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In this article we'll look at PHP's "magic" features: Magic methods are class methods with specific names, are used to perform various specialized tasks. They are grouped into two: overloading methods and non-overloading methods. Overloading magic methods are used when your code attempts to access a method or a property which does not exist. Non-overloading methods perform other tasks. Magic functions are similar to magic methods, but are just plain functions outside any class. Currently there is only one magic function in PHP. Magic constants are similar to constants in notation, but act more like "dynamic" constants - their value depends on where you use them. We'll also look at some practical examples of using some of these, and lastly we'll check out what new features PHP 5.3 is going to add.

Recently the latest version of perhaps the world's most friendly BSD distribution was released. PC-BSD 7.1 is based off FreeBSD and we take a first look at this interesting operating system. In the news, Novell's openSUSE Build Service, recently added to the Linux Foundation's Developer Network, gains support for the ARM processor, Moblin sets its sight on a 2-second boot, Fedora re-issues 64-bit images of its recent beta release of version 11, FreeBSD hits 20,000 packages in its ports directory, Debian announces the final results of the project leader elections, and Kubuntu releases a KDE 3 remix of its 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope beta. Finally, don't miss the first episode of "Ubunchu!" the world's first open source manga featuring Ubuntu Linux.

The Citadel project has released version 7.5 of its GPL3-licensed groupware server. The release improves the web interface and countless other details.

Over the past few days there's been a raft of stories about how the Linux netbook market share is not as healthy as it used to be. Up until now it's been believed that the emerging netbook market (arguably the first new PC hardware platform for decades) has been sewn up almost entirely by various varieties of Linux. However, it seems the truth is that Linux netbooks see far more returns than their Windows equivalents, and -- according to research firm NPD -- about 96% of netbooks sold recently ran Windows. Needless to say, a Microsoft employee has been gloating about this.

While a test release has been around for a few months, last night PulseAudio 0.9.15 was officially released. This open-source sound server has a number of significant enhancements in this latest update...

Helios is rarely a man of few words. In this case, even this announcement makes pondering the news a silent moment.

Zenoss Inc., a value leader in enterprise network and systems management, today announced that it is a founding member of the Open Source Channel Alliance. Led by Red Hat, the alliance program includes leading commercial open source software vendors including; Alfresco, Enterprise DB, Ingres, Jaspersoft, Likewise, Pentaho, Zmanda, and Zenoss. Through the alliance Zenoss has signed a distribution agreement with SYNNEX Corporation to distribute and market Zenoss' portfolio of cost-effective, enterprise-proven network and systems monitoring solutions.

Google's Android operating system for cell phones, GPS devices and a host of other gadgets yet to be is the topic of much controversy and discussion. Why? Windows CE, Embedded Linux, Android...who cares? When you shop for a phone, or any modern gadget, do you ask which operating system it's running? I don't for two reasons. First, the people working at the store look at me, and each other, like I've just stepped off a ship from Mars. Second, I don't care.

‘I went to a computer class today. How do I use your father’s computer?’ This was Irene on the phone, twice a great grandmother, who had never used a computer before in her life. This came out of the blue, and was the last thing we had expected...

Over the years I have had to harden a great number of LAMP boxes, I have found some methods work for better than others. I will now share with you all my favorite 10 along with methods to implement them on Debian/Ubuntu.

While there are many netbooks on the market from a variety of different vendors, for the most part they are composed of the same hardware. They generally carry an Intel Atom processor with a solid-state drive or hard drive, 1GB or so of memory, and an 8" to 10" screen. One area though where these netbooks can differentiate is with the operating system. While Microsoft's Windows XP continues to be used on a large number of netbook computers, when it comes to those vendors deploying Linux each usually has a slightly different flavor. ASUS prefers a spin of Xandros on their Eee PC, there is Linpus, gOS, and many others are out there. When it comes to Dell with their popular Inspiron Mini 9 netbook, they happen to be using Ubuntu but with a few modifications. In preparations for an article later this week where we will be extensively looking at Ubuntu's netbook performance, in this article we are taking a closer look at Dell's Inspiron Mini 9.

After many broken promises and much procrastination, I finally made it onto Arch Linux, and that’s where I’ve been for the past couple of weeks now. I had a failed attempt at Arch last year when my hard drive died; not Arch’s fault in any way, but since then I haven’t really had a chance to get back to it. It’s a distro that a lot of people tell me about. The Arch fans are always really passionate and enthusiastic in describing it to me; so I figured it was high time I found out for myself just what all this fuss was about…

Google has anounced its upcoming Android 1.5 Linux OS platform, based on the cupcake branch. Some new features are the video recording option & extensive widget support.

The name "SourceForge" has been synonymous with development for years. Yet despite that association, CollabNet, the commercial vendor that owns the SourceForge Enterprise product line, is eliminating the SourceForge name from its product line-up.

The project gNewSense started with the goal of creating a GNU/Linux distribution whose first priority is users’ freedom - even if this limits user comfort and hardware support. As a starting point Ubuntu’s operating system is used. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine.

Call it D-day for open source distribution in the IT channel. Synnex, Red Hat and nearly a dozen open source application providers — from Alfresco to Zmanda — have launched the Open Source Channel Alliance. The effort represents a tipping point for open source applications in the channel, reaching a potential 15,000 resellers. Here's the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Three Intel employees are to contribute to the development of the GNU Compiler Collection. So far, corporate contributions to the GCC have been made by AMD and by other processor forges, while Intel focused on the development of its Intel Compiler Collection (ICC).

An interesting concept, that's been around for a while. Neat, but...

xclip is a command line interface to the X11 selections (X11 clipboard). It can also be used for copying files, as an alternative to sftp/scp, thus avoiding password prompts when X11 forwarding has already been setup. xclip reads from Standard Input or from one or more files and copy it to the X11 clipboard making it available to the X applications. xclip can also print the content of the current X clipboard onto the standard output or to a file.

When my faithful Linux machine silently died under my fingers, I knew I had a lot of work to do. I need a lot of different software and installing and configuring it takes quite some time. A job I'm particularly "fond" of is installing the cross compilers. Even if you're using a Debian-based distro this may apply to you, because although cross compilers can be installed easily with apt-get, you're still left with a barebone cross compiler. The fun starts when you want to add a library.