I recently had this question put to me by a web designer who was considering the idea of using PHP pages in her websites:
“Why build all your pages in PHP … Why not use standard .html pages?”
She then expanded the question to:
“What I mean is…… what’s the benefit to building ALL sites in PHP?”
Note to [...]

Hi,
I’ve managed to upload new video tutorials on SQL basics. At this point, I’ve covered the four big SQL statments:

INSERT
SELECT
UPDATE
DELETE

You can view the videos here: Basic SQL Statements Video Tutorials.
Now that we have that covered, my next videos will be on using PHP to connect to and work with MySQL.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killerphp.com

Hi,

I’ve just put up a new sub-section on SQL - the language of relational databases.
This is beginners stuff, so if you’re a know-it-all nerd, you can ignore this. On the otherhand, if you’re new to the database thing (mySQL for example) then these first couple of videos should help you get started.
Videos out so far:
- [...]

Because of recent demand, I decided to release my PHP video tutorials in iPod format - that means they play on your iPod.

… OK, you guys guessed that one.
These video were originally intended for viewing on a computer monitor, so some of the code examples will be harder to read since iPod screens [...]

This is part 3 (of 3) of my video tutorials that introduces PHP sessions to beginners.

The video:
PHP session video tutorial - part 3
Notes from the videos:
Session ID:
PHP sessions create a unique id that is passed on to the user by either a cookie or in the URL string. To be clear, the actual information tracked [...]

This is the part 2 of 3 of my videos that introduces the beginner to PHP sessions.

In this video, I get into practical examples where we see basic PHP sessions in action.
PHP session video tutorial - part 2
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killerphp.com

Hi,
I’ve just released a new beginners video tutorial that introduces people to PHP sessions:

PHP Sessions Video Tutorial
PHP sessions are one of the most important mechanisms in PHP because they solve a fundamental issue in web application development: keeping state on a user.

If what I just says confuses you, no worries, it’s explained in the [...]

Once and a while a get an email question put to me that I think many others are probably wondering about the same thing.

I got this email from Jordan:

Hi Stefan,
I am very interested in learning how to program, specifically with php. I went through all you videos which are excellent!
My main question [...]

The following video teaches the basics of conditional statements in PHP; specifically the ‘if’ statement.
PHP conditionals video tutorial
Again, this video is for beginners to PHP and programming in general.
Note to uber-nerds:
If anyone complains to me that this video is to simple, I might hit you with a theoretical article on how aspects (as in [...]

I recently ran into the following error when trying to launch PhpMyAdmin from the WAMP icon tray menu:
phpMyAdmin – Error
Cannot load mysql extension. Please check your PHP configuration.
What does this mean?
In a nutshell, PHP cannot find the library (mysql.dll - on Windows) it needs to connect to MySQL.
How can you fix this?

Use phpInfo() to [...]

In my beginners php videos, I recommended XAMPP as the way to easily install Apache, PHP, MySQL on a MAC.
Well, I just discovered something called MAMP at:
http://www.mamp.info/en/index.php
This nifty little application allows you to (really easily) install Apache, PHP and MySQL. You are provided with a standard DMG file that you simply drag to your [...]

Why learn OOP in PHP - another take.
For people new to OOP and are comfortable with ‘classic’ procedural php, you may be wondering why should you even bother to learn object oriented concepts … why go through the trouble?
The PHP world:
PHP is moving in an OOP direction. For example, many important PHP extensions like PEAR [...]

Hi,
I’ve update my beginners tutorial on object oriented PHP adding steps 18-22.
Again, this is a code intensive article where I expect you to follow along with your PHP editors.
PS: if you happen across any errors/typos, please let me know.
More to come.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killerphp.com

Hi,
Within a WAMP installation, I ran into a little issue today when trying to change php.ini’s ‘display_errors’ property.
By default WAMP installs with ‘display_errors’ to ‘Off’:
display_errors = Off
… This is a pain-in-the-ass setting when trying to write new PHP code because errors don’t get displayed in the browser window; you have to go to the log [...]

Hi,
I’ve just released a written tutorial on object oriented PHP, that targets people totally new to OO PHP.
Beginners Object Oriented PHP
Based on an article I wrote for a web design magazine; the tutorial is presented as a series of simple steps where I walk the reader through the process of building objects while at [...]

Hi,
I’ve written up a short (2 pages,) document that goes over some of the very basics of object oriented programming - it should take you all of 5 minutes to read.
I wrote this as the preamble to my next video on object oriented PHP where we will actually create living breathing PHP objects.
Here’s a [...]

A while back I wrote an article for beginners on database driven websites:
‘Database driven websites: what are they and how are they built?’
The article explains the basic concepts behind dynamic websites, with the idea of making learning PHP that much easier. If you’re new to the game (of PHP,) I would strongly suggest that you [...]

I’ve read 20+ books on PHP and have watched many videos. One thing that I found consistent about all of them was how they were not ‘friendly’ to non-nerd types.
Why?
Probably because (most of the time,) only hardcore code-monkeys seem to be writing these books. That means either one of two things:

They forget WHAT made [...]

Hi,
It has been a while since my last post, my apologies.
But there has been a good reason for this and this reason will be revealed soon.
Sorry I can’t give more information, but I have to keep this under wraps until we go public.
Thanks,
Stefan

I have a new article appearing in issue 125 of Web Designer Magazine - the November issue.
Article title:
Learn Object Oriented Programming (OOP) in PHP

Sample from the article:
With the release of php5, php programmers finally had the power to code with the ‘big boys’. Like Java and C#, php finally has a complete OOP infrastructure.
In [...]