Customer Reviews

Building a Web Site for Dummies

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

When the "Dummies" series books first came out, they were truly for "dummies". Apparently not so anymore. Right on the cover of this book is the phrase "Go from Web surfer to site developer". Well, web surfer I am, and what I was looking for was a book to give me the ABSOLUTE BASICS about creating a web site. This book assumes that you as the reader, already know how to create a web site!! HELLO!! If I knew how to create a web site, I wouldn't need the book, thanks. Page 2 "Foolish Assumptions": "We figure that you have some kind of experience with creating web pages." WHAT?! I thought this book was going to turn me from a surfer to a developer. Page 27: the first line of chapter 3 reads "This chapter's here just in case you need a refresher on basic web page building before..." CHAPTER 3! Refresher! This book obviously should be titled "Enhancing Your Web Site for Dummies". This book does not even explain to a "Dummy" how to create the file necessary to create a web page. What a waste of twenty bucks.

Read the title! This is not an HTML book. If you are hoping to be able to code your first web site after reading this book, you might struggle a bit.

This is a decent book on how to construct a web site. As with most "Dummies" books the explanations seem to drag. However, I have found that they can be a good introduction to a subject, if the reader is truly "in the dark".

If you have never written any type of computer program, or if you struggle with using your computer, and are still set on creating your own web page (go for it; they aren't that tough) buy this book and "HTML for Dummies". The combination of the two will get you up and running.

If you are looking to code a webpage or site, buy this book along with HTML 4 for the WWW by E. Castro. Castro's book is easy to follow and deals with multi-browser webpage construction. This Dummies book does give you a good feel about the practical things to consider when constructing a website. Not just about creating a page with links and pictures, but about practical navigation construction and how to build websites for a particular audience (ie. websites for your family versus an e-commerce site). Some useful info here, but they should not jump into HTML without creating a good feel for it in this book--try Castro's or HTML for Dummies--becuase this book could have served one better if it stuck with the key ingredients for a decent site, then had a small primer for HTML or recommended good HTML books. For other website design books, try Web Usability by J. Neilsen. This is an ok book that deal with the problems associated with website construction--Web Usability has color pictures and is not dependent on any one design software package.

I purchased this book in October 2003 and, even though I was a total beginner, I quickly realized that it is completely out of date!! DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK TODAY. This book was published in October 2000, and web programming and publishing programs have evolved so much since that there is barely anything relevant in this book anymore. After some further research, I decided that the best way for me to build my website was to learn one of the 'HTML visual editor' programs, and I purchased a recent book on DreamweaverMX which has all I need.

Just read the 7th edition--it only took a couple of hours to go through it. It is a schill for AOL and Geo-Cities. It also pushes Netscape Composer which is probably an out of date web design package. Briefly describes HTML in a very very basic manner. You will not be able to get a web page up with what is published in this book. The book convinced me to get a copy of Frontpage.

This is the worst Dummies book I've yet read and am seriously irritated that I didn't spend more time browsing its contents. This book is essentially an amalgamation of shameless promotion with just enough filler between the sponsors to afford this giant pop-up ad the euphemism "book."

The author spends the majority of the book telling you to go elsewhere for tools and content. On hindsight, a great idea! Just save the money you're contemplating wasting on this drivel.

Another major problem is that the website you'll end up with will, in all likelihood, look hopelessly outdated. I'm still searching for a good book on web publishing that isn't technical (I'm not going to learn code!).

This is a great book for someone who knows that basics about computers and wants to go a little deeper into all the elements of maintaining a website. It covers style, coding, and business side of things in about equal portions. You can get through this book in a couple hours, so it does not go into depth on anything. The book provides countless ideas of free resources for improving your website. I found some of them very helpful.

I highly recommend this book because it gives you an overview of areas you may not focus on. For depth you'll have to read other books, but this book is perfect for someone who wants an overview of all the elements that go into creating and maintaining a website. It would be great for a techie who wants to learn how business people think about websites and vice-versa. It is certainly not just for "dummies".

Building a Web Site for Dummies / 978-0-470-14928-7

This book is a great example of why reading reviews before buying is so necessary, even when dealing with "trusted" brand names. I picked this up in a store without going through my usual policy of checking the online ratings first, and boy I wish I'd saved my money.

