PHP
February 22, 2011
I occasional use emails I get as the basis for a post … here we go again:
I have been a member of the Killersites University for a while now and a very satisfied student who is learning web design well. However, I am at a fork in the road.
I have learned from Killersites about HTML and CSS and now there is HTML 5 and CSS 3. I haven’t covered any of the other videos yet. I don’t know where to go next in relation to the newest videos you have posted. Maybe I should go to PHP next, or Java Script, or Flash, or HTML 5… i dont know.
So would you please layout a course outline, in that, tell me in which order I should learn your courses. Assume that I am going to go through all of them eventually and please include the placement of HTML 5 and CSS 3. Also, just so you know why I am learning, I am a videographer wanting supplement my programs with killer websites that display video and interacts with the user. I am using Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 currently.
Thanks for all you do.
Clint
My short answer:
Hi,
I would suggest PHP next. Then maybe some Javascript and Jquery.
HTML 5 and CSS3 come later because they are still niche/mobile technologies.
Comments:
When choosing what technologies and skills you want to develop, you have to really consider your own goals and where the Web is at. So for instance, I see Flash is loosing a lot of its’ steam, and I think that it might be wise to not invest in Flash and related technologies:
– Flex
– Actionscript
– Flash Remoting
Unless of course, you are in a niche market that uses Flash a lot.
😉
I suggested PHP next (for this student) simply because:
– PHP it is used everywhere.
– PHP is very useful in day-to-day web work.
– Unlike Flash, I don’t see PHP’s popularity dropping any time soon.
Stefan Mischook
killersites.com
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May 20, 2010
Hi,
Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere on the moon, you know that iPhone and now the iPad have a lot of users and are effectively a market that web developers and designers have to pay attention to – you might be asked to build or design something for these popular devices some day.
To help get you going, I got my nerd brother Richard to put together an article that introduces iPad and iPhone programming – this is a view from 10 000 feet …. so even web designers might learn something as well.
A quick quote from the article to entice you:
The introduction of the iPhone by Apple a few years back caused a lot of excitement among both consumers and developers. The iPhone was arguably the first mobile device that made both mobile computing and web surfing practical. The iPad (which runs on iPhone OS) has been met with skepticism in some quarters. But so far it appears to be selling well and attracting a lot of interest from content creators.
Apple originally intended that the main source of third-party applications for the iPhone would be web applications, and there are of course many of these. But something funny happened when Apple released the iPhone SDK and an App Store to go with it – people came. Developers developed and consumers consumed.
Read the rest of this article on iPhone and iPad development.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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May 11, 2010
Hi,
In our ongoing effort to provide top quality screencasts authored by working web designers and web programmers (that means practical training) … we just released a new set of videos on PHP CRUD.
The official summary:
This is a six part series that covers how to create a basic application that creates, reads, updates and deletes records (often called CRUD) from a MySQL database using MySQLi. MySQLi helps prevent SQL injection, a common security issue. Understanding how to use a MySQL database and work with database records is an essential skill for beginning web developers.
You can find these videos in our growing collection of video training tutorials at Killersites University. I will be releasing several free samples from this (and other series) as soon as I can find the time – busy these days watching TV.
🙂
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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November 6, 2009
Hi,
Once and a while I use an email question as the basis of a blog post. This time, someone wanted to know about Dreamweaver and PHP:
Hi Stefan,
I am looking to get some videos on using Dreamweaver cs4 creating dynamic sites with PHP and MYSQL, do you have any videos on this using the drag and drop features etc with some code writing also?
Many thanks
Andy
My answer:
Hi Andrew,
The short answer:
Dreamweaver‘s drag and drop features are very brittle. I was a beta
tester for DW CS4 and the programmers themselves told me that they would
be looking to trash it for the next version of Dreamweaver – they knew
it was a mess.
