No comments about Application Development with Oracle & PHP on Linux for Beginners, 2nd Edition (Book/CD-Rom).

5 comments about PHP Black Book.

1. I bought this book expecting it to be an exhaustive resource on how to start programing with PHP. I went into it with relatively little knowledge of server side programing, but the back of the book promised to fill me in on all the relevant details. It didn't.

   The book is organized into chapters on general subjects with an "intermediate solutions" and a "in depth" section in each. While it might make some sense for a book, the organization makes reading the book chronologically not work at all. Even the reference is shody at best, very irratic. It includes reference to virtually useless date functions for coverting between dates in the jewish and the roman calenders in the second chapter! The section on the MySQL database includes how to insert rows into a database and create tables, but not how to update or delete entries! Such erratic relevance is present throughout the book - there are many several page long sections which give a one sentense long description to an entire class of rarely used functions. Not only are the functions not especially useful, but the brief and cursory explainations mean that one would have to use another reference material to get them working in the first place. Additionally, many excerpts of complex code are presented without sufficient explaination of the basic concepts behind them. It's not explained well enough to impart a mastery of the skills upon the reader. The book sets out to be both a teaching tool and a reference material, but fails miserably on both accounts. One would be far better off merely learning the stuff at the PHP.net, as I was told when I asked on usenet for recommendation of a book and I foolishly ignored. At least the reference there is complete. Some subjects that are important today (that may not have been at the time of writing), such as setting register_globals to off in the php.ini settings are not even mentioned in the book.

   The other annoying aspect of the book is the author's sense of humor and his stories. As was mentioned in another review, it's fine if the material is good, but really is just fluff that covers up holes. His disdain for JavaScript is understandable, but uncalled for. When an author poorly describes even just the basics of a programing language, his extra comments aren't appreciated nor helpful. We'll be writing code that works worse than the poorly writen code of so called "professional" websites that he mentions his hate for many times, with only his book as a resource.

   Yes, the book does have a few useful excerpts and sections, but until the reader has a well educated knowledge of the subject, far beyond what the book imparts, it doesn't help at all. There's no compensation for the gaping holes in the text.




2. I've bought a couple of PHP and other programming books that were good and when I ordered the PHP Black Book, I never thought that this would become my desk reference and partner on work. Why? Because it has a simple, interesting, fun reading and because it is so well written and organized that you wont get lost on chapters and subjects.
   For me, it is not one more book, this has become The Book and if you're considering PHP programming, you've got it all here with fun and professionalism.



3. This is not a very well-organized book. The examples are generally over-simplified. My biggest complaint, however, is with the cd rom - it includes "Source Code" from the examples in the book. The source code is merely all of the snippets of code in each chapter jammed into a few html pages. For example chapter 17, "Objects" has several "Example" pages which do not work because objects are illegally redefined several times within the same page. The author does spell it all out in the chapter, but the examples are simply not usable.



4. i read this book , i read this book again and i read this book thrice . except for a few things there is nothing that helped me . Most of the examples are poor to follow and many of them do not work .

   the only thing that can be learnt from the book is that there's nobody else in the world who can program better than Peter Moulding . Peter Moulding is a guru , he has learnt 50 websites , 25 years of experience , lots of languages etc. etc. etc. and other people who make websites are foolish but call themselves 'experts' .

   I am not writing this because of frustration but thats how the book really is




5. I went from knowing some HTML before I bought this book, and after reading PHP Black Book I was able to dive into PHP right away.

   I am now a developer of a Content Management System which implements PHP and a MySQL database, which I owe alot of credit to this book. Peter Moulding has done an outstanding job writing this book! Though I do admit some of the example code is incorrect, everything that is written and meant to teach you something succeeds with flying colors.

   This is also an excellent PHP reference book. Anytime I am in doubt of something, or need to double check something, this book has the answer. It was well worth the money!

No comments about php|architect's PHP Job Hunter's Handbook.

5 comments about PHP Essentials, 2nd Edition.

1. This book is well written, but I was expecting more contents.



2. If you just want a clear-cut intro to PHP, this is the book to get. Meloni takes the basic concepts, and shows you how to use them to create a shopping cart (so you learn database interaction, how to send an email, and basic syntax). Perfect for newbies.



3. Thanks amazon for providing good book in fast and secure manner i appreciate it



4. This is a great book for people new to php. It gives you good examples and very detailed explanation to the code. I will strongly recommended if you are new to PHP.
   great buy!



