On December 12, 2012, I had the honor and fortune to speak to the Boston PHP user group. Boston PHP is an extremely active and large (over 3,000 members) user group that has members from around the country and the world (I’m now technically a member). I believe that my presentation, " How to Become a Web Developer", went well, and I had a wonderful time on the trip. And, as with all good experiences, I learned a few things, which I thought I’d share with you (in no particular order).

I’m generally not much of a New Year’s resolutions kind of person. In part, this is because I believe that if you’ve decided something is worth doing, then it’s worth starting today, not on some arbitrary date like January 1st. So instead of resolutions, this is the second year in which I’ve decided to put forth some work goals. If you have a conventional job–one with a boss and an office, then you probably have regular work reviews. You sit down with your supervisor once a year, perhaps around the anniversary of when you were originally hired, and discuss how your year has gone and how you can improve. Working for myself, there’s no similar review process for me. And, to be frank, although I’ve been working for myself for almost 14 years now, I’ve only recently begun actively thinking about what I am doing, what I should be doing, and what I hope to be doing. And so, I present to you my 2013 non-resolutions: my work goals for the year.

NetTuts+ recently posted a very good article titled " 10 New Year’s Resolutions Every Web Developer Should Make". Written by Andrew Burgess, the article goes through ten recommendations every Web developer should consider (as you would imagine from the title). I particularly like:

2. Get Better At What You Know

3. Explore a New Field

6. Take Better Care of Yourself

I’m really not a New Year’s resolutions kind of person (that being said, my next post will be my goals and hopes for 2013), but I thought this article really presented a great list of ways Web developers can improve their skills and, frankly, the quality of their lives.

What’s on your New Year’s resolutions list?

In this edition…

• About This Newsletter
• Q&A => On the Blog => Current “The Yii Book” Plans
• Q&A => On the Blog => Processing Payments with Stripe
• On the Web => How to Become a Web Developer
• On the Web => Recently Published Articles
• Larry Ullman’s Book News => “The Yii Book”

Screenqueri.es is a relatively new site, currently in beta, for testing how a Web site will look on various mobile devices. It’s an absolute snap to use: just enter the URL of your (or any) site, and Screenqueri.es will load a preview of that site, on a grid of pixels, as it would be loaded by a mobile device. Here’s how part of my site looks on an iPhone:

Once you’ve loaded the page, you can use the menus at the top to change the device or to rotate the device (virtually). The options include both phones and tablets:

I haven’t personally verified the results on all the devices, in part because I don’t have all the devices, which is pretty much the point of using a site like Screenqueri.es. When you get the chance, see how your site looks.

In an earlier post in this series, I covered how you create an HTML form for securely handling payments via Stripe. In the previous post, I walked through the JavaScript that goes with that form. As explained in that post, thanks to the Stripe.js library, the proper HTML, and a bit of JavaScript, you can easily and securely handle payments on your site without getting mired in the PCI compliance muck. The secret is the Stripe.js library: it sends the customer’s payment information from the client to Stripe’s server and returns a token that Stripe associated with that payment information. Then, when the form is submitted, the token can be used by the PHP on your site to actually process the payment. The customer’s payment information, however, never touches your server. You get paid and the customer is protected.

In this post, I’ll walk through the necessary PHP code that actually processes the payment request. Note that this article assumes that you have read the previous articles and are comfortable with PHP.