Application

This book contains tips, tricks, and techniques to make new and existing PHP applications much faster and less resource-hungry. Author Armando Padilla looks at all major sections of the PHP application stack—from server hardware to database and web server performance. PHP program application performance is the center of this book, and Padilla shows you how to improve performance by best practices, proper design, and best-of-breed tools.

Padilla starts out by establishing performance testing and benchmarking methodology using common open source and browser-based testing tools. He then discusses best practices for PHP development, and also explains refactoring existing code, both with performance in mind. In addition to best coding practices, this book will teach you how to use and tweak Opcode caches such as APC, XCache, and eAccelerator.

Padilla then highlights how to support the efficient running of PHP applications, tweaks and settings by taking advantage of the GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems to improve hosting performance and reliability. Additional tips on web server improvements and database administration help round out the picture. Finally, Padilla presents some hardware example configurations tuned for high performance.

What you’ll learn

• How to improve the performance of existing PHP applications
• How to maximize the performance of existing operating systems and databases
• How to refactor existing PHP code for better performance
• How to identify and rectify bottlenecks in PHP code
• How to take advantage of variable caching to increase performance
• Strategies for selecting server hardware for best performance

Who this book is for

This books will appeal to established PHP developers who wish to write new, complex applications or want to rearchitect existing ones. Developers of other languages such as Ruby, Python, and VB.NET will also have an interest in the techniques for tuning the performance of web servers, databases, and operating systems.

PHP security, just like PHP itself, has advanced. Updated for PHP 5.3, the second edition of this authoritative PHP security book covers foundational PHP security topics like SQL injection, XSS, user authentication, and secure PHP development. Chris Snyder and Tom Myer also dive into recent developments like mobile security, the impact of Javascript, and the advantages of recent PHP hardening efforts.

Pro PHP Security will serve as your complete guide for taking defensive and proactive security measures within your PHP applications. Beginners in secure programming will find a lot of material on secure PHP development, the basics of encryption, secure protocols, as well as how to reconcile the demands of server side and web application security.

What you'll learn

• Secure PHP Development Principles
• PHP Web Application Security
• User and file security
• Mobile Security
• Encryption and Secure Protocols
• Dealing with Javascript

Who this book is for

Pro PHP Security appeals to all intermediate and advanced PHP programmers who need to keep websites safe. It also contains material of interest to all who are concerned with web application security.

The clear, easy-to-understand tutorial for developers who want to write software for today's hottest new device: Apple's iPad!

Figures and code appear as they do in Xcode

Covers iOS 3.2 and up

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, learn how to build powerful applications for today’s hottest tablet device: the iPad! Using this book’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll master every skill and technology you need, from setting up your Xcode development environment to utilizing the full iPad screen real estate for touchable interfaces, integrating maps and media, to improving the reliability and performance of your software. Each lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success!

Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common iPad development tasks.

Quizzes and Exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge.

By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion.

Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks.

Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them.

Printed in full color

•    Learn the features of the Xcode development suite

•    Prepare your system and iPad for efficient development

•    Get started fast with Apple’s Objective-C and Cocoa Touch

•    Understand the Model-View-Controller (MVC) development paradigm

•    Implement advanced application interfaces with interactive widgets and web-connected interfaces

•    Enhance the user experience with popovers and other iPad-only UI features

•    Build interfaces that adjust to the iPad’s orientation

•    Read and write data, and navigate it with table views

•    Implement media playback and recording capabilities

•    Integrate your software with the iPad’s email, photos, iPod, and address book applications

•    Create map and location-based services

•    Sense motion with the iPad accelerometer input

•    Discover the tools for building universal iPad/iPhone/iPod touch applications

•    Distribute your applications through the App Store

Build and deploy powerful, useful, and professional Java mobile applications for BlackBerry smartphones, the fast and easy way.

• Develop professional, rich, and smart Java applications using BlackBerry SDK
• Discover the powerful components provided by the SDK to build a powerful user interface with a common look and feel
• Explore the complex, but important, topic of network communications
• Integrate with the standard applications on all BlackBerry Smartphone to make your application even more useful
• Packed with hands-on examples and clear explanations for better understanding

In Detail

BlackBerry Smartphone was once the domain of jet-setting business users with power suits. Now you can hardly go anywhere without seeing someone using a BlackBerry to check their messages or make a call. It's this kind of explosive growth that makes the BlackBerry ecosystem a great place to develop and market applications through the BlackBerry App World store-this book shows you how to do just that!

This step-by-step guide gives you a hands-on experience of developing innovative Java applications for your BlackBerry. With the help of this book, you will learn to build your own applications to illustrate the platform, and the various capabilities that developers can use in their programs. It explores the powers of Blackberry and helps you develop professional and impressive Java applications.

