DaveDevelopment::Dave Marshall

The only programming book I use without fail every working day ;)

Seriously though, this book is great.

I’ve got a couple of copies of Php|architect’s PHP Job Hunter’s Handbook to give away, the only catch is you have to sign up to PHPPositions’ feed via email. It’s managed by Feedburner, so it can be trusted and you wont get any spam, just super smashing great php jobs in the UK.

I’ll pick two email addresses at random this time next week and get the books posted out.

After putting the exam off continuously for about 18 months, I actually got around to taking my Zend PHP 5 Certification exam. I originally scheduled the exam, put it off for a few months, then actually forgot about the exam altogether, only to reminded by google calendar an hour before I was due to take it. The test centre was at least an hour away, so that was a waste of $125. I scheduled the exam again, kept putting it off until I caved in last month and got it done.

The exam itself was considerably harder than the original, I wasn’t all that confident when I clicked the ‘End Exam’ button, but I got the job done. I’m glad I found it harder, I’ve obviously improved my knowledge of PHP since I took the original exam nearly 3 years, so they must have made the certification more difficult to achieve.

As far preparation goes, I read the study guide right through once, making notes along the way. I turned up at the test centre about 20 minutes early and went through my notes. The study guide clearly did a good job!