Here is a list of the software you will be using in this course. I will try to add links as I get them. All of the software specified is open source, which means you don’t pay for it.
xampp contains apache web server, php programming language, PEAR additions to php, mysql database, phpMyAdmin data base management tool, ADOdb database access interface, and some other utilities and programs such as a mail serverwe probably won’t use. It is designed to be easy to install, and can be installed without modifying the registry or affecting the software already installed. Uninstall is as simple as deleting a folder. It can be installed to an external USB drive or to a flash drive (suggested size 4gb, though I have done it on a 2gb drive, with half for expansion.
mysqlODBC is intended to provide access from other programs such as Excel to the mysql database. It is installed simply and allows Excel or Word to utilize the database information, and in fact, modify it. This is a common way of using Excel and Word in the business world. You will use this heavily in cases and projects.
There are three of these but the only one we will use is mysqlQuery, which provides a nice interface to the mysql database. You can do the same thing with phpMyAdmin, but mysqlQuery gives you the sql syntax better so it is easier to write and debug queries.
This tool is for designing databases using EER diagrams, and also for reverse engineering existing databases to see the structure. From there you can model a database, and in fact actually generate it from the model diagram. This sort of tool is commonly used in the world of systems design today.