… It can be used for simple things (and prototyping), but the code is so messy and
convoluted, that any changes that you will probably have to make to
your project could be a nightmare. You are much better off learning PHP
and using Dreamweaver as a PHP code editor … and it’s pretty good at that.
In my basic course on PHP, I use Dreamweaver as the code editor and I
touch on in as far as how Dreamweaver can be used to write PHP code. You
can see a bunch of sample videos here: http://www.killerphp.com/videos/
Let me know if this helps,
Stefan
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July 13, 2009
Hi,
This is just going to be a quick blog post, because I am still busy getting killersites.com up and running properly after an emergency server move I had to make.
The short story …
I had been using the same hosting company for many years and generally with not too many issues. But in the last year, things started to go downhill fast. The server was very slow (overloaded) and it went down way too often.
The last straw that broke my weak nerd-back, was a complete shutdown of my account by some pencil-necked twit who decided that killersites.com had too much traffic … so this no-nothing nerd suspended the account!
… You have to understand, I had been with these guys for 5-6 years, I’ve spoken to the founder/owner on several occasions and they used killersites.com as a feather in their cap:
‘… we proudly host killersites.com.’
So this unannounced shut down of the entire site was shall we say, vexing.
When it get’s that bad, it’s time to leave fast!
A quick threat of legal action got the site back up quickly, but I was warned killersites.com had too much traffic and I had to move it. So, I moved it to our own dedicated servers right away … within hours.
So why did I not change over to our own dedicated server years ago?
Answer: Configuration.
Killersites.com has been around for about 13 years now and it has a lot of old legacy stuff floating around. Specifically, we are talking about old Perl scripts and a couple of Java based web applications.
… Once you get these sort of things working, you’d best leave them alone. That hassle combined with my general laziness caused me to keep killersites.com sitting on the old server, even when some early evidence of trouble started to brew. You can’t underestimate laziness!
Continued trouble …
So as I write, I have still to get the old Java forum up and running again and the Perl based directory is not fully operational. The nice thing though, is that all the PHP based applications:
– WordPress blogs
– Newsletter script
– PHP based forum (to replace the Java created forum)
… migrated easily and are working fine. Once again, no hassles with PHP and I highly recommend you learn PHP as a web designer.
Bye for now.
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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February 20, 2008
Because of recent demand, I decided to release my PHP video tutorials in iPod format – that means they play on your iPod.
🙂
… OK, you guys guessed that one.
These video were originally intended for viewing on a computer monitor, so some of the code examples will be harder to read since iPod screens are smaller.
Nonetheless, the discussions may be useful to watch on your iPod as you’re … say, on your way to work or school.
A small note: I’ve added some brief comments (in text) about each video, to give you a better idea of what you will find in the video before downloading it.
You can find the videos on the new iPod video page.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
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February 17, 2008
This is part 3 of 3 of my videos that introduces beginners to PHP sessions.
In this video, I conclude my practical look at basic PHP sessions.
PHP session video tutorial – part 3
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
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February 14, 2008
This is the part 2 of 3 of my videos that introduces the beginner to PHP sessions.
In this video, I get into practical examples where we see basic PHP sessions in action.
PHP session video tutorial – part 2
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
read more
February 13, 2008
Hi,
I’ve just released a new beginners video tutorial that introduces people to PHP sessions:
PHP Sessions Video Tutorial
PHP sessions are one of the most important mechanisms in PHP because they solve a fundamental issue in web application development: keeping state on a user.
If what I just says confuses you, no worries, it’s explained in the video.
This is video 1 of 3 on sessions.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killerphp.com
read more
November 21, 2007
Hi,
I’ve just posted an article related to object oriented PHP:
An introduction to the Zend Framework: writing object oriented PHP with ease.
The article covers concepts that are a little more advanced, but I think John (the author,) has done a good job making things understandable.
… I think anyone with just a little PHP knowledge, will find the article a worthwhile read.
Let me know what you think and if you have questions … you know what to do!
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
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