Customer Reviews

Faster Smarter Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003

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

 

 

This book would almost certainly have to be a disappointment for anyone. If you are just starting to work with websites this book will give you just enough info to get you in trouble and lost; if you are experienced it will completely disappoint.

Since the book is by Microsoft Press, it shouldn't be a surprise that it promotes every possible Microsoft service to combine with this FrontPage 2003 product.

While the book does a nice job of quickly and concisely presenting the how-to of simple processes - that's all it does. Even when it warns that there can be problems, it doesn't say anything about solving the problems - and it usually seems to assume there just couldn't be much of a problem because you must be using all new Microsoft products and be on Microsoft servers - preferably through their own facilities.

I purchased the book with a lot of web experience and as a user of Macromedia Dreamweaver thinking I might find some of the new FrontPage 2003 features usable and move some of my work to it. While a couple of pages mention ASP (Active Server Pages) it is very brief. Working with existing sites and content is not mentioned; techniques used with ASP are not mentioned; no specifics of any kind are mentioned with respect to how FrontPage 2003 works or what type of code it generates. This book would have you believe you just go through the simple menu items and everything else magically happens - no underlying code or processes that could either go wrong or that you might want to change or be aware of. Even the much touted integration with data access and XML is only mentioned briefly - offering no idea how or if it can be utilized on anything other than a SharePoint Server.

If you are only a rank beginner and plan to work only on Microsoft servers and do a simple site and follow the templates and use all Microsoft products and are fortunate enough not to have any sort of problems with anything - this book might help you get off to a nice start. If you don't understand something or encounter a problem, you will need to look elsewhere for assistance. If, for some strange reason, you want to understand how anything works and what processes are generated or want to integrate features from ASP or do anything that isn't automatic with FrontPage - this isn't the book for you.

I spent an hour in the bookstore looking for a good book to get me started on FrontPage. For me it was a choice of the best book for the money and $50 seemed way too much to spend on a book plus I didn't think I need a huge book.

There are more than a few $20-25 FrontPage books trust me. The choice to get this book came down to the fact it is the best book. In 350 pages it covers everything I am ever going to do on FrontPage and then some. I liked the cut to the chase approach. Chapter 1 was excellent to get me up to speed on all the technologies adn features needed. Chapters 4-9 is where I've spent the most time. I read each chapter, then used the examples to create my site.

Nothing but praise for this excellent book. I have shared it with several colleagues who set up sites as well.

As a recent DreamWeaver to FrontPage switcher, this book has been invaluable to me. Even with the easy Windows GUI and 2 years of design experience I found this book to be a great read and reference.

I expected this book to target the end-user and designers and in that respect it met my expectations. Faster Smart FrontPage 2003 is exactly what it claims to be: a faster smarter way to learn FrontPage 2003. I was pleasantly surprised when I found the authors emphasized sound design and put in many under-the-hood details. Those little details make all the difference.

It is filled with a ton of *good* info ranging from very basic to fairly in-depth. The material is well-organized and well-laid out, making it easy to read, easy to use.

This is a great book whether you're relatively new to FrontPage or have some experience. If you have already know FrontPage 2003 or have many years of advanced experience, you'll probably want to use this book only as a quick reference for how to get something done. If you are looking for an expert book this isn't it.

Having switched to FrontPage 2003 I was left wondering exactly how to do things. FrontPage is easy to use but there are a lot of times when you need help and this book is a big help. The writing style is both thorough and concise and does a good job of bridging the gap between complete novice and intermediate user needs. Last, the book is very current when it comes to design and does a good job of steering you around design pitfalls.

When I took over the responsibility for our internal website, I knew nothing about web design or frontpage. After one on one instrucion from the former website designer, and after trying another book on the subject, without much real help, I came upon "Faster Smarter FrontPage". In very little time, I began to feel more comfortable working with creating our pages. It is well written, easy to understand and follow, and not written above the average person's head. Each time I refer to it, I learn more about structuring and changing a web page. It is not only a great teaching tool, but also a great reference. I highly recommend it to beginners and old hands alike!

Great for the price! It covers a lot more of FrontPage 2003 than I would have thought. In fact eveything I've had a question about has been in the book and answered well. Highly recommended.

This book with the title of faster smarter did not prove to live up to its name. Another book pertaining to Frontpage 2003 with the name "FrontPage fast & easy" was a better fit to its name. Both books are from Microsoft Office, therefore, each has its place in the development of Microsoft's fine product.

I bought this book on the same day as I purchased frontpage, in hopes of creating a relatively simple, but original website. No fancy graphics, but a nice design that I could hopefully het frontpage to code for me. What a dissapointment. For example, I attempted to put in a navigation bar. The book covers this decently, but only if you use the pre-made buttons, and doesn't cover how to alter the buttons to look how YOU want. No thanks.

I wanted to design my own web sites for my two businesses. So I bought MS Frontpage and a couple of books to teach me how. I'd never done any web design before. This book seemed most to the point, so it was the first one I started with.
After having read four more books on the topic, I can speak with some authority on which ones are good and which ones not.

Although this book isn't the worst one of the bunch, ("Absolute beginner's guide to creating web pages" is), it isn't much good either.

The layout is pathetic:- The book follows no logical order and one has to jump to this chapter and then to another one.

It is also short on step by step instructions, which makes it clear that the book was not written with novices, such as myself, in mind. At the same time it isn't authoritative, which means I had to spend a good deal of time searching the internet for answers which I think should have been in the book.

In the end I gave up because I felt that this book wasn't helping me at all.

Luckily for me, I'd also ordered " Build your own web site" by David Karlins (ASIN/0072229535), which had me up and running in no time at all. The funny thing is that Karlin's book has an almost overwhelming amount of information more than this book, even though it is only 222 pages, compared to 347 pages.

The information in Karlins' book is much more useful, and arranged much more logically.

After having spent hours struggling to find the relevant bits in "Faster Smarter", I gave up and took some aspirins. I went back to the PC, armed with "Build your own Web site" and in a short period of time I had a functional web site. And to me that is all that matters.

I got Front Page at a discount (quote unquote) - no expensive packaging AND no booklet. I have some experience with the programming world but was lost and knew I needed help. This was the first (and worst) place to turn. Like another reviewer, my wife thought this was just what I wanted...and at first I did too. But the presentation was jumpy and worse, it seemed as if the author were addressing a room of Microsoft business folks. Many of the explanations were of the obvious, particularly the review of all the menus. Why not put these in an appendix for later perusal? I was not looking for the dumbed-down Idiots series but I did need something that this did not fulfill. After much searching I found just the one and now am ready to go "on line" with my new site.

Normally I do HTML code by hand, lately I've moved to FrontPage. I can't say enough good things about this fantastic little book. It has been very helpful for me every step of the way in my FrontPage implementation. A good starter book with solid design tips.