Book Review + Giveaway Of PHP For Absolute Beginners (2 copies)
Saad Bassi
In today’s web development scenario, it is very necessary for a web developer to know how to code in PHP. PHP has become a major language in web development industry in last few years. From WordPress to FaceBook everything is coded in PHP language.
Recently we came to a book named PHP for Absolute Beginners which is a must read for beginners.
Today we are going to review the book and guess what? We have 2 free copies of book to give you free of cost. I wish that it would have been there when I was learning PHP. Anyways After buying the book, I read it and the book was something more than awesome.
About the Author
The book is written by Jason Lengstorf who is a self taught PHP developer. He is an experienced voice in PHP and web development. If you are a regular reader of some famous blogs like Smashing Magazine and CSS-Tricks then you might came to tutorials written by him. He is also co-author of the famous CSS-Tricks series “Creating a web app from scratch”. You can read his extensive interview by me here.
Inside the Book
Jason starts the book with how to install PHP on your computer and then leads you throughout the way to building up your own blog system with user comments. Rather than wasting the first chapter on the history of programming and PHP, how it came and other theoretical stuff, he tells the readers how to install xampp on your local computer for better development. I have read about 5-6 books on PHP and it was my habit to skip the first chapter of book, first time I read the starting chapter of book.
Why we liked the book?
The book is an example of a phrase, less theory, more coding. Jason teaches PHP with a lot of sample tutorials and examples. You will not read chapters and chapters of theory but you will learn best practices to do in the coding, and many pro tips which should be kept in mind when coding in PHP.
The Giveaway
We have got two copies of PHP for absolute beginners for the giveaway. We are very thankful to Jason Lengstorf and the publishers of book APRESS Publishers for supporting this giveaway.
How to enter in the giveaway?
Pretty simple, you have to leave a comment on the post and tell us what you want to see on 1stwebdesigner, or how we can make the website better. We will use random.org to pick the winners. The giveaway is open till 11:59pm GMT+5, February 18th 2010.
Grab the book right now
If you don’t like waiting for the result of giveaway, you can buy the book here through Amazon.com service. What we can assure you that this book is definitely worth your money.
Good Luck!
*Update by Dainis Graveris
Seeing all those amazing suggestions and comments changed my mind about randomized pick! We will choose winners with the most thoughtful, interesting and best answer! I just love to see how you drop down all the weak points of 1stwebdesigner site! I love you for that, and I am definitely thinking about new design, which will be very well researched and carefully put together to fix all problems, usability bugs we have here!
Give us more feedback! Completely inspired!
Update
The Giveaway is closed now.
Winners are Terri Lockerridge and Mark Anderson.
Thanks for your feedback and suggestions.
For Further Reading:
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Cobra Kai
Posted 823 days ago 86Great Site. would love more articles on beginning PHP CMS site design and customization.
Mark Anderson
Posted 823 days ago 85I should clarify – despite the “flashing banner” etc, I do find the site trustworthy and very helpful. I was just pointing out the feel that it can convey.
Mark Anderson
Posted 823 days ago 84My opinions on the site:
I like the colours and the feel of the site, though I must say, i personally find sites with advertisements in the header etc to have a somewhat “distrustful” feel to them. I don’t feel like I can trust the site, cause it feels like they are out to make $$. Particularly if there are banner adds like the one I just saw on here (flashing huge text saying “bargain, only $1.40″ etc etc. Screams SCAM.
Anyway, enough of that rant. I can see what you are trying to do with the footer, though I think there is a little too much info on there myself. I find it a little distracting. The different sized links all through that paragraph of tags on the left of the footer seems a bit disorganized to me (and the right column too) – as in it looks disorganized. I don’t read any of it cause it seems a bit too full on.
Otherwise, I really like the site, and I really like your free giveaway too. I hope my comments have been of assistance to you.
Adeline
Posted 823 days ago 83How about short screencasts on coding or even designing tips (either jQuery, Photoshop or WordPress) that would be great.
robert go
Posted 823 days ago 82I’ve been waiting to see very creative ‘window displays’ on your site.
