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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Saad Bassi is a 20 years old web developer from Pakistan who loves to create beautiful websites with great user experience. He is co-editor at CrispyTech and 1stWebDesigner and blogs about the next Windows at Windows8Geek. He also loves to make new friends so don't forget to say him a hello on Twitter. Last but not least, make sure that you check out my latest project, Addictive Fonts which focuses on free high quality font downloads.
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 07:59
How about short screencasts on coding or even designing tips (either jQuery, Photoshop or WordPress) that would be great.
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 01:55
More design + SEO tips together…like your wordpress post!
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 09:07
Great Site. would love more articles on beginning PHP CMS site design and customization.
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 00:40
I would say some Pod Casts would be interesting to listen to, I quiet like that format…but maybe it’s just me !
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 08:06
I 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.
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 08:05
My 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.
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 22:55
I’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.
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 04:16
I’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
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 01:18
Would 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.
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 00:45
I’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!
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 00:11
I would like to see more WordPress performance enhancement tricks / tips.
Thanks
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 21:43
just got here, so checking out your articles now
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 21:43
I would go with more wordpress articles, as I love wordpress and want to know more about it. Nice giveaway.
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 12:55
It would be nice to read any of the PHP framework from the 1stwebdesigner
thanks
Sunil
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 12:19
I 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
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 20:17
Hi,
thanks for this giveaway action, well what I should like is a bit more tutorials for CMS/blog systems like, WordPress, Textpattern.
Thanks 1stewebdesigner
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 20:09
As 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
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 20:04
You 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!
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 11:54
I would like a lot of jquery and wordpress tuts…
nice work, go on like this
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 11:27
I would love to participate in your giveaway.
I think you should publish more in-depth tutorials.
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 10:00
Actually a second comment, when I clicked on my name which had the link to my company’s website the link opened my site in your window. You might consider changing this link to show: target=”_blank” to that you don’t lose readers who click to other folks’ websites. Just another suggestion. TTFN.
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 09:54
Well, in terms of your give away, I’m interested in getting one of your free copies of your book. In reading through the responses above, I see some similar things touched upon that were useful. Hopefully you’ll find my suggestions helpful as well. My suggestions touch on SEO.
1. You have a fair amount of images on your site that don’t have alt tags. Get em in there.
2. Most website owners don’t SEO their contact us page – you should do this – it is a missed opportunity for another page to be found etc.
3. From what I have been taught, read, etc. you have a redundant phrase: “Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources and Tutorials on many of your titles of your pages in the static part of your site which should be removed from all titles except one page. Most likely the front page is a good place to keep it.
That’s probably enough suggestions for now. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute.
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 17:34
I 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
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 08:54
First of all great website as a beginner in web design I love it.
I think that more tutorials would make this website one of the most ruling websites. It already has great content that I get inspired by and to be able to learn to do what I see more would be great.
Thanks for the giveaway hope I win
Shyndoway
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Yamil Gonzales
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 00:21
I would like to read more about programming logic, I mean it’s cool to follow tutorials and “step-by-step” articles but in real life you encounter some out of line situations.
Thanks, I really hope I can get a copy of the book; I need it.
Nick Parsons
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 00:31
Great! Apress is an excellent publishing company and Jason is an excellent developer, so I’d love to have his book!
As far as improvements, I’d love to see more concrete, real-life development tuts like the one you published on Setting Up WordPress for SEO (that was good).
Thanks for having this giveaway!
Saad Bassi
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 08:51
Thanks for your input Nick. We will try to act upon your suggestions.
WhisperiN
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 08:35
Hello Dear Saad,
I’d like to thank you for this opportunity.
Well, what I’d like to see (or to see more), is the Java, jQuery, AJAX and so related topics, hints and tricks.!!
Hope, my luck drives me to a winner here :D
Regards..
Dominic
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 00:10
I’d like to see more articles with collections to free design resources such as CSS templates, icons and frameworks. Although you do a good job of providing these now, there’s always room for more.
Keep up the good work
Kevin
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 07:20
Great site. Personally, I’d like to see more written tutorials. Keep up the good work.
ycz87
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 05:09
How to make 1stWebDesigner better?
In my opinion, there should be more sample of present design of web, more collections of trendy web design interfaces from Deviantart.com, more useful and pretty jquery plugins, issues of CSS in different browses, and some CSS framework.
You should also introduce some PHP & Zend Framework, But not too much, because this is a website for designer.
Thank you!
John
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 05:23
I’m more of a beginner, so I really like how-to articles and code snippets (jQuery, for example) that allow me to toy around and figure things out. Great site! Keep up the good work!
