Editorial Review :

Beginning PHP and MySQL E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition covers every step of the design and building process involved in creating powerful, extendable e–commerce web sites. Based around a real–world example involving a web site selling t–shirts, you’ll learn how to create and manage a product catalog, build and integrate a shopping cart, and process customer accounts and PayPal/credit card transactions.

With the e–commerce framework in place, authors Emilian Balanescu and Cristian Darie show you how to integrate advanced features sure to set your web site apart from the competition. You’ll learn how to expand your catalog using Amazon Web Services, optimize the web site for the search engines, and take advantage of Ajax to build an even more user–friendly shopping cart.

Other highlights:

• The authors show you how to build a complex, extendable e–commerce web site using sound development practices.
• This second edition has been updated to take advantage of a more flexible templating system, and new chapters cover Ajax integration and search engine optimization.
• The text goes beyond basic product and customer management, showing you how to integrate product reviews, process payments using both credit cards and PayPal, and expand your web site catalog using third–party services such as Amazons affiliate program.

What you’ll learn

Who is this book for?

About the Apress Beginning Series

Customer Review :

Great potential but full of errors

The authors know professional coding practices and they take you by the hand so you do the right thing. You get exposure to Smarty code templates and Yahoo web development libraries -- this is good stuff, and it's exactly what you should be doing in the real world as a professional. Unfortunately, if you're following along with the exercises, their code is replete with errors. I mean, everything has bugs in it. The CSS, the SQL stored procedures, the PHP, everything. So you have to spend a lot of time figuring out what went wrong. This is realistic; it's what would happen to you if you started a job and immediately had to know PHP, especially if you got put onto an existing project where the person writing it was a sloppy hack who never tested. But it would be nice if you could spend all your time debugging YOUR OWN code instead of the AUTHORS' code. If you were to say OK, let's just download the code and see it running the way it's supposed to, the source code is MUCH CHANGED from whatever is in the book (so you can't really follow the examples anymore) and it STILL doesn't run. I know these guys are good engineers because they understand what they're doing and they explain it pretty well. But man, they are wasting so much of my time! I would trash the book even more if the other book I got wasn't worse.

Rating :

Challenging but worth the effort

I have recently completed reading this book in its entirety. First, here's what I liked about this book. This book is a wonderful presentation of how to build an e-commerce site from start to finish. It touches on nearly all the major considerations you are faced with when developing an e-commerce site and the author uses sound coding practices throughout the book. The major topics readers will be interested in are creating shopping carts, search functionality, content management system, and the ordering system. I especially appreciated how SEO was integrated into this book and how AJAX was used to enhance some features. Another important aspect was its coverage of the many ways to accept online payments which are presented throughout the book. When I e-mailed Cristian a question regarding this book he replied promptly.

Here's what I disliked about this book. This book is not a beginning PHP book and it's not a beginning MySQL book like the title might suggest. It is a beginning e-commerce book and readers are expected to be familiar with both PHP and MySQL. It is also assumed that you are familiar with OOP and the smarty templating engine. For people not familiar with smarty this might be a little intimidating. Smarty is actually fairly straight forward but you might need to visit www.smarty.net for a crash course. Help is given to set up your working environment and the authors do get you started down the right path with smarty.

I certainly did not like the writing style of this book. Most chapters start out with objectives quickly followed by numerous pages of code. This section of code is followed by a paragraph, entitled what just happened, which loosely describes what the code does but not how the code works. This same process is repeated until the end of the chapter. All of the code is commented well but it's up to you the reader to understand what's going on. I would have preferred if a little more time was spent describing the concepts being used. I get the feeling the authors were trying to cram this book into 700 pages out of fear of having a 1000 plus page book. Personally I wouldn't have minded if it were that long. On the flip side this did force me to really focus and understand what I was reading and not just "follow along".

Lastly, I did not like that this book did not also cover macs. There are only a handful of changes that need to be made to make this work on a mac however if you are not familiar with developing PHP sites on a mac you could easily get hung up on one of these simple problems.

Considering my dislikes you might be surprised that I didn't rate this book lower, but a walked away having learned so much I had to give this book at least four stars. This book is challenging but well worth every page.

As for critics that claimed this book is "impossible" or that "the code doesn't work" or that "the author won't respond" don't believe it. This book is challenging but as long as you stay focused and follow the book closely there should be no problems and yes the author did respond to my questions.


