Affiliate Paradise

This is basically a book on how to get the most out of PayPal.Whether you are trying to make a purchase, sell and item, or setup a complete e-Commerce solution based on PayPal you will find the information on how to do it here.Some of the information in the book includes how to create an account, what to do when you forget your password, how to get things fixed if your account has been limited, how to pay from a cell phone, dispute a payment, receive money, upgrade your account, lower seller fees, hack-proof your payment buttons, and even encryption.It even has information on the PayPal webservices API and putting a PayPal payment button in an email.

This is an excellent and detailed course on how to use the intricacies of PayPal.PayPal Hacks:100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools is highly recommended to everyone who shops or sells on the Internet as well as anyone who programs sites to use PayPal.

Product Description
If you’ve bought or sold items through eBay, or throughhundreds of other online sites, then you’re familiar with PayPal, theonline payment service. With PayPal, a valid email address, and acredit card or bank account, you can easily send and receive paymentsonline. Not a bank or financial institution itself, PayPal describesits service as one that builds on the financial infrastructure of bankaccounts and credit cards, and using advanced propriety fraudprevention systems, creates a safe, global, real-time paymentsolution.Put simply, PayPal provides the means for people to conductfinancial transactions online, instantly and securely.

But there’s more to PayPal than meets the eye. PayPal Hacks shows youhow to make the most of PayPal to get the most out of your onlinebusiness or transactions. Authors Shannon Sofield of Payloadz.com andPayPal evangelist David Nielsen guide you through the rigors of usingand developing with PayPal. Whether you’re building an ecommerce siteusing PayPal as a transaction provider, or simply trying to pay for aneBay auction without getting burned, PayPal Hacks will give you theskinny on this leading global online payment service.

The collection of tips and tricks in PayPal Hacks shows you how tofind or even build the right tools for using PayPal to buy and sell oneBay or as a transaction provider for ecommerce on your ownsite. Written for all PayPal users, from those just starting out tothose developing sophisticated ecommerce sites, this book begins withthe basics such as setting up your account, then moves quickly intospecific tips and tools for buyers, sellers, and developers.

With PayPal Hacks, you can:
Learn extra steps to help protect yourself while buying or selling on eBay
Save time and money with advanced tips and undocumented features
Learn dozens of easy-to-follow procedures to help you request and receive payments and fill orders
Use PayPal to handle subscriptions, affiliate systems, and donations
Create and customize your customerscheckout process
Effortlessly integrate PayPal s shopping cart system into your own website
Implement digital fulfillment with Instant Payment
Notification (IPN) and Payment Data Transfer (PDT)
Develop and distribute ecommerce applications with the
PayPal API

Each hack consists of a task to be accomplished or a creative solutionto a problem, presented in a clear, logical, and task-orientedformat. PayPal Hacks provides the tools and details necessary to makePayPal more profitable, more flexible, and more convenient.

About the Author
Shannon Sofield began working with Macromedia development tools when Macromedia acquired Future Splash (this product evolved into what is now known as Macromedia Flash). Since then, he has expanded his expertise to include most of the Macromedia product line. He specializes in advanced applications for Macromedia Flash 5, Generator, and, more recently, Dreamweaver UltraDev.His company, Superfreaker Studios , is located in New York City. The company focuses mainly on creating and developing ready-made applications for Macromedia users to integrate into their own product and service offerings. Shannon’s role in web development for Superfreaker Studios covers much of the development process, including conceptualization, design, programming, implementation, and evaluation. His technical title at Superfreaker is “Keeper of the Light.”Shannon has worked to provide solutions for clients such as The State of New Jersey, Xerox, Rockefeller Center, Princeton University, and National Discount Brokers. He also works in association with Motion Over Time of New York, educating and training clients in the use of Macromedia products.In the rare event that the shores of the Atlantic receive ridable surf, Shannon can be found catching some waves at his local beach (sometimes in lieu of his programming duties).

Dave Nielsen is a Technical Evangelist within the PayPal Developer Network, a member of SDForum’s Executive Council and the founder of the Web Services SIG of Silicon Valley. Dave has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Cal Poly: San Luis Obispo.