Chris
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 05:28
It would be nice to see a section for SEO.
Overall I think this site is well developed.
I have learned many things here.
Etienne Richard
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 07:09
Still working in ASP, it’s been a long time since I want to learn the PHP language. I would say that your site is going well. Maybe you could add some subdivised categories at the bottom of the pages. I’m now following the blog, good continuation !
Max
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 06:05
today I went through the rss posts and I managed to open almost every post from 1stwebdesigner. Actually it is a well developed site with tons of usefull info.
Charlie McLean
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 21:56
I would enjoy articles for developers new the browser platform(s), which includes me.
Richard
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 21:53
More freelancing advice would be good.
Hope I win!
Dodie
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 18:37
I never knew about your site until now :O (I just so happen to find a link to your blog at Web Design Ledger) The name was attractive (cuz out of the many blogs they listed there I only clicked yours LOL), but that sorta means that maybe you can improve the site’s… uhh… hmm… I lost the word… uhh… ah! Wait. It’s you’re uhm… *I think aloud* Your popularity or something like that. Anyways, I am subscribing to it because really, I see great content here.
Sun Pietro
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 18:42
hi,
great giveaway :)
Your site is near to perfection and need no changes.
Matthias
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 17:24
I’ve recently found 1stWebDesigner and have been immersed in the articles since. The thing I haven’t come across is a section dedicated to advice and tools on marketing a website. Also some web host reviews are always appreciated.
Dainis Graveris
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 18:09
Matthias thank you for great idea and since I am considering that my strongest side is internet marketing and social media, I will focus more on such related articles! Agreed about web hosts as well, we have upcoming article about it already! :)
Matthias
Friday, February 19th, 2010 07:47
Definitely give us some marketing tips then :)
Another idea is a user submitted website registry that allows your users to recommend a helpful site on a certain subject (i.e. php or SEO). Then other users that found it helpful could vote yay or nay and rank them accordingly. I know many times I’ve found a great article buried in the depths of the Internet and I have no way of sharing the immense excitement to fellow developers.
Anna
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 17:40
Hello! Your website is informative as well as very entertaining. I don’t have a blog on WordPress. I would like to see more templets and tips for Blogger, since that’s what I use. Thanks for all your hard work!
Dainis Graveris
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 18:11
Hey, Anna!
We tried already Blogger related post..as well as Drupal related theme post, but it didn’t give us a whole lot attention comparing to WordPress for example. We’ll try our luck in future as well, but I cannot promise we will grow supporting Blogger in this website.! Thank you for reading us!
jared
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 17:41
I love all the WordPress articles you have. I guess I’d like to see more of that, but you guys are doing a great job.
I’m a self-taught PHP developer that got started years ago by reading a book similar to this. I have people ask me all the time how to get started and I’d love to be able to loan out this book to get them started.
Thanks for the opportunity!
Dainis Graveris
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 18:13
Oh, kind words Jared! Yes, WordPress is very popular topic and if it will go as planned we will cover wordpress more and more in future! Thanks for support!
maanjo
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 17:53
If it’s free, it’s for me! The only thing I would add to this site would be more giveaways or freebies. Otherwise, this site is a great resource. Keep up the good work!
Dainis Graveris
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 18:13
Yes, I agree – that’s our weak side for now on! :) Wish you good luck :)
Karthik
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 19:04
First time visitor and I think your site is well laid out with some great content in my few minutes of browsing around. I would love to see the search box a little bit bigger or more apparent to a new visitor.
Thanks for the giveaway!
Taz Carper
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 19:07
I would love to see a series of articles that go over current web trends and future web trends. A series that shows how specific attributes of the web, contact forms for example, have evolved through the years.
Saad Bassi
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 20:48
Thanks for the ideas. We will try to focus on them.
Davide
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 21:13
Hi! I’d like to see more jquery-css example and easy-programming tutorials. The site is still really good anyway ;)
Chris
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 21:23
Having had to learn the little PHP I know the hard way (self-taught), this book will be a good send.
Always looking for tutorials, esp. customizing WordPress and other open-source packages (ie. Webcalendar, Zen Cart, etc).
Thomas J. Brown
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 21:42
I’m always interesting in finding out best practices, how to decrease load times, usability issues, and accessibility issues.
Emrah Omuris
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 21:52
I would like to see more and more CSS3 and HTML5 articles and preferably some articles for beginners on CSS3 who has a knowledge on CSS 2.1 and earlier versions.
Richard Martin
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 21:01
Im a novice that knows nothing about web design and wants to know something.
Like what is the difference between all these different ways to build a website like html, xml, php, css, etc. What should a person that knows nothing learn.