Should I Learn PHP and MySQL or Not?

I've had quite a few people ask me this question: "Should I learn PHP and MySQL?".

The answer is never easy. It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Are you looking to be involved in your own website? Is it being run on PHP and MySQL? What would you like to do with your website?

There's a million questions you can ask yourself. I, personally, believe that anyone who wants to become more involved with their own website or run their own Web Design and Development Company should, at the minimum, learn the basics of PHP and MySQL.

Why should you? Well, let's take a few examples...

Maybe you want to create a Members are on your site and you want to be able to offer downloads, use a more interactive Contact script, show information dynamically for your customers (i.e. Time and Date, Their personal information, the information they searched for last, Billing information, Download history, username and/or password, etc) to make it easier for them to browse through your site.

Maybe you want to be able to use PHP for your Search Engine Optimization needs? Needs such as 404 Redirects, 301 redirects, etc.

Maybe you need to create a built in search system for your e-commerce site? Maybe you're looking to simply redirect people to an Affiliate program?

See the many, MANY ways you can use PHP? It's a very valuable tool to know and understand. Imagine yourself having the knowledge to take a product like Wordpress and fully customize it to your own, personal, needs?

Think you can make money off of one of your Wordpress Plugin Ideas by knowing PHP? Think you can build a better Content Management System than what's currently available? What about a new Social Networking Script - OR Community?

Companies like PHPFox have made a killing with their php knowledge. Likewise for companies such as Mambo, vBulletin and various other scripts that you can purchase.

So the next question would be HOW you can learn PHP?

There's a million ways to learn but I try to explain to everybody that watching Videos and DOING the coding practices they ask you to do is how you'll learn quickly.

Sure... lot's of people have learned PHP by reading books. But I find the problem with books is a lack of support. You're always going to learn more by seeing and doing rather than reading and doing. Luckily there are solutions to this problem.

You can also visit popular forums such as Sitepoint, Digitalpoint and other Webmaster related forums or communities that allow other members to help with questions and answers.

No matter what you choose to do - just remember that DOING is how you learn. Practice without reading or watching. Just take the little knowledge you have at the time and make it grow with practice.

I hope you figure out what you need to accomplish and good luck!

By Clint Lenard

Basics Of Php

Practical Uses of PHP

It almost goes without saying that you will want your business website to be compelling, interactive, and secure. All of these characteristics will make your website more effective at bringing in and keeping customers. But how to go about it in a way that is stable, cost-effective, and easy to manage? One popular solution is to use the server-side scripting language PHP to help you solve those problems.

What is PHP?

Created in 1995, PHP originally stood for "Personal Home Page", however it is now generally understood to mean "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". It was originally designed to create dynamic or more interactive web pages. It is a widely-used, open-source, general-purpose scripting language. PHP is a "high-level" language, meaning that it's generally more human-friendly (and easier to learn) than other programming languages such as C, ASP or ASP.net.

PHP was originally designed for use in Web site development, but rapidly grew to become a much more robust language. PHP's primary use is as an "embedded" scripting language, which means that the actual PHP code is embedded in HTML code. When used in this way, PHP enables your web server to process web pages before they're displayed in the user's web browser.
Benefits of PHP

PHP is popular because it can be embedded directly into HTML coding.

PHP can be used on all major operating systems and is supported on most web servers.

PHP's main focus is development for the web, so it has a quick development time and can solve scenarios much quicker than some of the other web design languages.

The latest version of PHP is a very stable and mature language used for web programming much like Java and Microsoft C#.

It is open source so it is free!

Database: It is very easy to write simple scripts which allow your Web site to interact with a database.

Cross-Platform: Both the PHP engine and the PHP code can be used on almost any platform, making it extremely versatile.

Development Tools: You only need a text editor to work on PHP; you do not need any development environment or compilers.

What can you do with PHP?

PHP generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating Web pages as output, however you can also use it for command-line scripting and client-side GUI applications. PHP is an extremely versatile language which enables you to create high-end, stable Web sites with plenty of bells and whistles. Here are just a few of the things you can do with PHP:

Make HTML Web Forms

Store Information in Databases

Remember Web site visitors (cookies and sessions)

Work with Arrays

Work with Files (File Management and downloads)

Parsing and Generating XML (also useful for large quantities of products on e-commerce)

Check which browser your visitor is using

How does PHP Work?

