How to Do Everything: Facebook Applications [Paperback]

Jesse Feiler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0071549676 | ISBN-13: 978-0071549677 | Publication Date: February 11, 2008 | Edition: 1

Create your own Facebook applications!

With coverage of Facebook API, FBML, and FQL as well as MySQL and REST, How to Do Everything: Facebook Applications is a clear, start-to-finish guide to developing unique apps that run on Facebook Platform. Learn how to integrate Facebook applications with websites, blogs, and databases, and use your apps to sell a product and market a business, organization, or cause. You'll also discover how to provide entertainment and information to users while creating an advertising platform to make money. Get started quickly by downloading a pre-built, customizable Facebook application from the book's Facebook Page.

• Understand the Facebook Platform architecture
• Format Web pages and manage data using XML, XHTML, and CSS
• Use PHP and FBML (Facebook Markup Language)
• Work with the Facebook object, Facebook REST object, and Facebook API
• Use FQL (Facebook Query Language), Mock-AJAX, FBJS (Facebook JavaScript), and Facebook Mobile
• Master the Facebook Developer Application
• Design your application interface and implement utilities
• Integrate MySQL or Data Store data
• Add viral features including News Feed and Mini-Feed stories, notifications and requests, Share buttons, and favorites lists
• Promote your business with Facebook Social Ads, Facebook Pages, and Facebook Beacon

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jesse Feiler has worked as a developer for companies such as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Prodigy, and Apple. He is the author of several computing books, including How to Do Everything with Web 2.0 Mashups.

Product Details

• Paperback: 330 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (February 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071549676
• ISBN-13: 978-0071549677
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #646,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Software developer and author specializing in new technologies, Mac OS X, and FileMaker. Consulting through North Country Consulting focuses on small business and non-profits, helping them use new technologies to manage their operations in retail, production, contact management, and planning.

Active in the non-profit world, treasurer of HB Studio and HB Playwrights Foundation, past-president of Mid-Hudson Library System. Interested in non-profit governance, specializing in trustee training seminars.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Guide for the novice to intermediate, May 26, 2008

By 

D. Leatham (Mesa, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Do Everything: Facebook Applications (Paperback)

This book was very helpful to me. My coding skills are very rusty (cira late 80's early 90's) and focused around Java and C++, so the targeted introductions to each of the web technologies (XML, XHTML, PHP, and MySQL,)focusing on just what was necessary for Facebook programming was very helpful. I was able to get through the examples in the book much more comfortably than the example on the Facebook developer site. That example assumes a lot of basic web development knowledge that you may or may not have, where this book steps you through the process.

The book is designed so that you can jump in where it makes sense for you. (I'm fairly experienced with Facebook so I skipped Part I and started in on Part II.) If you are very experienced at web development and are looking to transition your existing skills to the Facebook platform, then you may only gain from reading sections of Part II and Part III of the book.

On the whole I found the book very understandable and usable. The author does a good job at anticipating questions. It would be nice if there were some diagrams showing how a Facebook application is structured and the flow. Also, the download link for the sample code is difficult to find (finally found it on the author's site.)

All in all, I highly recommend this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad as a primer on Facebook applications, April 6, 2009

By 

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: How to Do Everything: Facebook Applications (Paperback)

I set out to learn how to use Facebook and as part of that, picked up some books on building Facebook applications. This title, "How to Do Everything: Facebook Applications" is a good primer.

It begins with an introduction to the components of Facebook, though like every other book, it is obsolete to a certain extent because Facebook recently changed its user interface.

Once done with that it moves into the programmability of Facebook.And Facebook is, to this beginner at least, astoundingly programmable. You can use PHP, XHTML, CSS, XML, Facebook's own Facebook Markup Language (FBML) and a couple of other techniques. Facebook is truly a very rich environment.

Some people have criticized the book for its lack of depth and heavy borrowing from Facebook's own developer pages. Both criticisms are justified. However, this book is intended to be a primer and the information within it is set out in a more usable form than on Facebook's site.

As a primer, an introduction to the possibilities and methodologies of creating Facebook applications, this book is good. It will not make you an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it will whet your appetite for experimentation and more advanced books.

Jerry

4 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very little that is not on the web pages, April 16, 2008

By 

C. F. Jennings "cullen" (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Do Everything: Facebook Applications (Paperback)

Let's face it, the facebook doc on the web page leaves much unanswered. I was hoping this book would fill in theses answers but it did not. It provided very little more than the existing web pages to help one build a good facebook application.