The open source PHP dynamic language is one of the most widely deployed languages on Web servers today. But what operating systems are PHP developers using to develop and deploy their applications? It's a question that has been asked before and now it's being answered with a new study from Zend, one of the lead commercial backers behind PHP.

The study surveyed 2,000 PHP developers in December and found that 85 percent reported that Linux was their primary operating system as a production environment for PHP.

Windows came in at a distant second at 11 percent while Mac OS X came in third at just 2 percent. However, when Zend drilled down into which platforms respondents prefer for their development, the rankings change dramatically.

According to the study, 42 percent of respondents reported that Windows was their primary operating system for development. Linux came in as No. 2 at 38.5 percent while Mac OS X remained in third place at 19.1 percent.

The findings indicate that while Microsoft Windows remains the top platform for developing in PHP, its lead may be narrowing. Back in 2006, a Microsoft executive reported that 85 percent of PHP developers were developing on Windows, but only 20 percent deployed on a Windows machine. The change comes despite joint work by Zend and Microsoft to improve the capabilities of PHP on Windows servers.

that the new study was based on over 2,000 completed surveys conducted in December 2009, some of which came from Zend customers. The survey was made public through the Zend Framework website, the Zend monthly newsletter, Twitter and DevZone.

I have also noticed recently from reading blogs and lists that the majority of CFML open source developers seem to deploy Railo or Open BlueDragon on Linux, which is a major paradigm shift from ColdFusion developers who primary use Windows.

I don't think this is a matter of preference but rather one of necessity as pretty much all the PHP documentation is for Linux, most PHP apps are written for Linux/Apache and are not supported on windows even if you can get them working.

If you have tried to install Railo then will have discovered this can also be quite a task and a challenge to get working, especially on windows/IIS7, and there are far more blog posts and docs explaining how to get it running on Linux, as well as ready made virtual disk images, which I suspects encourages people to take the path of least resistance and install Linux.

In the case of CFML this does however tend to be done using virtualisation software such as virtualbox or vmware to run a linux development servers on windows, so cfml developers do still seem to be using windows as their primary desktop OS, so I do wonder if Zend took this into consideration with their study and if many of those who listed Linux as their primary development OS may in fact be running it as a virtual machine on windows. This feeling is further extrapolated by the fact that developers are mainly using servers distros like CentOS.

You also need to consider all the obvious facts as well:- While Linux has a lot going for it and plenty of software, most of the best/popular software, especially web dev/design products like Dreamweaver and the rest of the Adobe line is not available on Linux. Sure there are alternatives, but they are certainly not in the same league and you can't walk into PC World and buy any of it. For those who have always been running a Linux desktop this will of course not matter at all, but for the rest this will be a big issue, especially if it is software you have spent a lot of money on, so running a virtual machine makes sense.

Of course it could be the other way round entirely and developers are running a windows VM on linux, but this would seem an off way of doing it if their primary tools are on windows.

Before the Linux fanboys start ranting, let me make it 100% clear that this is not a linux vs windows slanging match and I will delete all churlish comments attempting to turn it into one. If you comment keep it on-topic and professional.

After discovering my iPhone has no SatNav software, I was just looking on the tomTom web site and came across this. http://starwars.tomtom.com/voices/index-starwars.php?Lid=1

You can now have your directions read toyou in the voices of Darth Vader, C3PO or Yoda, very cool I do have to say, and I bet if Ray Camden doesn't already have a TomTom he will own one very soon :-)

By the way be sure to watch the Darth Vader video, quite entertaining.

I just had to share this as it is totally awesome. So many times I could have used this.

The now-familiar release cycle of Adobe's Creative Suite is signalled by two things: the hype and expectation of  those who rely on Adobe's applications and prices that, especially for UK users, seem to soar further into the stratosphere with every new version.

