Amazon.com Review
Building Better Web Pages is both technically competent and well-written. You can read and enjoy this book away from your computer, or you can have it at your side as you work on your Web site. It offers both broadbrush design advice that you can think about at length and specific coding instructions that you can consult in a rush.
Author Rebecca Frances Rohan has organized her book according to the needs of small businesses. She explains how to create Web pages that impress the largest number of people while consuming the smallest investment of time and money for development. With her advice, any entrepreneur willing to learn how to design and program (and enjoy the process) can save a lot of money on consultants.
Though Building Better Web Pages isn't much of an HTML tutorial, you will find discussions and samples of HTML code on its pages. Rohan has chosen instead to cover the various elements (such as images, sounds, streaming video, and applets) that designers might want to incorporate into their Web sites with explanations of the aesthetic and technical details that pertain to each.
Along the way, the book recommends numerous shareware programs and evaluates software that simplifies a variety of tasks. Building Better Web Pages does tend to leave the reader wishing for a comprehensive HTML reference--you may want to have one on hand as you explore Rohan's design ideas. But don't let those small problems keep you away from this fine book. --David Wall
From the Back Cover
Building better Web pages means using standard HTML, excellent content, and professional looking design to make elegant, useful pages that every Web surfer can experience and appreciate. Building better Web pages does NOT mean learning to program, using proprietary "extensions" to HTML, turning visitors away because they have the "wrong" browser, or turning potential customers off with the hostile shopping experience that pervades the Web, from Fortune 500 company sites to Mom-and-Pop pages.
Building Better Web Pages tells you how to do it all better, from elegant page design to creating outstanding content -- and how to do it more easily -- using tricks, tips, cheats, and downloadable programs that take the tedium out of precise wwork without taking control of the pages away from you, the Webmaster. There are even pointers to thousands of freebie animations, photos, drawings, sounds, Java applets, scripts, and gorgeous Web graphic sets -- and instructions for modifying the loot you get on the Web to make it really BELONG in your singly-focused, unified, professional design.
Make your Web pages do the things you've seen on the most elegant, professional sites and didn't know how to do. Make your site as professional as sites getting 5-star reviews today. How? Use the book written by the woman who chose the top sites and reviewed and rated them for magazines such as "NetGuide" and "The I-Way 500." She's the one who can tell you how to save time, save money, and work smarter instead of harder. Don't miss Rohan's insider chapter on getting press attention to your site, and the cloak-and-dagger section about hiding information in plain "site!"
