Well, this is more than likely the last post to this blog as I have transferred it to my own host. Check out my progress over at php from scratch: the domain
The reasons for hosting my blog were tentatively listed in the previous post and to be honest I’m not not really sure why I have to do this. One reason could be that blogs hosted on your own domain seem so much more professional. The truth is very different though. Not that this isn’t going to be a totally professional website when it gets going. It is. Also, as the topic of this blog is php and as php is what powers this particular blog I think it is my duty to get used to all things php.
Transferring blogs and sites and stuff like that can be quite daunting for the beginner but it is usually quite easy. You may laugh but it is the truth. It is usually easy because most of these service provide guides that can be followed by idiots like me. Thank god!
To be honest I often end up uninstalling and deleting everything and reinstalling several times before I get it right. You can avoid this by reading the instructions more carefully that I do.
Before you start though you ought to check with your web host whether or not it supports cool software like wordpress. If not get yourself a new host. I will recommend some at a later date. If there is a link page you will find it there.
Well in my next post I will detail my success or failure.
phpfromscratch.com will be the new home of php from scratch. It makes all kind of sense. You may be wondering why I chose to host the blog on my own domain. Well, you have probably noticed that there are some limitations to blogs hosted on wordpress.com and that is one of the reasons I want to host it myself.
Another reason is that I want to keep all the php stuff that I learn on the same domain. I will easily be able to link to examples of pages that I have created and such like.
I also like having domains, it’s just cool.
If you have been following my progress you will have downloaded the php plug-in already. If not just check the previous post. Anyway, compared to the Lynda.com complimentary video the versions we are using will be newer until of course Lynda.com update their videos and then the version that I will be using here will be outdated. Techmology….
Well just double click the icon and install. It should be smart enough to install in the right directory.
Below you can see some of the differences between versions but don’t be afraid. Don’t be very afraid. ……?
As you technology is developing at a rapid pace and that includes php. So it is very difficult for Lynda.com to redo their videos whenever there is a slight change. A rule of thumb when installing software is: when in doubt choose yes. Below are the steps to install WAMP but that was yesterday, tomorrow may be different.
Anyway the first step is to double click on the icon and the following screen should appear. If you don’t know where the icon is you can check the previous post and be more careful where you download it to.
Of course you should press next and in the following page you can use the default folder as below but I follower Lynda.com’s lead and created a program_files folder in the c: directory and installed there. Notice the underscore in program_files. Don’t mistake it for the already existing program files folder.
Press next and next.
Check auto start and press next.
Press install.
Choose the www folder which will have been created.
Leave it as localhost and press next.
Choose an appropriate email and, yes, you guessed it, press next.
Around here it differs from the video but this is where my years of pc experience came in handy. I somehow just new instinctively that I ought to press next.
You will notice that it detected firefox because that is my browser of choice and it should be yours too.
Uncheck “Launch WAMP5 now”and then press finish.
Yeah, we’re done. At least partly anyway. There is still some php plugin afffair. I will get to that later though.
Lynda.com not only tells us what software we need, it tells us where to get it. In the 4th and 5th video provided for free on their website it shows you how to download and install the necessary software. So far so good. If this were a talent competition I would have to say Lynda is looking sweet. Anyway to make it even easier for you I will also provide the links to the software I am going to use. According to Lynda.com we need to download two things for starters.
I am downloading [02/15/2007] – WAMP5 1.7.0 with Apache 2.2.4 and PHP 5.2.1
and
PHP4.4.5 ADD-ON for WAMP5 1.7.0 (6 Mo)
If you are reading this at a later date you will probably be downloading newer versions. New versions usually mean safety so it might be recommended to keep your software up to date. I don’t yet know how easy/difficult/fun/tedious that is going to be.
On the VTC website there are about 16 videos discussing php that you can watch free of charge. On the Lynda.com website there are only 9.
You may remember though that I stopped after video 6 on the VTC site because I felt that they had skipped information necessary for complete beginners like me.
The first Lynda.com video claims to be 2 minutes and 32 seconds long but it sure felt like a lot longer. I hope it was longer because if not this may be a very tedious course to get through. Anyway, in the very long 2 and a half minutes of the the first video they basically introduce the course and at first it seems cool but then all this new vocab like “strings” and “arrays” and stuff like that was bandied about. It might scare some people off php forever but not me. I will not falter, not for a second……maybe.
One good thing about the intro is that they said that they would introduce all the necessary software. Hopefully they give details on how to get it and install it too.
Well I don’t really have anything to say about the next vid in the VTC tutorials except that you may as well skip it ….. or not. It’s up to you. I wouldn’t mind getting my three minutes and eight seconds back. Just kidding. Basically they are trying to drum it in to us that php and html are different beasts. Pages generated by php are not the same as html. Server side scripts and client side scripts are not the same. They are different. Not the same. Got it?
This also means that when you view pages generated by php you won’t really see much of the code. Mostly just html.
Well, back to My first script, Video No.6.
This is an interesting video. It is very concise and brief but the script doesn’t do anything . That’s not exactly true. It does give an example of what was drummed into us in the previous video. I recommend that you watch it.
At this point I am going to temporally, at least, stop using the VTC videos. Why? In the previous video it gave us an example of a script and showed it in action but actually we haven’t set up a server or anything like that yet. In fact we don’t know how yet. I guess they assume we know about that kind of thing already. Well they may have mentioned that they did indeed assume we knew about that type of thing in a previous video.
Conclusion: This particular VTC video is not for complete beginners of php.
Next: Lynda.com
Well, as you can see, my I have barely set out on my road to Zend Engineer-ship. Of course I am still waiting for my first text book to arrive but there are plenty of free materials on the web to get started with.
The reason is lack of time. I need more time. So today I have made an important decision. I am going to quit one of my two jobs. I currently work six days a week. Monday to Thursday in my new job and Friday and Saturday in my old job. The new job pays much better than my old one but I don’t have enough hours to earn real coin. That might change in the future though.
So I will have three days off every week, starting in about a month. It will be php and together with having more time I hope to have more energy to infuse that ol’ php into my system.
What you’ll need Pt. 2 (05:20)
What do you need? Knowledge. Knowledge of what?
- HTML (I’m OK here)
- Database Skills (I have none)
Luckily the VTC also provide MySQL training. According to this video, if you want to study php you should already know about databases. Well ,we’ll see.
They also recommend using the on-line php manual – here.
And if you need advice about php you can ask at this forum – phpbuilder.com .
