Upcoming Zend Webinars

On a regular basis, Zend hosts free Webinars on a variety of Zend and PHP related topics. They keep a list of them over at the Zend site but occasionally, I like to list them here to make sure all DevZone readers are aware of them.

Zend Studio Neon Beta Overview

October 17, 2007

“Neon” is the code name for the Eclipse based version of Zend Studio. Yossi Leon, the Product Manager of the Development Tools in Zend Technologies, will go over the different features of Zend Studio Neon Beta, the key benefits of the Eclipse based product and the differentiation comparing to the PDT project. Yossi will also show a demonstration of the different capabilities and the integration with the different Zend Products.

Event Details:

• Date and time: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 9:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (GMT -07:00, San Francisco)
• Duration: 1 hour, including Q&A
• Presenter: Yossi Leon, Product Manager of the Development Tools in Zend Technologies

PHP4 to PHP5 Migration

October 24, 2007

A little over three years ago, the PHP community released version 5 of its popular programming language. PHP5 has now become the version of choice for many new PHP projects. However, PHP4 remains popular and is still widely used.

The PHP community has announced that December 2007 will be the end of life for PHP4.

While this may sound ominous, it doesn’t mean that PHP4 will simply vanish. But it does mean that the PHP community will stop maintaining PHP4. This webinar is aimed at developers who are still using PHP4 and considering switching to PHP5. It is also intended to provide IT managers responsible for PHP applications additional information for their decision on whether to stick with their current version or migrate.

This webinar seeks to answer the questions, “What are the benefits of migrating to PHP5? And, equally importantly, what are the risks?”

This will put you in a better position to make an informed decision between PHP4 and PHP5.

Event Details:

• Date and time: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 9:00 am Pacific PDT
• Duration: 1 hour, including Q&A
• Presenter: Ivo Jansch, CTO iBuildings

Zend Framework Database Access

October 31, 2007

One of the core features of the Zend Framework is its database access component. The DB component is designed with a “keep it simple” principle, giving access to advanced data access features, balanced with database implementation abstraction, extreme simplicity, and ease of use. Another goal of the DB component is to encourage good practices and reduce performance and security flaws. Zend’s Bill Karwin will give an overview of the capabilities of the Zend DB component, and show several examples of using it in PHP 5 for tasks including:

• Connecting to a variety of supported database brands
• Running simple and advanced SQL queries and retrieving results
• Measuring performance of SQL statements
• Building SQL queries programmatically
• Using the object-oriented interface to database tables, similar to ActiveRecord.

Event Details:

• Date and time: October 31, 2007 9:00 am PDT (GMT -07:00, San Francisco)
• Duration: 1 hour, including Q&A
• Presenter: Bill Karwin, Product Engineering Manager, Zend Technologies

Improve your PHP Application’s Search Capabilities with Lucene

November 7, 2007

There are many solutions for indexing a website – Lucene is recognized as one of the best. Zend_Search_Lucene, a part of the Zend Framework, brings the power of the Lucene indexing library to the PHP world. In this session you will learn, through practical examples, how to use Zend_Search_Lucene to index your existing content pages to improve your PHP application’s search capabilities.

Event Details:

• Date and time: Wednesday, November 7, 2007 9:00 am Pacific Standard Time (GMT -08:00, San Francisco)
• Duration: 1 hour, including Q&A
• Presenter: Shahar Evron, Technical Consultant, Zend Technologies

Building Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) with PHP and Zend Framework

November 14, 2007

We will provide an overview of the relevant features in PHP 5 and Zend Framework which make them suitable for building RIAs. We will demo a sample application and then dive into the details, including best practices for its implementation. Attend this Webinar and you will learn:

• Overview of RIA application design, including using the MVC (model-view-controller) architecture
• Techniques for performing asynchronous communication (Ajax) between your PHP app and the client
• How to use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) to communicate simple XML in an Ajax fashion
• How to use the search engine component Zend_Search, which is based on the Lucene search engine
• About the future roadmap for near-term Ajax support in Zend Framework

Event Details:

• Date and time: November 14, 2007, 9am PDT (GMT -07:00, San Francisco)
• Duration: 1 hour, including Q&A
• Presenters: Andi Gutmans, co-Founder & co-CTO, Zend Technologies
• Bradford Cottel, Open-Source Evangelist, Zend Technologies

PHP Security Basics

November 28, 2007

Security is not just important when you are doing financial transactions – an insecure Web site can be used by others for malicious purposes to launch attacks against other Web sites. There are a few must-knows for anyone who ventures out into the world of PHP Web development. In this webinar John Coggeshall will focus on the absolute necessities when doing secure Web development.

Event Details:

• Date and time: November 28, 2007 9:00 am PST (GMT -07:00, San Francisco)
• Duration: 1 hour, including Q&A
• Presenter: John Coggeshall, Zend Solutions Consultant
• Target audience: Anyone who believes Security is important in Web Application development and deployment