Dave Burchellgot his start with computers by programming the Radio Shack TRS-80 in BASIC and the Commodore 64 in 6510 assembly. Currently, Dave’s favorite programming languages are Perl and XSLT. A fervent proponent of XML, Dave enjoys solving content management problems with markup and Open Source software. His other interests include American history and Hellenistic philosophy. Dave lives with his wife, Renee, and children, Max, Gus, and Samantha Grace, in Lincoln, Nebraska. His Web site is http://incolor.inebraska.com/burchell/

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Excellent beginning book on writing Joomla extensions. He concentrates on devloping a component extension, but also has you create modules and plugins.

So that you know how to judge my reaction to this book, here’s my background: I have good HTML/CSS skills, have installed a few Joomla site, and written a couple of templates. I’ve been a programmer for many years but on languages quite different from php. My php skills are still pretty new. I understood the concept of object oriented programming but hadn’t much experience with it. I knew what MVC stood for, but that was about it.

It would have been nice to know more OOP, but I managed.

The MVC was very sensible and a much cleaner way to deal with php. That was fine to pick up.

After finishing the book, I was able to create my own component extension.

You are going to want to know some HTML, some php and joomla before you try this. If you don’t know oop, I’d recommend taking a quick tutorial on it first. Killerphp.com has a quick practical one.

The only complaint I have is that I wish he had created an appendix or footnotes with the Joomla commands and their parameters. While he explains what’s needed for the extension example, it’s sometimes hard to know what all the parameters are used for which makes it difficult to go beyond something very similar to his example without finding another resource. You can check out the joomla dev site for details or look at the files themselves, but that’s a little TOO detailed!

Product Description

In Detail

Joomla! is the world’s hottest open-source content management system, and the winner of the 2006 Open Source CMS Prize.

While Joomla! is packed with features, its greatest quality is that it is extremely extensible, allowing any number of complex applications to be cleanly integrated. Shopping carts, forums, social networking profiles, job boards, and real estate listings are all examples of extensions developers have written for Joomla!. All of these can run off one Joomla! site, while only one database, template, and core need to be maintained. When you build an extension to Joomla!, it will inherit the look and feel of the overall site.

If you’re eager to start creating extensions for Joomla!, this book is for you. Walk through the development of complete Joomla! 1.5 components and modules with this tutorial for PHP programmers. Written for Joomla! version 1.5 and tested against the final release, this book will get you started coding your first extensions as quickly as possible, and adds the features that will make your work look professional! This book is the most up-to-date introduction to creating Joomla! extensions available.

The book will show you how to use the Model-View-Controller design pattern, pull in common HTML elements, use JavaScript frameworks, manage users, build configuration panels, internationalize interfaces, and manage database records. General knowledge of PHP is assumed, but previous Joomla! programming experience is not.

What you will learn from this book?

• Create toolbars, list screens with pagination, and menu items
• Maintain a consistent look and reduce repetitive code using HTML functions
• Automate database record management
• Use the MooTools JavaScript framework to manage customized Google Maps
• Understand the Model-View-Controller design pattern used in components

Approach

This book is a practical tutorial, aimed at people with no experience of programming Joomla!

Who this book is written for?

This book is suitable for PHP programmers who want to take their first step in customizing and extending the features of Joomla! through custom PHP development. It is not a reference guide for advanced Joomla! developers.

You need only the basics of PHP programming; no experience of developing Joomla! extensions is assumed. You are expected to be familiar with the general operation of Joomla!

About the Author

Joseph L. LeBlanc

Joseph L. LeBlanc started with computers at a very young age. His independent education gave him the flexibility to experiment and learn computer science. Joseph holds a bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from Oral Roberts University.

Joseph is a freelance Joomla! extension developer. He released a component tutorial in May 2004, which was later translated into French, Polish, and Russian.In addition to freelancing, he is an active member of the Washington, DC tech community and Joomla! Bug Squad.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development (Paperback)

Having been in the domain name market for many years now, I am an avid domainer. Consequently, I was anxious to read this book. While the author writes well, it was “useful” content that was lacking. At minimum, the first 75% of this book is dedicated to the history of how domain names came to be today.
The subtitle for this book is “How People Get Rich From Internet Domain Names.” My impression was that this book would be focused on new insights, new leads, new ways of working with my names to enhance my knowledge. But, after reading this book in its entirety, I do not feel that was the case. A great deal of this book is dedicated to the bygone days of a few successful domainers who got on board “very” early and their subsequent stories. While their stories were interesting, today those circumstances would be impossible to duplicate – which was to purchase a large inventory of “one word,” exceptional names, rather inexpensively.
Additionally, there are many pointed references to those few people and companies who tried to cheat the system. It seems no matter what industry it is, there are always those that push the boundaries. While they are discussed at length, again I would have much rather read sound, constructive ideas, as implied by the books subtitle.
Lastly, I do not agree with many points of the final chapter.

