This book is here to help the beginner in Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL. If you have always fancy in setting up your own web server but have no idea of how to do it, this book is for you.



The author teaches you step-by-step from installing Apache web server, PHP and Perl to writing applications like database-enabled web applications using Perl, PHP and MySQL. He also touches a small portion of SSI (Server-sise Includes).



This book is indeed very good for beginners. However, please be warned that you may get frustrated by the typos and mistakes found in this book. Refer to the previous post, he mentioned some configuration issues which are helpful. Other than that, this book is definitely worth reading as you may learn a lot especially when you have no idea of what and how to use Apache, PHP, Perl, and MySQL.



For advanced readers, you may want to look into other books :)

This book is here to help the beginner in Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL. If you have always fancy in setting up your own web server but have no idea of how to do it, this book is for you.

The author teaches you step-by-step from installing Apache web server, PHP and Perl to writing applications like database-enabled web applications using Perl, PHP and MySQL. He also touches a small portion of SSI (Server-sise Includes).

This book is indeed very good for beginners. However, please be warned that you may get frustrated by the typos and mistakes found in this book. Refer to the previous post, he mentioned some configuration issues which are helpful. Other than that, this book is definitely worth reading as you may learn a lot especially when you have no idea of what and how to use Apache, PHP, Perl, and MySQL.

For advanced readers, you may want to look into other books :)

I want to congratulate the author for writing such an excellent book for beginners to open-source software like Apache, PHP and mySQL. On windows platform does not bother me as it is the predominant operating system platform and easier to relate to, although I do hope the second version of this book might include a Linux-version.

The CD software includes the latest version of PHP, MySQL, Apache and Perl, although personally I think Perl should be less covered since PHP is much better. Also the section of IIS installation with PHP kind of distract the attention from Apache in the whole book.

Some typo errors in the book's codes, as well as installation errors not mentioned in the book could frustrate non-technical people: e.g. Not able to set up on my Windows XP (Home) for virtual host / Server Side Include / OpenSSL / Preventing Directory listing...also on PHPMyadmin (Chap 8), the book missed out a step to uncomment in PHP.INI the line extension=php_mysql.dll in order to get the nice result of Fig 8.30, otherwise you would contantly get this error "cannot load mysql extension'.

Overall the book is recommended to read through in one session (I spent 3 hours in one single night), then follow by practices in few other sessions on Apache, PHP and MySQL in sequence.

It has been an enriching and enjoyment experience for me. I highly recommend to all new commers in web-database application developers.

Eric Hunley's USING OPEN SOURCE WEB SOFTWARE WITH WINDOWS addresses some common issues with open source documentation, from Linux/UNIX focuses not easily accessible to Widows users to adapting these focuses to Windows environments. Chapters tell exactly how to adapt open source software to Windows environments, using four of the most popular Internet programs as examples. The focus on how to reduce costs in the process is also a welcome one.

While there is an awful lot of software available on the net, this book concentrates on software related to setting up web sites on systems running the Windows operating system. This includes the Apache web server, PHP to provide web/database interconnectivity, MySQL database, and Perl to provide more flexibility to your web sites. The CD-ROM included with the book includes copies of all of this software, so here is really all that you need to put up dynamic web sites.

I gues the question I would have to ask is that if you are using a system for a single application such as being a web server, why wouldn't you go all the way and use a Linux operating system under it, it would be faster, more reliable and less expensive. But if you gotta use Windows, here's all you need.