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Packt’s $5 eBook Bonanza is back!

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Packt Publishing just informed me today that, like last year, they have a spectacular sale on eBooks this December 2013 !

From December 19th, customers will be able to get any eBook or Video from Packt for just $5. This sale covers every title in the 1700+ range and customers can grab as many as they like until January 3rd 2014 – more information is available at This offer covers a myriad of titles in the 1700+ range where customers will be able to grab as many as they like until January 3rd 2014
www.packtpub.com/ebookbonanza 

$5 ebook Bonanza1

May I recommend the following books, which I`ve reviewed on this blog;

Packt 2010 Open Source Awards Winners

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The Packt Publishing Open Source Award 2010 winners are know known!

Open Source CMS

  1. Winner: CMS Made Simple
  2. 1st Runner up:  SilverStripe
  3. 2nd Runner up:  MODx

Hall of Fame CMS

  1. Winner: WordPress
  2. 1st Runner up:  Drupal
  3. 2nd Runner up:  Joomla!

 Most Promising Open Source Project

Open Source E-Commerce Applications

  1. Winner: PrestaShop
  2. 1st Runner up: OpenCart
  3. 2nd Runner up: Tomato Cart  

Open Source Graphics Software

  1. Winner: Blender
  2. 1st Runner up: GIMP
  3. 2nd Runner up: Inkscape

Open Source JavaScript Libraries  

  1. Winner: jQuery
  2. 1st Runner up: Mootools and Raphaël

More information can be found at http://www.packtpub.com/open-source-awards-home

Packt Publishing 2010 Open Source Awards

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Packt Publishing started the 2010 Open Source Awards.
In 2009 WordPress won the yearly Open Source Awards Award in what was a very close contest with MODx and SilverStripe.

The 2010 Award will feature a prize fund of $24,000 with several new categories introduced. While the Open Source CMS Award category will continue to recognize the best content management system, Packt is introducing categories for the Most Promising Open Source Project, Open Source E-Commerce Applications, Open Source JavaScript Libraries and Open Source Graphics Software.  CMSes that won the Overall CMS Award in previous years will continue to compete against one another in the Hall of Fame CMS category.

For more information visit www.PacktPub.com/open-source-awards-home

OpenX Ad Server: Beginner`s Guide by Packt Publishing Review

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This is my review of the book “OpenX Ad Server: Beginner`s Guide” written by Murat Yilmaz and published by Packt Publishing (Open Source).

OpenX is an open-source PHP/MySQL based advertisement platform which supports unlimited advertisers, campaigns, banners, zones and websites. You can use OpenX to structurize the advertisement on one or multiple sites with one or multiple advertisers and several campaigns and banners. It’s also possible to use OpenX for your Google Adsense or other 3rd party advertisements.

Why would you believe my review and more important: who am I? I`m Ramon van Belzen, a 22 year old web designer from Holland. I’ve been using OpenX (formerly OpenAds) since 2006. I never got in-depth with it but I’m familiar with most of the functions. I use OpenX to structure my Amazon campaigns and zones on multiple websites. You can find more about me on my blog www.ramoonus.nl
Packt Publishing asked me if I would like to review this book.

The book is a beginner’s guide to the OpenX Ad Server platform. Since the book is a beginner’s guide you don’t need to have any experience with online advertisement, webdesign or the OpenX platform. Currently there aren’t other OpenX books around. Packt has the scoop.

Every step in the book includes a screen-shot and some describing text along with it. At the end of every chapter there’s a question which summarizes the chapter. At the end of the book every question is answered with a full explanation —why; what’s good and what’s wrong about the other answers. A short summary of the chapter is also included.

The book starts with an introduction.—how the book is written, what OpenXis, why you would use OpenX, what is possible with OpenX, what the system requirements are. This is followed by the installation procedure and some important notes. The whole procedure is shown and described step by step.

The second chapter of the book is an introduction on how to use OpenX. It shows you how to create an advertiser, campaign, banner (not the actual design), website and zone (where the advertisement is placed). At the end of this chapter it’s time to put things together and show the banner on a website.

Chapter three explains how to create a new advertiser and how the campaign systems works. It describes the CPC, CPM, CPA and tenancy revenue models. All ins and outs of these models are explained and put into practise.

The fourth chapter describes the multiple ways how a banner can be implemented and the advantages and disadvantages of each way.

The following chapter (five) explains the website and zone principle. It also shows you how to include the code to a website to actually show the ads. The last bit of the chapter explains how to use dynamic zones and geotargetting.
By the end of this chapter you can start selling ads in the real world.

The sixth chapter of this book explains targeting like site source and browser based targeting.

