Almost anyone who’s played around with PHP before has run into the subject of databases. MySQL databases are the most common method of storing massive amounts of data to later be sorted through and retrieved for display via script. WordPress stores all of it’s posts and settings in MySQL tables, forum scripts are powered by databases, sites like Amazon, YouTube, and of course IMDB make extensive use of databases. If you think about it, most modern websites are just pretty user interfaces for databases.

As common as they may be, databases sure are mysterious critters. It look me awhile to grasp the concept of them at first, and even longer for me to pick-up the skills required to make use of them. In addition to knowing a scripting language like PHP or Perl, and how to submit a query to the DB server, you also need to know the SQL language.

I just finished a great book on MySQL. Learning MySQL by Seyed M.M. Tahaghoghi and Hugh Williams is a comprehensive and well-explained book that teaches you from the ground up about MySQL databases and how to work with them. It introduces the concept of a database, walks you through installing the MySQL server software (if you’re not already running it), explains querying, then moves on to the real meat of the book: Structured Query Language, or SQL. It covers basic SELECTS and INSERTs, JOINS, nested queries, table and column types, and really everything you need to know to get started.

Following chapters cover topics like using PHP or Perl to interact with databases (as opposed to using a MySQL prompt) and securing web applications. There are also sections on planning database structures optimally, optimizing performance.

The book is written in a manner that should make it easy to follow, it’s full of code examples to try out, and overall is enough to give you a general to intermediate knowledge of MySQL. It also works as a handy reference.

I was at a Barnes & Noble store a couple days ago, and I saw a few copies Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett’s book ProBlogger: Secrets Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income sitting on the shelf in the Computers and Internet section (the spot I always head directly for whenever I’m in a book store).

I picked up a copy of the book and started to skim through it. I didn’t read it quite as thoroughly as I would have had I bought the book, but I spent a half hour or so giving it a good look.

The 240-page book covers quite a bit of ground. It spends a couple chapters introducing the concepts of blogging and “ProBlogging,” and guides you through setting up a blog. Dispensing with the “start a blog in ten minutes” mentality that so many blogging books take, it teaches you to think about things more, to plan before you run out a create a shiny new blog. They keep that part of the book to a minimum though, instead focusing on what you do after you have a blog. (more…)

O’reilly Press puts out some really good tech books. So I grabbed Andrew B. King’s Website Optimization when I saw it at the library a few days ago. It was pretty good, though not my favorite of their books. I enjoy the ‘Hacks series (PHP Hacks, Podcasting Hacks, etc) more, but they have some other good books too.

Website Optimization is worth a read if you’re trying to get more from your website. The book covers several aspects of optimization. Search engines, loading times, conversion rates, and a little bit on accessibility. There is a heavy emphasis on Search Engine Optimization of course.

It’s a pretty good book, and is very informative, but I have to disagree with some of the SEO advice. The book seems to promote the idea of being stingy when linking to external sites, in an effort to hoard PageRank, linking reciprocally, and making use of the nofollow attribute excessively. Then the book goes and tells you that blogs are a good way to get more inbound links.

I can tell you that an attitude like that regarding links will get you nowere fast. If you want to get links, you must give them first. Link to things that you think will be of interest to your users. The sites you link to will then learn about your site when they find some traffic coming in from your site. Nofollow shouldn’t be used to cripple links you place on your site either. It should be for things like blog commenters’ posted URL’s, which weren’t added by you, and therefore you may not want to recieve PageRank points. As for reciprocal linking, don’t bother. Google thinks reciprocal linking schemes are generally of little interest to the end user, and are therefore discounted when ranking pages.

Other than my minor complaints about some of the linking advice given, it’s a pretty good book.

About a year ago, I purchased a copy of Sitepoint’s book The CSS Anthology, which I enjoyed. While browsing through the “Computers” shelf in the local library’s New Books room, I came across a copy of The PHP Anthology.

This isn’t your garden variety teach yourself PHP-type book. This is intended for people who already know their way around PHP moderately well, and have some experience with it. Instead of teaching you the language, it’s a respository of “101 Essential Tips, Tricks, & Hacks.”

It’s a good book, informative and easy to read. It gives examples on how to deal with dates, secure your scripts, create thumbnails effectively, built an HTTP authentication system, and much more. While you can read the book all the way through (I did), it works well as a reference, and a way of learning some new techniques.

Like a lot of computer books, it’s a little pricey, with a list price of about $40 (though Amazon has new copies for around $25).

I recently came a across a mention online of Designing the Obvious by Robert Hoekman Jr. Being a cheapskate as usual, I checked the local library’s catalog for the book, and checked it out the next time I went there.

Designing the Obvious is a guide to designing highly usable web applications, featuring the idea that simplicity is the key to usability. It covers plenty of bases, and is very thorough with its advice and explanations. The book is easy to understand, and is a good read for anyone who develops web applications, or is involved in the design of any sort of website.

There are plenty of examples, in the form of diagrams screen shots from websites, to illustrate the points, and overall the book strikes me as being very blog-like. The writing style, the assortment of interesting pictures, and the way the type is set all remind me of a blog.

Being an advocate of simplicity in interface design, the author has included several examples from Apple and Google, of course, as well as 37Signals’ Backpack. I found his theory that instead of using a modal prompt when deleting data, you should instead delete it immediately and offer to undo it after (as seen in GMail), particularly enlightening.

Mr. Hoekman strikes me as being very knowledgeable in the area of web app design, and I found myself agreeing with a good portion of his points, and I think I learned a few things as I read the book. If you do a bit of web design, whether it’s related to web apps or not, I would recommend giving the book a try.