26 replies to this topic

[Redscouse]

Hi All

My name is Pete (aka Redscouse).
I just wanted to introduce myself and say hello. (waving).

I used to be a member of Larry's old forum when i bought my first php book(yes it was Larrys) and i found myself a frequent visitor with plenty of questions..
I've just been cleaning out my bookmarks and i saw the link to the old forum and stopped by and had a read of my old posts.. looking back, i feel rather silly now, however at the time, they were questions i needed to ask.

Things have changed a lot since then and i can 'hold my own' in the php world these days.
Thanks Larry, your books were/are so simple to understand, learning was a breeze.
To this day if i've forgotten something, first place i look is one of your books.

Cheers
Pete.

P.S. I'm now in a position to be able to help out others around the place, so if no-one minds, i'll try and chip in where i can.

[phpRob]

Hi Redscouse,

I guess I'm at the exact same position you found yourself in all that time ago, I'm just starting out at php & mysql having nearly finished Larrys' PHP for the web book. I'm hoping after reading Larrys other books and completing a couple of my own projects I'll be in a position to laugh at my own forum posts oneday!!

[Redscouse]

Hi Rob,

If your reading Larry's books (i guess you are because your here) you'll pick up php/mysql in no time at all. If i can be of any assistance, please feel free to give me a shout.

Pete.

[phpRob]

Thanks Pete, all help would be very welcome, Thanks.

[Larry]

Hello Pete,

Glad to hear you're doing well. And thanks for thinking of giving back. That's wonderful to see! Plus, you'll find that helping others really improves your own skills.

[Daisy]

Hi, all.....
This is Daisy,
Today is my first day on Larry's site and the forum so I wanted to introduce my self and tell you about me and my project. I am not a professional website builder. When it comes to building websites I am a self starter. I learned html by doing turorials and reading books. My first website was built using frontpage, and is still online. if you care to take a look you can see it at www.lakeontario-cottage.com. It may not be perfect but it does the job for us. I am pretty pleased that we are always on the first page for google.

I am now attempting to build an e-commerce site for my husband and I. (We grow daylilies and my husband hybridzes new varieties which we will sell.) Actually I have already started working towards our web presence. I have upgraded frontpage to expression web and learned it via tutorials and books. I know this makes me no expert by any means but flying by the seat of my pants is my MO. I have alot of questions about putting the front end (website) together with the backend (database). That is why today I downloaded Larry's book Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL. The table of contents seems to address my fears so i'm jumping in with both feet.

After reading a few pages I see I'm already in trouble since I am not familiar with PHP or MySQL, but I'm staying the course. The worst that can happen is I need to stop and get some tutoring on them.
Wish me luck and all comments and suggetions are greatly appreciated.

[Jonathon]

Hello Daisy,

I wish you all the best with your project, many people here are just learning or program out of fun and there are others that are pretty handy and professional developers. I would say only this to you regarding the Effortless E-commerce book - It isn't for beginners (sadly). An intermediate ability with both PHP and MySQL is required to be able to understand and address any problems that you encounter. Obviously if you intend to make a complete copy in every sense of the demonstration sites then you literally could copy everything from the book onto your server or use the downloaded files. But this is highly unlikely. You may be best to start with PHP and Mysql (4th Edition).

[Larry]

Hello Daisy,

Thanks for your post and for your interest in my book. I do hope, however, that when you say you "downloaded" the e-commerce book, you mean that you paid for it, right? In any case, attempting to use the e-commerce book without being very comfortable with PHP and MySQL is a pretty big mistake in my opinion. At best, it's going to be hard and frustrating. At worst, impossible.

[Daisy]

Hi Jonathon,
Thank you for your feedback. Do you recommend a particular author re. PHP and MySQL 4th edition?


Hi Larry,
Since you asked, I purchased your book from Amazon and "downloaded" the kindle version. Gotta love that instant gratification.

Based on the book's table of contents it appears that there is a lot more information that could be useful to me. I won't know until I get furthur along in it. Should PHP and MySQL be beyond my abilities, I will need to take another route. So for now, I'm tying a rope around my waist and "I'm going in." (Geraldo Rivera)

[Jonathon]

Yes Larry's "PHP and MySQL" would be a great primer. Especially for the MySQL content, which is really where all the magic happens I feel.

