Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL 1st Edition

Wonderful--as a newcomer to computer programming in general, and especially PHP, I just today finalized reading Effortless E-commerce in a matter of three weeks with only having previously read--and having surprisingly well comprehended-- Ullman's PHP for the Web and PHP and MySQL books. Needless to say, although the transition to Effortless E-Commerce was a daunting task, it was thoroughly enjoyable-- and even meditative--as I was able to follow the logic quite well, in spite of being weak in both the SQL commands and actual application (and sessions, which I can simply review from his previous books to get up to speed). To top off the good energy, I have also today begun reading Larry's MySQL book, which serves as a God-sent in preparing me for actually building the sites in Ullman's effortless e-commerce book.Some of the highlights of Larry's book include the presentation of his own voice in more detail than in Visual Quickstart guides. I loved his introductory components that outlined things such as PCI Compliance, security considerations, and advantages/disadvantages of various hosting packages with PHP sites. He also explained in greater detail ways to transfer over one's site from localhost to a paid server, which could involve either password protecting directories with secure information or putting them outside of the Web root, either method dependent on the option available from the corresponding service provider.Most importantly, however, Ullman's book was not only a provider of detailed instructions on how to build two e-commerce sites with varied functionality, but also a demonstrator of new instructional concepts, such as how to use stored procedures (with MySQL); how to incorporate advanced regular expressions; how to use some amazing JQUERY tools for added functionality; and how to use module rewrites to alter the urls for added security and user-friendliness. I found that I was continually learning new concepts, not just repeating the previous pattern for the sole purpose of reinforcement. I have to agree with our Amazon reviewer friend, DeveloperJerry, that a book on M-commerce (mobile e-commerce) using PHP/MySQL would be excellent to see, as it would provide additional stellar examples for devices. In fact, I was so at a loss with finalizing Larry's Effortless E-Commerce book, as it had such appeal that I wanted it to continue on forever, that an M-commerce book would be most welcome, indeed.I plan on continuing to work with the book in actually building the sites from scratch after both reading Larry's MySQL edition and getting more practice with using the phpMyAdmin tool. As a newbie, getting to this stage of development is a very thrilling process, one which I previously found impossible to achieve without the assistance of Larry's phenomenal teaching tools. I will just make concerted prayers, requesting that Larry decides to publish additional commerce books (M-Commerce, for instance) and publishes, possibly, a manual on JQuery specifically. Thank you so much, Larry, for the wonderful learning experience!

Effortless E-Commerce touches on a subject that many PHP and MYSQL books touch on but never really walk you through making a website.Larry does that with this book. However, he goes short of making it a complete full featured site. Rather, he gives you a basic dynamic e-commerce site that you can add more advanced features on your own. This is where I think the book was lacking. He doesn't touch on subjects such as product reviews or recommendations etc. I don't know why he didn't since the book is only about 350 pages.He does a good job of explaining what he is doing when he does add certain features. I like his simple basic approach to coding compared to other over complicated coding methods.I give it a 4/5 because it doesn't cover the entire spectrum of possibilities-- which I was hoping he would and allow you to plug in those functionality if you so pleased. Granted they are not that hard to add to your page, still wish he would have covered everything about e-commerce.

Kudos to the author for tackling the subject of implementing a payment system on a web application! Many other books cover the shopping cart topic but don't explain in detail as to how to receive payments.Between the book's two detailed examples of how to accept payments from customers, you will have everything you need to set up your own. I'm not sure why, perhaps due to developers writing the documentation as opposed to real technical writers, but the documentation available on e.g. Authorize.net for implementing their system is just one big puzzle. Yes, you could probably eventually figure it out, but would you really feel secure about your setup? Well I wouldn't be and that's where this book's true colors come into play. It gives you the confidence you need and then some. Heck, if you have some background in PHP/MYSQL and you simply want to setup a secure and efficient user protected website (user registration / login...) without the ecommerce part of it.... look no further. I like the PHO/MYSQL dummy book, but it will only get you started as far as how to build the foundation of a user login system (and rightfully so, it is a beginner's book). This book will teach you the real tricks that will come into play once your project grows bigger and as a results needs to work resource efficient and securely. But again, you will already need to have some PHP/MYSQL experience.Enough said, really one of my favorite PHP books! Also my first book by Larry Ullman. I will certainly be looking for his name next time I'm in the market for a new read.

