Kevin Yank's done it again! He's just completed a new 2012 edition of his best-selling book (Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site, 4th Edition) which is now titled - PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja.

The chapter excerpt they share is the book's "Introducing PHP" content the (very) basic introduction to the language showing syntax and some of the benefits of the language. They also give you a preview of some of the other bits of content in the book including sections on database design, building a CMS, setting up shopping carts and getting PHP+MySQL installed on multiple platforms.

Published in August 2007, Beginning PHP and Oracle: From Novice to Professional weighs in at a hefty 763 pages long. It's one for the bookshelf, not for the backpack thats for sure!

He goes through the sections of the book - the PHP intro, some of its "Enterprise thinking", mentions of MySQL and SQLite and, of course, the large amount of Oracle content (both in using Oracle alone and in connecting the two together).

If you're in the market for a book to perhaps learn PHP and would like to move onto advanced concepts later on, this book is worth a look. If you're an experienced PHP developer and looking for an introduction into the world of Oracle, this is the book for you.

Walking through your local bookstore will show that there is definitely no shortage of books related to PHP and MySQL. These ubiquitous technologies have been many a beginner's foray into the world of web development. Since both are free and widely supported it's a safe bet that the software you create can be used in almost any circumstance with relative ease. Beginning PHP and MySQL: From Novice to Professional, Third Edition is a good resource to get you started on your way.

The reviewer breaks down the chapters of the book and points out two chapters (web services and MVC with the Zend Framework) that he though were noteworthy for budding developers to look in to.

All in all W. Jason Gilmore has done an excellent job of bringing a wide ranging topics into a manageable size and retaining much of the value for later use.

A nice feature that I first noticed as being received positively by the Internet community is the auto-complete feature in Gmail. [...] The next example will show you how to do the same thing - although it's not quite as in-depth as the Gmail solution.

They start with the CSS and Javascript to make the application work, including a simple XMLHttpRequest object for the Ajax connection. The "autocomplete" function is called via an onKeyPress event in the form on the page, grabbing the content and firing off a request to the backend script. The also include a series of screenshots that show the different steps of the process from entering the information down to outputting the results.

The ability to make a call to the server without a page refresh is one that is quite powerful, if harnessed correctly. With the help of the powerful PHP server-side language, you can create some handy little applications that can be easily integrated into any web project.

They take some time to explain what an Ajax connection is before getting into the code - a basic example that just shows/hides content. They include both the HTML/Javascript to handle the front end and the PHP to handle the backend creation of the calendar (the content) itself.

To put your name in the hat, simply head to the entry page and fill in the form at the bottom. The winner will be notified after the drawing has taken place. If you'd like more information on the book itself, you can check out the sample chapter, table of contents, or just visit the site for the book.