5. Before I go on a tirade about this book, I would just like to say that it does have a good layout and organizational structure, as well as a nice appendix of built in PHP functions. I would also like to mention that I am a professional Computer Engineer. I bought this book to quickly learn php syntax/semantics so I could make a simple DB front end.
   
   Other than that,
   
   1.) The book is rife with syntax errors and typos. Much of the example PHP code won't even come close to compiling in PHP 5.
   
   I spent about 3 hours trying to figure out why a few simple lines of PHP code directly from the book wouldn't work. Since I had not been introduced to PHP previously (hence buying the introduction book) I was not able to recognize the errors in the text. The examples were apparently made for a previous version of PHP. It wasn't after googling around for a while I found out the error was in the book.
   
   2.) The author had no idea who she was writing the book for.
   
   The author states at the beginning of the book that it was not written for programmers (to my dismay), but for someone who could "take (the book) off the shelf, skim though, and say, Hey, this PHP thing looks like a neat language, and ever-so-easy to learn!"
   
   First of all, if you aren't a programmer, you don't learn programming languages. If you know a programming language and use it, guess what, you're a programmer.
   
   Secondly, the author wants to assume to reader isn't a computer scientist or programmer, but that they know how to properly set up a linux system with an Apache Webserver and SQL/PHP support. Anyone who is a novice user would probably spend days getting this to work correctly to begin with.
   
   Thirdly, nobody picks up a programming language book and randomly decides it's a "neat language" that is "ever-so-easy to learn". People decide what they want to learn first and then find a book on it. So writing an entire book on that basis is pretty flaky in my opinion.
   
   Another problem with this book I could see was that the examples were introducing unexplained elements. I.e. using language elements that were not previously described. I understood much of it, but for a true novice this could be extremely confusing.
   
   In summary, the book tries to compromise between technical value and accessibility to a beginner, but ultimately just ends up with a poorly crafted piece of literature. My recommendation would be either to buy a different book, or save your money and use one of the many free PHP guides available on the internet.

5 comments about Spring Into PHP 5 (Spring Into... Series).

1. This book is a great starter. The approach is just as clear as the text is. It gets you into the meat of things right away, yet you don't feel overwhelmed.
   
   Yes, MySql is introduced towards the back and is hand-in-hand with PHP on almost every system that has one or the other. Your websites are bound to quickly become better looking, faster, and easier on resources. I wish I had gotten this book when I first started learning PHP. Great idea for new PHP developers and staff.



2. This is a great book for someone who understands some programming languages and wants a quick overview of what php can do, and how to do it. There are a lot of different subjects covered, but none in great detail. So if you have ADD like myself, this is the book for you! In my opinion it's a great deal too.



3. I've been programming in c/c++ and java for 6 years now and recently at work was asked to give a facelift to our intranet site. Without this book I do not think I would have been able to complete all the requested task in such a short amount of time.
   
   This is probably one of the most well written php books I've ever read. Steven Holzner did a perfect job bringing the nuts and bolts of PHP to the world in such a clear and concise manner. The books pace is perfect for a newbie into the PHP world and though technical is very easy to read and understand. Through this book I was able to give our intranet site an overhaul and add features to it in no time, leaving me plenty of time to focus on other projects.
   
   If you need a quick jump start into PHP programming look no further.



4. This book is amazing. Its so easy as a training guide and resource. I used a 3M highlighter with Tabs and continue to use this book as a reference. This book goes through Baby steps to configuring things to get you launched into your own PHP applications.
   
   I've read the PHP 4 Bible which I would rate a 2. This book 'Spring Into PHP' is honestly the best PHP book I've purchased. My other recommendation is SitePoints PHP & MySQL book, though I would still choose this book for beginner to novice over any.



5. I'm new to PHP, and chose this book because I had good results with "Spring Into: HTML & CSS". The chunks are clear and concise with lots of examples. I've learned a lot from this book, but keep having trouble with errors in the script. After going over (and over) the code, I started realizing that it was typos in the book coding itself-not user error! Being new to PHP, constant typos make the learning process more drawn out and frustrating! I'm ready to get a different book so I don't have to struggle through the typos (at half way into the book, I've found over a dozen). There are some good things to get out of this book; but is it worth the frustration?

5 comments about PHP: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Open Source, Server-Side Content.

