Yep. I’m mixing programming references with The Wizard of Oz. Shut up.

The all-too-awesome PHPMailer class has been updated and is awaiting your download.

If you use MooTools (or even if you don’t), Vacuous Virtuoso’s Fancy Form is totally worth checking out. It’s a mix of CSS and Javascript that enables you to create custom form checkboxes. There are other script on the net that claim to do the same thing, but none are as cross-browser compatible.

Lastly, to add a splash of color to your ajax load processes, check out Bram Van Damme’s Progress Bar Handler. It’s probably the smoothest, best looking non-flash based progress bar on the net.

Uploading files via CakePHP has been covered a few times on Labs. Based on the feedback, it’s safe to assume bridging the gap between file uploads and PHP can be tricky. Usually Cake is ready to lend a helpful hand. Not this time.

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Ryan Johnson, the founder of LivePipe, created one of the best prototype-based widgets I’ve ever used.

Control Suite is a collection of six high quality widgets and controls for Web 2.0 applications built using the Prototype JavaScript framework. Each script is well tested, highly extensible, fully documented and degrades gracefully for non JavaScript enabled browsers where possible. All scripts are MIT licensed and are thus completely free for any purpose in any project.

Thus far, the SelectMultiple is finding some serious use in my web applications. Assuming I come up with something not already discussed in Ryan’s examples, I’ll post it in Labs.

Go to the official Control Suite website.

If you’re not careful, sending email via PHP is about as safe as cookies at Fat Camp. BKWLD was recently tagged by a spammer who noticed one such insecurity on one of our websites and ended up using our server to send hundreds of emails. It wasn’t until MediaTemple informed us of this breach that we realized what had happened.

The method most spammers use is called a “mail injection”, in that the spammer manipulats the PHP mail() function via a custom form post, etc. I won’t go into details, as a quick search on Google came up with over 225,000 pages describing this technique – here are a few.

Getting around these hacks requires detailed validation of your data.Thankfully I’ve done everything for you using the best PHP email class around, PHPMailer. My class is called SendMail and it’s an extension of the PHPMailer class. The result is a powerful script capable of sending email via SMTP or POP3, all without handing over your server to a toothless spammer.

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Taking advantage of custom error documents usually requires tapping on an .htaccess file, as discussed in my previous custom error article. However CakePHP makes for easy custom error handling thanks to a pre-defined Cake system.

I’ll walk you through creating custom error pages, both simple and complex.

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The simplest image viewer known to man has been created. Visión uses a light touch of PHP, Javascript and CSS to create a straightforward, stylish image viewer. It can be incorporated into any website in under three minutes and takes up less than 20kb of space. Stop reading this and download Visión.

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You now have a chance to support Iamkoa Labs via buttons and badges. If you feel that Labs has helped you in any form, support the cause by downloading a small collection of Labs buttons and placing one on your website.

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Making sure a CakePHP application is secure is a total snap thanks to “sessions” – the rock animal of websites. Put on your All-Stars and boot up your MacBook – I’m about to go Discovery Channel on your ass.

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