The second book in my series of reviews is AJAX and PHP by Cristian Darie, a book that takes us on a journey through a now MUST when you develop web applications. If you are developing anything on the web platform page refreshes are a thing of the past, integrating AJAX is now a standard. This book will help give you the basics on the interaction between AJAX and PHP. This book covers the nitty gritty of JavaScript and their implementations, not using a JS Framework like Prototype.

This book will give you a great background in how AJAX functions work in most of the popular frameworks and allow you to build great Web 2.0 application without the need for them. The last chapter however does talk about Drag and Drop using script.aculo.us which is built on Prototype.

Some things that can be helpful in this book however include, using the Document Object Model, DOM and CSS, Charting using SVG, and AJAX RSS Readers. Good book overall if you are looking to build apps without frameworks. Nice job Packt Publishing

So as some of you already know, in my venture to keep up on the development community and trends, I have started to review books for Packt Publishing. They have sent me a few books to read and review, and I will be posting them to my blog for everyone to read. I have picked books from them that I believe are topics worth exploring and actually reading from a book (and not just finding a resource online).

The first book that was delivered is the one that this post is dedicated to. Object-Oriented Programming with PHP5 by Hasin Hayder was picked to go over what I believe to be the base of successfully programming in PHP. Object oriented programming is not an option anymore when working in this business. So if you have been stuck as a procedural programming in PHP it’s time to remedy that and apply some new (well not really new) techniques and master the language. Read the rest of this entry »

So I am in the car right now heading to Atlanta to see the Drum Corps International Southeastern Championships! I am very excited. Danny, Cristina, Jason and myself departed Orlando at 12 midnight and are currently in route. I hope to have an opportunity to post after the show tomorrow night about my thoughts.

I went to DCI Orlando and witnessed the upset of Caroline Crown over the Cadets, which in my opinion was well warranted. But this is the first time I will hear or see any of the corps from the Western part of the United States. I am also very excited to see the performance of the Santa Clara Vanguard which my friend Taylor is marching.

This trip should be a blast. I decided since I am staying awake to keep Danny company (he is driving) that I would get out the laptop do some work and then write a blog post. I did about 2 hours of coding and now decided to write this post.

In other news Packt Publishing sent me a few PHP books to review. I have read them and will be posting my reviews on this site and on Amazon. So if you are interested in some new PHP books check out my reviews later on.

Well my rapid typing is drowbing out the sound of jazz coming from the radio.

So I haven’t posted in a while and I figured I should quickly post with a catch up. Work is going good, a lot of work to get done, but we are accomplishing a lot of really cool things over here. I have taken on a task of reviewing programming books, I have two books in my hands right now, I have finished one and am working on the other. Stay tuned for reviews on my site of them. Summer is nice, I actually missed the warm weather, but not getting sunburned. Florida Day was this past weekend, and it was really nice to see a lot of old friends and make some new ones. I sat out by the pool most of Saturday, and then on Sunday I went to the beach. It is not a good idea to get burned at the pool and then decide to goto the beach the next day. But it was worth it. It was a lot of fun and I am very happy that I went. With being so busy lately I haven’t had time to hang with some of my friends, but I promise that I am working harder to correct that.

On a slightly geekier note. I have been addicted to one computer game since I was really young. I love the Sid Meier’s Civilization series. I have Civilization 4 for Mac and play it regularly when I have some free time. I also enjoy playing Age of Empires 3 (thanks to my roommate). But the exciting news is that Civilization Revolutions is being released as a console game for XBox 360. So I am very excited to pickup a copy on June 8th. Yay!

Well I hope everyone is well. I hope to write something a little more geeky in the coming days!

I am pleased to let everyone know about an Orlando PHP Users Group. Some of us in the developer community have re-formed this group to help build a better PHP community and better the networking between us. The first meeting will on April 22nd on the campus of Devry University @ Millenia from 7 – 9 pm. Please visit the website orlandophp.org for more information. If you are a PHP developer in the Central Florida Area, or want to learn this is a great chance to hone your skills, or develop some new ones, and really network with other developers in the Central Florida Area. Look forward to seeing you there.