1. This book is a must have reference to PHP programming. It's a bit difficult to read, but it's great to have around. If you are an absoulte beginer looking to learn PHP, this isn't your book right away...wait a couple of months and then buy it.



2. This thing was the best computer book that I have ever purchased. The way it was layed out was the easiest I've ever had to learn anything in computers...and I'm a network engineer, and have been for 10 years.
   
   Great book...get it!



3. Perfect for a newbie programmer. I had more trouble installing PHP than using the book.



4. After a long search and 3 PHP books later, I have finally found something that was perfectly structured and EASY TO UNDERSTAND. If you are looking to learn PHP fast, start with this book. 4 stars instead of 5 only because its a bit dated, though still an excelent foundation.



5. I bought this book several years ago for my son when he was in high school. Since then I've kept it in work and it's been borrowed many times by ASP and Java programmers looking to broaden their knowledge, modify existing systems or to customized any of the many PHP based applications and frameworks that are available on the internet.
   It's a great book to learn what is still one of the most commonly used language on the web.

2 comments about PHP 5 Unleashed.

1. After reading a PHP5 book in the past I was happy with it. However it was for beginers. I searched for something more advanced. This was it. PHP5 Unleashed goes over several advanced topics. In example there is Regular Expressions (aka. Regex), Advanced MySQL techniches, accessing the OS's programs (Like dd, cp, etc) and more. One thing I should note as that there are some parts that can't be done on Windows. To get the most of this book you need Linux. ( If you want Linux download the ISO image of Fedora Core 4 at fedora.redhat.com. It is great for beginers to Linux. You can also use Mandrakelinux ([...]) but it isn't as simple to use.) Also note that this book has a section for new users but it is small and you should buy a book for beginers first. Might I recommend "PHP5 Fast & Easy Web Development" for novices.
   
   A little disappointment is that this book shows you only how to INSTALL PEAR. It doesn't show you how to use it at all.



2. I have another "unleashed" book and was very happy with it, so immediately picked up this book when needing to work with PHP. What I needed to learn about was session usage.
   
   Unfortunately, this book is not very good for that, for a novice learning to use sessions. The reason why is not because it is too advanced--I'm adept at reading computer textbooks and parsing the info--the problem is that it is a best practice in terms of security to turn register_globals off in PHP, that is the standard config for PHP after 4.1, and yet they provide all of their examples with this being enabled.
   
   They even mention that it isn't best practice, but they go ahead and do it anyway with an occasional caveat here and there for those who are not using it. What that means is that somebody in my position is not only trying to understand the code, but also accound for everything that doesn't apply to me. I have to translate, then interpret. Why should I have to do all that for basic "best practice" functionality?!
   
   I've since picked up other books (PHP 5 recipes, Wicked cool PHP) that are much better. I gave this book the stars it has because it is very informative and useful. In the case of sessions, it is just very confusing.

2 comments about PHP Programming Solutions.

1. PHP Programming Solutions is a good general purpose reference book targeted toward intermediate-level PHP programmers. The examples are simple and complete enough that it's possible a beginner could learn PHP from the book.
   
   It is organized like a catalog, and quite frankly most of the information in it could be found by doing a simple Google search. But if you're like me, and enjoy having a book in front of you, I'd highly recommend it.
   
   Something I didn't like about the examples was the heavy reliance on the PEAR libraries. For someone who's looking only to solve the problem at hand... in PHP... this will undoubtedly be adequate. Someone interested in more detailed explanations, such that the solution may be generally applied to other languages, may be disappointed in this aspect of the book, as I was.



2. I purchesed this book hoping it would give good examples. NOT!!! Just another book for people who already know what they are doing. Now this is my opinion and this book did nothing to help explain the INCLUDE function or how to handle directories in php which is the help I was looking for.

No comments about Advanced Php Programming: Developing Large-scale Web Applications With Php 5 (Developer's Library).

5 comments about Intrusion Detection with SNORT: Advanced IDS Techniques Using SNORT, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and ACID (Bruce Perens' Open Source Series).

1. I got this book and read through it (didn't take me long. It's pretty short and actually has less than 200 pages really covering Snort). I was disappointed that it did not come with a CD with all the software. Also, this book covers Snort 1.9.0, but 2.0 just came out. I'm not sure why they didn't update everything to the latest version, which would have made it much more usefel. I guess it's not bad if you really just want a quick introduction to IDSs and Snort, but look elsewhere if you really want an in depth book on Snort.



