All About Vikram Vaswani
Vikram Vaswani is the founder and CEO of Melonfire, a consulting services firm with special expertise in open-source tools and technologies. He is a passionate proponent of the open-source movement and frequently contributes articles and tutorials on open-source technologies—including Perl, Python, PHP, MySQL, and Linux—to the community at large. His previous books include MySQL: The Complete Reference, How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL and PHP Programming Solutions.
Vikram has more than eight years of experience working with PHP and MySQL as an application developer. He is the author of Zend Technologies’ PHP 101 series for PHP beginners, and has extensive experience deploying PHP in a variety of different environments (including corporate intranets, high-traffic Internet Web sites, and mission-critical thin client applications).
A Felix Scholar at the University of Oxford, England, Vikram combines his interest in Web application development with various other activities. When not dreaming up plans for world domination, he amuses himself by reading crime fiction, watching old movies, playing squash, blogging, and keeping an eye out for unfriendly Agents.
Titles Authored by Vikram Vaswani
Zend Framework, A Beginner’s Guide
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-163939-2
ISBN-10: 007163939X
©2010 | 1st Edition | 464 pages , Softcover
Status: August 2010
Price: US$ 39.99
A practical guide to the Zend Framework
Perfect for real-world PHP developers working against aggressive deadlines, Zend Framework: A Beginner’s Guide teaches you how to work smarter by taking full advantage of Zend Framework’s extensibility, scalability, and flexibility. Learn how to use the Zend Framework to simplify and shorten the application development cycle, reduce testing time, and improve quality.
Zend Framework: A Beginner’s Guide:
- Is written by a featured columnist with Zend Technologies
- Covers the most important components of the Zend Framework
- Introduces MVC concepts and theory, and then demonstrates real-world implementation of the theory
- Provides numerous projects and code examples
- Offers all code from the book for download
Essential skills made easy
Basic Features; Basic Principles and Conventions; Models; Controllers and Views; Authentication, Access Control and Sessions; Routing; Error Handling; Advanced Features; XML; Ajax and JSON; Localization; Web Services; Performance Optimization
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PHP: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-154901-1
ISBN-10: 0071549013
©2009 | 1st Edition | 478 pages , Softcover
Pub Date: October 2008
Price: US$ 39.99
PHP: A Beginner’s Guide is intended for use by users who are new to the PHP programming language. Unlike many other books, PHP: A Beginner’s Guide doesn’t assume prior knowledge of Web programming or database fundamentals. Rather, it teaches by example, using in-chapter projects and examples to explain basic concepts and, thus, gradually increase the reader’s familiarity with PHP concepts and programming tools. Therefore, it is most suitable for novice programmers who are familiar with HTML and CSS, and are interested in widening their skill set to also build dynamic, data-driven sites using PHP.
PHP: A Beginner’s Guide contains information on the PHP 5.2/5.3 programming toolkit and its most commonly-used features: MySQL and SQLite database integration, XML processing capabilities, and third-party extensions. It provides one-stop coverage of software installation, language syntax and data structures, flow control routines, built-in functions, and best practices. Each chapter also includes numerous practical projects that the reader can “follow along with” to gain a practical understanding of the material being discussed.
Sample Chapter | Code Files | Author’s Site | Resources | Learn More
MySQL Database Usage & Administration
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-160549-6
ISBN-10: 0071605495
©2010 | 1st Edition | 368 pages , Softcover
Pub Date: October 2009
Price: US$ 49.99
Sample Chapter
Take your MySQL skills to the top tier
Maximize every powerful feature available in MySQL 5.1 with hands-on instruction from a MySQL expert. This definitive guide shows you how to use MySQL’s advanced suite of data management tools, optimize performance and reliability, and secure and administer a robust RDBMS. MySQL Database Usage & Administration includes detailed code examples in each chapter to highlight real-world applications of the material covered. If you want to get the most out of MySQL, you need this practical handbook.
- Understand MySQL’s features, technical architecture, subsystems, and commands
- Make database design decisions that optimizre performance, storage, and reliability
- Write complex queries using joins, subqueries, and views
- Group SQL statements into transactions and execute them atomically
- Build and use sophisticated stored procedures and functions
- Automate database operations with triggers and scheduled events
- Import and export data in different formats, includiong SQL, CSV, and XML
- Optimize server and query performance
- Administer a secure, high availability MySQL RDBMS
- Manage users and control access
- Perform database maintenance, replication, backup, and recovery
PHP Programming Solutions
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-148745-0
ISBN-10: 007148745X
©2007 | 1st Edition | 576 pages , Softcover
Pub Date: June 2007
Price: US$ 49.99
Find real-world solutions to PHP programming problems
Simplify and shorten the PHP application development cycle using the in-depth information contained in this hands-on guide. PHP Programming Solutions clearly lays out more than 250 programming challenges alongside practical solutions, functioning code, detailed explanations, and usage tips.
Inside, you’ll learn to manipulate strings and arrays, work with HTML and Web pages, accept and validate user input, parse XML code, and resolve programming problems using PEAR and PECL widgets and extensions. Plus, you’ll get detailed coverage of PHP security issues, SQL database interaction, debugging techniques, and error processing.
