Discover PHP's new features and syntax improvements and see how they will take this already-popular scripting language to the next level. Learn how Unicode support, Web 2.0 features, and other changes make PHP V6 more robust, as well as more international.

Alleviate much of the manual work required to migrate simple J2EE applications from WebSphere Application Server Community Edition to WebSphere Application Server using the new WebSphere Application Server Migration Assistant. This migration tool, available from alphaWorks, helps make the transition as easy as possible.

Employ XQuery with XML documents to build complex and dynamic systems that take input and information from a VoiceXML environment and combine them with existing XML documents to produce interactive applications.

Speed up the tasks of debugging and tuning your Web and Ajax applications using Firebug, a free, open source extension for the Firefox browser. Use Firebug to monitor, edit, and debug live pages, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript code, and tune network traffic.

Close Explore how veteran Java developer Brian Goetz deciphers some of the weirder-looking error messages emitted by javac, and learn his tricks and workarounds to simplify using generics.

Begin configuring, testing, and modifying the Universal Services, a simple set of database operations that allow the querying and modification of XML data. Easily enable your pureXML column to be accessed through Web service operations.

Take a deep dive into setting up external run configurations in Eclipse, including Ant build scripts. Learn how to build and use these launch configurations--including the types of automatic parameters available--for your projects.

Do you think the pixel is the only unit of measurement for building graphical displays? Come on, you can measure better than that! This month, the Cranky user offers tips for user-friendly HTML layout and interface design, and explains why pixels aren't always the best unit for the job.

This article describes the fundamentals of objects and classes in PHP V5, from the very basics through to inheritance, for experienced object-oriented programmers and those who have not yet been introduced to objects.

When people design Web forms, they often overlook some great sources of professional expertise in the world -- the existence of form design techniques with which nearly all users are familiar. This month, the cranky user looks at form design and management.

David looks at four open source development environments for working with Python code on Unix-like operating systems. He evaluates two general-purpose editors/environments and two Python-specific ones, and compares the merits of each.