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Rating: 
Summary: Keep Looking
Review: I haven't finished the book yet -- and probably won't. It is absolutely the most dreadful development/learning book I've come across yet (in almost 30 years of playing with computers). Some instructions are missing steps. Others are plain flat-out wrong. Finally, the authors make way too many assumptions about users' abilities and machine-specific setups. Do yourself a favor and find another book.
Rating: 
Summary: 6-8 Pages per Chapter to Explain what's PHP would be GREAT!
Review: I tend to agree with the review given by "Rover". Considering the fact that you're using a WYSIWYG editor (even though it's the best) to develop server-side scripting of database backed web sites, should indicate that you can't know everything about PHP scripting or MySQL. (just a general concencus that I've gathered from talking to other web designers). Therefore, my headline comment of 6-8 pages more per chapter to explain the intracacies of what's going on when you "click this or ,select that or type in this" would have pushed this book to the highest level. All in all, it's a great walk through of the potential that Dreamweaver MX has built into it's base pertaining to open-source scripting and SQL implementation (i.e. PHP & MySQL). Bottom line - I thorougly enjoyed it, learned a great deal of what Dreamweaver MX can really do but would have liked a little more "fyi pertainging to what's going on behind the "WYSIWYG scene" for a total learning experience. I have to say BUY IT FOR SURE! Then pursue answers to PHP-MySQL basics from another source. This book is definitely worth the investment.
Rating: 
Summary: Someone should check the code
Review: I'm very disappointed with this book. For someone just starting their journey in PHP, it simply has too many mistakes in the code presented on the pages of the book. Learning to program is hard enough without the help of wrongly printed code in a book that is suppose to be teaching the subject. After 3 day of frustation I go to the site only to find out they no longer support the book. They do however have an Errata page where you will find many corrections to the code which after some more time got the basic booking system to work. Then After a day on chaper 9 with a list of the corrections from the website in hand, I could not get the admin section to work so I download the code pages for chapter 9 from the site, and find they doesn't work either. I like the explanations on the subject and the layout of the book but damn I think a programming book should spend whatever time it takes to get the code right. I make my share of typos not to mention spelling but I don't write or sell books. This book is about teaching code and it seem to me someone could have spent more time making sure at least the code was correct. It's obvious these guys know what they are doing I just wish it had been better edited.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book for PHP beginner
Review: I've found this book very useful for a PHP beginner as me. I could make the whole website working with Dreamweaver MX 2004, PHP5 and MySQL 4x on my local machine and test it on a webserver using PHP4x and MySQL 3x.
Hints to work with this book:
ON YOUR LOCAL MACHINE:
1. Do not create password for MySQL
2. When creating Database Connection in Dreamweaver, type in the username as root, but do not type the password.
3. For Admin page, if you get an error, use the error handler shown on page 300, 301 to handle it.
ON A WEBSERVER:
Go through pages and specify host, MySQL username and password (don't miss page 254).
I have enjoyed the book very much.
Minh Lam
Rating:
Summary: very poor writing
Review: The book seamed perfect to help me learn PHP and MYSQL using DWMX. Too bad it's so full of errors and mistakes. Remeber trying to learn how to drive a car. Now imagine trying to learn on a car that stalls and breaks down constantly. That's what the book feels like to me. I find myself trouble shooting all the code and that is pretty hard when you are just learning.
There is no CD but you can download SOME of the code. Having a final (working) version of the site would have made all the errors stand out a bit more.
I am learnig from it, it's just a bit frustrating and slow.
Rating:
Summary: Very Useful but full of mistakes
Review: This book is one of those rare books on programming PHP with Dreamweaver. The explanations and instructions are very good but you have to be carefull about the mistakes in conflicting database names and some coding. We spent almost 2 hours in finding where we are doing wrong. We finally found out that it was because the coding was misspelled... But we recommend this book to those who want to build php, mysql pages with DreamWeaver MX.
Rating:
Summary: Riddled With Errors
Review: This book is riddled with errors, from nonsense layouts to coding mistakes. The interface (a hotel booking system) is very rudimentary and does not work as advertised. The book does introduce readers to Dreamweaver's server behavior interface and does a good job walking readers through a local install of Apache, MySQL, PHP, and a few other tools. A good idea, poorly executed.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Bad but not indepth to take you far.
Review: This was a good start to php but I found that at the end of it I had a working web site but a lot of what was done was not explained. It leads you step by step but doesn't tell you the why behind it. If you want something more advanced to take you deeper this is not the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Useful to the resourceful Mac owner
Review: Well, I've used this book to learn how to use this new Dreamweaver MX/PHP combination using my various Apple computers with great success. Sure it's not geared towards Mac users, but I would have felt not a little cheated, had I discovered nothing but page after page about how to download and install PHP or MySQL on Macs. You can find all that stuff on-line - especially at Mark Liyanage's excellent Entropy website! It's true that there is too much included on how to install these packages on PCs - but we all know PC users are a little shy of their wits, and they probably need all the help they can get, the poor dears! What this book does do, is get you running good and fast, creating an example website. I've done some web design before, but haven't made it very far. I always find myself in an awful dither about how to structure a database for a website. I found the book's example very helpful in this respect. It was a realistic project (a hotel booking system) and you are shown how easy Dreamweaver makes it to read and write stuff on a database like this. I actually used the same approach as the book's example, for a website I built for a local conference centre. I must say that the only thing I wish is that these authors would write me a follow on title, to extend on what I've now learnt. The book is great for learning, but is not really geared towards people in the situation where I now find myself - uploading stuff from my Mac onto my ISPs Cobalt Linux servers, for instance! In a way, it teases you, because it takes you this far and then says "there you go, you're on your own, now!" Four stars, I think, authors! A nice book, of a nice size, but give me a follow on title, so as I can make it to the stars!
Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners or intermediate
Review: While the content of the book is potentially good, anybody who needs a little handholding might get lost quickly as the author does not give much background information and skips many steps that are second nature to proficient developers. This is where the beginner puts this book away and the intermediate user struggles with finding more information on how-to-do a particular thing. (This starts with the setup of a Apache / MySQL / PHP server and ripples thru the whole book.) In addition to the content, the book is slightly disorganized and not the easiest reading material. Not so much because of difficulty but because of writing style.
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