The book teaches how to write rich, interactive, and smart BlackBerry applications in Java. It expects the readers to know Java but not Java Mobile or the BlackBerry APIs. We will learn to build rich, interactive, and smart Java applications for the BlackBerry. The book will cover UI programming, data storage, programming network, and internet API apps. As we move on, we will learn more about the BlackBerry's device features, such as messaging, GPS, multimedia, contacts and calendar, and so on. This book also helps you build your own applications to illustrate the platform, and the various capabilities that developers can use in their programs.

This step-by-step guide to building rich, interactive, and smart Java applications helps you get the most out of BlackBerry smartphones.

What you will learn from this book

• Learn about the two approaches to develop BlackBerry applications
• Understand how the SDK version relates to target devices and learn about the BlackBerry Developer Zone
• Install the Java SDK, which is the foundation using the development environment
• Install Eclipse with the BlackBerry Component Package and configure it with other Component Package versions
• Import the existing HelloWorldDemo supplied with the software and compile and debug the application
• Study PIM, create new PIM Items, and assign values to their fields
• Set up a Screen with fields and create and use menus
• Learn the usage of the Field styles and classes to the fullest
• Study about a Layout Manager and create custom Dialogs on the fly to collect discrete pieces of information
• Get to know the pros and cons for each record-based approach and pick the one that best meets your needs
• Create new Personal Information Management (PIM) items and assign values to their fields
• Understand the basics of HTTP and the correct usage of GET or POST
• Learn the working of Global Position System and the three methods by which a BlackBerry handheld can get location information

Approach

Written with a fast-paced but friendly and engaging approach, this Packt Beginner's Guide is designed to be placed alongside the computer as your guide and mentor. Step-by-step tutorials are boosted by explanations of the reasoning behind what you are doing. You will quickly pick up the necessary skills, tips, and tricks for building BlackBerry applications with Java with practical.

Who this book is written for

If you are a Java programmer who wants to build BlackBerry applications with Java, this book is for you.

Many Flex books cover the basics—this book does something different, and goes far further. The authors, leading Flash platform developers at Almer/Blank, working with Adobe User Group communities, are the creators of the Rich Media Exchange (RMX), a social media network for Adobe developers. In covering just how the RMX was built, this book contains all the knowledge you need to build similar large-scale Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex. From the inception of the idea through to deployment, the authors show the techniques needed to plan and build advanced applications. You'll learn how to use forms, styles, validators, video, sound analysis, and framework caching, ensuring you make the most of the new features introduced in Flex 3. Powerful applications require solid back ends. This book shows how to hook up a Flex application to PHP back-end systems such as Drupal and OpenAds. You'll learn how various parts of the RMX were built, including the blogs, event calendar, jobs board, and advertising system—elements that come together to really showcase the power of Flex. The RMX is built by Adobe Developers for Adobe Developers—a rewarding community relationship that guarantees results. The same spirit is carried into this book, with the authors wanting and helping to take you to the next level of Flash Platform application development.

In this book you'll learn how to

• Effectively plan, wireframe, specify, develop, and release large-scale Flex applications, and discover what other development tools you'll want to start using immediately
• Make your Flex applications look less like Flex with advanced styling and skinning techniques
• Harness advanced Flex form features, including coding validators and building your custom form components
• Implement a robust advertising system for a Flex application using OpenAds
• Build powerful, custom multimedia players in Flex, including video players with the native VideoDisplay class and from scratch, and music players with advanced sound visualization

Summary of Contents

• PART 1 PLANNING THE RMX
  • Chapter 1 Introduction to Flex 2 Applications
  • Chapter 2 Defining the Application: Introducing the RMX
  • Chapter 3 Planning the Application: Building the RMX
• PART 2 BUILDING THE RMX CORE FUNCTIONS
  • Chapter 4 Preparing to Get to Work
  • Chapter 5 Styling Flex
  • Chapter 6 Collecting and Working with Aggregated Content
  • Chapter 7 Secondary Navigation
  • Chapter 8 Forms and Validation
  • Chapter 9 User Communications
  • Chapter 10 Working with Video
  • Chapter 11 Advertising and Flex
• PART 3 BUILDING OUT NEW FEATURES
  • Chapter 12 Building the Blog
  • Chapter 13 Building the Jobs Board
  • Chapter 14 Building the Event Calendar
  • Chapter 15 Ideas for the Future: Extending the RMX
• PART 4 SPECIAL TOPICS
  • Chapter 16 RSLs and Persistent Framework Caching
  • Chapter 17 Search Engine Optimization for Flex
  • Chapter 18 Building an Audio Visualizer in Flex
  • Appendix The Evolving Flex Scene

Design, develop, and deploy feature-rich PHP web applications with this MVC framework

• Create powerful web applications by leveraging the power of this Model-View-Controller-based framework
• Learn by doing - create a "real-life" storefront application
• Covers access control, performance optimization, and testing
• Best practices, as well as debugging and designing discussion

In Detail

The Zend Framework has a flexible architecture that lets you build modern web applications and web services easily. The MVC components make the maintenance and testing of your applications easier. However, it is not only an MVC framework for developers. It also provides an easy-to-use high-quality component library that is designed to be used the way you want, picking up specific components without requiring the use of whole framework.

