PEAR is a framework and distribution system for reusable PHP components.
A PEAR repository is installed either locally or system-wide and is tied to the machine it's installed on.
Wouldn't it be great if you could do a directory-local PEAR install? That could be freely moved around in the filesystem, including other machines? How about multiple project-specific PEAR installations? That you can submit to source control?
How do you send emails using plain PHP mail on WAMP on Windows?
Normally, PHP mail works by using Sendmail which is installed on *nixes, so it doesn't work on a Windows box. However, normally we just rewrite our code to using a SMTP server, but what about when we really don't want to - or can't - modify third-party code?
Until now I've been using subdirectories in the main web directory for the various web projects - like http://localhost/projectone and http://localhost/projecttwo - or I simply renamed the main directory every time I switched project.
While that works, it is clunky and tedious and error-prone. And there are some things in webprogramming which does not work on 'localhost', like cookie validation. It also makes it impossible to have sitespecific sessions.
What I really want is http://one.projects and http://two.projects.
I've known about virtual hosts in Apache for some time, but I've kept putting it off because I thought it would be difficult. But it turned out to be simple enough. 
After trying out all kinds of web based editors, both WYSIWYG and markup based - like TinyMCE (which I quite like), and MarkitUp! (which I am fond of) - I wasn't satisfied..
Either it did too much behind my back, or it did too little. 
What I really want is an editor which lets me write visually, but leave my code clean and accessible. Without forcing me to use html-cleaners or learn murky markup languages.
I also want an editor which is very lean on resources and which is easy to extend - (read: hack to suit my needs).
A week ago I spent two hours (maybe even three!) implementing email notification of comments.
It didn't take long to hook up the Yii Mail extension and maybe an hour to figure out the logic behind the task, but no matter what I did, it refused to send emails.
For longer than I would admit openly I used the log, the php die command, echo and print - nothing..
I felt more and more incompetent, and nearly gave up on it, when suddenly one line in my configuration caught my eye.
You've probably noticed that my blog is using a brand new design, and maybe that it's not powered by Croogo any more. 
Nothing wrong with Croogo, but I've switched from using CakePHP to the Yii Framework, and - as a programmer - I couldn't resist the urge to reinvent the wheels and build my own (simple) blogging software.
