Automated testing has greatly improved the Drupal core development process. With automated testing over 24,500 unique core patches have been reviewed, and almost 19,000 test assertions are now run against every core patch. The result has been faster development cycle, more stable releases, and the ability to add features more quickly to Drupal core.

The benefits of automated testing are now available for contributed module developers and Drupal site owners through the addition of new functionality to the qa.drupal.org and the automated testing framework that integrates with Drupal core.

The leaders of the Drupal quality assurance project are holding a webinar and sprint to help contributed module developers and Drupal site owners benefit from this automated testing.

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The uncertainty of what might happen to your service monkey at an airport security checkpoint won't keep you awake at night anymore, thanks to the TSA. They have issued an easy to follow list of how they will ensure your helper monkey won't go all Planet of the Apes on your flight. Some of the security techniques used to make sure your primate is not a terrorist include: "Security Officers will conduct a visual inspection on the service monkey and will coach the handler on how to hold the monkey during the visual inspection. The inspection process may require that the handler to take off the monkey's diaper as part of the visual inspection."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a recent post Justin Tadlock takes a look ahead and talks about the upcoming WordPress 3.0 version and some of what will come with it.

There's typically a ton of hype surrounding new WordPress releases, and WordPress 3.0 certainly won't be short of people singing its praises. This upcoming release might even have more hype than usual because the sheer number of new features will be overwhelming. When WordPress 3.0 is released, it'll mark the release of several things I've been waiting for in the last couple of years. It'll be at a point where it can be molded to create any type of website.

He talks about what things will make this release stand out from some of the ones in the past and what features with come with it including custom post types, improved navigation menu features, built-in shortlinks, custom headers/backgrounds and and more standardized comment form.

If I were to dub this release anything it'd be WordPress: Custom.

Guess what everybody? It's time to consider extending your hotel stay so that you can stick around after Drupalcon 2010 for the jQuery Conference being held April 24th and 25th - the weekend right after Drupalcon.

Ever since Drupal 5 the jQuery library has been included in Drupal core and we've been loving it. It makes working with Javascript fun, again.

Automated testing has greatly improved the Drupal core development process. With automated testing over 24,500 unique core patches have been reviewed, and almost 19,000 test assertions are now run against every core patch. The result has been faster development cycle, more stable releases, and the ability to add features more quickly to Drupal core.

The benefits of automated testing are now available for contributed module developers and Drupal site owners through the addition of new functionality to the qa.drupal.org and the automated testing framework (PIFR) that integrates with Drupal core.

The leaders of the Drupal quality assurance project are holding a webinar and sprint to help contributed module developers and Drupal site owners benefit from this automated testing.

• Webinar: April 1st, 1PM EST (Webinar registration)
• Sprint: Sunday, April 18th, Drupalcon San Francisco, 9AM, Coder Lounge

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Elliot Haughin has written up a post for all of those developers out there either already using CodeIgniter or wanting to use it for your application - a look at making a UTF-8 compatible site with the help of a few custom libraries and form helpers.

UTF8 allows your site to represent characters other than those in the basic english alphabet. More often than not, your CodeIgniter Application will contain methods where users can enter their name. [...] This guide assumes you are reasonably competent in installing php extensions, adding config variables to your php.ini, and using MY_ CodeIgniter overloading. If you're not sure about any of these, please make sure you consult a professional.

You'll need to install the mbstring extension for PHP to be able to follow along with his example. He shows how to override the basic form functionality with custom functions to change the display of the form and how it handles the submitted information. He also looks at how to update the XML-RPC library that comes with the framework and the creation of a new helper to allow you to convert, check, compare and sort UTF-8 data.

Dave Gardner has posted about a method he uses to cache objects that have dependency injection needs in something like a memcached server.

The objects themselves have a number of injected dependencies. It includes using the PHP magic methods __sleep and __wakeup to manage serialisation. It also discusses mechanisms for re-injecting dependencies on wakeup via a method that maintains Inversion of Control (IoC).

He uses a user object based example that has an injection needed to load in the user's usage history. He includes the code to define the classes, create the objects via a dependency injection container and performing the sleep/wakeup actions with the dependencies coming out intact on the other side.

I have a Drupal site that need to replace some content inline hyper links as CCK link field. The reason is: link field is more simple and user-friendly for my client, which don't need the BUeditor to input the link into content.

So simply:

1. Add new link field (e.g. "field_link" within this example) for the existing content type (e.g. "newslink" within this example)
2. Use Devel and run the following code snippet, which loop though all target content, parse the hyper link, and insert it into link field
3. Activate the autonodetitle, so replace the node title with field_link's title
4. Also hide the body of this content type
5. Update the Views will corresponding changes

Code snippet:

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Jen Lampton of Chapter Three & Jeneration Web Development talked about WYSIWYG editors at DrupalCon Paris. Specifically, she talked about setting up inline image placement using CCK image fields.

The suite of modules that she discusses are:

• WYSIWYG API
• Better Formats
• Filefield
• Imagefield
• FileField Sources
• FileField Insert
• Image Resize Filter
• ImageField Crop

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The OSGi Alliance announced approval of its long-brewing OSGi Enterprise Specification.