It's easy to get started and produce a powerful and professional looking web site when you've got this book to hand. Taking you through a real-life application, it covers the major Zend Framework components, as well as throwing light on the best practices and design issues faced when building complex MVC applications.

This book takes you through detailed examples as well as covering the foundations you will need to get the most out of the Zend Framework. From humble beginnings you will progress through the book and slowly build upon what you have learned previously. By the end, you should have a good understanding of the Zend Framework, its components, and the issues involved in implementing a Zend Framework based application.

What you will learn from this book?

• Explore the features of Zend Framework's MVC architecture
• Learn about designing and implementing an MVC application
• Avoid common mistakes made when first learning an MVC framework
• Test your applications with the popular PHPUnit framework
• Interact with a database using Zend_Db and Zend_Db_Table
• Secure your application using Zend_Acl and Zend_Auth
• Optimize your application using caching and other performance tips
• Add administrative functionality to your applications

Approach

This book is an example-driven tutorial that takes you through the process of building Model-View-Controller-based web applications. You will create and develop a storefront application. It also covers common mistakes and best practices that will be helpful for developers.

Who this book is written for?

This book is for PHP web developers who want to get started with Zend Framework. If you are already using this framework, you will learn how to use it in the best way and produce better applications.

Basic knowledge of Object Oriented design will be helpful.

In Detail

Using Facebook Applications, developers can add custom features to one of the most popular websites in the world. Facebook is the biggest social network among college students, and is gaining ground among professionals too. Facebook applications enable you to add new ways for users to interact with each other using Facebook.

Facebook applications are written in a server-side language, and hosted on the application developer's own server. They interface with Facebook, so that they appear to users to be part of Facebook itself.

This book shows PHP developers how to quickly get started building powerful Facebook applications, how to work with data stored in Facebook, including photos, and how to handle multimedia and other custom data within Facebook applications.

The book covers how to send notifications and invitations from within an application, update a user's profile, create application control panels for users, and much more.

What you will learn from this book?

• Learn Facebook application development through step-by-step examples.
• Build data-driven Facebook applications, work with friends lists, photo galleries, multimedia, and more.
• Work with Facebook's security model to produce applications that are safe and functional.
• Communicate with users through newsfeeds, notifications, invitations, and messages.
• Learn the Facebook PHP API, and the various markup languages you'll need to build Facebook applications: Mock Ajax, FBML, FBJS (a variant of JavaScript especially for Facebook), and FQL.

Approach

This book builds on your knowledge as a PHP developer to provide a fast-paced, step-by-step tutorial in building Facebook applications. The book is packed with example code and demo applications, so that you can see techniques in action. Along the way we provide quick references to the most important aspects of the API, so you can refer back as you develop your own applications with the book.

Who this book is written for?

This book is for PHP5 developers who want to create custom Facebook applications. It assumes no knowledge of the Facebook API or Platform, but does assume that you are a Facebook user.

Many Flex books cover the basics—this book does something different, and goes far further. The authors, leading Flash platform developers at Almer/Blank, working with Adobe User Group communities, are the creators of the Rich Media Exchange (RMX), a social media network for Adobe developers. In covering just how the RMX was built, this book contains all the knowledge you need to build similar large-scale Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex. From the inception of the idea through to deployment, the authors show the techniques needed to plan and build advanced applications. You'll learn how to use forms, styles, validators, video, sound analysis, and framework caching, ensuring you make the most of the new features introduced in Flex 3. Powerful applications require solid back ends. This book shows how to hook up a Flex application to PHP back-end systems such as Drupal and OpenAds. You'll learn how various parts of the RMX were built, including the blogs, event calendar, jobs board, and advertising system—elements that come together to really showcase the power of Flex. The RMX is built by Adobe Developers for Adobe Developers—a rewarding community relationship that guarantees results. The same spirit is carried into this book, with the authors wanting and helping to take you to the next level of Flash Platform application development.

