Duffbert's Random Musings :: Book Review - Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML and CSS

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Category Book Reviews
Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML & CSS by Ian Lloyd is one of those books that I'd recommend to someone who is computer savvy but a complete novice when it comes to building web pages. It's readable and understandable to non-techie types, and it will get them started in the right way without all the old habits that have developed over the years.

Contents: Setting Up Shop; Your First Web Pages; Adding Some Style; Shaping Up with CSS; Picture This! Using Images on your Web Site; Tables - Tools for Organizing Data; Forms - Interacting with your Audience; Getting your Web Site Online; Adding a Blog to your Web Site; Pimp my Site - Cool Stuff you can Add for Free; Where to Now? What you Could Learn Next; XHTML Reference; Index

Rather than teach HTML and CSS as separate skills, Lloyd really combines the two as a single discipline. The book starts out with basic XHTML coding to build the structure of the page. He even goes into div tags in preparation for the next section of the book. That section has to do with making your page look nice with CSS. The reader learns how to position and style the content using style sheets, rather than using techniques such as bold tags and tables. Presenting the material in this fashion means that you shouldn't develop bad habits like using HTML for presentation rather than structure. The examples build upon each other and are consistent throughout, so you actually end up building a complete site rather than just a collection of pages that have no relationship to each other. There's even coverage of things such as blogs and third-party tools like statistic counters.

Overall, this is one of the better "beginner" books I've come across. I would feel comfortable giving this to someone who was enthusiastic about learning a new skill, and I wouldn't be concerned about where they'd end up at...

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Comments

1 - I was working on forums one time and saw that there was one member asking if it was worth working on CSS for some purposes. I cited some notes from this book and forwarded this post to him via PM. The next day, he emailed me back saying that he’s already enlightened and is now ready to push through with his plans. Thanks to you.

Posted by business corporate gift At 01:27:13 On 10/09/2007 | - Website - |

2 - I thank you for recommending and reviewing this book. I saw the site last week and went out that night to buy the book. I was looking for a good reference book that could help me but I was not having any luck. And then I saw the review. I liked what I read and figured I had nothing to lose. So I went out to the bookstore and bought it and poured though it in a few days. The book was filled with good information and also was easy to read. It made the more difficult technical parts easier to read and explained in terms that I found very easy to follow. This was a great book for anyone that is wanting to learn more about computers. Even people that are not studying it could find this book to be a great reference material. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

Posted by vacuum cleaner At 11:28:59 On 02/08/2007 | - Website - |