Product Description
Almost everyone has heard a tale of someone getting rich by selling an Internet domain name for a staggering price. But few understand the secretive world of domain investing, a game that a growing number of people are playing around the globe. The Domain Game chronicles the exploits of leading domain investors and explains how this mysterious market works. Learn how an Oklahoma watermelon farmer wound up owning some of the world’s most valuable Web addresses, from recipes.com to chairs.com, and how a college dropout became a multimillionaire by scooping up domains that others abandoned amid the dot-com bust. Find out how the rise of Google and Yahoo has helped boost the fortunes of domain investors. And explore the shenanigans of investors who snag names associated with corporate trademarks. Finally, read how you can jump into this exciting market with a relatively small initial investment. It’s a market with high risk, but huge potential reward.–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Domain Game (Hardcover)

For a Complete Idiot’s Guide, Creating a Website is one step above in technical requirements. McFedries provides the tools and instructions on most phases of web development and construction, but you need to have some basic understanding of computers and if not programming. His lessons on HTML are clear, and easy to follow, but for someone without any experience at all, it could leave them glassy-eyed. However, the instruction and tools on the CD are good enough that most anyone could take them step by step and create a usable web site of their own. The included CD has a wealth of useful information and templates for creating your own site, and with the book (and some concentration) will let you customize them for just the look you want. Recommended, but with the caveat that it isn’t a book for the absolute beginner or someone looking for a quick fix.

Product Description
The essential guide for getting the internet traffic every smallbusiness owner needs. CD included.

Today’s small-business websites require advanced features that visitors expect: streaming video and audio; e-commerce; custom surveys, forms, and polls; and discussion groups. This book covers all the basics of creating and publicizing a successful webpage.

•Free CD includes JavaScript and numerous templates
•Everything from design and publishing the site to automating and publicizing It
•100 million websites as of 2006-and it keeps on growing
•Simple and easy how-to for small businesses and organizations that can’t afford a professional web designer

About the Author
Paul McFedries has been programming computers since the mid- 1970s. He has written more than 50 computer books that have sold nearly three million copies. He is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Windows Vista.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating a Website (Paperback)

I really like this book, it covers a lot of territory in a very practical way, while also digging into the “why’s” of things should be done the way Michael suggests. Understanding the “why’s” is important so that if you want your site to do something different, you can make a good decision about the implementation.

The book is also very “satisfying.” I’m a deep technical person [...], though don’t have much Drupal experience. I was afraid, I’d have to bite my tongue and toothpick my eyes open to read this book for the Drupal specifics. That’s not been the case. It’s an easy read, interesting, and relevant. I’m currently thinking about a few new social projects, and while I wouldn’t go so far to say that you should read this book whatever platform you are deploying on; I would say that you should consider prototyping on Drupal with this book in hand so you could make a better platform decision once you know more about building a social site. (sorry about the run-on sentence!).

I gave it a 4 instead of 5 stars, because there are a few places where there are typos that affect the content, and other places where ideas are used before they’re explained, or a final screen shot that brings it all together is missing. I realize it’s really boring to read a lot of explanations, and then read about the example, and sometimes it’s best to talk about the example, and explain stuff after. It just makes it harder to read because I’m trying to figure out if something will be explained later, or if I need to look online before reading further.

This book has saved me a LOT of time researching Drupal and its plugins on line, so really glad I’m reading it. There were a lot of good references for further reading about the topics discussed AND the topics referenced, but not discussed in the book.

Product Description

Build a social or community web site, with friends lists, groups, custom user profiles, and much more

• Step-by-step instructions for putting together a social networking site with Drupal 6
• Customize your Drupal installation with modules and themes to match the needs of almost any social networking site
• Allow users to collaborate and interact with each other on your site
• Requires no prior knowledge of Drupal or PHP; but even experienced Drupal users will find this useful to modify an existing installation into a social web site

In Detail

Drupal is ideally equipped to be used as a base system for creating a custom social networking site like Facebook and MySpace. While these large social networks have their place, niche social networking web sites can help promote businesses, products, projects, and hobbies of any nature.