As its name ("PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") suggests, PHP derives its power by "preprocessing" hypertext on the server side. This generally means that when the PHP script (saved as a .php file) runs on your web server, it performs the programmed actions, and returns HTML code that will then be sent back to your customer's web browser. The PHP script itself is not included in the HTML that is sent to the browser, so the PHP code is invisible and secure to the user.

For example, let's consider the following simple PHP statement. (This example is merely to show the basic syntax of PHP in action. Any detailed discussion of PHP code is beyond the scope of this article.)



In this statement, is the closing tag, and echo is a PHP instruction that tells PHP to output the text that follows it as plain HTML code. The PHP software processes the PHP statement and outputs the following:

<p>Hello World

This is a regular HTML statement that is delivered to the users browser. The PHP statement itself is not delivered to the browser, so the user never sees any PHP statements.

Using PHP to Improve Your Website.

PHP has many capabilities features designed specifically for use in Web sites, including the following:

1. Securing Your Website.

PHP can be used to secure your website (or certain areas of your website) so that your customer must enter a valid username and password. This can be used to reward preferred customers and to build an exclusive "membership" component of your business.

2. Working with Web Forms.

PHP can display an HTML form and process the information that the user types in. This can be an excellent way to learn more about your customers by asking them to provide profile information, and to collect information about their specific interests.

3. Communicate with Your Databases.

PHP is particularly adept at interacting with your databases, and storing information from the user or retrieving information that is displayed to the user. PHP handles connecting to the database and communicating with it, so it's not necessary to know all of the technical details for connecting to or exchanging messages with the database. You tell PHP the name of the database and where it is, and PHP handles the details. All major databases are currently supported by PHP.

4. Customer Loyalty Functions.

You can also use PHP to create a number of different functionalities on your website that will further help you to build customer loyalty, including interactive polls, a guestbook, and a message board.

The popularity of PHP continues to grow rapidly because it has many advantages over other technical solutions. PHP is fast (because it's embedded in the HTML code, the time to process and load a Web page is relatively short), PHP is free (it is open-source software), and PHP is versatile (is runs on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and most Unix variants).

Perhaps most importantly, PHP is a very well-established language. There are many user-run Internet communities that make very large amounts of information (and scripts) available. With so much experience behind it, using PHP for certain dynamic features can be a cost-effective and low-hassle way of increasing the stability of your website.

by Jeremy Gislason

How To Spice Up Your MySpace Page

Let's get started with some music, my personal favorite. You can go to your edit profile page and delete your original song choice if you want to get a player. There are several sites to visit to get a music player that will hold more than the one song. I will introduce you to a project playlist song list creator. I think the players are sleek and the song choices are varied and numerous. Open a separate browser window (the tab up under the address bar) and search for song lists, players, or play lists, choose a playlist builder or song project site.

Welcome to the playlist creator site. Click on the my account tab, then 'click here' to create a free account. Follow the fields on the page, click create new account. Step 2 is a short free offer section that you can fill out or click no thanks, continue to my account. Now, we log in and let's make a playlist. You can come back to this page another time and upload a photo, and set up your profile page. It will be great practice, so save this page as a favorite.

Choose click here to search for music and type in the bar an artist name, song title, a combination of both, or even just a word to get a variety of ideas for song choices.

Once you find a song to add to your playlist, check to make sure it plays nicely by clicking the green arrow. If you are happy with the sound, click the plus sign. If you forget to check the song, you can always play it here. This will take you to 'click here to create a playlist' and success, you have added your first song! Click continue if you would like more songs. Just keep with the steps, type an artist or song, view, listen, add, continue.

When you have added all the songs that you want, click go to my playlists instead of continue. Click on the name of your playlist. Here you have the option to arrange your songs, delete them, or add to your list. Make sure to save changes when you move the song order around before you go to delete or add a song or you will have to rearrange your list again. There are options below your playlist for sharing your playlist. Choose generate code to copy and paste your playlist into your MySpace edit profile section under any empty box you have, or choose post to MySpace. Follow the instructions listed there. You can post any of your playlists to many other sites, by choosing the post to MySpace option.

