Hi,

Once and a while I use an email question as the basis of a blog post. This time, someone wanted to know about Dreamweaver and PHP:

Hi Stefan,

I am looking to get some videos on using Dreamweaver cs4 creating dynamic sites with PHP and MYSQL, do you have any videos on this using the drag and drop features etc with some code writing also?

Many thanks

Andy

My answer:

Hi Andrew,

The short answer:

Dreamweaver’s drag and drop features are very brittle. I was a beta
tester for DW CS4 and the programmers themselves told me that they would
be looking to trash it for the next version of Dreamweaver – they knew
it was a mess.

… It can be used for simple things (and prototyping), but the code is so messy and
convoluted, that any changes that you will probably have to make to
your project could be a nightmare. You are much better off learning PHP
and using Dreamweaver as a PHP code editor … and it’s pretty good at that.

In my basic course on PHP, I use Dreamweaver as the code editor and I
touch on in as far as how Dreamweaver can be used to write PHP code. You
can see a bunch of sample videos here: http://www.killerphp.com/videos/

Let me know if this helps,

Stefan

This is just going to be a quick blog post, because I am still busy getting killersites.com up and running properly after an emergency server move I had to make.

The short story …

I had been using the same hosting company for many years and generally with not too many issues. But in the last year, things started to go downhill fast. The server was very slow (overloaded) and it went down way too often.

The last straw that broke my weak nerd-back, was a complete shutdown of my account by some pencil-necked twit who decided that killersites.com had too much traffic … so this no-nothing nerd suspended the account!

… You have to understand, I had been with these guys for 5-6 years, I’ve spoken to the founder/owner on several occasions and they used killersites.com as a feather in their cap:

‘… we proudly host killersites.com.’

So this unannounced shut down of the entire site was shall we say, vexing.

When it get’s that bad, it’s time to leave fast!

A quick threat of legal action got the site back up quickly, but I was warned killersites.com had too much traffic and I had to move it. So, I moved it to our own dedicated servers right away … within hours.

So why did I not change over to our own dedicated server years ago?

Answer: Configuration.

Killersites.com has been around for about 13 years now and it has a lot of old legacy stuff floating around. Specifically, we are talking about old Perl scripts and a couple of Java based web applications.

… Once you get these sort of things working, you’d best leave them alone. That hassle combined with my general laziness caused me to keep killersites.com sitting on the old server, even when some early evidence of trouble started to brew. You can’t underestimate laziness!

Continued trouble …

So as I write, I have still to get the old Java forum up and running again and the Perl based directory is not fully operational. The nice thing though, is that all the PHP based applications:

- Wordpress blogs
- Newsletter script
- PHP based forum (to replace the Java created forum)

… migrated easily and are working fine. Once again, no hassles with PHP and I highly recommend you learn PHP as a web designer.

Bye for now.

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

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 are smaller.

Nonetheless, the discussions may be useful to watch on your iPod as you’re … say, on your way to work or school.

A small note: I’ve added some brief comments (in text) about each video, to give you a better idea of what you will find in the video before downloading it.

You can find the videos on the new iPod video page.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

In this video, I conclude my practical look at basic PHP sessions.

PHP session video tutorial – part 3

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

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.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

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 video.

This is video 1 of 3 on sessions.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killerphp.com

I’ve just posted an article related to object oriented PHP:

An introduction to the Zend Framework: writing object oriented PHP with ease.

The article covers concepts that are a little more advanced, but I think John (the author,) has done a good job making things understandable.

… I think anyone with just a little PHP knowledge, will find the article a worthwhile read.

Let me know what you think and if you have questions … you know what to do!

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

That said, I felt a little more detail was required: why do the competing technologies (ASP, ASP.NET, Ruby etc …) suck compared to PHP … in that regard?

From the article:

The article’s title (I admit,) will get some people little miffed at me. But, what can I say, the truth hurts!

Seriously, this statement is valid and is worth talking about because there are a lot of web designers out there who are considering the leap into building dynamic (database driven) web applications. And with so many choices (ASP, ASP.NET, Ruby etc …) it can be very frustrating when trying to make that choice.

Of course, I believe (and know) that PHP is the choice language/technology for web designers. But why are the other technologies not a good choice for web designers?

You can read the rest at killerphp.com:

Why ASP, JSP and Ruby suck for web designers

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

Hi,

In my continued attempts to teach web designers how to program with PHP (now an essential web design skill,) I’ve just released part 1 of 3, of my video series on creating custom functions in PHP.

We cover the very basics and learn about one of the key advantages of creating functions in php versus just write straight PHP code to your pages.

The Video: Custom PHP Functions

Part 2 and 3 will be out soon.

Thanks,

Stefan

www.killersites.com

Hi,

I just released three videos on PHP functions that targets total beginners to programming and PHP.

The Videos:

• PHP Functions – part 1 (8:31)
• PHP Functions – part 2 (8:57)
• PHP Functions – part 3 (8:12)

I cover basic topics like how to spot and use functions, what are functions ‘returns’ and what are function ‘arguments’.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook