Customer Reviews

HTML, Illustrated Complete, Second Edition (Illustrated Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I was given this book in my Information Technology 3 course, in high school. At the beginning, I was happy to be learning HTML, as I'd always wanted to create my own website without the editors and such. After a few chapters of the book, however, I changed my mind. The layout is rather inappropriate. Each lesson is the same; they tell you step by step the process of making a webpage. This could be good, if they bothered to explain what they are doing. They plop down codes throughout the text, without giving you more than a sentence explaining their function and useages. In some cases, nothing at all is explained. The beginning of the book is simple but, by the time you're half finished, they've skipped the rest of the basics and moved on to DHTML. You'd think they'd teach you how to change font colors and background colors before they tell you how to do DHTML.

Overall, I despise the book. It skims the surface, leaving out very basic and important codes and such while moving too quickly on to the harder areas. There are errors and discrepencies throughout the book, which makes it even harder to understand. Nothing is explained and, when it comes to the independent study, you have no knowledge to use. They give you useless tasks, such as comparing the coding of 5 different pages in an essay and other [bad] tasks. Do not buy this book.

I own 10 other books on HTML, all of them are pretty informative and received 4 to 5 stars from other reads which is one of the big reasons I bought them. This book however, I came across by pure chance, and I am happy I did. I don't normally take the time to write reviews, but I felt the two reviews I read did such a misjustice to the book, I had to take the time and write this one. This book shows you how to do things I didn't even know was possible with HTML like creating 3D Animation with about ten lines of code and a image, creating tables that can be sorted in response to the user clicking on the column heading, and to many other things to name. As a matter of fact, after completing this book I don't even look at sites I was so impressed with the same, because I know I can build a better site. It is also the benchmark I use to rate abvanced HTML books.

I had to buy this book as a text book for a subject that I have studied at the university. I have been initially impressed by the good print and colorful pages that it contains. I have seen alot of illustrations which made me feel quite confident. But unfortunately, when I took this book home, and started reading it, I found that it was full of repitition and totally irrelevant information. On each page it tells you exactly how you create a web page (it even mentiones that you must click on the File menu and then click on Open, each and every time), yet when it comes to what you bought the book for, it leaves it to your own guess to figure out how you should to do things. For example, a web page is shown, along with a code, but you find out after some confusion that the source code talks about something else, and was totally mispositioned. Another problem is that since no CD-ROM is shipped with the book, there is no way of getting the source code if you don't have an internet connection, so that you can download the code from the book's site. I think many other books will give you a much better value for your money, even if they were a little more expenssive.

This book was assigned for a class on HTML as the textbook. I have never written a review before, but I was compelled to write one for this book. To give it high praise, it's trash. Don't waste your money.

I have used books in the "Illustrated Series" before, and while I can't say I find then that good - they all suffer from a lack of explanation and organization of material - the others I have used in the series are at least usable. This is the poorest textbook I have ever seen, without qualification.

It is poorly written. The phrasing is poor and the definitions often obscure. It takes lack of explanation to a new low. It puts in code that is not explained until later in the text, if at all. It's chaotic and full of errors (poorest editing I have ever seen).

Readers are supposed to learn by developing a web page step by step. Instead you are directed to put in code with little or no explanation of what the significance of the code may be. So you waste huge amounts of time, doing nearly worthless activities and gaining little insight. Your ability to take the concepts and apply them to future web pages is almost nil, after struggling through the text. The entire class, not just me, is totally frustrated with this text. Many quit the class because of it.

These aren't the best books but these are for absolute beginners. They show you EVERY SINGLE step of everything you need to do. No one could dumb it down anymore for a beginner.

Amazon needs to begin separating the reviews, they keep the reviews for old editions and tack them on to future editions of books on this site. There are bad reviews here from 2000 for a book that was not published until 2006. Amazon really fails us this way.

And one guy, CharlyGGG, uploaded a picture of a different book, but there is no way to report that his/her image is of the wrong book.

This is the single worst textbook it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. It is outdated, unclear, and miserable to deal with. It teaches concepts that were deprecated so long ago only one major browser still supports the tags (basefont), insists that you use tags that are loathed by the internet in general today (frames), and jumps directly into JavaScript without anywhere near enough explanation. I still don't understand why a textbook designed to teach total beginners the basics of HTML jumps into a scripting language out of the blue. It's analogous to throwing a few weeks of Ancient Babylonian into a Spanish 101 course. It then proceeds to ask you to do things with code THAT IT NEVER EXPLAINS. Asks you to research the code to figure out what the abbreviations mean and then expects you to be able to use it. No explanation of how to use it whatsoever. By the end of the course, I was so frustrated I never wanted to look at the back side of a web page again. It killed any interest I had in learning more about HTML.

If nothing else, that is a sure sign of a failed textbook.

I dont know how anybody gave this book 5 stars. It must have been the author that reviewed it. I am using this book for a class that I am in. I am an experienced developer, and this has to be the worst html book I have ever seen. The examples are terrible, inconsistent, and they don't teach you anything. Avoid this book at all costs

I had the pleasure of using this book for my college Web Design class and found it one of the easiest books to use. Using this book and the downloads offered by the publisher I aced all the projects at the end of the chapters. If you are new to computers then I suggest you go and take a Software Applications class first before you just in to Web Design. Also if you are not somewhat computer knowledgeable, then go back, learn all you can before you even forge ahead in to any type of Web Design.

Whatever you may think when you look at it, and no matter how pretty the pages may seem, it's simply "crap". 1- If you are new to the internet, and you want a simple introduction to HTML, this book will only confuse you with the huge number of errors and inconsistencies it has. 2- If you are good at computers and want to learn HTML, you might, after some struggle, make sense of it and fill in the gaps, but you can get much better, more accurate information about html by simply browsing free tutorials on the internet. 3- If you want to get advanced, this book is definitely not for you either. So, in conclusion, there's no single reason for you to buy this book.

This exciting and much anticipated third edition is updated to bring students the latest in HTML, conforming to XML and XHTML coding standards. Part of the Illustrated Series, this text offers a quick, visual, step-by-step approach for learning how to create, format, and enhance a Web page using HTML. The completely new real-world case scenarios and new content are sure to help your students grasp key HTML skills.

Provides updated HTML examples that conform to XML and XHTML coding standards, and new real-world case scenarios keeping your students up-to-date.

Offers content for a full-semester HTML course.

Includes two new units on Creating Links to Web Pages and Other Files and on Cascading Style Sheets.

Offers a quick, visual way to learn the very latest features of HTML, including how to design and create a Web page, formatting and adding graphics to a page, creating forms, tables and frames, and more.

Helps you prepare for your course with ease using the extensive Instructor Resources available with this text.

This new edition was just released in March and is up to date with the newest standards. The explanations are easy to follow and the illustrations lead the reader to the task presented.

This book introduces the beginner to HTML coding and no GUI editor is used or required. The reader gets to understand the content by seeing and doing.

Used in college level courses but it is successfully used in k-12 schools and for home users.

All reviews prior to March, 2006 are not for this book. My students and I love the book and I am sure you will too.