If you're relatively new to the framework world and haven't quite gotten your head around the whole Model/View/Controller way of doing things, you should check out this new tutorial from NETTUTS.com giving an overview of the method that's so popular among PHP frameworks these days.

Model-View-Controller (MVC) is probably one of the most quoted patterns in the web programming world in recent years. Anyone currently working in anything related to web application development will have heard or read the acronym hundreds of times. Today, we''ll clarify what MVC means, and why it has become so popular.

The look at each part of the MVC stack including what it's for and how it connects with the other two parts. An example is included - not in code but with an image showing the communication between the modules. They wrap up the post with a look at why using a MVC framework can help you be more productive. Their example uses CakePHP but the ideas could be applied to any MVC framework out there.

As a reminder, the latest in the TekX podcast series from php|architect is happening tomorrow - Kristina Chodorow will be presenting on MongoDB, a popular NoSQL database.

MongoDB is part of a new wave of persistent storage engines that make up the NoSQL movement. The most popular websites in the world are switching to or already use non-relational databases. Why? Scalability. This session will cover why, when, and how to use MongoDB: a fast, stable, easy-to-learn document database.

You can reserve your spot by registering on the go2meeting page for the event. Be sure to get in soon, though! The last webcast filled up and several people weren't able to make it in.

"Language-oriented Programming and Language Workbenches: Shifting Paradigms" is a presentation...

In a new post to his blog Phil Sturgeon has posted about a patch he's created to give the pre-release CodeIgniter 2.0 version the ability to do some Modular Separation.

The fix was worked out a few hours after CodeIgniter 2.0 was released but I was hoping wiredesignz would incorporate and re-post. Sadly the man has other commitments to attend to, so I have released the patched version.

The patch includes two files - custom libraries to extend from for loading and routing in your CodeIgniter 2.0 application. For a better understanding of what this patch gives you, check out this thread on the CodeIgniter forums.

Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:

• Rob Allen's Blog: Initial notes on Zend_Application
• ProDevTips.com: Zend Amf and class mapping with Flash CS3 / AS3
• DevShed: Adding CSS to Handling Views with CodeIgniter
• Sebastian Bergmann's Blog: Flickr: The Real World PHP 5 Benchmark
• Smashing Magazine: 10 Advanced PHP Tips Revisited
• Quality Assurance in PHP Projects: Testing Database Interaction
• Zend Developer Zone: Get to know Flex and Zend_Amf
• Fabien Potencier's Blog: What is Dependency Injection?
• techPortal: 2009 WinPHP Challenge
• Benjamin Eberlei's Blog: Using Zend_Soap Server and Autodiscover in a Controller
• Jim Plush's Blog: Why I chose Zend Framework for Enterprise
• Oracle Technology Network: Installing PHP and the Oracle Instant Client for Linux and Windows
• Noupe.com: 13 Great WordPress Speed Tips & Tricks for MAX Performance
• Jani Hartikainen's Blog: Improving Ajax performance in Zend Framework applications
• Federico Cargnelutti's Blog: Domain-Driven Design with Zend Framework

I wrote this post about the first computer program ever written for Ada Lovelace day, and it seemed fitting to dedicated it to my friends Angie Byron (webchick), Katherine Bailey, Audrey Foo, Ariane Khachatourians, and all of the other women who make the Drupal community such a wonderful place.

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An anonymous reader writes "Currently the nature of most programming work is such that you don't really need math skills to get by or even to do well, after all linear algebra is no help when building database driven websites. However, Skorks contends that if you want to do truly interesting work in the software development field, math skills are essential and furthermore, will become increasingly important as we are forced to work with ever larger data sets (making math-intensive algorithm analysis skills a priority)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It is time for my twice yearly post about how to avoid hotels at Drupalcon. I am not a fan of hotels. At previous Drupalcons I have sought out a flat for my colleagues on behalf of my employer. This was the case in Barcelona, Boston, Washington DC, and Paris. This year things are any different. I have found a flat that will be shared by some Vintage Digital and some Examiner.com folks.

One of the goals of finding a flat is to reduce costs. By finding a flat, each of our share is just a touch higher than $40/night - no hotel is going to cost so little in San Francisco. It takes a little effort, but I think it is well worth the time. Getting a group together to share an apartment is cheap.

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separsons writes "Researchers at Japan's Tohoku University designed a new shape memory metal alloy. The super elastic iron alloy can endure serious stretching and still return to its original shape. The scientists say that once optimized, the material could be used in everything from braces to medical stents to earthquake-proof buildings!"

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krou writes "Working on a finger-bone that was discovered in the Denisova Cave of Siberia's Altai mountains in 2008, Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and colleagues managed to extract mitochondrial DNA. They compared it to the genetic code of modern humans and other known Neanderthals and discovered a new type of hominin that lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago. Professor Chris Stringer, human origins researcher at London's Natural History Museum, said, 'This new DNA work provides an entirely new way of looking at the still poorly-understood evolution of humans in central and eastern Asia.' The last common ancestor of the hominid (dubbed "X-Woman"), humans and Neanderthals seems to have been about one million years ago."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.