Customer Reviews

Create Your Own Website (2nd Edition)

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

 

 

Reading this book allows someone to create five different styles and types of Websites by walking the reader through accessing Composer and desired templates, altering the text, color, and photos to personalize each Webpage, obtain a host provider, register a domain name, and publish each Webpage to a Web server.
* Chapter 1 introduces the basic functions of what a browser and Web page are, while showing the reader how to down load a free software program provided with the book.
* Chapter 2 describes the logistics of setting up a public location for viewing Web pages on the Internet by locating a host provider.
* Chapter 3 discuses customizing a Family/Personal Website template by using Composer like any other word processor, adding or deleting pages, and saving with a URL to the same folder located on the reader's computer.
* Chapter 4 continues with detailed items in "Creating a Hobby Website" by scaling images, changing existing hyperlinks, adding rows, discussing anchors, and the effect they have on sharing information with Website viewers.
* Chapter 5 "Creating a Website for an Organization" introduces obtaining a map from the Internet to replace the templates generic sample, offering email access to customers, and providing additional tips.
* Chapter 6 "Creating an Informational Website for Your Business" shows how to customize color within cells, add tables for creating coupons, and setting navigational hyperlinks.
* Chapter 7 "Creating an Online Storefront" deals with how to implement an e-Commerce Website by merging with "Creating Paypal Merchant Account" Website. With this tool, advanced programming skills that are typically required to create a shopping cart, a means to accept payment, and the functions of using forms for transferring users from one Website to another are eliminated. This lifts those advanced tasks off the reader and transfers them onto Paypal's Website in exchange for a small percentage of the product profit.
* The Bonus Chapter goes into more depth covering specific topics, like HTML, Understanding How the Internet Works, Domain names, and Optimizing Your Digital Pictures.

Throughout this book, the author highlights topics that have been covered in Shelly Cashman's "Discovering Computers" text book. One is how the Internet works. Scott Mitchell relates the Internet to the U.S. post office and adds a picture that gives a simple analogy for beginners. I appreciated the comparison, and could visualize the delivery process of digital information clearly (Mitchell 130).

The second item introduced in chapter 2 explained the concept of bandwidth. Mitchell shares very practical information related to space and cost that should be considered when choosing a host provider. The nominal comparisons made corresponding to bandwidth gave me a better appreciation for this concept.

The title "Create Your Own Website Using What You Already Know" very accurately describes what to expect out of the contents and functionality this book provides. The reader will be happy to know that the author's voice is very excited to share information in a reassuring way. Scott Mitchell continually keeps the reader in touch with the fact that the process he is laying out will be fun and easy to do, that the reader will not only learn the process but enjoy going through it.

I found the way the information was presented kept the progression of details simple enough for a first timer to feel very comfortable using and exploring all the items introduced.

Mitchell gives us a breezy, confident approach to making a website. He emphasises that, within reason, you can do it all by yourself. With the aid of this book, naturally.

He walks us through the templates on the CD that comes with the book. The general thrust is to show how if you can read and write, well, then you can make a website. There is certainly more involved than in merely using a browser to peruse the web. But the book gives a total absence of HTML tags, until the last chapter. Instead, Mitchell lists 3 web authoring tools - Microsoft's FrontPage, Macromedia's Dreamweaver and Mozilla's Composer. These handle the grungy details.

You can regard this book as an independent validation of the claims made for the above tools. Indeed, no programming appears to be necessary for a simple website.

Along these lines, the chapter on making an online storefront is well done. The example storefront is actually quite limited. But even so, to have it running without programming is impressive.

I just purchased Microsoft FrontPage 2003 and FrontPage Step by Step. There was no help in creating a website to sell items in the help section of FrontPage or in the book FrontPage Step by Step. After reading this book, I had an item up for sale on the internet within thirty minutes. Great book! No programming in HTML required. Just copy and paste.

The book is what I expected, but may be a bit less. I thought it would tell me some of the basics about how to put things on the web and then highlight one web development software program and go from there. It got into the web development software faster than I thought and I still had a lot of basic questions about how to put things up on the web. Having said that, however, it did point me in the right direction and I think I feel better about choosing a web development program now than I did before I read this book.

If you want to create your own website, this is a very good reference. It tells you what you have to look for and be aware of when looking for a web hosting company. This book also gives you a number of references and recommendations as to what tools to use in creating your own website. All in all, it's a very good book.

For anyone who has never come into contact with any kind of web technology but has acquired some practice with switching a computer on and off and with any word-processing application, Scott Mitchell's book represents a friendly hand leading its readers into the practicalities of how to go about building a web site.

This book is composed of eleven chapters, the last of which, appropriately entitled 'Bonus Material', is in my view a token of Scott Mitchell's thoroughness as an extremely competent and gifted teacher/communicator as well as practitioner of web programming. In particular, here Scott masterfully explains how the internet works and how to optimise pictures for the web.

Throughout the preceding chapters, the book puts the readers through their paces by proposing eight web projects for them to choose from: a personal web site and an e-commerce web site, both of which to be built from scratch using a free editor, i.e. SeaMonkey, which is provided in the CD-rom that comes with the book, as well as other projects which are built by using the facilities offered by well-known sites such as e-bay, Facebook, and YouTube.

In addition to a detailed hands-on approach, the reader will also benefit from several bits of jewels scattered throughout the pages, such as expert advice and other useful resources to be found on the web.

To conclude, this is one more product of Scott Mitchell's mastery of both web technology and clear communication, which will be invaluable to the absolute beginner who by following the steps contained in it will end up with a functioning and attractive web site as well as, and perhaps more importantly, with an enormous curiosity about what lies beyond the book, e.g., html code, stylesheet and programming languages.

Very easy to understand and it has been very helpful in creating my own website.

The product arrived on time and I started reading it right away. I appreciate the full color, it made for an easier read. It was helpful for a beginner as myself.

Didn't like this book very much. It's clearly just a cover with a title to sell books. The last half of the book was completely useless to me. The seamonkey web designed software it comes with is very basic. You can download almost identical programs for free online. You can do without this book. It sucked.

Received both these books within 5 days of ordering -- excellent resources - thanks for the variety of selections to chose from --