[Edward]

Hi All

My name is Pete (aka Redscouse).
I just wanted to introduce myself and say hello. (waving).

I used to be a member of Larry's old forum when i bought my first php book(yes it was Larrys) and i found myself a frequent visitor with plenty of questions..
I've just been cleaning out my bookmarks and i saw the link to the old forum and stopped by and had a read of my old posts.. looking back, i feel rather silly now, however at the time, they were questions i needed to ask.

Things have changed a lot since then and i can 'hold my own' in the php world these days.
Thanks Larry, your books were/are so simple to understand, learning was a breeze.
To this day if i've forgotten something, first place i look is one of your books.

Cheers
Pete.

P.S. I'm now in a position to be able to help out others around the place, so if no-one minds, i'll try and chip in where i can.

Hey pete you have some nice website's glad you love the larry book's. I am working through Effortless Eccomerce right now, its awesome. See you around!

[Redscouse]

Hey pete you have some nice website's glad you love the larry book's. I am working through Effortless Eccomerce right now, its awesome. See you around!

Thanks for the kind words Edward, and it's all down to Larry's books, without them PHP would not even exist in my vocabulary

[Edward]

Yes the books are great, i will be purchasing a few of his others also. Interested in his new javascript book. Is that what dogtanian looks like after all these years?

[Larry]

Thanks for the nice words, guys!

[MattJG]

Who i am.
Hi there. My names Matt and i live in Lincoln, England. Im a painter and decorator by trade, and have a hobbyist interest in websites and web development, more spicificly php. I had a book on PHP and MySQL years ago since lost. I've just been out and bought:

PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites, fourth Edition. By Larry Ullman.

Its been a great read so far and Larry has a grate way of explaining things. Much better than my previous book.

What I want to achieve.
I want to make myself a little web app that I can access from anywhiere with ether a phone, tablet or pc. I want to be able to fill in a form with my invoice information and on clicking submit I want the date to be entered into a database, create a pdf with that info and email it to me, save it to my server, and email it to my client. I want to be able to distingwish between contractors I work for and private client as my invoices are different foreach. The use of templates for the webapp and the pdf's generated would be grate too. And lastly, im conciderinhg using a language file somehow just in case when I've got it done I want to release it for download by others.

I know there's some open source software out there like simpleinvoices but it doesn't really fit my needs, and I think its over complicated for what I need.

P.s. oh crap, I've just read that back to myself. I think that's a bit ambishush for a noodie.

[Larry]

Hello Matt,

Thanks for the introduction and for the interest in the book. Never heard of Lincoln, England before, but I see you're up north. As for your project, it's definitely do-able, but it'll take you a bit of work to get there. Let us know if you have questions along the way.

[benney]

Hi everyone,,,
I am very new to this plate forum.... I hope that it will provide me a great information.. I will find out the
Solution of number of problems regarding the business ideas and problems.... Its my 1st experience to join any forum, so give me your valuable advises...

[margaux]

@Benney,
This forum is primarily for people learning/working in various programming languages for web development, PHP, MySQL, Javascript, Ajax and other technologies that Larry has authored books on. You can also ask general questions on these subjects. You may not find alot of threads on business ideas and problems although Larry does touch on some general concepts in his e-commerce book.

If you are looking for information/discussion on programming languages and concepts regarding building web sites, you will find that Larry and many others here are very helpful and generous with their time and knowledge. Be sure to read the forum guidelines and remember that people are giving their time and knowledge freely. If someone has given you a lot of help, its nice to thank them. Happy learning

[Larry]

Thanks, Margaux, for this reply. Very well said!

[TomTom]

Hello all!

TomTom here. I'm a "newbie" and trying to figure out how it all goes together. Have to admit I jump around a lot doing so. Must have about 40 books covering PHP, DOM, Ajax, CSS, MySQL, etc. and now I'm trying to figure out how to develop skills... using Smarty, CakePHP, PEAR's QuickForm2. All this and Javascript too! My head just spins! I don't know how you all do it. I'm just amazed and you have my admiration!

I've spent the last decade working on an IBM iSeries (AS400) with a little VBA & VB thrown in. About the closest we got to the Web then was a stand-alone HTTP gateway program written in RPG.

Hope you all will bear with me as I stumble along and, thanks in advance for your help and tolerance.