Chapter seven describes the user account management including all permissions and roles.  Chapter eight is the follow-up of chapter seven. It explains all the user account options.

Chapter nine explains how to upgrade OpenX when a new version comes out. Trust me, it`s not as easy as it sounds. The chapter starts with backing up OpenX, duplicating the right files and running the upgrade wizard.

The final chapter (number ten) describes how to generate reports and statistics. To run a successful campaign it’s important to generate the right reports and do statistics on these results. With OpenX it’s possible to export results to CSV and Microsoft Excel. While inside Excel it`s possible to generate graphics and statistics on the results.

I haven’t found any nonsense in the book. The book is technically correct. This also counts for the language used in the book. I haven’t found weird sentences.

I didn’t have any problems reading the book. The first three chapters were obvious for me whereas the next several chapters only got more into depth. I bet even people who have used OpenX for a while never knew all those features!
This book describes how to use OpenX, not how to use online advertisement successfully.

After reading this book, I’m going to reintroduce advertisement on my site. Now I can use OpenX to improve advertisement targeting and effect. I can also generate reports and implement them.

The only information I see as missing is a short explanation of the different kinds of inclusion methods like javascript, XML-RPC and iframe. The book doesn’t cover these items, although this is actually more interesting to specialized webmasters. The normal way of including banners (through javascript) is the standard way for OpenX and I don`t have problems with it.

If you are interested in the book after reading my review, a sample chapter can be found online here.

And of course, it’s 2010 and it`s possible to buy the book online, both the paper and eBook versions; https://www.packtpub.com/openx-ad-server-beginners-guide/book

Specifications

Language : English

Paperback : 300 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]

Release Date : March 2010

ISBN : 1849510202

ISBN 13 : 978-1-849510-20-2

Author(s) : Murat Yilmaz

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CodeIgniter 1.7 by Packt Publishing review

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Pack Publishing asked me to do a review of their “CodeIgniter 1.7” book.
Since I’m familiar with Packt Publishing and books (not with reviewing) I said I’ll give it a go.

This book is for PHP programmers who are familiar or unfamiliar with model-view-controller framework CodeIgniter. After reading this book you should be able to use most of CodeIgniter`s features and make your own scripts which run on CodeIgniter.

CodeIgniter (CI for short) is an Open-Source PHP Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework. Multiple studies concluded that CodeIgniter is faster and lighter than other PHP frameworks like CakePHP and Zend Framework.  This book is targeted at PHP programmers who want to save time, effort and cost by switching to the CodeIgniter framework.

There are several benefits of CodeIgniter:

  • It runs on PHP 4 and
  • It generates clean urls (using mod_rewrite)
  • It’s extensible
  • It doesn’t require a template engine
  • It’s well documentated (especially when reading this book!)
  • It`s free!
  • It’s safer
  • It saves you loads of time

For a full list of features I recommend you read this link.

Before reading this book I had no experience with MVC. I do have some experience with PHP/SQL and much experience with HTML/XHTML.
The books requirements are basic knowledge of HTML and PHP. Basic knowledge of (My)SQL is also recommended.

The book covers the following topics:

  • Installing CodeIgniter
  • Creating a basic CodeIgniter page
  • Use CodeIgniter to connect to a database and execute read queries
  • Creating HTML pages and forms
  • Using sessions and implement security systems like a login system
  • Object-oriented programming in CodeIgniter
  • Create your own CodeIgniter plugins
  • Communicate using FTP and XML-RPC
  • Using CodeIgniter to provide dynamic information (for the constructions of calendars and translations)
  • Handle files (up and downloading) and images
  • Putting your site online, useful tips and trick to avoid errors
  • Advice about upgrading CodeIgniter
  • Create, Read, Update, Delete; create your first fully database powered script
  • In general, how codeigniter works and what the benefits are
  • Writers recommendation plugins
  • Additional resources (browser plugins, webserver software, literature)
  • Appendix: using codeigniter`s cart function to create a shopping cart

After reading the book I’m able to create and enhance websites with features found in the book. I can now tell my customers I make some “advanced” script myself.

The book still leaves me with few questions about advanced topics like database query caching. The book points to the CodeIgniter user guide (online), which fed my information hunger.

The book fulfilled my expectations.

I’ve placed the book in reach of my desktop. Programming can be overwhelming although CodeIgniter makes life easier. I’m happy to have this book in my bookcase! I’m very sure I’m going to use it on my next big PHP project.

I recommend this book to all PHP programmers who are looking for a framework to lower the workload. After reading this book you’re ready to replace most PHP scripts by your own custom made scripts based on CodeIgniter.

A sample chapter can be found here. It’s chapter 3: “Navigating your site”.

If you’re interested and read more, or buy the book you should check out this link.

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