Just been playing with the PEAR::Auth class in PHP. The ability to authenticate a user from a wide range of sources (a file, a DB table, samba passwords, IMAP/POP3, LDAP, RADIUS, SOAP etc) is very cool. Each time I code a site that requires authentication I'm always (I know, I should have written a class already) coding up my own authentication module for it but now that I've discovered PEAR::Auth it will be a little bit easier. Now all I've got to do is read some docs for it and have a play around.

Incidentally, if you've got PEAR installed on your webserver, check out the go-pear.php script in the PEAR distribution directory. You can use it to ensure that you have the most up to date PEAR distribution. The steps are:

$ php -q go-pear.php (then follow your nose)
$ pear download-all
$ pear upgrade-all

.. and you're all fresh!

I picked up some new hardware the other day to help with this CD writer issue. I got a standard 120GB hard drive and a IDE-USB adapter. The USB adapter came with a standard power supply for HDD's/CDROM's etc so I plugged them in and within 30 mins (including copying time) I had a complete backup of my 50GB (or so) of data.

I was looking for a PHP bug reporting system and in the meantime I have settled on Bosco. It seems to fit the bill but there's a few things I want to sort out for local (offline) hosting of it such as disabling the sending of email updates etc. It looks promising.

Still doing some web dev, this time on a closed-source proprietory custom forum site. These jobs are always interesting rather than working with someone else's creation, oh and the pay is good too :)

Ok, I'm back. Details at www.bobandlinda.com if you care.

So, what's new? First of all, my laptop's CD writer has stopped writing! Bah! I'll have to send it in for a warranty fix which can "take up to 28 days" - fortunately my sister (and sis-in-law) are coming to the UK for 3 weeks so I'll send it in then. In the meantime I have ordered a 120GB IDE HDD and a IDE-USB adapter so I can plug it into my laptop to make a backup. The HDD in my laptop is only 60GB but the price difference between a 60GB and 120GB was only �10. Purchase online at Maplin's Web Store.

I've finished off my list of GTA Vice City cars, using my new SimpleGallery script. The script will be available at some stage for free but not just yet. I'm still preparing it for testing by Florida Bob (and I haven't told him yet that he'll be testing it :) )

Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are no longer accompanying me on my path to enlightenment. I have ditched them both in favour of Firefox and Thunderbird and I must say I'm impressed. If nothing else, using Firefox will keep me on the true path of Javascript element referencing and CSS styling.

Still doing lots of web dev - lately i've been working with osCommerce with pleasing results. My IDE of choice for web dev is Maguma (which I actually went out and brought thanks to the code completion, syntax highlighting and extras like PHP debugging).

That's all for now .... G.