2. This is the first book that I read on Snort, and I wish I had gone with something else. This book really reads like more of an overview of intrusion detection and Snort, rather than a useful reference for actually using Snort. This would be fine if the title did NOT include the words "Advanced" or "Techniques," because there is not a lot of either in this book. It also doesn't help that it's not written to the latest release. If you want to understand intrusion detection a little better and you are considering to try Snort, then this books is fine. If you want or need more, this just isn't the book.



3. "Intrusion Detection with Snort: Advanced IDS, etc." (IDWS) was the second of this year's intrusion detection books I've reviewed. The first was Tim Crothers' "Implementing Intrusion Detection Systems" (4 stars). I was disappointed by IDWS, since I have a high opinion of Prentice Hall and the new "Bruce Perens' Open Source Series." (I'm looking forward to the book on CIFS, for example.) IDWS read poorly and doesn't deliver as much useful content as the competing Syngress book "Snort 2.0."
   
   The most difficult aspect of reading IDWS is the author's grammar, particularly his avoidance of using definitive articles like "the", and other important words. For instance, p. 3 says "Apache web server takes help from ACID, etc." p. 133 claims "However, if you are using HTTP decode preprocessor, this attempt can detected." Beyond grammar, the author demonstrates weak knowledge of the IDS field, stating on p. 1 "Intrusion detection methods starting appearing in the last few years." James Anderson led the way in 1980, followed by Denning and Neumann in 1983 and Todd Heberlein in 1990! The author also repeatedly compares IDS to anti-virus signatures, which is simplistic and incorrect.
   
   Technical errors further hamper IDWS. p. 89 makes the mistake of saying TCP sequence numbers count packets; they really count bytes of application data. p. 96-97 confuses the use of standard Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) with their use in Snort, which is different. (SF+ means SYN and FIN and zero or more other flags, not SYN AND FIN alone.) The fuzzy diagrams don't appear professional, and acronyms like "PHP" are defined incorrectly as "Pretty Home Page" (rather than the self-referencing "PHP Hypertext Processor.")
   
   Coverage of important topics is lacking or outdated. First, Snort 1.9 is the basis for the text. However, 2.0 is available and covered by the Syngress book. The output system Barnyard and unified logging receive a total of one page. No meaningful mention is made of the effects of collecting traffic via hub, SPAN port, or tap. The port list on pp. 87-88 shows "well known ports," but doesn't say if they are TCP or UDP. The author makes odd claims about Snort "not [being] able to analyze application layer protocols," which is misleading. Snort rules aren't designed specifically for HTTP, for example, but they can be used to inspect HTTP requests and responses.
   
   My favorite part of IDWS was the coverage of using the MySQL database. Appendix B provides helpful supplemental material on this subject also. Bottom line: I would pass on IDWS but keep an eye on the other titles in the PHPTR "Open Source Series."



4. I really like books that are to the point and filled with examples. This is such a book. It enables the reader to get up and going quickly. The reader is guided through installation and each component of SNORT. Once the basics are covered, the author moves to more advanced topics and integrating other tools like Apache, MySQL, and ACID. All told, it presents an excellent approach to building an IDS.



5. This book is an effective introduction to Intruder Detection, demonstrating how popular open-source tools can be used. I found the code samples, table, diagrams and screenshots to be clear and useful. I learned what I'd hoped to learn and feel empowered to set up an IDS myself. Plenty of links and resources when I want to learn more.

   I read a few of the other reviews here after I read the book... especially Richard B's. I noticed some of the same techinical mistakes, but don't feel that they are a big deal. As a sr. software engineer and techinical editor, I always read critically, just mentally note them and continue. They aren't the kind of mistakes that make the code useless, or would confuse/mislead any level of reader. Another editing pass would help most books, and I none of the grammar mistakes annoy me - I read to learn what I can and move on, not to nitpick or get annoyed.

   As far as 1.9 vs. 2.0, I've looked at the snort site and agree that the release is signficant, but it doesn't break backwards compatibility, so it doesn't make this book any less revelant. 2.0 seems to mostly change the backend implementation - *the application is used identically* so I suspect the vast majority of this book is unaffected. The Syngress book covers 2.0, yet so does the website, which hypes this two-times-more-expensive book. That book too will no doubt soon be superceded, so read whatever you buy immediately ;-)