Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web Page & Blog, 6E

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The point of this book, as is true in general of the Complete Idiot's Guide series, is to give a gentle, non-intimidating, and often humorous introduction to its topic. It's meant to help people who really know nothing about the web and about blogging create something that looks nice and accomplishes whatever purpose they have in mind for it. And in this, I believe this book succeeds beautifully.

Since you can so easily find a listing of book topics in the information Amazon provides, I'll just mention some of the things that particularly caught my attention in this book. One of those was the section on blogs. None of the other HTML books I've read have discussed the issue (probably because this is the most recent of them, put out in 2004). Not only does McFedries get into the how of blogging, but he also gets deeply into the social and historical details. There's plenty of information on formatting, programs, services, etc., but there's also great stuff in here about finding and building your audience, focusing on a topic or two, deciding on your posting frequency, writing interesting entries, getting along with other bloggers, and so on. I read this section with rapt attention.

Some CIG and For Dummies books make the mistake of providing what I call "perishable resources." That is, they tell you about a couple of specific hosting providers or whatever. I refer to these as perishable because by the time you read the book those companies have probably shut down, been bought, or changed enough that everything is different. For the most part McFedries doesn't make that mistake. Instead he tries to tell you how to find this sort of information on the web yourself, so you'll be able to figure out who is most currently a good choice.

There's a chapter in here on "the elements of web page style." Before I got to this chapter I was a little worried (this is where that intro line about the review score comes in). There are a lot of sites out there on the web that go crazy with wild fonts, bold and italics all over the place, frobbies that only work on one browser type or another, lots of huge images that take forever to load, horrid noises that play without asking first and scare your cats off of your lap (okay, I have some personal pet peeves here), and so on, and it seemed to me like all of McFedries' enthusiasm for the web tools at one's disposal could contribute to that. But then he wrote this wonderful chapter in which he explains things to help you make your web page appeal to visitors, and he covers a lot of these things in there.

I think this is a fantastic introduction to web site and blog creation--in particular the wide world of blogging, since there are so few other resources on that subject. I hope that McFedries continues to do revised versions of this book as the need arises, because this is a valuable resource.

I tried a bunch of the basic books on website and blog creation which covered the same subjec matter and content, and this one was definitely the best. McFedries presents his info in clear, precise terms. He seems to know what is important to learn and what isn't for the beginner/intermediate web designer. He is also funny (which all the idiot and dummy books are designed to be) but he is appropriately funny without being condescending or using really lame humor as some other books in these series tend to do. Also recommended at this level are Learn HTML in a Weekend and Blogger (which only covers the google Blogger program).

This is a great book for beginners looking for information on how to start a website or blog for the first time. Paul McFedries walks you through step by step into HTML basics, a necessity for web page and blog structures. If a reader is wanting to learn HTML, basic web site knowledge, and javascripts this is the book to read. Paul McFedries is funny, knowledgable and, easy to follow.

I was afraid that, since it was published in 2004, this book would already be outdated. However, it provided the perfect step-by-step instructions that I needed to build a basic web page from scratch (and to even make it pretty with frames, colors, and tables!)

One minor complaint is that it took me a LOT of extra time and phone calls to the web hosting company even once my HTML was all in place and my web page was ready to go. I had to coordinate for the domain name, web server, and ftp program to all be in sync with one another to actually get my page to show up on the net, and that is more difficult than it sounds for a neophyte. In the next edition, I would make that part a bit more comprehensive, perhaps better showing step-by-step how to get all those elements coordinated.

I would also maybe give provide suggestions on where I could find good beginner's resources for building common specific functions that require programming, such as message boards or info that comes up based on "drop- down" menu choices. I know that programming was outside the scope of the book, but it is very difficult for novices to figure out where to go next to implement simple programs, without wading through an endless sea of java text information sites geared towards experienced programmers.

All in all, I was VERY satisfied with the amount of useful, easy to understand info I was able to gain in a short time by reading this book.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web Page & Blog, 6th Edition (The Complete Idiot's Guide)

I can't say much more than the other reviewers, but I will say this:
Having very basic knowlegde of HTML and scripting, and after reading the first couple of chapters, I was able to start setting up my "practice" page. It's kind of a rush seeing what you created in a web browser, pre-publish of course :), and I'm only on Chapter 5. McFedries book is very page-by-page, with good explanations of the what's, why's, and how's. I actually look forward to each new step in the creation process. I have a couple of other books, and they have mispelled words, improper grammer, etc., point being McFedries and his team pay attention to detail. I highly recommend this book to anyone that thinks coding is beyond their reach. (Guess I had more to say than I thought)

Although I have read other articles and books on Creating a Web Page, I still felt I was an "Idiot" before reading Paul McFedries book. It is well laid out and explains everything in simple language, so much so that I now understand what is involved, rather than just blindly following HTML. Although I read the book from beginning to end, it is possible to pick it up at any point if you want to learn a particular part of web design. This is a book that will also act as a reference that you go back to time and again as necessary. I now feel I have moved up a grade and would recommend the book to anyone else who felt they were in the same position.

"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web & Blog" (2004 edition) by Paul McFedries teaches the nuts and bolts to creating a web page and or blog. Part one starts it out with HTML, which is the programming language, used to issue instructions to web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Netscape or Mozilla. Also included are topics as lists, hyperlinks, and hosting your website.

Part two has images, tables, multimedia, forms, frames, and web page style. Part three is about blogs. Part four contains style sheets, which is part of CSS.

My recommendation? Start with "Building a Website for Dummies" and then move to "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web & Blog". Either way, you will learn enough to build your own blog, make it personally yours, and what to do with it.

Everything I need to know about HTML I learned from this book. Bought for an introductory primer to web design, this contained enough information to create a fully functional and well designed web page. Doesn't get into Java, XML, or php/ MySQL web scripts, but for the basics this book ROCKS. Well written, well organized, and very concise, it still remains my primary reference source for HTML coding.

I found this book to be properly detailed, but way too silly for my taste. The author's style is whimsical and folksy that I found to be too junvenal for me. If he had stripped out all the silliness and gotten right to the point I would have been more satisfied. But, I'm over 50 so maybe it's just me.