See also phpvs.com.

Documentation for PHP and MySQL™ available online or in various in downloadable formats (PDF, HTML, CHM) and languages.

• PHP Documentation
• MySQL™ Administrator
• MySQL™ Documentation
• Windows Extended HTML Help for PHP includes user notes.
• PEAR Coding Standards offers a perspective on script style. Adopting a consistent style and placing comments in your code as you write it will prevent you from tearing your hair out when you re-visit a project after the passage of time.

Uniform Server is free, portable, open source WAMP package for Microsoft Windows (Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, phpMyAdmin, etc.) which can be installed on a USB drive, a hard drive, smartmedia card, etc. Uniform Server has an installer and it works great! No muss, no fuss. I migrated a content management system to a portable USB Flash Drive in 10 minutes ... the only scripts that I needed to change were a few PHP scripts that expected a document root of C:/apache/htdocs instead of Uniform Server's document root of W:/www. If you already have Apache and MySQL running as a service under Windows, simply shut down those services before (for example) firing up Uniform Server on a USB stick.

Useful PHP / MySQL Applications

• phpMinAdmin info :: phpMinAdmin demo :: phpMinAdmin download ... sweet!
• WampServer installs Apache, PHP, and MySQL™ on Windows.
• phpMyAdmin is the most widely used MySQL™ interface.
• dBug.php (nice include file for troubleshooting / debugging)
• phpMyEdit excellent form generator (PHP / MySQL™)
• Database Conversion Utilities (those which I've acquired are excellent)
• phpWebFileManager
• php-form-generator.com

PHP Newsgroups at Google.com

Any question that you may have about PHP and/or MySQL™ has probably been answered in one of the newsgroups. Search prior newsgroup messages before posting your question. Reading newsgroup messages is a good way to enhance your knowledge.

• alt.comp.lang.php
• alt.php
• alt.php.sql

Material for PHP Newbies

• http://www.phpfreaks.com
• http://www.w3schools.com/php/
• http://www.hudzilla.org/phpbook/
• PHP Form Generator

Links to PHP development sites

• alt-php-faq.org ***
• Developer Shed
• Google Directory: Computer Programming Languages: PHP
• HotScripts ***
• LinuxGurus
• Newbie Network
• php.faqts
• PHP.NET ***
• PHPBuilder
• Resource Index
• SourceForge ***
• Zend

Books on PHP

• PHP Cookbook offers a very nice index of common tasks and their solutions.
• PHP Cookbook preview on Google.
• Programming PHP presents a great deal of information in a very concise manner. If you're only going to acquire one book, get this one.
• PHP and MySQL™ Web Development is a good book for beginners (easy reading, examples on CD).
• PHP.NET Booklist (English)
• The Complete Reference: MySQL was published in Jan 2004 and is an excellent book.

Web Development Tools and Links

• Notetab Pro may be the best *programmable* text editor on Earth!
• Comprehensive guide to .htaccess
• W3C and the CSS Property Index
• CSS Navigation Techniques
• w3schools.com and tizag.com offer a lot of reference material.
• Firefox with its Error Console and selected plug-ins is a Must Have!
• AddedBytes
• Total Validator
• W3C HTML, XHTML Validator
• W3C CSS Validation
• PhotoImpact X3 (graphics software, the poor man's PhotoShop™)
• Alchemy Mindworks (graphics software)
• Tango Icon Library and tlbox Icons
• Favicon Generator

Backing up your hard drive with XXCLONE

I lived in fear of a failed hard drive until buying XXCLONE and an external USB drive. Following the XXCLONE instructions, my external hard drive is an exact mirror of the C: drive on my Windows PC. I recently removed the C: drive and installed the cloned drive to make sure it would work, and it booted immediately, subsequently asking only if I wanted to make the new drive letter assignment permanent or not. Excellent software for about $40. The first backup takes an hour or two, but incremental daily backups usually take less than 10 minutes.