In this book you'll learn how to

• Effectively plan, wireframe, specify, develop, and release large-scale Flex applications, and discover what other development tools you'll want to start using immediately
• Make your Flex applications look less like Flex with advanced styling and skinning techniques
• Harness advanced Flex form features, including coding validators and building your custom form components
• Implement a robust advertising system for a Flex application using OpenAds
• Build powerful, custom multimedia players in Flex, including video players with the native VideoDisplay class and from scratch, and music players with advanced sound visualization

Summary of Contents

• PART 1 PLANNING THE RMX
  • Chapter 1 Introduction to Flex 2 Applications
  • Chapter 2 Defining the Application: Introducing the RMX
  • Chapter 3 Planning the Application: Building the RMX
• PART 2 BUILDING THE RMX CORE FUNCTIONS
  • Chapter 4 Preparing to Get to Work
  • Chapter 5 Styling Flex
  • Chapter 6 Collecting and Working with Aggregated Content
  • Chapter 7 Secondary Navigation
  • Chapter 8 Forms and Validation
  • Chapter 9 User Communications
  • Chapter 10 Working with Video
  • Chapter 11 Advertising and Flex
• PART 3 BUILDING OUT NEW FEATURES
  • Chapter 12 Building the Blog
  • Chapter 13 Building the Jobs Board
  • Chapter 14 Building the Event Calendar
  • Chapter 15 Ideas for the Future: Extending the RMX
• PART 4 SPECIAL TOPICS
  • Chapter 16 RSLs and Persistent Framework Caching
  • Chapter 17 Search Engine Optimization for Flex
  • Chapter 18 Building an Audio Visualizer in Flex
  • Appendix The Evolving Flex Scene

Design, develop, and deploy feature-rich PHP web applications with this MVC framework

• Create powerful web applications by leveraging the power of this Model-View-Controller-based framework
• Learn by doing - create a "real-life" storefront application
• Covers access control, performance optimization, and testing
• Best practices, as well as debugging and designing discussion

In Detail

The Zend Framework has a flexible architecture that lets you build modern web applications and web services easily. The MVC components make the maintenance and testing of your applications easier. However, it is not only an MVC framework for developers. It also provides an easy-to-use high-quality component library that is designed to be used the way you want, picking up specific components without requiring the use of whole framework.

It's easy to get started and produce a powerful and professional looking web site when you've got this book to hand. Taking you through a real-life application, it covers the major Zend Framework components, as well as throwing light on the best practices and design issues faced when building complex MVC applications.

This book takes you through detailed examples as well as covering the foundations you will need to get the most out of the Zend Framework. From humble beginnings you will progress through the book and slowly build upon what you have learned previously. By the end, you should have a good understanding of the Zend Framework, its components, and the issues involved in implementing a Zend Framework based application.

What you will learn from this book?

• Explore the features of Zend Framework's MVC architecture
• Learn about designing and implementing an MVC application
• Avoid common mistakes made when first learning an MVC framework
• Test your applications with the popular PHPUnit framework
• Interact with a database using Zend_Db and Zend_Db_Table
• Secure your application using Zend_Acl and Zend_Auth
• Optimize your application using caching and other performance tips
• Add administrative functionality to your applications

Approach

This book is an example-driven tutorial that takes you through the process of building Model-View-Controller-based web applications. You will create and develop a storefront application. It also covers common mistakes and best practices that will be helpful for developers.

Who this book is written for?

This book is for PHP web developers who want to get started with Zend Framework. If you are already using this framework, you will learn how to use it in the best way and produce better applications.

Basic knowledge of Object Oriented design will be helpful.

In Detail

Using Facebook Applications, developers can add custom features to one of the most popular websites in the world. Facebook is the biggest social network among college students, and is gaining ground among professionals too. Facebook applications enable you to add new ways for users to interact with each other using Facebook.

Facebook applications are written in a server-side language, and hosted on the application developer's own server. They interface with Facebook, so that they appear to users to be part of Facebook itself.

This book shows PHP developers how to quickly get started building powerful Facebook applications, how to work with data stored in Facebook, including photos, and how to handle multimedia and other custom data within Facebook applications.

The book covers how to send notifications and invitations from within an application, update a user's profile, create application control panels for users, and much more.

What you will learn from this book?

• Learn Facebook application development through step-by-step examples.
• Build data-driven Facebook applications, work with friends lists, photo galleries, multimedia, and more.
• Work with Facebook's security model to produce applications that are safe and functional.
• Communicate with users through newsfeeds, notifications, invitations, and messages.
• Learn the Facebook PHP API, and the various markup languages you'll need to build Facebook applications: Mock Ajax, FBML, FBJS (a variant of JavaScript especially for Facebook), and FQL.

Approach

This book builds on your knowledge as a PHP developer to provide a fast-paced, step-by-step tutorial in building Facebook applications. The book is packed with example code and demo applications, so that you can see techniques in action. Along the way we provide quick references to the most important aspects of the API, so you can refer back as you develop your own applications with the book.

Who this book is written for?

This book is for PHP5 developers who want to create custom Facebook applications. It assumes no knowledge of the Facebook API or Platform, but does assume that you are a Facebook user.