We would like to thank the entire production team at Addison-Wesley, especially our acquisitions editor, Jessica Goldstein, Romny French, and our developmental editor, Chris Zahn, for their heroic patience throughout this process, and for recovering so gracefully when life trampled all over various deadlines. Thanks also to our copy editor, Barbara Wood, for going out of her way to be sure we had every Web site name typed correctly and for gently pointing out the value of consistency when it comes to things like formatting. Finally, a special thanks to our tech reviewers, especially Andy Lester, for catching things we were just too close to the material to see.

When this adventure first began, two colleagues with very different perspectives offered the encouragement and enthusiasm for this project that convinced us that this book needed to be written. Tony Bradley at About.com took time he didn’t really have to review our initial proposal and offer suggestions for strengthening it before we sent it out. Susan Scheid, developer of the OptionCart e-commerce system, pointed out to us how many PHP developers routinely disregard security issues because those issues simply haven’t been explained in a clear, straightforward manner. In a very real sense, Susan, we wrote this book for you. We hope it clears things up a bit.

Finally, our deepest appreciation to Dad, Mary Lou and David, and Mom and Dad Forsha for the many weekends they spent keeping three young boys entertained when they could have been enjoying peace and quiet. This book literally would not exist without you.