Rating :

Good book (but not for beginner)

Beginning PHP and MySQL E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition (Beginning: From Novice to Professional)

I'm an ASP.NET/C# developer, living in Microsoft world. I got tough time at very beginning to understand fully about PHP, Smarty, etc. So, I took a crash training about PHP/MySQL by reading "Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional". After that, things were getting much better.
The book itself is really good. I like its gradual approach from beginning to end, from front to back, about the developement of an e-commerce web site.

The only thing missing is about reporting. With decade experience of report development (although not in e-commerce field), I think reporting is an important functionality for e-commerce.

Rating :

a little dissapointing

There are some errors in the book. Fortunately, authors have addressed a few on this Amazon page. Make sure you read the issues with the code on this page so you don't waste time (days in my case) trying to figure out why script is not working. Also I dislike that the authors use smarty. I don't want to figure out how smarty works. The way the code is designed you kind of have to. I have no intention of using smarty for any website and I don't appreciate having to understand smarty to understand how parts of the code are working.

Parts of the code are not working even though I copy and paste them directly from the authors download. I'm not finished with the book yet, but I am frustrated. I have a basic understanding of PHP and MySQL as I have used them to build a few websites. I can follow the code pretty easily but when there's bugs, there's way too much going on in the book forme to identify and fix the problem. Definitely don't get this book if you've never coded with PHP before. It is not a good place to start.

Rating :

First rate tutorial

This is one of the best programming books I have ever read and worth its weight in gold. It offers much more than the title suggests. For example, it also provides an excellent introduction to multi-tier architecture, and the Smarty template engine.

The example provides a solid framework for e-commerce sites which can be adapted easily. Reviewers criticizing the layout are missing the point. This is not a book about website design, but the programming that makes the site operate.

There a few typos in the code, which are relatively easy to fix.

Highly recommended.



Rating :

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Editorial Review :

This book is specifically designed as a business oriented legal environment text. The basic philosophy behind the book allows for a look and feel of texts students are more familiar with (social science books) as opposed to an overly legal looking text.

Customer Review :

Satisfied

The item arrived much faster than I had expected; however it wasn't quite as new as I thought it would be. The book is still in excellent condition & the price was just right.

Rating :

Editorial Review :

THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT TODAY: BUSINESS IN ITS ETHICAL, REGULATORY, E-COMMERCE, AND GLOBAL SETTING, 6th EDITION offers the AACSB-recommended quality you demand, along with a real-world, hands-on learning experience that engages students in every chapter. This 6th Edition includes strong guidance in critical thinking and legal reasoning; current coverage of ethics, cyber law, and corporate responsibility; a diverse selection of the latest cases, including 2007 and 2008 decisions; and impressive coverage of the landmark cases that continue to steer today's legal environment.

Customer Review :

Just starting out

Excellent bottom of the line book. First textbook I've read front to back. It really does a great job of simplifying legal jargon. I might be a little bias as law school is my dream.

Rating :

Not As Promised

The 2007 OnLine Research Guide was not included as promised. I wrote the seller regarding this and got no response.

Rating :

Editorial Review :

The first edition of The E-Commerce Question and Answer Book was an indispensable tool for thousands of businesses, selling over 25,000 copies. Now, this fully updated new edition covers all the latest developments in e-commerce technology, strategy, and business planning. Featuring 100 questions, the book addresses each one in a unique three-tier format: a quick overview answers the question directly, bullet points provide crystal-clear examples, and "Tell Me More" covers how the subject applies in actual business settings.

Business managers, IT professionals, and executives exploring or refining e-commerce models will find no-nonsense answers to questions like:

* What are portals and how are they evolving? * What is the difference between e-commerce and e-business? * What are e-learning, P2P, ASPs, and KM? * What is XML, and how does it apply in e-commerce?

Both an overview and an easy-access pocket reference, the updated E-Commerce Question and Answer Book is a tool no business professional should be without.

Customer Review :

An EXCELLENT guide to making sense of the Internet

Very helpful guide...clear, concise & always to the point. We're a nontechnical company (construction) moving a major part of our business toward e-commerce. This book identified and explained many of the issues & questions we'd been stumbling over. Highly recommend it as both a primer and a blueprint for taking on the e-commerce world.

Rating :

An invaluable step-by-step approach.