When you start adding more than one item code in each box of the edit profile section, take care. Always be sure to leave spaces between the codes. And with a code for a graphic, player, video, any code that will take up a limited space, not your profile code and not a contact table code, but any code that is going to create an image in a set area, you will type at the very end a small HTML code to create a space break. This is done with no spaces, touching the very last character of your source code. I am going to type this with spaces because it will not show up on an HTML compatible screen as the type, but it will actually create a space and it no longer shows up. OK, type <> all together with no spaces touching the last of the code like a tail. Preview your profile to check and view if there is enough room between the shown items. If not, go back and add one more set of <>. Then, save and view your profile. This will help you add two or three separate codes and items in each one of the edit boxes but keep your page uniform looking, not all bunched together. Also, some items if run together will not function. If you come across a malfunction, try to put the new item near something else. If two items are animated or interactive, they may not sit well together. Spacing these items in separate boxes is the best plan to prevent any future problems. If you ever forget which code goes where, go view your profile, and see where they are and count the number of items per the section, if it is the second item, delete the second code, again, this is a great reason why you left spaces between the codes.

Now that you have a good sized music selection, let's visit sparkle tags. There are over 4000 images and 83 different categories of images on this site. Again, feel free to use your search engine for MySpace images, but this is a great site to get going with. I will walk you through posting a Thanks For The Add comment to post on your new friends comments area on their profile. First, choose one of the categories for Thanks graphics. You might get an ad showing but you have the option to skip it. Scroll down and find the one that you would like to use, on this site just moving your cursor over the code will highlight it, and right click and copy. This is becoming quite comfortable now, isn't it? Go to your MySpace page, click on the friends picture to go to their profile page, scroll down to the add comment link, click it, place your saved code in the add comment box by either Ctrl v or by right clicking and pasting. If you want to add text as well to your comment, type it either before or after your code, being sure to leave spaces between the text and code. Click post comment. You will then view the comment you wish to post to be sure it is the one you wanted, and click to post again. Some pages you will need to complete the "capcha" box. View your friends profile and see what you have posted, now some friends will wish to approve the comment before it gets posted, with these friends you will need to wait until later to view your own comment, but be excited for yourself that you now can post to all of your friends comment boxes with graphics instead of just typing text. Also, a heads up, some friends have their comments set to only accept text. Not much fun, but some comments can slow a pages loading time.

On to polls, clocks, and generally nifty graphics. There are a few very good sites to find these items. For all of the clocks and generators of all kinds search myspace generators. They are listed under generators because they are animated but they are put on your site exactly the same way as a graphic. No worries for you!

Bulletins and Blogs are two very different types of postings. A bulletin is a posting that you will send to your entire friend list. A blog stays right on your page and each friend has the option to either come to visit your profile and read it or subscribe to your blog postings and get notified as you post a new one. Read others bulletins and blogs to see what others do here.

I saved the very best thing to add to your page (next to music, of course) for last. The almighty Guestbook! This is the most fun for you because every time you view your own profile, you can see the pictures and comments your friends put on your now signed guestbook. Go to slide.com, sign up for a free membership, and click on make a guestbook. You can also create a slide show here to post on your site! Slide has brilliantly generic and basic instruction from this point, I do not even need to say it here. Follow the instruction from Slide and from our steps of copy and paste before and you have got yourself an awesome way for friends to leave a bit of themselves on your page forever! Comments get bumped down by newer ones as time rolls on.

Well, I am proud of your page without even seeing it yet! Awesome job, look me up or Google me, make me a long time friend and let me know if I can help out with your pages. You are well on your way to mastering HTML, even though you think you have just learned one small code, you have been seeing them. Getting comfortable with the look of an HTML code is half the battle. My next article will cover basic HTML codes. Stay tuned for "Basic HTML Codes With Tips and Tricks".

by Stephanie Haile AKA Wavecritter AKA Surfcritter

Basic HTML Code For Your Blog

Hyper Text Markup Language - that's what it stands for. Its a way for Web browsers to present text and graphics. A code if you like. To get a better idea of what it is, click on your View menu and then Source or View Source and that will show you how a page of text is formatted in HTML (It'll also show you the keywords used in the Meta tags which can be helpful in getting your page ranked higher on Search Engines - but more on this later).

Basic Knowledge of HTML

Before we go any further let me tell you that I'm rather new to all this. I've only been into computers for the last couple of years. Oh sure I'd used computers in my work before that but only as far as word processing. I was using AppleIIs back in the early Eighties to write magazine stories but apart from knowing how to boot the machine up and format a word processing document I didn't have a clue about computers. And I still don't have much of a clue. I probably couldn't explain the difference between ROM and RAM to save my life. But I know enough to get me by - I have a Basic Knowledge of HTML codes and commands. I don't have a head for programming or writing code or any of that stuff. In fact you're talking to a guy that didn't even finish high-school. I went straight from school into the Advertising business at the tender age of sixteen. So I'm a dummy. And I'm a real dummy when it comes to complicated computer language coding and algorithms - all that egghead stuff. So if I can have a Working Knowledge of Basic HTML code and links - trust me, you can too.

So here we go. From the top...in a logical progression. It might help to open another browser window and pull up the View Source of my Welcome to Wallyworld page (you'll find a link at the bottom of this article) and follow what I'm looking at.

The HTML Code starts with "DOCTYPE" (meaning document type) html "PUBLIC" and then some other stuff including "XHTML". This is just the new improved version of HTML code. Don't worry about it for now. I haven't written the code for this page - it's done automatically by my host and they are formatting in HTML, XHTML, Javascript and some other stuff like Textile and Markdown which I don't even begin to understand. All I want from knowing a bit of basic HTML code is how to do simple stuff like Bold, underline, Hyperlinks and h2Headings in Basic HTML.

Coming down the page a bit you'll see the document begins with html enclosed in less than and greater than arrowheads and then if you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll see the very last bit of code is html but this time closed off with a forward slash. That's the way HTML works - you enclose the command within the arrowheads, write your text and then close it off with a forward slash.

After the html commands we have the head which contains everything in your title. You'll see the term "Robots" which is a command to the Search Engine spiders to start reading the information coming up next. And that information is the Meta Tags - both to describe what your site is all about and to give the keywords. You'll notice I only have a Meta Description here - HOW TO: Increase Your Traffic, Boost Your Google Ranking, Optimize Adsense to Make More Money, Keyword Optimization Tips, Work Online as a ProBlogger" etc. This is because my host is convinced that the major search engines no longer rely on keywords in the Meta Tags. Apparently that's true for Google but Yahoo and the others take them into consideration. So I've just added some keywords at the bottom of that section under Meta keywords.

So the head section contains the title and information on style sheets and scripts. After that we have the body which contains the markup with your content - your article/story/table - whatever you're putting in there.

That's about it. Not hard is it? All you have to do now is learn some of the HTML Tags.

The first ones you need to know are the heading tags and they're easy to remember. h stands for heading. h1 puts your words in the biggest size through to the smallest h6.

The underline tag is written with a u. Paragraph with a p. Line break with a br. Italics with an i.

Probably the most useful piece of code is the Hyperlink - that's a fundamental of blogging - the sharing of information. Clicking on this one will take you to a site with lots of Useful HTML Code including how to write hyperlinks.

You can also turn an image into a hypertext link so that when you click on the image it takes you to a page or site.

Use HTML to Wrap Text Around Adsense

One of my favourites uses for Html is getting the text to wrap around the Adsense - the Adsense Gurus reckon people are more likely to click on the Ads if they are buried in the text. Whatever. But I reckon they look neater than having them displayed in block form.

You Wanna Make a Hit List?

You can easily format lists with HTML. Like this bulleted list using the ul and l tags.

* The Number One Villain

* Number Two Villain

* Number Three Villain

Voila - like I said before, if this dummy can do it, you can too - Basic HTML


By Malcolm Lambe Malcolm Lambe is an Australian blogger/vlogger based in Paris. His main site is http://www.welcometowallyworld.com where he pontificates on a diverse range of subjects.

How To Design a Website

Every day, more and more people are learning how to design their own websites. In this article, I'll show you how to design a website the right way to ensure that you get something as close to your vision as possible.