Are you a newbie thinking about building a website? Would you like a "building a web site" guide for absolute dummies? Well, this is not it. Contrary to the title, this book assumes you already KNOW how to program and build a web site and assumes you already HAVE a web site that you just want to tweak. The HTML section is a "refresher" section, that claims to assume the reader already knows how to program in HTML, although if you already know how to program in HTML, I'm a little confused as to why the 16-page "refresher" section feels the need to tell you the most obvious stuff, like that the definition of the word "font" and what it does an an attribute. Refresher courses generally skip the basics and handle "medium-level" material that the user may have forgotten - that's why it's meant to "refresh" your memory. This feels like the author just copied the first chapter of a decent HTML for beginners book, but cutting out most of the content to get around copyright issues, and then calling it a day 16 pages in. So - yay - this book is worthless as a resource for beginners AND as a refresher course for old-hands.

The CSS section has the same problems as the HTML section and is additionally only 7 pages long. Fantastic.

The claim is circulating in some of the reviews (and in the book itself) that this is really a book for *refining* your existing web site, but it doesn't even do that well. The very little amount of information is buried in a thick, folksy writing style that seems to hope you won't notice the lack of content and preponderance of padding. The examples are clunky, and the images offered here are incredibly ugly - I wouldn't want these designs on my website. Most of the chapters are links to other web sites and recommendations for various "Dummies" books (as in, "I'm not going to go into HTML, but this other HTML for Dummies book does!" and "I'm not going to go into CSS, but this other CSS for Dummies book does!" or "I'm not going to go into Dreamweaver, but this other Dreamweaver for Dummies book does!" over and over again). The web site building advice is completely banal: update your content regularly, make your web site easy to use, include a way for your readers to contact you, etc. Chances are if you've been on the internet even a little in the last few years (enough to pick up HTML and CSS on your own, anyway!) then you already know this stuff.

In closing, I'd like to quote some of the "padding" that manages to make this book hit a 300+ page count without containing any useful information whatsoever:

"How to Use This Book:
Keep this book next to your computer and never lend it to anybody. It's far too precious for that. Make your friends buy their own copies. If you need to make space on your bookshelf, throw away anything else you own to make room for it. When you travel, take it with you. Hold it in your arms at night and tell it how much you love it."

"How This Book is Organized:
This book is divided into eight parts. I organized it that way, with a little help from the folks you see in the Acknowledgments. You did read the Acknowledgments, didn't you? Don't tell me that you're the kind of person who reads the Introduction but doesn't read the Acknowledgments. Please tell me that you didn't miss the Dedication, too?"

Yeah, this author is laughing all the way to the bank.

If you really want a decent "building a web site for beginners" book, I've found Blended HTML, XHTML, and CSS by Henry Bojack to be a very solid alternative, if you can find it at a decent price.

~ Ana Mardoll

THis book has a great deal of helpful hints and is pretty decent at walking a new web master through the basics. But I felt that firstly, they hopped between basic web design and complex script languages too much. When I want to learn HTML I will get the HTML for Dummies© book (which I did buy). I am still amazed they were able to make the book so thick with so little information in it. Maybe it was the cute cartoons which were still not worth the twenty dollars I paid for the book.

Yesterday I spent a half-day with Building a Web Site for Dummies - 4th Edition. The book is so bad, I am in awe.

First: a bit about me. I put up my first web site in 1998. I now have a half-dozen sites, but my skill-set is old. I do not use layers, I've never used the span command, and I've never used CSS. (Typically I hire a designer to polish my creations.) So I thought that I might gain something from this book.

This book is bad. And I think I understand why it's bad. It really feels like it was written in the late 90's. The problem is that simply fixing errors does not make an old web book current. There's a half-page that talks about ten search engines, including Excite and Alta Vista. Huh? In 2010, to mention any search engine other than Google, Yahoo and Bing is silly.

In the first chapter, there's a suggestion to email competitors and ask to see their log files, because "most Webmasters aren't the slightest bit security conscious about their customer data..." Equally strange. And unethical too.

I could go on, but - bottom line: I was appalled! If you are looking for a book to help you understand what's involved in creating a site, keep shopping!