- Work with numbers, strings, dates, times, files, and directories
- Build complex data structures using PHP’s array manipulation API
- Use functions and classes to build modular, reusable code
- Create, update, and cache HTML documents and Web content
- Obtain and process user input submitted via online forms
- Protect, log, and debug PHP script actions
- Authenticate and track users with sessions and cookies
- Traverse, validate, and transform XML documents
- Store and retrieve data from MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle databases
- Interface with different server types, network protocols, and file formats
- Perform efficient exception handling and error processing
Endorsement
“Vikram Vaswani’s latest book, PHP Programming Solutions, is a great resource for PHP developers looking for those quick hit solutions. It covers a wide range of topics (including working with remote hosts, local files, and working with the different types of variables) using a clear problem/solution approach with comments along the way to provide just a bit more detail. You won’t find the usual introductory material here, though – the book’s targeted at experienced developers that know what they’re looking for.
Another great feature of the book is its use of PEAR modules where appropriate. Rather than rewriting things from scratch, they utilize the great components that the PEAR project already has to work with things like converting numbers to words, making histograms, finding and replacing content in files, and much more.
Combine the broad range of topics covered (and covered well) with the light, clean presentation Vikram chose and you have a great resource any PHP developer would do well to own.”
Sample Chapter | Source Code | Resources | Special Features | Author’s Site | Learn More
How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-225795-3
ISBN-10: 0072257954
©2005 | 1st Edition | 400 pages , Softcover
Pub Date: March 2005
Price: US$ 26.99
Create MySQL database-driven Web sites and applications with PHP quickly and easily. This step-by-step guide explains how to take full advantage of PHP’s built-in support for MySQL and link the results of database queries to Web pages. You’ll get full details on PHP programming and MySQL database development, and then you’ll learn to use these two cutting-edge technologies together. Easy-to-follow sample applications include a PHP online shopping cart, a MySQL order tracking system, and a PHP/MySQL news publishing system.
- Set up a PHP/MySQL development environment on Windows or UNIX
- Write PHP scripts and use variables, statements, and operators
- Create reusable code with arrays and custom functions
- Use files, sessions, cookies, and external programs
- Create a MySQL database and use SQL commands
- Edit database records and perform queries
- Control access and privileges with the MySQL security system
- Query a MySQL database with PHP
- Validate user input to maintain database integrity
- Format query output for optimal results
Sample Chapter | Source Code | Case Studies | Resources | Author’s Site | Learn More
MySQL: The Complete Reference
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-222477-1
ISBN-10: 0072224770
©2004 | 1st Edition | 544 pages , Softcover
Status: December 2003
Price: US$ 41.99
Get the most out of the MySQL database server–today’s most popular open source database–with help from this definitive guide. Take advantage of MySQL’s cross-platform support, independent storage engines, advanced permissions and security system, query caching, full-text indexing and searching, and much more. Reviewed by the MySQL database development team, MySQL: The Complete Reference explains in full detail how to use this customizable RDMS to support robust, reliable, mission-critical applications.
- Install, configure, and test a MySQL database on Linux/UNIX or Windows
- Use MySQL data types, statements, operators, and functions
- Manage databases and tables with the Data Definition Language (DDL)
- Add, delete, and query records using the Data Manipulation Language (DML)
- Take advantage of transactional support
- Implement MySQL’s five-tiered access control and privilege system
- Handle database optimization, backup, recovery, and replication
- Create applications in C, C++, Perl, Java, PHP, and other languages
Endorsements
“I highly recommend anyone working with MySQL in any capacity to pick up a copy of MySQL: The Complete Reference; it’s the most thorough, easy to follow, well laid out book on the subject I’ve seen…every facet of MySQL is covered: system admin, table types and structure, data types, basic to advanced SQL syntax…you WILL learn MySQL from this book!!” — Amazon.com (read complete review)
“Overall this is a very complete reference book, of interest to different types of users of MySQL databases from database application developers to database administrators. The fact that it covers features introduced in MySQL 4 and more recent versions like ACID transactions, referential integrity, query result caching and sub-queries, makes it an excellent choice for people looking for an up to date MySQL book.” — phpclasses.org (read complete review)
“…a very thorough book that would be a valuable addition to the library of any MySQL user” — Mike Hillyer, vbmysql.com (read complete review)
“Vikram Vaswani’s book MySQL: The Complete Reference is a wonderful technical reference for this popular open-source database platform. It’s comprehensive enough for seasoned MySQL users yet clear enough for the newcomer.” — Mike Chapple, About.com (read complete review)
“The book is especially useful as a reference to MySQL’s dialect of the SQL language. MySQL has grown up a lot in the last few years, so if you still think it doesn’t have transactions or stored procedures (the latter aren’t covered in this book, but have started appearing in more current releases) it might be time for another look.” — Mike Gunderloy, Developer Central
“Written for MySQL users, developers, and database administrators, this reference covers key features of MySQL and advanced topics such as replication and various programming APIs, provides a foundation for understanding the relational model, and covers essential topics for users and administrators who are familiar with Oracle or other database systems. Using tutorials and real-world examples, the book covers installation and configuration, usage, administration, and development. Prior knowledge of SQL and database fundamentals is not required.” — SciTech Book News
Sample Chapter | Source Code | Author’s Site | Resources | Learn More
Articles by Vikram Vaswani
Article 01: Zend Developer Zone on April 21, 2010
Build an Enterprise – Grade PHP Stack with Zend Server
5.0 and Oracle 11g
To read, please click HERE
Article 02: IBM on May 11, 2010
Implement SOAP services with the Zend Framework
To read, please click HERE