This book was my primary resource during the development of my first (and only, so far) e-commerce website. Before I dove into the aforementioned project, I read and worked through most of  PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (4th Edition) , which was crucial to my success. If you're new to PHP and MySQL like I was but have experience with HTML and CSS -- definitely start there first.I didn't read through  Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL  page by page. I already had a specific project in mind before I got started, so I was always thinking about how I could apply what I was learning to my project. I'd get excited after learning something new and head off on my own. This approach usually left me stuck, or worse, at a dead end -- then I'd return to the book for answers. This process was repeated over and over until I finally got my site up and running. Was this the best approach? Probably not. It worked for me though and I think that says something about the book. It's not just a cookbook style guide to create an e-commerce website (though it certainly can be that if you want it to be), there's also enough substance to equip you with the skills you need to go off on your own.And for what it's worth, I find I still refer to this book on occasion as a general PHP and MySQL reference.

I've borrowed this book from the library after a wait list, but after working with the content, I decided to buy it as a reference book.I would like to give it 5 stars for its content, but the 1 star left out is for the following reasons. ALL softwares have their own little quirks to be mastered. For a starter, on a practical level, sometimes opting to download an older version of a freeware is more productive than the latest version. The older version may have been worked on longer and by larger crowds. So when you do all the rules right, but you still get stuck on resolving an issue, you will find more solutions by googling. For the older versions, there are more fixes. I will specifically recommend getting the older version when setting up your local host. I've spent many days trying to figure what I was doing wrong. It turned out to be a bug in their programming and not resolved yet.For starters, it is a 5 star index on keeping things organized, be it in your head or putting into practice. You will know what to expect when building a business/shopping website. The book gives you a clear path of what to do next, where to look, tips to crucial security measures, and most importantly, the importance of data handling. Even if some technical item doesn't make sense, just follow the author's instructions.As Larry Ullman also indicates, this is not a php/mysql reference book. Manuals for php language or the mysql can be found online. Mr. Ullman is giving you the practical tools to implement for your start-up e-business. Which I found is a good level to start up with.I am not a novice to computing. I worked many years in building databases, but even to me, Mr. Ullman had a few tricks to teach. Among other things, I was fascinated to learn that MySQL has the capability of replicating your database. Meaning, you store your data on several servers. When one fails, you still have others running for you with the same data.What I found excellent about this book is that it is very encouraging and effectively simplified. Just even by looking at the programming text in some pages or start feeling overwhelmed for what is required in a shopping website, you get these nicely itemized steps and solutions.I'm already in the post-mid of my project, but I need this book to fall back to, not only to make sure that I am taking correct/safe steps, but also as a guide for my next projects.

It's larry Ullman at his best. I needed a book about e-commerce development with PHP and when I found out that Larry Ullman had written a book on the subject I bought. I really enjoyed this book. The author has done his best to cover every aspect of e-commerce. One of the ways he has done it is by making two separate webshops in the book. One for selling digital good and the latter for physical products. They use different techniques and payment systems. I'm really glad that the autor went to the effort of creating both sites for the book.However if you hope for a book which demonstrates a very strict use of the MVC model or an object oriented programming approach, as I did, you'll not find it in this book.That said this book is very well written and it provides what it promises. It even has a great companion site where the author is very active on the forums.

need to have a good knowledge of php, mysql, css & html beforehand

Hey, still haven't received the product when it was supposedly to come today... but generally a good sale and product

Does not flow very well. Some history telling but does not tick all the boxes for someone who wants to use this to build something new. It's a tedious book and pictures are too small.