Here is the second series of videos on the basics of PHP. Whether you’re a novice, or just brushing up, these videos will give you a more fundamental knowledge of the nature of programming in PHP. Today’s videos include variables, strings, and string functions.
This video covers the basics behind variables in PHP. Concepts include:
This video is dedicated to string data types. Concepts in this video include:
While this video focuses on PHP String functions, it focuses even more on learning more about PHP. Included are resources on where to learn more about PHP.
To view other PHP tutorial videos
PHP is not only a high demand server side scripting language, but it can also be a little intimidating for those getting into the language. The set of videos below will show you how to set up a development environment and write a Hello World script.
UPDATE: These videos should be watched after you learn how to setup a PHP server on your system. You can learn how to do this by going to this video.
This video provides information on the following:
This video tutorial describes some of the basic elements in a PHP file. It also put emphasis on saving files as PHP files rather than HTML files.
This video demonstrates the absolute basics of writing PHP, including the echo function, single line comments, multiline comments, and concatenation.
To view other PHP tutorial videos
Recently, I found this awesome video from the Lynda.com video podcast about marketing with Facebook and Twitter. Some of the topics include:
Personally, I believe that this video is a great follow up to the presentation I gave on Social Media, Social Networks, and online marketing a few months ago.
As promised, I’ve put together the audio and slides from two presentations I gave earlier in the semester about Social Media and a really powerful social network application called TweetDeck, which has support for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. Along with these networks, it also handles a multitude of other services such link shorteners (bit.ly, tinyURL), and photo sharing (TweetPhoto, YFrog). The second downloadable is a presentation I gave on Social Media and some of my experiences with Planet Label and the Stevens Point Brewery. Enjoy!
It’s been a little over a month since I’ve posted an update or really talked much about anything, so now I say… be prepared, because I have been up to a lot, to say the very least. I have lots of updates about school, work, things I’ve been working on and whatnot.
School has been keeping me busy more than ever even though I’m currently only in 3 classes. CIS 480, the capstone class for the Computer Information Systems major at UWSP, has been keeping me the most busy as of late. In case I haven’t mentioned it in the past, I am working on a project with 3 other people on a suite of applications called the Wisconsin Lake Modeling Suite (WiLMS). Our primary tasks include updating the the program by converting the application from the Delphi programming language to C# .NET. Along with the code conversion, we are also fixing some of the bugs that are in the current version and adding some additional features to make the application easier to use for new and seasoned users alike. In short, this program is getting a facelift… 21st century style 
For WDMD 345, we’ve been discussing a lot some of the new things Adobe has to offer with their new creative suite coming out in May. I’m very excited for the new suite and have already signed up for quite a few webinars and hands on training that Adobe is providing. This time around, I want to be up to date with the latest applications that make help make the web a powerful and fun place. Furthermore, we’ve been spending a lot of time looking at location based applications and services. For our final project, we are supposed to create something that can be used for education, and preferrably something that utilizes GPS and location features in a mobile device. I’m thinking of just finishing up my Periodic Table of Elements program and calling it good, but I’m not sure how i’d include location features. I have a few other ideas I’ve thought about, though, that don’t revolve around school, but that I’d like to play around with. More on that in the future, though. I want to keep these updates short, simple, and to the point 
With recent changes in my schedule this semester, I was under the impression that I wouldn’t have been able to finish my major in Religious Studies, but with a few discussions from my advisor, it is still a possibility to have all 3 of my majors done by December. It’s going to require a lot of work, and I must enroll in my capstone class for the Web and Digital Media Development major I’m nearly finished with. I already have a project in the works, and Anthony Ellertson will be the professor I report to for the project come summer. I still have to put together a nice proposal and establish some realistic goals for the project, but I know this for sure: it’s going to be a continuation of my biblical Hebrew studies a few summers ago. I want to take some of the things I’ve learned and create a digital learning environment for this language. All of my training was done with books. I love books, but I want to try to educate from a digital and interactive perspective.
In the past few months, I’ve also given a few presentations on Social Media and some of the tools and strategies I use. One is a general presentation on Social Media, Social Networks, and services that enrich both. The second is a presentation that Renee Haas and I put together for WDMD 345 on TweetDeck (my favorite Twitter application, hands down). The first presentation will be available for download with only audio, seeing as there wasn’t much of a powerpoint assembled for the presentation, while the TweetDeck presentation will come fully loaded with audio and slides. Be on the lookout for it.
Since my last update, my employment opportunities have completely transformed. I’m still at Planet Label and love every minute of it. I’ve also been hired to work at the Stevens Point Brewery as their Social Media, Web, Marketing, and whatever else tech related person. A lot of what I apply has been learned from my past experiences with Planet Label, but I’ve learned that every business speaks and translates differently on the web than others. Planet Label, for example is still a fairly new company and is still in its infancy of building a brand and brand loyalty. They’re dominant on Twitter more than Facebook and have more targeted and segmented markets. The Stevens Point Brewery, on the other hand, is opposite in nearly everything I’ve mentioned about Planet Label. The brewery has been around for over 150 years, has a very strong loyalty among consumers and has a very general market. Because of this loyalty, they do extremely well on Facebook and have been doing fairly well on Twitter. When I started, the Fan Page was at around 1,350 fans. Right now, while I am writing this, they currently have 9,111, which is a tremendous increase in the course of two months. The nature and personality each company takes is quite remarkable, too, but I’ll let you observe that on your own watch.
I’ve also taken a step into a different career direction. I’ve realized that much of my experience is web and marketing driven, and that I’ve neglected the development and programming side of computing, which makes up the majority of my education at UWSP. I’ve recently taken up a programming job at Sentry where I can safely say I am getting some great experience with .NET, particularly Visual Basic (VB). I’ve always felt that my experience with the .NET framework has never been up to par with the other languages I use regularly, but with programming a capstone project in C#, and working with VB extensively, I feel like that my experiences in programming have gone through a revival. I plan on continuing to work with Planet Label and the Stevens Point Brewery while I work at Sentry. I have, though, decided to leave my position as a faculty assistant and lab monitor at UWSP. The experience with working one on one with classmates, problem solving, and teamwork are those that I will continue to apply in any career I go into in the future.
Aside from the norms of school and work, I’ve tried to have a little bit of fun here and there. I recently saw the Stone Temple Pilots in concert, ordered my tickets for FlashBelt in June, plan on seeing the Deftones in late May, and ordered Lollapalooza tickets. This will be my last summer as a student, so I want to make the best of it! Also, Jeff Nehlsen, Joe Motacek and myself recently attended the PlayExpo that was held at UW-Whitewater. While we weren’t the most pleased with the event, we got a good grasp on some great technologies and ideas out there in the world of gaming. As for our game, Nanobot Extreme, I’m not exactly sure as to what will become of it. I’d like to see a finished product, but we’ve been keen on tapping into the power of the Unreal Engine in the summer to see what we can put together and create. Again, these are some grey areas, and I won’t know more until after the semester is over.
That’s about it for now. Expect to see another post with the presentation material mentioned earler.