BTW, your site have been a great source of inspiration to designers.
thanks
Ian Rogers
Posted 824 days ago 81More design + SEO tips together…like your wordpress post!
.-= Ian Rogers´s last blog ..How to Know What People Are Thinking =-.
James
Posted 824 days ago 80Would love a copy. As far as how to make 1stwebdesigner better? I think you guys are doing just fine as is! but if I had to say something, I would say more wordpress and jquery.
Kelsey
Posted 824 days ago 79I’d like to learn more about php, just due to the fact that’s one of the main languages I didn’t learn in school and would like more information on it.
Thanks!
Two Socks
Posted 824 days ago 78I would say some Pod Casts would be interesting to listen to, I quiet like that format…but maybe it’s just me !
Carlos
Posted 824 days ago 77I would like to see more WordPress performance enhancement tricks / tips.
Thanks
Zak Morris
Posted 824 days ago 76I’m an aspiring web designer and have been coding my sites from hand for three years. While I know a smidge of PHP ( the include function is a must ) I feel I’m at a point of understanding that I can take the next step. Many other guides / books seem to begin with an assumption that the reader is a ‘coder’ by nature, or further along than they actually are.
I would LOVE to find a resource that can show me the cause and effect and real, practical uses of beginner PHP in modern day web environment.
mary
Posted 824 days ago 75just got here, so checking out your articles now
Francois
Posted 824 days ago 74I would go with more wordpress articles, as I love wordpress and want to know more about it. Nice giveaway.
.-= Francois´s last blog ..Gamer =-.
Ward Kennes
Posted 824 days ago 73Hi,
thanks for this giveaway action, well what I should like is a bit more tutorials for CMS/blog systems like, WordPress, Textpattern.
Thanks 1stewebdesigner
Lyudmil ivanov
Posted 824 days ago 72As js platforms as jquery, mootools etc. are gettin more popular i would love to read more about them as well as more illustrating tutorials for web design. cheers
Tomas
Posted 824 days ago 71You want my opinion? Ok. I don’t like the footer, it’s too long and disorganized (just displaying “Tags” and “Authors” other space is empty). To display authors you could use buttons like in sidebar. Second thing that I personally don’t like is comluv plugin use, I think it adds more confusion to comments. Search field you could add on top navigation or on sidebar. Awesome giveaway, hope you’ll find my opinion useful and I win. Good luck!
estherliu
Posted 824 days ago 70I am a real beginner for wordpress and PHP. I could’ve used a theme and get done with my site, but the annoying thing is that that’s nothing that I wanted.
So, if there is an clear tut for customizing wordpress by coding or creating my own theme, I will be much appreciated.
Tnks
Mhaddy
Posted 824 days ago 69Would love to see more tutorials on the logo design process – beginning to end incl the brainstorm & thought process.
Sunil
Posted 824 days ago 68It would be nice to read any of the PHP framework from the 1stwebdesigner
thanks
Sunil
Tomas Varil
Posted 824 days ago 67Hi there I would like to see more about creating a custom wordpress themes. I know there are many tuts about how to create templates, but no one covers the background of creating templates. Every tut is specific and does not offer more user customization…
carsten
Posted 824 days ago 66I really enjoy the site already, but i`d love to get inside-infos on Drupal and Concrete5 CMS maybe…
But anyways thanks for the collected tuts and stuff! a very useful and nice resource….
Cheers SNAPONE
Magentoua
Posted 824 days ago 64Hi!
I would like some articles about Magento if possible. Thanks
.-= Magentoua´s last blog ..Додатки до Firefox для верстки Magento =-.
Saad Bassi
Posted 824 days ago 65That’s already in my to-do list. Most probably I will write magento articles for a whole week. E-commerce week.
webbografico
Posted 824 days ago 63I would like a lot of jquery and wordpress tuts…
nice work, go on like this
mdomba
Posted 824 days ago 62Your site rocks…
I would like more jQuery tutorials…
.-= mdomba´s last blog ..How To Delete My Facebook Without Knowing The Password? =-.
idagency
Posted 824 days ago 61Hi there,
Please could I get one, I am a real beginner and I am sure it can help me :) truly…