Customer Reviews

HTML 4.01 Weekend Crash Course (With CD-ROM)

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

 

 

My goal was to learn HTML quickly. I was a little skeptical buying a book that could teach HTML in a weekend, but this book delivers! In 30, one-half hour sessions, you can learn the fundamentals of HTML coding. Since it is an accelerated course, you only learn the most important HTML commands used to create Web pages. Finishing this book in a weekend might be challenging. The approach I used was to read each session and highlight the important tags and information. Some of the lessons took me longer since I wanted to experiment with the code.

The first 20 sessions provide step-by-step guidance on constructing proper text, graphics, hyperlinks, e-mail links, tables, forms, frames, special audio/video effects and cascading style sheets. Along the way, you'll learn valuable Web page design techniques. But it doesn't end there; this book has a twist! In Sessions 21 through 27, you'll actually create a Family Web site, including the home page and related Web pages! The book goes through the entire process, including planning, designing, building and maintaining the Web site. It's a great way to reinforce all the HTML information from the previous sessions. This will launch you into creating your own specialized Web pages for all to see. There is a lot of competition in the HTML market, and I'm glad I found this book to jumpstart my HTML skills.

This book took me from knowing absolutely nothing about HTML to being able to create a basic web page. It was very clear about using text and basic graphics. The CD-ROM included the code covered in the book as well as .gifs and .jpgs to practice with. After completing this book I was able to move on to more advanced HTML as well as JavaScript with a good understanding of the basics. I would recommend this book to anybody who has no prior knowledge of HTML, although I would suggest they take a little more time than a weekend to learn it.

I do recommend reading "HTML 4.01 Weekend Crash Course" if you already own it. The copy I bought and read is copyright 2000. The title might be changed to something like "HTML and related activities" as it covers considerably more than just HTML. That seems necessary to me. It would be a problem not presenting the other topics. This book does an admirable job of covering that amount of material in the 30 sessions meant to be read during a weekend. There are spots that are a little rough. It hints of being a first edition that would benefit from editing. I would wait for the next version, as there is some dated material that is only going to become more of a problem. Having said that I benefited from having read the book after having taken web design and web programming courses. I recommend reading this book (the new version) to prepare for such courses in order to take better advantage of them.

I found this book extremely cumbersome and somewhat annoying. Rather than concentrating on just the basics of HTML, the author wandered about on a variety of topics that had nothing to do with what I wanted to lean: HTML code. If I had wanted to learn how to design web sites or use graphics, I would have purchased a book to teach me that. Perhaps this book would be more aptly titled: "A Smidgen of Information on Anything to Do with the Web." I also found the author's writing style to be very ponderous and long-winded. Most of the valuable information was buried under the author's advice to "Now go get yourself a cookie." This book is the unhappy marriage between a reference manual and a Dummies book. My advice would be to look elsewhere if you want a good, clean HTML tutorial.

If you're looking to get up and running with HTML, and have no prior experience, this is a great book. You'll be introduced to the basics with an approach that gives you the confidence to learn web design. Topics are arranged in a sensible order, and the overall tone of the book is straightforward and won't fighten off a beginner by plunging headlong into a lot of jargon. This book is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in learning HTML.

I didn't know what HTML was before this book. Now I can write my own simple webpages. Excellent.

I have absolutely no knowledge of programming and was able to easily read the material and understand it. The graphics are also great. I would recommend this book to anyone.

All I wanted to do was learn html code in a short peroid of time. I did not have any prior knowlege so I was looking for a beginner book. This book is terrible. Half the chapters don't even deal with html at all. There is an entire chapter on the different colors that you should use in your site. It is as if the author is trying to give you an art class. If you want to learn html code and have no prior knowlege, I recommend HTML 4 Visual Quickstart Quide by Elizabeth Castro.