpress?
• How to modify a them in wordpress?
• What are page templates?
• How you can create/use a different template for archive or category page?
• How you can use widgets?
• How you can create a plugin?
• How you can modify the content of a post or page?
• How you can add something before or after a post/page content?
• What are filters?
• What are actions and how you can define callback functions on a particular action?
• How you can create admin menu using plugins?
• How you can edit the templates in online editor?
• How you can manage widgets?
• How you can manage users and thier different types?
• How you can disable/enable comments on a wordpress site or on a specific page or post?
• How you can use OPML files?
• How you can import RSS feeds?
• How you create custom meta tags in posts?
• How you can add specific attributes to any post or page?
• How you can mange user registration?
• How you can create private blogs or posts?
• At least 10-15 different plugins which can enhance/extend the basic wordpress functionality.
• How you can use caching in wordpress?
• How to upgrade wordpress?
• How to take backup of wordpress posts using export?
• How to take database backup of wordpress? (This can be classifieds as normall database backup process)

Above All

You should know what WordPress CAN not do by default and what we should not try to do with it

First in the series of my experiments with Open Source CMS, today I will write about my experiments with wordpress as PHP developer.

I heard about wordpress long ago but have used it on large scale since year 2007. I have created some custom setups so different domains can run from same code base. I have also created lots of plugins to handle content customization, displaying different source content like google maps, creating automated posts with different source database, url customizations and lots of things.

I found wordpress very easy to setup, its just few click setup, and in our customization it was just a single click setup for any web site. Creating plugin in very very easy due to its documentation and support for many events and hooks in life cycle of any page.

Different page templates is also one of the great feature of wordpress where you can use different design templates for different pages. I am so impressed with wordpress that I have transferred my this blog to wordpress blog. WordPress is blessing for PHP developers.