PHP & MySQL: Your visual blueprint for creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites [Paperback]

Janet Valade (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470048395 | ISBN-13: 978-0470048399 | Publication Date: September 14, 2006 | Edition: 1

"The expertise, thought, and effort that go into each book are obvious, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts. Keep up the wonderful work!"
--Tracey Moore (Memphis, TN)

Welcome to the only guidebook series that takes a visual approach to professional-level computer topics. Open the book and you will discover step-by-step screen shots that demonstrate over 140 key techniques using PHP amd MySQL, including:
* Configuring Apache to process PHP code
* Working with character strings
* Creating, sorting, and comparing arrays
* Defining and using functions
* Finding and replacing substrings
* Querying databases and retrieving data
* Stopping and starting the MySQL server
* Adding dynamic check boxes
* Sending new Web pages to a browser

Extra / Apply It
* High-resolution screen shots demonstrate each task
* Succinct explanations walk you through step-by-step
* Two-page lessons break big topics into bite-sized modules
* "Apply It" and "Extra" sidebars highlight useful tips

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"The expertise, thought, and effort that go into each book are obvious, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts. Keep up the wonderful work!"
—Tracey Moore (Memphis, TN)

Welcome to the only guidebook series that takes a visual approach to professional-level computer topics. Open the book and you will discover step-by-step screen shots that demonstrate over 140 key techniques using PHP amd MySQL, including:

• Configuring Apache to process PHP code
• Working with character strings
• Creating, sorting, and comparing arrays
• Defining and using functions
• Finding and replacing substrings
• Querying databases and retrieving data
• Stopping and starting the MySQL server
• Adding dynamic check boxes
• Sending new Web pages to a browser

Extra / Apply It

• High-resolution screen shots demonstrate each task
• Succinct explanations walk you through step-by-step
• Two-page lessons break big topics into bite-sized modules
• "Apply It" and "Extra" sidebars highlight useful tips

About the Author

Janet Valade has 20 years experience in the computing field. Her background includes experience as a technical writer for several companies, as a Web designer/programmer for an engineering firm, and as a systems analyst in a university environment where, for over 10 years, she supervised the installation and operation of computing resources, designed and developed a statewide data archive, provided technical support to faculty and staff, wrote numerous technical papers and documentation, and designed and presented seminars and workshops on a variety of technology topics.
Janet currently has four published books — PHP & MySQL For Dummies, Second Edition, PHP 5 For Dummies, PHP & MySQL Everyday Apps For Dummies, and Spring into Linux, and has coauthored Master VISUALLY Dreamweaver 8 and Flash 8. In addition, she has authored chapters for several Linux and Web development books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 307 pages
• Publisher: Visual; 1 edition (September 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470048395
• ISBN-13: 978-0470048399
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #247,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Your friendly blueprint PHP & MySQL book, November 5, 2007

By 

Lady Lana - See all my reviews

This review is from: PHP & MySQL: Your visual blueprint for creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites (Paperback)

[...]
First of all I want to confess that I'm absolutely new to PHP and specially to MySQL. I made some try to understand PHP from some books from home library, but there're too advanced for me. In this book I found exactly what I was searching for.

There is no required knowledge level for using this book, but I would recommend it to beginners and intermediate users. For beginners it will be fast and easy PHP & MySQL reference, and for intermediate users it will be excellent book to remind them of all the things they forgotten (and more possibly to bring new stream in their knowledges).

I imagine this book would be useful to people who have no programming experience at all as this book covers basic programming concepts (which are the same in all programming languages) like variables, loops, and arrays, in great detail. Code in this book is for PHP 5 that is currently the latest version of PHP. I know that some companies in the world still stuck on PHP 4. So maybe this book will be helpful to people who wanna take quick overview of interaction of PHP5 and MySQL. I think some people would agree with me that jumping right away from version 4 to version 6 is not very convenient.

This is without a doubt a technical book and such books need to be written with simple language to be ready to everybody's grasp. This book is written with simple language and is very friendly. The book is full of short examples and I liked this book because of its simplicity.

Nobody stays behind as there are clarifications for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X users, so everybody stays satisfied. The detailed chapters on installation and configuration of Apache, PHP, and MySQL for all Windows, Linux and Macintosh are walking the reader through the complex process step by step, giving very clear instructions, explaining the reasons for the recommended configuration choices.

As it says on the cover: "Your visual blueprint for creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites". Book is printed on good quality paper and the most important this pages are not "busy" with a lot of information - inside you find many screenshots for every step you make, so you could have more control over your every action (step).

On a companion website you can download all codes for this book and get more information about author (also review table of content). Compressed .zip file with codes takes about 61kb on your hard disk and 532 kb unzipped. In case of interest you can first download code files and then order a book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment, April 29, 2007

By 

Billy L. Hallman (Wilsonville, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: PHP & MySQL: Your visual blueprint for creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites (Paperback)

Well, I have read acouple of Janet Valades publications and for the most part they are great. This book was not so great. It was really a waste of my money.

This book is just like the rest of the "Visual Blue Print" series, in that, There is way to much going on visually and not enough subject documentation.

If for some stange reason you cannot learn simply by reading a book, this Visual book wont help you either;The picture are to small.

Janet Valades is a wonderful writer, she just need to stray away from the Visual book publications.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, February 17, 2007

By 

Edward K. Njenga (Oxnard, CA,States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: PHP & MySQL: Your visual blueprint for creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites (Paperback)

This book is great if you need a quick and easy setup and understanding. Unlike other authors; this one includes alot of pictorials of the results. The book should take atleast 2-3 days to complete with understanding of how PHP and MYSQL function.