This book provides careful instructions and clear explanations to take you through the setup and management of your social network site, covering topics from users to marketing to maintenance. It will help you create your own social networking site, suitable for whatever audience you decide!

This book will take you from the very basics of both Drupal and Social Networking right through to more complicated aspects, like creating your own custom design and features for the site. With no experience of Drupal required, the book will introduce you to this award-winning CMS and carefully take you through the steps to create a social networking site from it. As the book progresses, you will learn how to add to and expand your social networking site, adding more features and adding value for your users, and how to make your users feel part of the community. Social networking web sites rely on their users contributing to the site, and this book helps you structure a site in a way users can easily and enjoyable contribute to the site – creating a powerful social network.

The book begins with the fundamental concepts of a Social Networking site, and how we can use Drupal to create such a site. It then goes through installing Drupal before looking at expanding the out-of-the-box feature set with third-party modules designed for Social Networking. Once the web site is running, it looks at securing the Social Network, deploying it on the Internet, and keeping it running and well maintained. It doesn’t stop there however; as Social Networks rely on their user base to run and become successful, the book also covers marketing the Social Network using Search Engine Optimization, Online Marketing, and a range of new Social Media.

What you will learn from this book?

• Get started with Drupal and explore the features of this powerful Content Management System.
• Build a social networking site from the ground up using Drupal 6
• Use a combination of features, modules and some simple custom development to allow user interaction and user contributions
• Enable your users to interact and communicate with one another, building friendship
• Let your users contribute to the site, from those who wish to add a little content to those who wish to help run the site on a daily basis
• Import content into your site from elsewhere on the Internet using the Aggregator module
• Create user profiles, set up roles and permissions, and handle security settings
• Explore Drupal’s modular system, and use it to create modules to add additional functionality relevant and useful to your social network.
• Customize the look and feel of your site by enabling and installing new themes, ensuring that your site is distinctive
• Deploy and maintain your social networking site on the Internet using the maintenance mode, reports, and cron to keep everything running smoothly
• Recover from virus attacks and hacking attempts to your Social Network by making and maintaining regular backups, in case the worst should happen
• Promote and market your Social Network using advertisements, advertising networks, other social networks, and search engine optimization

Approach

This book is packed with clear instructions and careful explanations for creating a powerful Social Networking web site using Drupal 6. With each chapter, you add new features and content until the Social Network is ready to be released to the Internet where it can grow.

By the end of this book, you will have a powerful Social Network either like that of the case-study, or of your own design based on the setup and features the book walks through.

Who this book is written for?

This book is aimed at anyone looking to create their own social networking web site, including:

• Businesses – building a Social Network around a product or service can improve your company profile and increase customer loyalty. Alternatively, an internal social network gives you employees a place to keep resources, discuss ideas, raise concerns, and keep up to date on company policies.
• Hobbyists – create a community around your hobbies and interests; create a local or distributed user group.
• Organisations & Charities – Raise your profile, promote your events / services / fundraisers and get help from the community in organizing them.
• Families – For large families based across the country or across the globe, keep up to date with everyone, and let everyone know what you are up to.

You don’t need any experience of Drupal or PHP to use this book. If you are a Drupal user you will find this book a great way to rapidly tailor an existing installation into a social-orientated web site.

About the Author

Michael Peacock

Michael Peacock is a web developer from Newcastle, UK and has a degree in Software Engineering from the University of Durham. After meeting his business partner at Durham, he co-founded Peacock Carter, a Newcastle based creative consultancy specializing in web design, web development and corporate identity.

Michael loves working on web related projects. When he is not working on client projects, he is often tinkering with a web app of his own.

He has been involved with a number of books, having written two books himself (and working on his third): Selling online with Drupal e-Commerce Packt, and Building websites with TYPO3 Packt. He has also done technical reviews of two other books: Mobile Web Development Packt, and Drupal Education & E-Learning Packt.

You can follow Michael on Twitter.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Drupal 6 Social Networking (Paperback)