A single new feature, though, has awed the PC Pro office and suddenly made CS5 seem like fantastic value for money. It's been dubbed the Content-Aware Fill, and has been shown off in a YouTube video narrated by Bryan O'Neil-Hughes, a product manager on the Photoshop team.

The dull, businesslike name hides a potentially revolutionary feature: if you're not happy with an item in your picture, select it, delete it, and Photoshop will analyse the surrounding area and plug the gap as if it never existed.

It seems easy to use and incredibly proficient: O'Neil-Hughes used it to remove lens flare, turn patchy and litter-strewn grass into a perfectly manicured lawn. He quickly removed entire trees and let Photoshop stitch together the grass and sky that would take their place. It's a testament to the new tool's proficiency that we couldn't tell that the image had been modified.

He didn't stop there: a simple click removed a dusty track and replaced it with desert, and a panoramic image's clumsy borders were filled out within seconds. Best of all, Photoshop handled these modifications without fuss and quickly delivered picture-perfect results.

Without this feature, making these edits could take hours or, in more complicated cases, even days. The Content-Aware Fill, though, took just seconds and has got us even more excited about the impending release of CS5. We'll have a full review available when the software is released but, for now, this demo should be more than enough to whet your appetite.

In my efforts to give up smoking I decided to investigate these so called electronic cigarettes. To my surprise the reviews all seemed to rave about them and people were claiming they never looked back, what has a lot to do with the smoking bans, so I thought sod it lets buy one. There are so many out there it is damn hard to choose, but in the end I went for the one pictured left from Totally Wicked Eliquid where they call them Electronic Nicotine Inhalers (e-NI) rather than e-cigarettes, which is in fact what they are.

I have to say I am shocked at how good it actually is, not only does it taste very similar to a cigarette, but I actually prefer it and have been smoking it far more than I do cigarettes. You get all the things that keep you hooked on smoking, something to hold in your hand and put in your mouth, the taste, the inhalation of smoke and of course the nicotine high but without any of the nastiness, here are some of the benefits.

• They contain no tobacco,Nor do they contain any of the multitudes of harmful, carcinogeous ingredients found in traditional tobacco products
• No Smoke (it is actually water vapour)
• doesn’t make you or your clothes smell
• no chance of causing fire as it is not alight
• legal to smoke in public places due to above
• no where near as bad for your health
• no more mouth like a litter tray in the mornings
• will not effect those around you
• saves you money
• wont give you cancer
• you don’t have to go outside in the cold to smoke

There are many different types, some look like cigarettes and some don’t, like mine above, and some look just plain weird, add to that the fact that there are 30+ different flavours of nicotine liquid (or cartridges) to choose from, and you can see the whole smoking experience suddenly has a bit more depth to it.

So far I have only tried regular and cherry flavour nicotine and I like them both. I used to only smoke menthol ciggies and couldn’t stand anything else, but this is not an issue with the e-NI as it is far less harsh due to the lack of tobacco. I am a big fan of the flavours too, back in the days of pipe and tobacco shops I used to smoke flavoured pipe tobacco and use liquorice rizla papers, so itsa bit of a blast from the past and I expect I will have a nice selection soon.

So if you are a smoker, I would definitely recommend you give it a try, i’m sure those around you wont miss your stinky clothes and smelly breath either. If you are worried about looking like a bit of a ponce, all I can say is “grow a pair� and stop worrying about what others think, it’s your life after all.

PCI DSS compliance is now a legal requirement for anyone with merchant services, having just had to go through this myself and knowing that our clients are also going to have to do the same, I started searching for a simple guide that I could pass on to clients and came across this book.

Complying with the PCI Data Security Standard may seem like a daunting task for merchants. This book is a quick guide to understanding how to protect cardholder data and comply with the requirements of PCI - from surveying the standard's requirements to detailing steps for verifying compliance.

PCI Compliance for Dummies arms you with the facts, in plain English, and shows you how to achieve PCI Compliance.

And yes my company BlueThunder Internet is fully PCI DSS compliant before you ask :-)