Is anyone making money on the Net besides web developers? If so, how can a small business participate, expanding their customer base and growth potential? The E-Commerce Question & Answer Book joins a few others on how to make money on the internet and addresses many side issues, from whether to hire a programmer to create Web pages to understanding how databases work in the e-commerce world. Invaluable here is a step-by-step approach which rates and discusses options and then tells how to achieve goals.

Rating :

"Must" reading for anyone venturing into e-commerce.

From e-auctions and trading to making sales on the net and evaluating how e-commerce can affect a product's distribution, The E-Commerce Question and Answer Book provides an important basic primer on the topic for business managers who need to consider e-commerce for their business. Chapters explain terminology and provide a foundation for making business decisions.

Rating :

Great starter for technical folks and business people

This book is published so technical people can understand the business perspective of e-commerce and also so business people can understand the technical side of e-commerce. It caters to both audiences without being too boring or too difficult. It is also organized in a question and answer manner that you can quickly get the information you want out of it. You can read the entire book in very little time by skipping over the "tell me more" sections that you don't care to know more about and get more information by reading the "tell me more" sections that you do want to know more about.

The book does seem to be talking to the medium sized business, but all the information is still relevant to the small business person to see the bigger picture of e-commerce for their business. The book is not an exhaustive reference, but it is a good read for anyone getting started who needs to understand the business of getting on-line with your business -- quickly.

Rating :

A survival guide for managers

Anita Rosen's E-Commerce Question And Answer Book appears in its second edition to provide a survival guide for managers who want to assess their products or services for ecommerce potentials. From fulfillment policies for the Web to selecting service providers, this reviews the basics.

Rating :

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Editorial Review :

You will learn how to build a complete e-commerce web site, following the entire design and build process. The website will be constructed following industry best practices in a modular manner&emdash;with a new module introduced and completed in each chapter.

Topics include an online catalogue and shopping cart, product searching and recommendation, and checkout/payment functionality. A distinguishing feature of this book is that it explains handling payments via PayPal, DataCash, and VeriSign Payflow Pro. By the end of the book, you will have created a fully-functioning e-commerce site, allowing you to sell merchandise and accept money from customers, at low cost to you.

Customer Review :

Excellent book

It's an excellent book, the book teaches you how to develop a site in three layers (presentation, business and data) in my ishe goal of this book.

Rating :

Estou muito satisfeito de ter este livro !!!

Dos ultimos livros que tenho comprado, assim como os da serie Head First da O'Really este livro superou muito as minhas espectativas.

Como um livro de tutorial foi maravilhoso e me trouxe muito conteudo !!!

Realmente vale a pena !!!

Rating :

Essential Book for ANY E-Commerce .NET 2.0 Developers!!!

'Beginning ASP .NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional' by Cristian Darie and Karli Watson is one of the most unique and important books out there for anyone that is developing an E-Commerce site with ASP.NET 2.0. Starting from scratch, the authors step by step show you how to get a site running and WORKING well and efficient. Packed with 650+ pages of material, the authors break the steps down in logical parts, show how they go about the work to be done, and then provide the code which does the dirty work. Not only is it helpful, but it's a joy to follow the steps as so much of the curtain is pulled away to show the developer how to get the job done. This is easily one of my favorite Apress books that I have seen. One of the nicest things about the Apress line of books is the fact that they write and publish books that no one else seems to and this is a perfect example of this. I'll close with a chapter overview for your inspection:

01. Starting off
02. Laying Out the Foundation
03. Creating the Product Catalog: Part I
04. Creating the Product Catalog: Part II
05. Searching the Catalog
06. Improving Performance
07. Receiving Payments Using PayPal
08. Catalog Administration
09. Creating a Custom Shopping Cart
10. Custom Orders
11. Making Product Recommendations
12. Adding Customer Accounts
13. Advanced Customer Orders
14. Order Pipeline
15. Implementing the Pipeline
16. Credit Card Transactions
17. Integrating with Amazon

Tack on 2 appendixes to the end and you have a MUST-HAVE book for anyone that is looking to achieve the same goals that this books does!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Rating :

Great book

I am into this book halfway as a part of my personal training program having completed a couple of other books first. This book seems to give the whole package. I consider it superior to a Wrox book I have, but I wish it split apart the coding more like a Wrox book. Lot's of typing! Anyway, this book's a keeper!

Rating :

Great Book - Arrived In a Timely Fashion

Great book. Taking me through all the ins and outs of E-Commerce. It's not perfect with some documented errata on the website. But more than adequate for any coder with a pulse.

Rating :

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