Mini-review And Competition Of PHP Solutions

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You want to make your websites more dynamic by adding a feedback form, creating a private area where members can upload images that are automatically resized, or perhaps storing all your content in a database. The problem is, you're not a programmer and the thought of writing code sends a chill up your spine. Or maybe you've dabbled a bit in PHP and MySQL, but you can't get past baby steps. If this describes you, then you've just found the right book.

PHP and the MySQL database are deservedly the most popular combination for creating dynamic websites. They're free, easy to use, and provided by many web hosting companies in their standard packages. Unfortunately, most PHP books either expect you to be an expert already or force you to go through endless exercises of little practical value. In contrast, this book gives you real value right away through a series of practical examples that you can incorporate directly into your sites, optimizing performance and adding functionality such as file uploading, email feedback forms, image galleries, content management systems, and much more. Each solution is created with not only functionality in mind, but also visual design.

Overview

But this book doesn't just provide a collection of ready-made scripts: each PHP Solution builds on what's gone before, teaching you the basics of PHP and database design quickly and painlessly. By the end of the book, you'll have the confidence to start writing your own scripts or&8212;if you prefer to leave that task to others—to adapt existing scripts to your own requirements.

Right from the start, you're shown how easy it is to protect your sites by adopting secure coding practices. The book has been written with an eye on forward and backward compatibility—recommending the latest PHP 5 techniques, but providing alternative solutions for servers still running PHP 4.3. All database examples demonstrate how to use the original MySQL extension, MySQL Improved, or the PHP Data Objects (PDO) introduced in PHP 5.1, letting you choose the most suitable option for your setup.

In this book you'll learn how to:

Create dynamic websites with design and usability in mind, as well as functionality
Understand how PHP scripts work, giving you confidence to adapt them to your own needs
Bring online forms to life, check required fields, and ensure user input is safe to process
Upload files and automatically create thumbnails from larger images
Manage website content with a searchable database

Summary of Contents:

Chapter 1: What Is PHP—And Why Should I Care?
Chapter 2: Getting Ready to Work with PHP
Chapter 3: How to Write PHP Scripts
Chapter 4: Lightening Your Workload with Includes
Chapter 5: Bringing Forms to Life
Chapter 6: Uploading Files
Chapter 7: Using PHP to Manage Files
Chapter 8: Generating Thumbnail Images
Chapter 9: Pages That Remember: Simple Login and Multipage Forms
Chapter 10: Setting Up MySQL and phpMyAdmin
Chapter 11: Getting Started with a Database
Chapter 12: Creating a Dynamic Online Gallery
Chapter 13: Managing Content
Chapter 14: Solutions to Common PHP/MySQL Problems
Chapter 15: Keeping Intruders at Bay

Who is this book for?

This book is intended for developers who are new to PHP as it runs you trough from setting up the correct enviroment for your PHP applications to the basics of programming with PHP.

Conclusion

As with most books from Friends of Ed, this book has a good layout. The book teaches you the basics of building Dynamic Websites with PHP code. It shows you how the importance of PHP, helps you with the installation process, shows you how to work with PHP with basic code examples, how to create common elements, how to work with PHP and MySQL and databases and it shows you how to secure your website. It also explains the differences between PHP 4 and 5 and what you can expect in version 6. This book offers an execellent starting point for the beginning PHP programmer, it stands out from otherbooks because of it's practicality and useful code.

Competition

We've got a brand new mini-review and competition of the PHP Solutions book. The friendly people of Friends Of Ed are giving away 5 books!

All you need to do, to enter the competition is, download the sample PDF and finish the following sentence:

"getimagesize() returns an array containing .... elements."

Send your answer to this e-mail address, before Thursday the 19th of April 2007. Don't forget to include your post address and phone number (required for international shipping) in the e-mail.