Since the book was for dummies I assumed I would be able to understand it. Probably my mistake I should have researched it further before buying.

The applications on the CD are not "working and ready for you to install." Not at all.

In fact, if you do exactly what the book says, your apps WILL NOT work. Why? Because the code is wrong. Not only are there errors in the database instructions, but the PHP and inc files have numerous errors.

Even after downloading the "corrected files" and following the new instructions for the database found on the author's website, some functionality is simply broken. The CMS kinda-sorta works, but not really because there is no file upload form as you see displayed in the book. Just not there. Obviously the result of some error in the file include, but you'd have to be a php expert to figure it out. Without being able to add or delete records from a database, well, a CMS is pretty useless, isn't it? Yes it is.

The most important applications on the CD (shopping cart and content management system) are rife with errors. This cripples them to such a degree that they are worthless as is. And corrected. And especially if you are a "dummy."

This is a very good book to get practical skills in PHP development with MySQL appliances.But before buying it, it is important to understand that this book is not for beginers, this book assumes that the reader have a least basic knowledge of both tools.

if you need a first impression, just found out that computers exist, if you think PHP stands for a new boygroup, then this is the book for you.

I downloaded it, but not could not find the accompanying cd. can anyone post a link to it!

This book is challenging and informative. Some basic knowledge of PHP MySQL is required before beginning this book.

There are a handfull of applications that every web designer sooner or later has to implement. Of course a skilled web programmer can do any of these applications. All it takes is time, thinking about the problem, writing, debugging, checking out, and making the customer (who may be the programmer him/her self) happy.

Today there are several scritping languages that can be used to tie the web site together with a database for storing the data. One set of software that you can use is PHP and MySQL. Both of these are highly advanced products (often combined with Linux and the Apache web server for a high performance web server with no software cost). You might use these to write the applications you need.

But when we are talking about common applications, these have been done over and over. In this book, six applications are included, working and ready for you to install. Once you get them operational, you can easily modify them to suit your particular needs. The code for the application is given, both printed in the book and included on the CD that comes with the book. The code is then carefully explained both conceptually as to what the app does, and line by line so you know what's going on and modify it as needed.

The application included are:

two login apps
shopping cart
content management system (allows users to publish documents on your system)
Online bulletin board.

The book is intended to be self standing, but if you know nothing about PHP or MySQL you might look for the same authors book PHP & MySQL for Dummies.