Before you decide how to design a website, you have to know what options are available. This means you need to be familiar with the different ways people build websites. The only way to do that is to do some background research. Do you know the difference between HTML, CSS and PHP? It's important to understand how these different codes relate to building a website. By being aware of the different options that exist, you will have a better idea on what you will need to learn.

After you have an idea of the various different ways websites are built, it's time to decide what the purpose of your website is. Do you want to do business or does your website of a more personal nature? Is it something you plan on updating regularly, or will it have more static elements? You need to sit down and really ask yourself what the ultimate purpose of your website is and what you want it to do for you. Once you do this, you will be able to understand the scope of what you need to know, as far as how to design a website goes to get your finished product.

Finally, after you know what you want, then it is just a matter of going about achieving it. If you want something simple, like a blog, then you might start looking for website templates you can download for free, and simply modify. Or, if you need a site with only a few pages, you shouldn't have to study more than the basic HTML to achieve that. By having your vision, and coupling it with the different tools that are available to you, is probably the smartest way to go about designing a website.

There are also various tools that can help you on how to design a website. Typically these are web design software programs, most commonly known as WYSIWYG editors. WYSIWYG stands for -- "what you see is what you get". These are great tools that help you with your coding, so you can edit your website visually, as well as through coding language.

By Steven P. Ross http://www.best-web-design-software.com

Basic HTML How To

You can use basic HTML in many ways and in various places. You can change simple things by making your font bolder, bigger, or smaller by using the simplest of codes. You can create page breaks and separate your paragraphs or thoughts. Change the color of your font, create a text link, or place a picture or graphic image on your web site.

If you have not yet copied and pasted a graphic or background lay-out onto a web page or a social network site such as My Space, give that a try. It will show you a great example of what an HTML code actually looks like. Study it for a few minutes to get a good look at the tweaks that could be made to any code to change just a bit of the end result.

We use HTML at social networks, on web pages, and in solo advertisements for business marketers.

Basic HTML will make your page or advertisements stand out from the crowd. Get noticed and learn a bit of HTML.

To change your font and make it show a bit of your personality or to make it jump out of the page, you will need these basic HTML codes. I will be putting spaces between the characters here to be able to post this on an area that uses HTML. When you type this, leave no spaces between the characters. Making your font bolder only requires you to type <>. Typing in multiple sets will create an even bolder font. At the end of the word or phrase you wish to be bold, type. This code will close the bold print.

You can make your font bigger or smaller as well by using the code <> or <> and then closing it off with or . That is the extent of it. It is really this easy to do.

If you need a separation between ideas, thoughts, or paragraphs then use the code <>. If you would like a double space between the text, type two or more in a row, all touching with no spaces. This is best used with graphic images and photos, or banners and music players. It prevents the images from running together and creates a much cleaner page view.

Another neat little trick is changing your font color. Red jumps right off the page, blue is a very mellow and calming color, and yellow when used with a combination of red and black makes a very bold statement. This code is very simple and looks like this, <>. Now, with this code, you can either just type the color name into "the color" area or do a quick search for HTML font color codes and replace "the color" with the actual color code number given on the site you find. Close the color with.

How about adding a text link to your web site or social page? Again, simple once you see it a few times. This is what it looks like. You will need to replace the yoursitehere with your web page link and TextLink with whatever you want to show as your link text.

< href="http://www.yoursitehere.com/">textlink< /A > Again, I have created spaces where there should be none to ensure readability. If I posted this on an HTML compatible page it would not show anything except the useable link called textlink. The only space needed in this code is the one between the first A and the HREF. That one is an important and essential space.

There is an easy shortcut to image codes. Uploading a stored photo or image from your computer to a site called Tiny Pic will get you your image code straight away. Just copy and paste into your project. The easiest by far. The wealth of information on and about using, viewing, and learning the basic HTML code is a search engine away. My goal is to enlighten you and show you that you can do it too. That it isn't as difficult as we all may have thought it was and doing it correctly is within reach.

Stephanie Haile AKA Wavecritter is a 43 year old wife, mother, and business owner who enjoys spending time with her family at the beach, at a great movie, or with an awesome novel. Google Wavecritter and say hello. Check out the web sites below to find out how to become a part of the team.

By Stephanie Haile Copyright © Stephanie Haile, http://www.wavecritter.com, http://www.berrycritter.com