Posts Tagged ‘zend’

AND THERE IT COMES TO AN END… 2009

Dec 31, 2009 Fun, General

In a couple of hours from now, 2009 will be over. Again a new year will begin, but this year would have given me some of the most unforgettable moments of my life. If I had to summarize 2009 in a few words, I would say, it was a dream run for me. It helped me look at reality; it looks like it has possibly shown me a path of where I should be heading. I became fully qualified in this year, ZCE, did try my luck at java as well, and then I was able to get enrolled for my MS. It was all very good. Much of it should be credited to the support of my friends (most of them are ex-colleagues now), so 2009 will be remembered happily for all that.

I tried learning guitar, it was quite happy to see myself playing it well, but due to unexpected (But somehow all my friends guessed it beforehand) distractions, I couldn’t continue with it for too long. My travelling hit an unexpected all time low this year with just 3 or 4 noticeable trips for the whole year; this was a huge drop when compared to earlier years. So If I wasn’t travelling a lot, I wasn’t obviously using my camera lot. I also had some fun at stock market and made some marginal profits out of my money; it did help me learn a lot on financial matters.

I did do a lot of stupid things in 2009, but just like every year, I would not regret for them (he he:) ), it’s a part of the package, which has some pluses and minuses; you don’t really have a choice but to bear with it. Nobody is perfect. I don’t want to be nobody…

So what are my plans for 2010?

  • Study … Study… Study… If some of my engineering classmates looked at this… they will roll on the floor and laugh… but I have to do it, not too many choices here
  • I should plan some trips and execute them!, travelling is one thing I missed a lot in 2009
  • I technically don’t need any more gadgets/electronic devices… So I shouldn’t buy anything else this year, but save money (I was thinking about a Mac Book, an Android Phone, a Nikon D5000 SLR… and one more 23” Wide screen so that I get a dual screen setup at home, at the time of writing this…)
  • Find someplace where they conduct Guitar classes during weekends near my residence (have already invested some money on the musical instrument, should try to get at least some ROI)
  • I should blog more often, and start contributing lot more tech articles to Clickoffline.com, traffic influx has increased in the recent months.
  • Anh! Well… Stock Market… yes


Why did I write this post? — Because of this inspirational article by my friend

Wish you a happy 2010 for all of you !

Stop Press update for geeks: I have just integrated the Picasa Web Albums into WordPress using GData API which is provided as a part of the Zend Framework (Sounds cool right). Checkout the Photography Link on the header, it uses ZF’s GData API to render the images by fetching them from Picasa Web Albums Site. I will blog about this in Clickoffline.com and will try to do some server-side optimizations to improve the blog’s performance.

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Passed ZCE-wo-hoo-I am a certified PHP developer now

May 23, 2009 General, Technology

After days of preparation and studying, I at last took the courage the take the Zend exam last Monday (18th May). I have been preparing for this exam for quite some while, even though I have passed in all the mock exams, I was targeting for the ‘Excellent’ grade in order to confidently put myself in a position to take the exam.

About the exam

  • This is exam full of trick questions. So don’t expect direct answers, there is always a trick around.
  • The real exam can be a lot harder that the mock exams offered by php|architect
  • The certification guide will cover a lot of basics of most of the units, but is not all; you will need to buy additional books and materials in order cover the complete exam syllabi.

Materials

I had the following study materials at my disposal, this doesn’t mean that you will need all of them if you are preparing for the exam.

Zend sells the last three things in one package at a discounted price; you might want to check that out.

Benefits

It gives you a good sense of satisfaction and achievement. This to me is the greatest benefit. The preparation that I went through for this exam makes me feel like an expert in php. I don’t have to go back to the php manual for every odd function, now I can tell them by names.

Secondly it gives you recognition among the developers and others. They allow you to use a logo, which looks fancy on your resume (Checkout my CV). They also have your name listed in their yellow pages directory.

You can call yourself a Zend Certified Engineer, except when you are in Ontario, Canada for crazy reasons…. :)

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